I talk to Leonard every two or three days. I call him if I can’t get hold of Lilly, or I call him when I’m done talking to her. He always asks the same two questions: are you okay, do you need anything. My answers are always the same: yes I’m okay, no I don’t need anything. He offers to come visit I tell him no. He asks when I’m getting out, I always give him the same date. He wants to have a party the day of my release, I tell him I want to see Lilly, I want to be alone with her. When we hang-up he always says the same thing: look ’em in the eye and show no fear.
When I’m done with the phone, I go back to my cell. I do a hundred push-ups and two hundred sit-ups. When I am done with the push-ups and sit-ups, I walk to the shower. Most of the Prisoners shower in the morning, so I am usually alone. I turn on the heat from multiple faucets. I sit down on the floor. The water hits me from multiple directions it hits my chest, my back, the top of my head. It hits my arms, my legs. It burns and it hurts and I sit and I take the burn and I take the hurt. I don’t do it because I like it, because I don’t. I sit and I take the pain and I ignore the pain and I forget the pain because I want to learn some form of control. I believe that pain and suffering are different things. Pain is the feeling.
Suffering is the effect that pain inflicts. If one can endure pain, one can live without suffering. If one can learn to withstand pain, one can withstand anything. If one can learn to control pain, one can learn to control oneself. I have lived a life without control. I have spent twenty-three years destroying myself and everything and everyone around me and I don’t want to live that way anymore. I take the pain so that I will never suffer. I take the pain to experience control. I sit and I burn and I take it.
I finish my shower and I go back to my cell. I sit down on the floor and I pick up a book. It is a small book a Chinese book. It is a short book and a simple book called Tao Te Ching, written by a man named Lao-tzu. It is not known when it was written or under what conditions, nothing is known about the writer except his name. Roughly translated, the title means The Book of the Way. I open the book at random. I read whatever is in front of me. I read slowly and deliberately. There are eighty-one simple poems in the book. They are about life and The Way of life. They say things like in thinking keep to simple, in conflict be fair, don’t compare or compete, simply be yourself. They say act without doing, work without effort, think of the large as small and the many as few. They say confront the difficult while it is easy, accomplish the great one step at a time. They say let things come and let things go and live without possession and live without expectation. These poems do not need, depend, create or define.
They do not see beauty or ugliness or good or bad. They do not preach or implore, they do not tell me that I’m wrong or that I’m right. They say live and let live, do not judge, take life as it comes and deal with it, everything will be okay.
The lights go out at ten o’clock. I stand and I brush my teeth and I drink a glass of water. I lie down on the concrete bed and I stare at the ceiling. There is noise for about thirty minutes. Prisoners talk to each other, yell at each other, pray, curse themselves, curse their families, curse god. Prisoners cry. I stare at the ceiling. I wait for silence and the deep night. I wait for long hours of darkness and solitude and the simple sound of my own breath. I wait until it is quiet enough so that I can hear myself breathe. It is a beautiful sound.
I do not sleep easily. Years of drug and alcohol abuse have sabotaged my body’s ability to shut itself down. If I do sleep, I have dreams. I dream about drinking and smoking. I dream about strong, cheap wine and crack. The dreams are real, or as real as dreams can be. They are perverted visions of my former life. Alleys filled with bums drinking and fighting and vomiting and I am among them. Crackheads in broken houses on their knees pulling on pipes with sunken cheeks screaming for more and I am, among them. Tubes of glue and cans of gas and bags filled with paint I am surrounded stumbling and huffing and inhaling as much as I can as fast as I can. In some of the dreams I have guns and I’m playing with the guns and I am debating whether I am going to shoot myself. I always decide that I am. In some of the dreams I am being chased by people who want to kill me. I never know who they are, all I know is that they want to kill me and they always succeed. In some of the dreams I keep drinking and smoking until I am so drunk and so high so goddamn fucked-up that my body just stops. I know that it is stopping and I know that I am dying I don’t care. I reach for the pipe and I reach for the bottle. My body is shutting down rather than suffer the continued consequences of my actions and I don’t care. I never have good dreams or happy dreams or dreams in which life is good. I have no memories of good dreams or happy dreams or dreams in which life is good.
When I don’t sleep, I lie on my bed and I close my eyes. I think about Lilly. I think about where she is and what she’s doing. One of the requirements for her residency at the halfway house is that she have a job. She works the nightshift doing laundry at the hospital where her Grandmother is dying. She washes dirty sheets and dirty towels, used gowns and stained scrubs. On her breaks, she goes to her Grandmother’s room. Her Grandmother has bone cancer, and it has spread throughout her entire body. She can’t move without pain and she hasn’t left her bed in two months. Her doctor has said that she will be lucky to live for another month. Lilly tells me she’s on a morphine drip and she’s incoherent and she doesn’t know Lilly’s name anymore and she doesn’t remember anything about her life. Her mind has been consumed by her cancer as much as her body has been consumed by her cancer. It has overwhelmed her and there is nothing left. Just a shell of pain and morphine. Just a shell of what was once a life.
