Alright, some feelings of mine that have been brought up through the Showing Your Face in Public thread by billgerat. And just a small bit of a story that has shaped my thinking on the subject considerably. There are very few things in this world that I am passionate about. Hell, there are very few things that I even have definite opinions on. But the way that society treats its criminals is one of them.

The discussion that took place in that thread consisted of law enforcement scanning faces and checking those scans against a massive database of criminal records to identify which people had a criminal record. Presumably, though the article that was being discussed didn’t say so exactly, the people with criminal records would be the ones who would get hassled and watched out for, regardless of whether or not they are doing anything wrong.

Wonderaz asked me if I have been on the receiving end of never having done anything wrong but fitting the profile. I have not. I look, for the most part, like a coddled middle class white boy, which I suppose I am.

But I have seen the other side of the coin as well.

In case some of you didn't know, I was in rehab for cocaine addiction a few years back (actually, there were a lot of reasons, most of them having nothing to do with drug addiction, fairly complicated, but I was there in any case). It was actually a really great experience, kind of like summer camp in a strange way. I am sure one of these days I’ll go more in depth about it. I met some of the most interesting characters I have ever seen in there, but that isn’t the point of this story.

After my 28 days, I chose to move into what is known as an Oxford House. Basically, these are houses run and populated by other recovering addicts. There is a president, vice president, secretary, weekly meetings, all that. And everybody has to do chores, pay rent, etc. Like a fraternity, basically. Pretty cheap, certainly rules (obviously the first being no booze or drugs, no being drunk or high), kind of run down, but a good place to be if you needed to be there. The guys were very supportive of one another. We hung out together; we went to NA and AA meetings together. In any case, a pretty nice way of re-entering society via a semi-vacuum. You are out and about in society, but not thrown straight from rehab back into the mainstream. Though to tell you the truth, I was there for the most part to appease uptight family members and because it was really fucking cheap. But that’s not really the point either (again, I’ll save all that for another day).

There were about 8 of these houses in Topeka, KS. All were full to capacity except one. The only one I could get into was full of ex-cons (whereas many others are full of preppy white kids who acquired a meth habit). Real hard cases trying to go straight and better themselves.

In any case, I moved in. There were about 10 guys in this big house. 9 of them were ex-crack and meth heads with felony records. Ages ranged from 18 to 45.

What I saw in my 4 months living there churned my stomach.

First of all, everybody who moves into these houses, at least as far as I could see, had every intention of staying sober. Despite that, the turnover rate was still pretty high. In my 4 months there the house cycled through maybe 25 guys, the maximum at any given time was 12. I was pretty much a loner; stayed to myself most of the time. Simply put, I couldn’t relate to most of them. They all had been doing really hard drugs for many years, all had Parole Officers and records a mile long. I was just a preppy white kid who drank too much, did recreational drugs, dropped out of school, and whose family thought he should be put into rehab. What the fuck did I know about hitting bottom?

But in any case, about two months into my stay there, I befriended a guy name of Jason. Jason was 27 but looked 16, and had been in prison since the age of 19. He had an almost identical background as myself, save for the fact that his father was rich. Just to look at him or talk to him, you would NEVER be able to guess at his history. He was a really well spoken, handsome, and intelligent fellow (save for the heavy Missouri accent; think Boys Don’t Cry). He was well dressed, clean shaven, and a helluva nice guy.

So we started to talk, we got along great. We became pretty much inseperable. In any case, as I am an inquisitive person by nature I kept asking him about his life. How he had gotten to where he was.

His story is a fascinating one to me.

Growing up he had everything he wanted except a happy childhood. His father had been for many years an abusive alcoholic, despite owning a chain of hotels (in fact, during this period, Jason often attended meetings with me that his father was chairing. They rarely spoke). Mother he had never known. Around the age of 14 or 15 Jason, always having been an impulsive and rebellious kid, starting doing drugs with his friends. Same old story. First this, then that, then more of this, you know the drill, and you probably know the type. By the age of 16 he had become a pretty hard case. Was getting heavy into “bad” drugs (drugs that are in no way EVER “recreational”. Things like crack and heroin and meth and whatnot). Started shoplifting. Got running with the bad crowds. Got deeper and deeper in.

