GARY - A Wordless Playground Story

"Emotions, in my experience, aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in 'sadness,' 'joy,' or 'regret.' Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train car constructions like, say 'the happiness which attends disaster.' " --Calliope/Cal Stephanides, heroine/hero of MIDDLESEX by Jeffrey Eugenides

This passage caught me, held me, whispered its truth in my ear even as my eyes read, and reread, the lines copied here and those beyond. (Page 217 in the 'Home Movies' chapter of Book Two if you are interested past this blurb.) It if difficult to lasso a single word, throw it down on the page, and have it cry out the fullness of feeling in a moment, within a heart, in a chain of events confined to a single day yet encompassing a complexity of expression all along the vast spectrum of human emotion. For instance, how can death rub shoulders with pleasure in the space of an hour and coexist? Why does alarm co-mingle with relief and not cause guilt? These are compound feelings requiring compound descriptions. Though my love runs deep for specific single words, I realize that single words are isolating and limiting at best. Even with the most audacious of authors, the most passionate of pens, some element of the human experience is lost in the translation.

In a recent letter from Gary, he wrote concerning the mailed copies of my blog which he had read. He lamented over his inability to find enough adjectives to fill out his writings for the blog. He wished he possessed a style more like mine. He felt his words were inadequate. With great haste, I addressed and stamped a letter downplaying his misgivings, alleviating his doubts, assuring him that his STYLE was just fine. His descriptions were more than adequate as he writes in the most natural of ways about hybrid emotions without purposely seeking to do so. His experiences have laid the wooden slats for a swaying span of bridge which extends from his life, over a valley of tumultuous memories and troubled waters, and into the land of my life, the lives of my readers, of OUR readers. Across this expanse we are all able to meet in the middle, balancing against the rocking, steadying ourselves in the midst of unfamiliar but accessible territory.

Forget single adjectives. Tell us your story, Gary.

September 28, 2009

When I was twenty-two years old, I was at a prison in Sacramento (actually Represa, CA) called New Folsom -- at least by everyone I know. I was young, dumb, inexperienced, and addicted to heroin.

I had a job in the main kitchen & went to work five days a week at noon. My life, for a guy starting a thirteen-year sentence, was okay. I really didn't see myself living to see freedom again. Didn't much care, really. It's hard to explain that feeling, that mindset. I hope never to feel that way again. Maybe even forget it.

So, I come out for work one day. We all gotta stand around outside for the work-change, 'til they open up & process us. My work-dog, Joker from San Fernando Valley, is squatted down out front, smokin' a cigarette. I squat down next to him & ask him what's up. It was pretty quiet on the yard, a little tense, but not unusually so.

I started to jump up & go holler at a partner of mine in front of one-block, and Joker snatched my arm & told me to sit down & keep still. The blacks had something going on.

So I watch, and I see two blacks walk by, one of whom I work with & talk to every day. They stop in front of one-block, in front of two more blacks, and one of them, my co-worker, pulls out a knife, raises it way up high, and stabs this dude in the chest.

I will never forget the way that guy dropped. Exactly like if you were to hold a rag doll upright and suddenly let it go. He literally folded like a string puppet cut loose.

"That fool's dead, youngster," Joker told me. I watched that kid chase the other guy up the hill, across the yard, wielding that bloody knife. My eyes were steadily drawn to the body of the victim. He was lying in the most awkward position, dead & still.

The guy I worked with was my age, doing a life sentence. I guess he didn't too much give a shit, either.

We went to work. I got even more loaded than I was at the time, & when we got off that night, I had to walk around the crime scene tape to get into one-block where I lived. There was a blood stain on the concrete, but that was all.

I had never witnessed a murder. Never did again, though I saw a lot of attempts. I've sat & listened to guys tell stories and make light of all kinds of terrible things. It's usually the prevailing attitude. There's nothing light about that bloodstain, all that was left of that guy.

I noticed, during my short time out there (he refers to his 3 weeks of freedom in October of last year) that prison shows, documentaries, interviews, etc. are popular [with free folks]. They talk to guards, wardens, etc. and they pretty much all say what savage pieces of shit we are. I wonder how many of them could live my life? How long 'til they tapped out?

I heard somewhere that you can judge a society on how they treat their prisoners. Welcome to America. You know how many times I've seen guards do things as bad or worse than what many inmates are in prison for? I've been thrown down stairs while handcuffed, pepper sprayed, shot with block guns & generally battered around many times. Woo! Hoo! What fun.

California is on the verge of bankruptcy, yet they pay babysitters of us [us - 'prisoners'] wages far, far higher than teachers or actual police officers. How can that be?

All these years I've been seeing psyche people, and they never gave me the tests, or talked to me in the manner that a doctor recently was able to figure out a diagnosis for me in a matter of about eight hours. Now they're gonna send me to another institution when they figure out how to get it done, & stop 'continuing' the matter [in successive court hearings]. When a judge orders ME to do something, I get locked up if I don't obey. When he orders someone who's not a scumbag convict, but an officer of the court or whatever, they get to drag their feet & lolly gag with no punishment whatsoever.

That's the world I live in. I'm trying to learn how to be better, but my patience is wearing thin. I feel like that bloodstain . . .