Lilly sits by her side and holds her hand and talks to her. It doesn’t matter that she doesn’t understand anything, Lilly sits and holds her hand and talks with her anyway. She tells her about the halfway house she hopes that it’s working she can’t wait to get out. She tells her about the job it isn’t so bad she’s certainly done worse. She tells her about me she misses me and she wishes I were there, she hopes I still love her. She tells her about the hope for a future with me and without drugs and with a sense of freedom and a sense of security. She tells her Grandmother about her fears. About the loneliness she’s been alone forever she doesn’t want to be alone anymore. About a return to her old life she would rather die than sleep with men for money. About me she’s scared that we won’t survive in the world away from institutions she’s scared I’m going to leave her like everyone else in her life has always left her. About what life will be like when her Grandmother dies. She’s scared because her Grandmother is the only person Lilly trusts and the only person that she is secure with and she can’t imagine living without her. Sometimes Lilly can’t talk anymore and she sits with her Grandmother and she holds her hand and she cries. She’s scared and she can’t imagine living without her. She cries.
I am leaving here in three days. I will have served my time, paid my debt to society. As I lie here in bed listening to the sound of my own breathing as I lie here fighting off dreams and drifting through the deepest night, I think about what I am going to do when the steel-door slams shut behind me. I am going to Chicago. I am going to Lilly. I love her and I want to be with her. I want to be with her now and tomorrow and every day for the rest of my life. I want to sit with her, talk to her, look at her, listen to her voice, laugh with her, cry with her. I want to walk with her and hold her hand and put my arms around her and have her put her arms around me.
I want to support her and have her support me. I want to stay away from drugs I can’t go back and I want to help her stay away from drugs she can’t go back. I want to forget about drinking and crime. I want to be a good, strong, sober man so that I can build a life. I want to build a life for me and build a life for her, a life for us together. I want to give her a home, a place where she feels secure and free. That is what she seeks, she seeks freedom. From her past, from her addictions, from herself. From her loneliness. I will do anything to give it to her.
I love Lilly. I love her blue eyes and her black hair and her pale skin. I love her damaged heart. I love what lives inside of her a spirit a soul a consciousness whatever it is I love it and I want to live with it for the rest of my life and I will do anything to make it happen.
I get out of here in three days.
Three more fucking days.
I lie in bed and I wait.
In the deep night.
Three.
chicago
Lilly’s Grandmother died two nights ago. Lilly found her when she went to visit during one of her breaks. She looked at Grandmother’s chest it wasn’t moving. She looked at her lips they were blue. She reached for her hand and it was cold. Lilly started screaming. When the doctors came and the nurses came she wouldn’t let go of her Grandmother’s hand. They tried to sedate her. She wouldn’t take the drugs she just held her Grandmother’s hand and cried. When the body was wheeled from the room, Lilly walked with it. Hand in hand all the way to the morgue. She sat outside the morgue for the next twelve hours. Crying.
I talked to her the next night. She was hysterical. She was sobbing and heaving, begging for me to come to her. I told her I would be there as soon as I could, I would be out in twelve hours. She said please James I need to see you, I need you right now, please, please, please, I need you right now. I said I’m in jail Lilly, I can’t do anything here but talk to you. I’m being released in the morning and I’ll be with you tomorrow night. She said I need you now James, I’m so scared and lonely, please. She started crying harder harder harder. I tried to talk to her, but she couldn’t talk to me. I told her I loved her and I was coming as soon as I could, that she’d be okay that we’d be okay that everything would be okay once we were together. She cried and I told her I loved her. She cried and I told her I loved her.
Her crying slowed and her breathing became normal. I asked her if she was all right and she said no. I asked her if she would be okay until I got there and she said hurry, please hurry. We said I love you, we both said it. We hung up the phone I wanted to say I love you one more time. I hope she’ll be okay.
I have been sitting on the floor waiting for morning. I have been sitting on the floor waiting to be released from this place. I have stared at the wall and I have watched it turn from black to gray to white. When I hear noise the noise of other prisoners up and around, awake and starting their day, I stand and I walk to the sink and I brush my teeth and I wash my face. I finish and I take a deep breath, it has been a long night I’m worried about Lilly. I know there’s nothing I can do until I am out of here. Nothing.
I sit back on the floor. I wait. A second a minute five minutes ten they are all a fucking eternity, it is taking too fucking long. I wait. Once the doors open I have an hour before the deputies come to get me and thirty minutes of release administration. I hope she’s okay.
A buzzer. The day begins, the door opens. I stand and I pick up my books. I leave my cell and I walk to Porterhouse’s cell, the door is open he sees me coming he stands to greet me. I ask him if he’s ready to finish. He says yes. He sits on the floor and I sit on the edge of his bed. I read the last fifteen pages of War and Peace. When I am finished I close the book. Porterhouse opens his eyes and nods his head and says that is one good motherfucking book. I smile and say yeah. I stand and I set the book on top of the other books, which are stacked next to Porterhouse’s door. I start to walk out. He speaks.
James.
I stop, turn around.
Yeah?
Thank you.
No problem.
I stand outside of his cell and I look at my friend. He looks at me. He is going to spend the rest of his life in prison. He knows it and I know it. We will never see or speak to each other ever again. He knows it and I know it. He speaks.