By the time he was 18, he had dropped out of school and had his fingers into every pie you could think of. A crackhead by then, he was robbing stores at gunpoint, stealing cars, burglarizing homes, shoplifting, scamming, was a fence for awhile, whatever he could do to score. When I tell you this guy is a very sharp fellow, I mean it. Some of his dealings and connivings and schemes that he told me about are pretty fucking brilliant. But it is hard to keep a sharp wit for long with that kind of habit. Eventually, even the smartest minds just become raving lunatics under those conditions. Jason was no exception. Whereas at first he was creating elaborate and foolproof scams, he was by this point simply walking into check cashing places with a shotgun.

At one point, for reasons known not even to him, he and a few buddies went on a multi-state crime spree. He would rob mostly check cashing joints, and his MO is that he would superglue the clerks' hands to the counters after he got what he needed. He was fairly infamous, mostly for that reason (some of the newspaper clipping he showed me were actually pretty funny. Nothing like seeing a SWAT team trying to get a dude’s palms off a countertop). Also, this whole time he was a crackhead of the highest degree and order, as were the people he was rolling with. He was also a wanted felon in 3 states.

In any case, he did this all the way to Arizona (on his way to Mexico) before he got nabbed. Got the fuck beat out of him by the cops that finally caught him (they broke 14 bones). Got the third degree in interrogations. Refused to roll over on the guys he was with, which meant they were going to try and throw the book at him. They finally charged him with everything from armed robbery and assault to weapons charges and driving without a license. Sentenced to 10 years, which was actually a pretty light sentence all things considered (especially considering all the other shit he had done that he was never caught for). Jason himself admits the only reason he got that light a sentence was due to having a really fucking good attorney (the last thing his father did for him before disowning him).

In his words: "Man, when you're 19 and you get 10 years, that's like a life sentence.”

He was a real rowdy guy in prison. Kind of like what Jyates said about the lifers, he didn’t give a fuck anymore. Showed me his demerits or whatever the fuck they call them; basically the write-ups they do when you start shit in prison. Told me the stories behind them. Starting riots, refusing to work, beating people up, getting high, spitting in a guard’s face (which he claims was the biggest mistake he ever made in prison). All that shit. He was by no means a model prisoner. And, he joined the Aryan Nation for awhile, mostly for protection (he claims). You should see the tattoos he had. He looked perfectly normal until he shaved his head and took off his shirt, and then he looked like Ed Norton in American History X. Spent half of his sentence in Arizona and then was moved to finish it out in a prison in Kansas.

And like Norton, about 3/4s of the way through his sentence, he just started getting fed up with everything. It wasn’t what he wanted anymore. For about a month the crack supplies in prison dried up towards the end of the sentence, and a bit of the haze finally lifted. He just didn’t want to do it anymore. He was done.

At the age of 27 he was released and voluntarily went straight into a 9 month rehab program for cons (if you think you can’t continue a drug habit in prison, you are an idiot). He wanted to go straight. He wanted to be in control again. And then when he wasn't able to stay in rehab any longer he moved into the Oxford House.

It was there that I entered his life, and he entered mine.

We did the deal together. We became really great friends. What I saw when I met him was not a con. I saw an honestly good man who had just never done much of anything right. But he was trying like hell to change all that. We did the deal together. He went to a NA or AA meeting a day. Went to the AA social functions (they have dances and whatnot every once in awhile.

And right off the bat he tried his damndest to re-enter society.

Society fought back.

His first handicap was with his PO. Twice a week he had to go see his PO (15 miles away and he had no car). If he was 15 minutes late, a warrant was issued for his arrest. He had to pee in a cup. If anything showed up, even booze, he would be sent back. The PO wanted nothing more then to throw Jason back in, and made that abundantly clear (to both of us, I was often the one driving Jason to these appointments).

Then he tried to get a job.

One of the tenants of the 12 step programs is to try to be the best person you can be. That includes being honest. And so, every application, when he was asked if he had ever been convicted of a felony, he answered honestly. Because of that, nobody would hire him. Even McDonalds turned him down. More then a few places would simply never return his calls, doing everything they could to avoid them. One place even asked Jason, after reading over his application, to kindly leave the store and never come back.

