Entry #9 - In My 25th Hour - 1.28.07

It’s unmistakably a Sunday afternoon. It doesn’t matter where you are – there’s no mistaking the “day of rest.” These are the days I really feel incarcerated.

On my playlist today is once again AP. I’m reading “The Oral History of Texas Is The Reason.” From what I’d always heard, the band’s break-up was always notable for its crescendo and the awe of quiet that it left behind. The article seems to confirm exactly that. The funny thing is that as I reached the part about their disbanding, I overheard a conversation between older inmates – “The Chairman” and “Yosemite Sam.” “Sam” is talking about how just before getting locked up, he scrambled to make as much money as he could before his sentencing because he knew that he was going to prison.

All this talk of “final moments” took me back to the 8 months that I spent living with my folks with an ankle bracelet during pre-trial. That period of time felt so weird to me, like I was in both “the quiet after” as well as “the calm before the storm.”

So much had happened leading up to my arrest (most of which I can’t currently address, as the statute of limitations is yet to expire on my case.) I will say that I was suicidal; and that my alcohol abuse and drug addiction had become rampant. My mother had just been released from the hospital after having a cyst removed and would soon be entering chemotherapy. I was essentially released so that I’d be able to care for her.

Now let me just explain that my mother is the most important person in my life. However, before my arrest, we were still in the process of rebuilding a relationship that had been battered by an 8 year stretch of hardship and misfortune. All of a sudden, in the middle of our attempt at atonement, she was given only a 25% chance of survival. Add this to my impending prison sentence and it becomes clear that our wreckage seemed terminal for all involved.

The ensuing months were difficult, to say the least. We nonetheless did the best that we could. In some ways, the circumstances may have proved ideal for the healing that my family had to do. Nothing unifies quite like crisis. Both myself and my mother found ourselves staring into our respective abysses. Both situations could not have been made any better by haste, so we were allowed to exercise prudence. She had successfully gotten sober relatively recently and helped me to get clean. We provided support for one another, as we both stood to lose a lot in each other’s outcome.

Facing the possibility of losing my mother had a profound effect on me. I mean, I’ve had plenty of friends pass, but this was the first time that I really comprehended death and its potential impact. As close as I’d been to suicide, I’d never seen it through sober eyes. Now I found that, maybe for the first time in my life, I wanted to live, regardless of the precipice that stood in my way.

Happy endings are a matter of opinion. The best news is that my mother took her shot in the dark and ran with it. The chemo was successful. She is currently cancer free and very supportive of me. I was sentenced on January 18th of last year. I was given 48 months (I was facing up to 25 years on the high end of the spectrum), and taken directly into custody.

As I sit in prison, I can only pray that I’ve completed the climax of my story. Now that I’ve completed my story, I pray that I can begin to live a life.

Playlist Song – Fall Out Boy – “This Ain’t A Scene…” – Despite the intro that makes me think Maroon 5, this song is about the best thing that Top 20 has to offer. Regardless of the cheese surrounding them – I’m not gonna crap on a band whose drummer was in “Race Traitor.” That band used to rock my ass. Plus the song shows why sing-alongs are truly “punk rock forte.”

Magazine – Mother Jones – Their timeline of “Ad Nauseum” reminds me why graffiti should remain in the hands of the populace. “In Nov. 2005, Sony hired graff artists to spray PSP ads on walls in 7 cities”—meanwhile, tagging remains a felony in many American metropolitan areas. Talk about co-optation. Go listen to “Langston’s Motto,” (by Marathon). The go watch Style Wars (documentary film about graffiti in NYC in the early 80’s).