Thoughts From A Boston Prison

My coworkers' reaction when they dragged me off to prison.

So I'm in a place where everybody knows my name but nobody wants to. If it were up to me I’d have no name. As if anything is up to me.

I wondered why me, the new guy, had a cell to myself. They’d only snigger in reply. Then I saw this etched on the wall of my cell:

Every day gets me closer to being out of here.
Every day I lose another piece of myself.

I asked someone what happened to the previous guy and they told me he committed suicide. So it seems he had more days to do than pieces to give.

Dear God, Jesus. So I'm to take his place?

An old Eagles song recycles through my mind at night on my lonely bunk, the music a barrier to the heartbreak of the cold steel surrounding me.

There are stars in the Southern sky
And if ever you decide you should go
There is a taste of thyme sweetened honey
Down the Seven Bridges Road

Other odd characters from the past stream through my head, pushing to get in their say. I let them because anything is better than listening to the screaming voice within.

Boris the Bullet Dodger (“Why do they call him that?” “Because he dodges bullets!”) whom I’d met in his later years spilled his Life Confession to me. Something that happens a lot for some reason.

“I’m a hard man to kill! But dodged them all I did. Every last one.” Then his voice trailed off. “I thought I was winning.” Then he looks at me with a wry cry-smile. “But you see, mate, I looks up one day and see I was living to dodge them bullets and was too late for the stopping. Thinks to meself: What choice I got? Let them kill me?”

The agony of waste echoed through his eyes, begging for comfort in the boundless void. He’d been struggling, fighting, scheming, and dodging his entire life to get…nowhere.

“It’s not about winning or losing the game. It’s about not playing in the first place. I thought honesty was for suckers. That’s what I told meself. You can fill in the rest. The treasures I missed out on…”

When you’re on the run the smallest moments get magnified. It’s strange when it’s happening because you can feel it’s a "moment" but have no idea why. But five, ten years later you still recall.

I was in a Starbucks line, this middle-aged woman ahead of me chatting up her friend as if she were in her own house, me trying not to get noticed to avoid capture. She's talking about “kids today” and her marketing strategy of manipulating them with FOMO to get them to act not in their best financial interests. She bragged how you can see "the fear in their eyes" when she was making her pitch. The witch.

I was envious of her being a “legitimate” criminal while simultaneously infuriated how everyone really is on the make, dog-eat-dog, but only the sanctioned perpetrators get a free pass. Then she began to talk of her school age daughter and I thought the kid’s life must be hell with the lies she must obey in that house.

I trust no one’s who’s never stepped outside the everything-that’s-legal-is-OK circle. But the sun don’t shine for me, either. In moments of silent crisis like this, the voice of happy-go-lucky Finny roars back to life. Thank God no one can see me cowering.

There's me, the shithead to be.

"There's only one crime, Harry Boy." He told me that with that patented smile of his, like he'd just discovered a gold mine. "It comes in many forms and shapes, many flavors and sizes - but it's all the same at the end of the day. Ain't that a hoot!"

He was always looking for a hoot. I felt hopelessly inadequate in the shadow of this shooting star but like most people I couldn't resist his light. We were just kids and I wondered why he was even thinking about crime, life had hardly begun. I wasn't planning on being a criminal and didn't want to hear his annoying insight.

But I was planning on it deep in my heart - to betray Finny's star, just as Cain had done Abel. When I saw the opportunity I took it. I've been crying and beating myself up ever since and what's funny is that in moments of my worst self-torture it's his voice I hear telling me to stop. Then the tears come out.

To this day I try to work Finny's words into every conversation I can, branding others as I have been by his endless optimism.

"There's only one real crime, ya know."

"Oh, yeah? What the fuck would that be?"

"Hiding your love."

I've yet to hear an honest rebuttal.