I was watching a segment on 20/20 the other day, that implicitly expressed outrage that it is not required by law for everybody to do extensive background checks on job applicants. They didn’t say so, but the implication was that anybody who came up with felonies should not be allowed a job. They gave anecdotal accounts of carpet cleaners who ended up raping the homeowners, or crazed postal workers, or whatever. Not mentioning the thousands of other cons who have been honest law abiding citizens ever since they got out. In any case, were a majority of Americans polled, and if they had their way, I imagine there would be nothing but lifers in the American prison system. We like to think that we want them to re-enter society, but when it comes to having and ex-con live in your neighborhood or building, or having them prepare your food or sell you shoes, people get a little hypocritical.

He applied for maybe a hundred jobs. Got turned down for all.

The only way he could make any money was with day labor. For those who have never done it, it is probably the shittiest work that any man could do. Basically, at about 330 AM all the homeless people, illegal immigrants, crack heads, and ex-cons get in a line (you have to get a good place in line or the jobs run out. Then, around 5 AM, they open the doors and start handing out jobs auction style. They then stick you in a van, ship you off to put together cardboard boxes for 10 hours, bring you back, and hand you 40 bucks or so. Then, the winos and immigrants and whatever would go across the liquor store to spend their money, and Jason would walk the 2 miles home to plop it down for rent.

We also had a few run ins with the cops. Generally, what happens if you come home drunk to an Oxford house and refuse to leave is that we call the cops on you. Jason is a strong guy and has a great sense of responsibility, so he was often the one that tried to handle these situations. When he did, the cops would often start hassling him along with the drunk flatmate. On several occasions, after checking Jason’s ID (for no good reason), they searched him and roughed him up a bit. A few times he was even taken to the station for questioning, and then released and told to walk home. I got pulled over once, and the way the cops treated him versus me once they checked both our IDs was absolutely sickening. And I was the one who was driving.

His family no longer talked to him. His old straight friends didn’t want to have anything to do with him. He tried becoming close to his few old drug buddies who had since sobered up, but each one of them kept dropping back into it and disappearing. The only people who wanted to have anything to do with him, besides myself, were his old drug and crime buddies, and they wouldn’t leave him the fuck alone. They were always calling or showing up stoned, and he always had to turn them away and go back to playing chess on my computer. They’d roll up in their nice cars, and he’d have to turn them away and go to Day Labor.

Finally, in a great stroke of luck, he landed a job at a Telemarketing place. A real shithole, but an honest way to earn a living. Actually, he and I both started off there. We went through two weeks of training, and then they start laying people off. The new ones got the axe first. Back to Day Labor.

His life was shit. No two ways about it. There are even a helluva lot more things I could talk about here that I haven’t gotten into. But to be sure, this was not the life he envisioned. He was a second class citizen. He was the bottom of the fucking barrel as far as society was concerned. He had only the pretense of freedom. No friends, no family, no money, no job, no respect. And he was stone cold sober to enjoy it.

Some people may call this fair and just. Karma is a bitch, no? He brought it all on himself. Some people, even despite all those obstacles, still succeed. All those things. There is some truth to that, I suppose. But to me, that is nothing more then Double Jeopardy. He was paying for the same crime twice. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy in my mind. People expect ex-criminals to keep committing crimes, and thus make it so they can do little else.

He so wanted to do the right thing.

But it all finally just overwhelmed him.

One weekend, I was off visiting somebody. Apparently one night, he snuck into another roommate’s room, grabbed his car keys, and took off.

They found the car about a week later, filled with stolen TVs and stereos, and some crack paraphernalia. Nobody has heard from Jason since.

And one of my deep dark secrets is this:

Had I have been there that night, I probably would have gone with him.

I think about him still from time to time. I only knew him maybe for two months, but I learned a lifetime’s worth of lessons through my talks with him. He was at his heart a truly decent and strong man. I know this.

Society is worse for his absence. And society should shoulder a large amount of blame for it.

They say you can judge a society by the nature of its prisons.

What about the prisons that extend past concrete walls and steel bars?

Shortly before he left, Jason told me something I remember still.

“Man. I feel like I’ve been on autopilot my whole life. And it feels like somebody else is programming it.”

I’ll miss ya, Jason.

Incidentally, I wrote about 3/4s of a screenplay based mostly on my talks with him and his old scams, crime sprees, and fuck-ups. Here is an excerpt. Forgive its klunkiness. Screenwriting is a difficult format to master. And even more difficult to transfer to HTML.

INT. PICK UP TRUCK – DAY

MARCUS
You ever try to go straight?

