Our Time

Page 689: “My senses at times tingle and itch with my romantic, idealistic outlook on life.” I love this line. It perfectly describes how I feel at times.

I love the metaphors he uses, so descriptive! With his Ichabod Crane and describing Gar’s arm disintegrating, “like a long ash off the end of a cigarette.”
The comparison of the pall bearers’ gloves and the gloves doctors use to do a prostate exam were great. Really illustrated the disgust he felt about it all.
Page 694: “[Garth would] Wind up killing some innocent person or wasting another nigger.” Ouch. Sly way to separate the two.
The voice of Robby was done well and quite different that his own voice. I like it.
I think he captures the essence of his mother very well. I hope to be able to describe my parents in a similar way in my essay.

He had to beg to get paper from the guard cuz they wouldn’t let him bring it in. Ah, I know these stupid rules all too well.
It makes me feel weird to see the atrocities of the prison in print cuz I immediately wonder what would happen to Robby if they had known that he was the one to leak that information. It ties into the whole scared into silence mentality that I’ve had for the last year.

I can relate to the part about Robby reading to the fellows in prison: “What else you gonna do but think of the people on the outside….Just the same old sad shit we all be thinking all the time.” The laments in jail all start to sound the same on the inside. Who still loves them and writes or visits. Dramas you have no control over. Court talk. But mostly about our loved ones that are still free.

I really liked this line too: “I listen to my brother Robby. He unravels my voice.”
The part about Robby already doing his time in the hole for a crime he was found innocent for is again a great illustration of the injustices that go on in the legal system that you have no control over. They should give him some free time or money on his books for the lost time in the hole, but yeah right. Only in a just world, huh?
I’ve met quite a few people named Squirrel. Funny.
My mom left me in jail. She didn’t have that soft spot in her heart at all; but it all turned out for the better I think. My dad on the other, he definitely had that soft spot and bailed me out.
I really like this essay. Partly because I could relate in a lot of ways. Also cuz the voice in this essay was so different than most and it read like a story.