Be good, motherfucker.
You too.
He smiles and he nods and I smile and I nod back. I turn around and I walk away. I walk to my cell and I sit down on the floor. I wait. I hate waiting, I hope they hurry, I sit and I wait. I do not wait long. Maybe fifteen minutes, which seems like fifteen hours. Two deputies show up and I greet them and I invite them in and they inspect my cell for general cleanliness and good order. They check to make sure that I haven’t broken anything or altered anything or given anything away or stolen anything. They have a clipboard with a checklist. Sink, check. Toilet, check. Pillow, check. Towel, check. When they are finished checking, they shackle me and they walk me to Intake/Release. They stand with me while a clerk looks at his computer and makes sure that today is my release date, that this is not a mistake. The computer tells him that today is the correct day and the guards remove my shackles and I walk through a steel door. Another clerk meets and hands me a box with my belongings. I open the box. There is a pair of jeans a pair of wool socks a pair of scuffed black boots a white t-shirt a black hooded sweatshirt a wallet thirty-four dollars a pack of stale cigarettes a lighter a set of keys. I sign a piece of paper acknowledging that all of my possessions have been turned over to me. I step into a small room and I take off my jumpsuit, fuck that jumpsuit. I put on my clothes and I step out of the room and I sign another piece of paper and I’m done.
A large steel-door opens and I step through it. I step through another, another. I step through another and I am outside and I am free. I take a deep breath. It is the middle of February the air is cold and clean. I take a deep breath, as deep as I can, I’m fucking free. I walk across a short expanse of concrete. I stop at a gate, which is part of a fifteen-foot razor-wire fence that surrounds the jail. I wait for the gate to open. It is moving too fucking slowly, I’m in a hurry. As soon as there is enough space, I step through the opening and start walking down the street. It is a barren street. No houses, no trees, no other buildings besides the jail. There are fields on both sides of the street with dead yellow scrub and drainage ditches. There is a lot of mud.
I walk as quickly as I can down the street, I walk jog run walk as fast my lungs allow. Before I came here and surrendered to the proper authorities, I went to North Carolina, where I lived before I went to the treatment center. I picked up my truck, my old blue battered truck and drove to a friend’s house, a friend who was a professor of mine while I was in school.
My friend makes moonshine in his basement and we used to drink the shine and smoke crack and get fucked-up together. He watched me get arrested on more than one occasion. He was happy when he heard I was coming back to serve time, happy that I was attempting to straighten out my life. Part of my sentence was a permanent revocation of my driving privileges in the state, permanent meaning for as long as I am still alive. If I get caught driving, it will be a violation of the conditions of my release and I will serve three to five years in state prison. He said I could leave my truck with him and he would drive me out of the state when I was ready to leave. I’m going to need someone to drive me out of here. I hope he’s home. He better be fucking home.
Trees start appearing, an occasional house, a school, a gas station. My lungs hurt. I think about Lilly I hope she’s okay. I look for a payphone the one at the gas station didn’t have a receiver. I hurry to my friend’s house I hope he’s home I’ll use his phone. I don’t want to call my family or friends there will be time for them later. I want to call Lilly, I hope someone answers the phone I hope she’s there. Tree lawn house fence barking dog rusty swing set car on blocks fast food heaven convenience store church. They are all a blur I’m moving as fast I can. I look for the correct street-sign I hope I’m going the right way. Continental Avenue. Brookside Lane. Cloverdale Street. Cherry Valley Road. I’ll know it when I see it. He better be fucking home.
I come around a corner and I see my truck sitting in a driveway. I start running. Up the front walk front porch knock on the door look through the window nobody’s home. I think about what to do. I don’t want to wait. I don’t want to wait. I don’t want to fucking wait no no no no no I’m not going to fucking wait. If I’m careful I’ll be fine. I’ll drive cautiously, drive
the speed limit, I’ll be fine. Fuck it, I’ll be fine.
I reach for the door. It’s unlocked. This is a small town people still feel safe. I walk into the house, through a hall, into the kitchen. There is a phone on the wall. I pick it up and I dial. It starts ringing. I wait for someone to answer there must be someone at that fucking halfway house who will answer the phone. Nothing. Ringing, ringing. Nothing. I want to talk to Lilly before I leave, I want to tell her I’m on my way. I want to hear her voice, make sure she’s okay. I want to tell her I love her.
I hang up the phone try again. Nothing. Try again. Nothing. I look for a piece of paper and a pen I find them on the counter. I write a note it says Thank you for taking care of my truck, I’ll be in touch soon. I leave the note in the middle of the kitchen table and I walk out of the house. I walk to my truck. I take the key out of my pocket, open the door, sit down in the driver’s seat. There’s another pack of smokes on the passenger seat, I don’t know if I left them or my friend left them, either way it’s a beautiful thing, I can save what little money I have to spend on something other than smokes. I put the key in the ignition, turn it, the engine starts. I look at the dashboard clock it is eleven A.M. Chicago is five hours away. I told her I would be there by dark, I’ll be early. The earlier the better. I hope she’s okay. I want to hold her hand and tell her everything is going to be okay.