JASON
Sure I did, right before you met me. I had been out of prison and sober for a year.

MONTAGES ## VARIOUS

MONTAGE: Showing Jason doing the things he is speaking of in the following passage. The dialogue is narrating the montage.

First image is of a bunch of mean looking black guys sitting around watching boxing, with Jason sitting in a corner.

JASON (O.S.)
I got out and found a place to stay with other ex-cons. It was a real shithole, and we all fucking hated each other but it was the only place I could afford and the only place that would let me live there after doing a credit and background check.

Now it is a series of shots of Jason in job interviews, being turned down.

JASON (O.S.)
I tried to get a job, but nobody wants to hire an ex-con with
armed robbery on his sheet.

A series of images of Jason in a waiting room, Jason being taken down a hall, Jason talking with a mean looking guy, Jason pissing in a cup, Jason leaving.

JASON (O.S.)
I couldn’t leave the state, I had to check in with my P.O. once a week, piss in a cup. If they would have found traces of anything, even weed, they would have locked me up again for a year.

Images of Jason standing outside a shitty looking building before sunrise. All sorts of horrible looking bums and ex-cons are milling about in line.

Then image of a large room, looking almost like an auction, with some ladies behind a desk handing out jobs and calling things out.

Then image of Jason stuffed in a minivan with a dozen other people, all very crowded.

Then image of Jason putting together cardboard boxes, getting his fingers cut, etc.

Then image of Jason stuffed in a car again, the sun setting.

Then image of Jason getting 40 dollars in cash and staring at it in disbelief, holding it with his bleeding hands.

JASON (O.S.)
Since nobody would hire me I had to become a day laborer, with homeless people, the winos, the trash, the dregs. Every morning at 3:30 AM I would have to go to this shitty ass building to get a decent place in line. At 5 AM the people would hand out jobs, then they would stuff us in a car full of smelly ass bums and winos, drive us to some fucking factory, where we would spend all day putting boxes together or some shit. Terrible, monotonous ass work, all day long,
with like 5 minute breaks every two hours, and most days you would be lucky just to get any job at all. We’d work ten hours, get stuffed in the car going home, and they’d pay us maybe forty bucks. All the bums would go across the street and get their fix and I would have to walk a mile home and throw the money down as rent.

Image of Jason walking into a large room full of telemarketers. A bunch of black guys, a guy in a wheelchair, white trash as far as the eye can see, and young teenagers making out, all with headsets on.

Image of Jason in a chair, on the headset.

Image of Jason wincing, as we can hear a caller SCREAMING obscenities at Jason.

Image is repeated, with a different caller’s VOICE.

Image is repeated again, with a different caller’s VOICE.

Image of a crying lady making an announcment to the room, everyone staring at her.

Image of everyone exiting the building, throwing pop cans through the windows or whatever.

Image of Jason, hands in his pockets, with a sad look on his face, walking down the street.

JASON (O.S.)
After a few months of that day labor bullshit I finally got hired by a telemarketing company. That was almost worse. Everyone who worked there were almost as bad as the homeless people from day labor. I had to endure more verbal abuse than I would wish on my worst enemies, trying to sell shit to people that nobody needs or wants. Finally, after about a month of that, the bosses announced that cutbacks had been made, that all new employees were to be laid off and only the people who had been there over a year kept their jobs. Back to day labor.

Series of Jason looking frustrated, making phone calls.

JASON (O.S.)
I figured at least my family and old friends would have forgiven Me, but nope. Nobody would have anything to do with me. No One would even speak to me.

Series of Jason answering the door and various criminal looking types showing up.

JASON (O.S.)
The only people who would have anything to do with me were my old criminal buddies, and they wouldn’t leave me the fuck alone, always trying to get me to go back out there, to do the things again. Fuck, I didn’t have any friends, any money, any respect.

Series of Jason sneaking through a dark room, going to a bedside table, taking the car keys of a roommate, pushing the car out of the driveway and down the street a bit, then getting in the car and taking off.

JASON (O.S.)
Finally I just couldn’t take it anymore. Being in jail was better than that. So one night I stole a roommate’s car, took off, anD Haven’t looked back since.

Shot of Jason re-uniting with the criminal buddies. Hugs and pats on the back all around. They pass him a pipe.

