GARY - Inked

September 18th of 2009

I always have tattoo ink on me, my fingers stained, my pants smeared from wiping my hands. Shirts? Fuhgeddaboutit. Dots, splots, speckles and spatters. Take a picture and you can play the Rorshach game with it. I think I see a wizard holding a glass . . .

I do all the work it takes to set up, to prepare to get ready to put ink on the skin because I love it. I love creating something on someones skin and hearing them say, "I love it."

I got stories for a hundred and one-teen American endless nights. They all end up with me having ink on me, stained beyond removal. We all end up with ink on us. It's the cost of doing what we love. Mostly for who we love.

B.B. [King] said he did what he did because love came to town. Amen O-G {means 'original gangster' as initially used by true gang members; now it can also refer to a pioneer and master in any given field}. Amen.

Why in the hell isn't there a complaint desk somewhere? Somebody to tell me why? Scratch that. I'll tell you why. The reason is we wouldn't have time to do anything else. We'd be at that sucker every damn day.

Those of us who have people who actually listen to us, well, words fail miserably when it come to explaining what that means. It means the difference between choosing life over death, to the other option.

So, like, I used to be just a recovering addict & convict, but now I have mentally diseased tagged onto the end there. Kind of like a tail on a kite, blowin' in the wind, string broken, flailing at each gust of wind. So, yeah, I'm what you call a triple threat. A guy's gotta have a repertoire, ya' know? {He put after this sentence: Don't even check the spelling, just ride with it.}

There's a certain freedom that comes when you've just laid down the last little piece of security-blanket- bullshit-lies you've been telling yourself & the world forever. "This is me. I'm all the way me. Dinged-up, cylinders misfirin', oil leakin', primer-red, rust-bucket me."

I'm thirty five on November 26 this year. Fifteen years in prison, jail, and now I'm off to the place where they give you fancy white coats that save you the trouble of using your own arms, like a sucker, when you could be sucking your meals thru a straw and living in a clean, white, soft-walled cubicle. Mmm . . .

But, seriously, it beats prison with a huge stick. I believe I'll retire the old J-21474 tag on my handle, thank you very much. {That 'tag' was his identity in prison; any letter sent his way without that number was sent back. When he was released last October, I was over-the-moon with the idea of never writing it again. I've actually had to train my brain NOT to write it on letters now; it's not required on the county level. I want to keep it that way!}

Close your eyes (after you read this) and remember . . . remember your first kiss, your first broken puppy-loved heart. Think on the people & moments what made ya' who ya' be. Think of all those terrible, painful moments in your life that put one more solid, true piece of wisdom inside you, never to be shaken out of the great basket of unchanging stuff in life.

The true, the real, the loves & honesties are gonna be the same for eternity, like it or not. Might as well just accept those ink stains as the price of admission. It's well worth all the other stuff that comes with it.

It's been a long time since I've written anything like this. {I guess he doesn't consider his incredible letters to me, so expressive, so open, so very THERE, in that statement.} Something that actually flowed out of me. It's nearly 2AM & I have court at 10AM. I got the rest of my life to sleep, right?

I phoned my sis (the one who so graciously zapped this to you after typing it out) at 10:30PM last night, 12:30AM her time & asked her to explain to me [that] this is real and not some big game where they take it back at the last minute and send me up for six hundred years.

Yeah, prison-hardened me, callin' a girl to give me a phone hug and tuck me in for the night. {Gee, when is the last time I was referred to as a girl? But, I often call him a boy.} Funny thing. I'd do it again right now, if I could. {Funny thing, I'd give fifty phone calls just to tuck him in for the night in person right now.}

There is no moral [here]. No hook. No poetic justice. No ironically genius epipharrific jazz. Just remember to appreciate the ink stains on your life & self. Rub some off on some deserving soul near you. Here, come a bit closer. Let me flick a drop or two on you . . .

You're the lead actor in your movie. Be a good thespian & ham it up a bit. Don't take any of this shit too serious. Nobody leaves this world alive. Enjoy it 'cause it's unbelievably short.

L8R, -- Me

My brother needs to get his stories out there. As long as he wishes, I hope for this blog to exist as a forum for that necessary expression and expulsion of demons, episodes, memories and events. I don't care how he writes those words, in what order or array, as long as he just does it as the old Nike adage goes. (GRIN!)

On the subject of tucking in -- a short revelatory history: I did not read this post before transcribing it. It came to me new as the sentences entered my mind via my eyes, did a short circuit through my heart, and found its way here from the rote action of my ten digits. This morning during my walk while listening to "The Count of Monte Cristo" on my IPOD, hoping against hope that Monsieur Morrel would not do the noble thing and shoot himself to preserve his family honor, I found myself clutching my hand to my chest as a flashback from my precious time with Gary during his freedom last year hit me hard. The emotion overwhelmed me with its tenderness and its ferocity of feeling.

We enjoyed several late nights and early mornings of endless chatter, catching up and laughing and just being. At the end of these nights, I sank into Brother John's couch with my comforter while Gary pushed his air mattress as close to the couch as it could go without actually becoming one with the piece of furniture. When he was snuggled in, with his eyes covered beneath his t-shirt out of sheer habit - guards shining their flashlights into the cell at all hours of his sleeping cycle for years on end - he would reach up to find my face and lightly, quickly, so earnestly trace my features to reassure himself that I was, indeed, there. To ensure I was not an apparition dreamed up by his fevered and lonely mind. To prove his freedom a real and solid thing with a new cast of characters of his own choosing and hoping. Once reassured, he would either hold my hand for a time or simply rest his arm on the couch until we both nodded off, with him experiencing some of the most relaxed sleep he'd ever had since his early childhood. To point, he really was as a child in these tender moments. It both broke and boosted my heart.

Can you imagine?