JASON
I just feel like I been on autopilot my whole life.

FADE OUT

Shortly after my 9th or 10th birthday, my mother bought me a console television from the local auction. Upon getting it home I was enamored with it. I had never had anything like this before in my life. My drunken father yelled at me to go to bed. After I pleaded with him for 15 more minutes, he decided he was going to give me a beating. Now when I was younger, he beat my mom badly. Very badly. I wasn’t about to just stand still. I ran around the house trying to avoid him and, for defense, grabbed a pipe that was lying against a wall. By then mom was too trashed to do anything, having indulged herself in a bottle of vodka. She just laid upstairs and screamed at us to shut up. My dad yanked the pipe away and punched me in the face, busting my temple open. I ran to Melanie’s house and later learned that my entire face was covered in blood from the wound. Melanie was an old friend of the family that lived across the alley from us. It wasn’t a good thing to look at. She was, to say the least, shocked to open the door at 9 p.m. to see a hysterical kid covered in blood. She got me cleaned up and called an ambulance. I was released from the hospital to a youth home while the Department of Social Services arranged to have me separated from my father.

I played pool there, watched movies and had a great time. It was an odd youth home, compared to stories I later heard. My mother and I moved to my grandmother’s house, and I still regret some of the things my mother did during our stay there. She was pretty unstable from all of this, not to mention a raging alcoholic and drunk constantly, moaning, screaming, etc. My grandmother never got any peace whatsoever, what with trying to manage my drunken mother and me. She occasionally sobered up, but during that time I occupied myself with exploring the new neighborhood and trying to make the best of a bad situation. My grandmother tried to keep me company while mom drank, but I was restless. I had a decent time there, having built a stereo system out of bits and pieces I found at garage sales, and I sat in my room or hung out with the kids that lived on either side of me when I got bored.

We eventually moved back to Detroit, and I once again made friends with everyone in the neighborhood. Our little group consisted of myself, Danny, his cousin Josh, Tina, Jennifer (Tina’s little sister), George (Tina’s bigger brother) and Raymond. We hung around the hood, Tina’s porch, Danny’s uncle’s garage (which he worked on cars out of) and Danny’s house. Not really much trouble to be had, as Danny was like a father and kept us all in check on serious matters, not to mention introduced me to many genres of music. Danny has to be one of the best influences I had in those days. Josh was as much of an opposite of Danny as could be. He drank, smoked weed, fucked around constantly and got into trouble. He was the one that introduced me to alcohol. I was 10 at the time, hanging around with him, when he got a neighborhood drunk to buy us some Canada House. He decided to share it with me, and thinking it was cool, I accepted. I wound up drunk off my ass. At that time, I rode a bike around (I detested walking, and they did quite a bit of it those days) and after fully half a bottle of the shit I was learning new ways to ride it. I’d also learned how to "ghost ride" a bike, which basically is as follows: Get the bike up to a reasonable speed, then jump off. I ghost rode the bike right into Raymond’s uncle. Luckily he took it well.

After that came smoking. A new guy was introduced to our little clique. His name I can’t remember, however. His mother was Melanie, and he’d moved back in with her. He was 18, and brought cigars one day. We decided to go down to the railroad tracks that were only two blocks away and smoke them there, as we all could get into trouble for smoking if we were seen by any of our parents. I think the guy’s name was David, but I’ll call him that anyway to minimize confusion. David gave Danny and me a cigar, and I think Tina may have had one as well, though it’s hard to remember. In any case, Danny objected (as was to be expected) and after my fervent refusal to give it back, he finally gave up, but with a warning: "Be careful man, or you’ll get addicted off that shit." One warning I damned well should have heeded. I got a huge head rush from smoking it, and had David buy me a pack of cigs with my meager allowance. Now, keep in mind that although Danny objected, he let me have my way. (He also started smoking shortly thereafter, along with Tina and me.)

Some time after that we ran around the hood as usual, but this time with cigs and booze in hand. Danny started drinking, along with the rest of us, but he kept it all controlled. One incident that arose from this was a fight between Josh and Raymond (who were both total drunks at the time). As far as I can remember, Josh was pissed about something Raymond had said, and decided to throw a can of salsa at Raymond. I don’t know why, but this was hilarious. Raymond just stood there, screaming his lungs out about his shirt being covered in salsa, while all of us (including Josh) laughed our asses off. Those were good times, and my life now pales in comparison to them. On a side note about Danny and me--he was the big brother that I lacked. He taught me how to ride a motorcycle, introduced me to new things (including tricks in the cars that his uncle worked on) and made life much easier for me. My parents still drank heavily then, and he made it bearable. For that, he has my everlasting respect and gratitude. I could write many stories about the experiences I had then, with him and the others, but I digress.

My grandmother had Alzheimer’s, and by the time I was 12 it had gotten to the point where it was a threat to her. By then, we had a car and were able to visit a lot more and check up on her. Now here’s the shitty part: One day mother was especially concerned about her condition and asked me if I would go over there and keep an eye on her. Being a little asshole, I refused. After a week of her not answering her telephone we went over to discover that she’d fallen. I still think that was my fault; if I hadn’t been a selfish brat she might be alive today. She had broken her pelvic bone and was put in a hospice since she was bedridden from it. Her Alzheimer’s was worse then ever, and with the injury she had I now realize that she probably wouldn’t have gotten out of there.

Anyway, one day she was pushing her wheelchair and fell again, shattering her hip. Her health went to hell after that. It’s funny how the smallest things can have a larger effect. I didn’t realize it then when I refused, and now it’s too late. In any case, she ended up having strokes and other problems that left her bedridden and brain damaged. The Alzheimer’s increased this effect. The pain that it caused to my mother I can’t comprehend (I gotta stop for a couple minutes, sorry), and when she was in the nursing home I was too lazy to visit half the time. I am still heartbroken that I chose not to visit. After all the good she did, and the love she had for my mother and myself, I couldn’t get off my sorry ass and pay my respects to the woman I owed my life to. My family grew up in unimaginable squalor, and SHE was the one who pulled us out of it...and I couldn’t take one hour out of my day to say hi. I still hate myself to this very minute that I could’ve been so heartless. I type this in tears at what I’ve done. I now know that I was unappreciative, and what I must have caused my mother when she asked me to go and I said I didn’t feel like it...I can’t even begin to guess. My utter goddamned LAZINESS is what probably caused her to die so soon. Had I been there to watch, she might be here now. My mother might have been spared the angst of watching her mother slowly perish, talking to her and knowing that her words might not even be received. It took 2 years, and I was at home when my mom arrived. When I went out to greet her, I knew my grandmother had finally given in and died. My mother looked reasonably normal, but I know it had to take a hell of a lot of strength to hold all her hurt in and put on a normal face. She was silent for most of the day.

At the funeral home it was a fucking disaster. My sister was enraged at being late, and was screaming her lungs out. My brothers decided that they weren’t even going to let my father (who by now was a good man and had more than made up for the things he had done) have the final honor of carrying the casket. My mother broke down and wailed. These bastards couldn’t even have some decency.

Now, two odd things happened shortly thereafter. One, the cut roses we had gotten had actually started budding, to the surprise of all. The second thing is a bit more vague. I was sitting in my room at about midnight reading a book, when I saw a floating purple orb. Sounds silly, but this was only a short time after she had died. It moved around the foot of my bed, as though it were observing me. A couple minutes later it faded away. I still believe that it was her. I can only hope that she’s forgiven me for what I have done. If not, may I burn in hell. God knows I probably deserve it.

My father started drinking again because of what the brothers had said at the funeral and I can’t say I blame him. He was hurt to the core, and alcohol was his only escape. He was ticketed numerous times for drunk driving, and then an ironic thing happened. After sobering up and going to work regularly, he was pulled over and arrested for not appearing in court for the tickets. Mom couldn’t get a job, and so we went into poverty yet again. By now, we were living in my grandmother’s house, and believe me, Dearborn is expensive to live in. Mom was forced to sell antiques to pay the bills, and life was hell for a while. Eventually things got better, Dad had been released and he got a job, and soon thereafter Mom managed to get one too.

Now let me explain a couple things about my parents. They are both old, and at the time, my father was 59 and my mother was 57. My dad was working in a warehouse where they kept steel coils and cut them to customer spec. One of the requirements my father had was to go up 30 feet and lubricate the in-house cranes. He had to crawl across the beams, 30 feet in the air, with no protection whatsoever. This might be easy for you and me, but for a 57 year old man, with arthritis and back problems? It was hell for him. Mom had a job working as a bag stuffer. Ever go to a craft store and buy one of those do-it-yourself projects? Mom was probably the one that counted all those parts and put them in there. The pay was shit and the job was too. If anything, they shouldn’t have been forced to work, but such is the life of the poor. My father eventually had to stop working, upon trying to get a new job he burned himself all to hell welding, and after that he managed a job at Rouge Steel. He came home and didn’t go back, the pain was too great. My mother now supports us, working in a kitchen at a retirement home. I have no idea how she can handle it, considering how she interacts with the elderly; being reminded daily of my grandmother. Maybe she feels she’s making up for the years by making others’ lives better. I don’t know.

I scoff at all who look down at me and tell me that I know nothing because I’m younger than they are. I’ve walked a long road, learned many things that few even have known, and there is still a long stretch I have yet to travel. I can only hope that it will be reasonably smooth.

A dead thing...

She’s sitting at her manual potters wheel. Her hands trace the contours of the earth, and as she increases the velocity of the centrifuge, the wheel spins faster and the clay’s figure, now being forced to life by gravity, begins to compromise against her concentrated touch. She shapes the malleable consistency of her medium, this dead thing, to be a figure, a form, a tool consistent within her personal aesthetic associations with “clay” and beauty.

She chooses a material, decides upon a shape, and manipulates the material until it resembles her original vision.

Though,

Who chooses her original vision?

And,

Who manipulates her?

She is,

Or is she not,

A figure, a form, a tool:

A dead thing.

Today was my cousin’s birthday party. He lives right next to Disneyland…damn that place. My cousin is in this country illegally. He came here to chase after the American dream and has found nothing but a nightmare. He left his wife and infant son in Mexico in hopes of reuniting with them here in the United States after earning enough money to bring them over and support them. This is the story of many people in this country, the story you are not allowed to hear. This is the story you don’t see on television programs or read about in the newspaper. It’s easy to ignore the New Depression.

The highway patrol chopper comin’ up over the ridge / Man sleeps by the campfire under the bridge

It was a rather warm day here in southern California. The winds were kicking up some dust at the park where we had set up the surprise party for my cousin. In the background, you could hear Hawaiian drum beats as hula dancers practiced their routines at the adjacent school. Kids were rolling by on their skateboards and scooters, mothers were calling after their kids and fathers slept in the shade of an old tree. I was sitting at the end of the picnic bench after having moved a propane stove, 80 lbs. of beef, 10-2 liter bottles of sodas and various condiments. I decided that while the meat simmered on the stove and while we waited for the guest of honor to arrive, I would watch people. I was watching two fat boys and their father play a game of catch. The boys kept complaining about not being able to play with their Gameboys while the father looked as if he was wishing for more athletic sons. Then, the winds really began to stir wild. The air was broken by the sounds of propellers. Here they came, two military choppers, right over Disneyland and toward the park. Apparently they were practicing maneuvers because they were weaving around quite a bit. Why? Suddenly, they were gone and a man comes up to us and asks for help. I turned around and noticed that he was quite dirty, disheveled and beaten. The man was homeless. He asked us for some water. That’s all…just some water to soothe his thirst.

The shelter line stretchin’ around the corner / Welcome to the New World Order

The shelters around this area are notorious for being terrible to people. We had 80 lbs of beef for Christ’s sake and all he’d asked for was a glass of water. We invited him to join in the festivities. Number one, he’s a member of our human family. Number two; he’s a fellow national who came to this country just as my cousins did. Unfortunately for this fellow, he did not fare as well as they. That’s not to say my cousins are well off, but they do have a place to sleep and they can afford to throw a party like this on occasion. I offered him my seat and brought him some water. The food was still cooking but he dined on some tortilla chips in the meantime.

Families sleepin’ in their cars out in the southwest / No job, no home, no peace, no rest, no rest

I took another seat and watched the kids at play begin to tire quickly. We were near a street and I saw a car pull up. I thought it was my mother. See, I had gotten there at 1:30 and she was supposed to be there at around the same time. It was already 3 p.m. As I took a closer look, I saw that it was not my mom. It was a mom. And a dad, and two kids. Upon closer inspection, it appeared as though all of their belongings were in that small two door sedan. I thought that, perhaps, they were guests for the party. I didn’t know everyone who was coming. They began walking towards us but then took a sudden turn to another picnic area. The two children looked at me and I saw their eyes.

And the highway’s alive tonight / Nobody’s foolin’ nobody as to where it goes

Those eyes told me everything. The dirt ring underneath those two sets of eyes, the years gone by too quickly for those eyes, all that those eyes had to see but couldn’t comprehend. It was all there. I had to look away. I don’t know how they could handle it. They brought their own lunches, though if they would have asked, they certainly were welcome with us.

I’m sitting down here in the campfire light / Searching for the ghost of Tom Joad

I resumed my people-watching. For some reason, everyone was lagging today. My mother finally showed up at 4 p.m. My cousin, the birthday boy, was still missing. The party had been set to end at around 4. Obviously, it didn’t since people were still arriving. So I sat. I sat and watched, searching out the stories people have to tell without any words whatsoever.

He pulls his prayer book out of a sleeping bag / The preacher lights up a bud and takes a drag

The food was ready, had been for about an hour now. Nothing smells better than freshly cooked carne asada. We were making tacos. Funny thing is that even though this was the beaner party, we had no beans at all. The tortillas were warming on the pan and the people lined up for their share. There was some cilantro, onions, salsa, limes, and radishes to add to the tacos. On top of the carne asada, my cousin’s (not the birthday one, his brother) wife made some chorizo. That spicy pork was a bit too much for me. The homeless man was having a good time with us, and we were enjoying his company as well. He was the first in line to make his tacos. He sat down at the table quickly. I expected him to devour the food and then jump back for some more. He looked at the food longingly but paused to savor it first. He took a deep breath, smelling the warm ingredients filling the air. Then he dropped his head and said a prayer. Some things still take precedence, it seems.

He’s waiting for a time when the last shall be first and the first shall be last / In a cardboard box sleeping underpass

I wonder just when the time will come. I wonder when it will be that people who cry about me and mine will realize that there is more. I wonder what will happen when the market collapses and people will find themselves like this man. I wish it upon no one really. I wish that people would just realize that they share the earth with people and that commodities are the least of their worries. They say, “The people who are better equipped to handle this will.” What will happen when they realize that people who are best equipped to handle it are in short supply? What will happen when they realize that people who are just like them are turning away from them? What?

With a one-way ticket to the Promised Land / With a hole in your belly and a gun in your hand

As I said before, my cousins live right next to Disneyland. You may already know that the company is expanding the park, adding a new one called “California Adventure.” Basically, the new park is supposed to be all of the state of California in a small little area. People are complaining about how crowded it is. It has a little over twenty rides that are all stolen from other amusement parks in California. Why do I mention this? They’re going to need a new parking lot so that they can take even more money from the people who come to shell out hundreds for a single visit. Guess who’s getting evicted to make this parking lot happen? My cousins are receiving little compensation for this eviction. They get barely enough to pay a month’s rent at a place that must be cheaper than where they’re staying now. Lots of gangbangers live in that apartment complex. Think the gangs are happy about losing their homes? Think the low-income families are happy? But Disney is happy and so are those who have no idea what is going on.

Looking for a pillow of solid rock / Bathing in the city’s aqueducts

As the festivities continued, I noticed the absence of our homeless guest. I had to use the facilities as I had had about 5 cups of Cola. When I entered the men’s restroom, I saw the man with his shirt off. He was washing himself in the sink of the bathroom there in the park. He said hello to me somewhat shamefully. I’m not the type who enjoys using a public restroom and the one in the park is, by far, one of the worst ever. Yet, here was this man, using the cold water to bathe himself. I wondered where he went to sleep every night. I wondered if he was able to do this sort of thing often. Given his introductory appearance at our party, it seemed as though he didn’t. I guess he could get away with it because he could say he was with us if it was necessary.

And the highway is alive tonight / Nobody’s foolin’ nobody as to where it goes / I’m sitting down here in the campfire light / With the ghost of Ol’ Tom Joad

I went back to my people-watching, realizing so much about myself and the world around me. I can see me in the eyes of the children. They can’t see themselves in mine. They can’t see a bright tomorrow; they can’t see anything other than the hatred shown to them. Why are they hated? Because they are poor. It’s not because we're Mexicans. It’s not a race thing. Well, okay, to a certain extent it may be. But the main form of prejudice in this nation is the prejudice against and hatred for the poor.

And Tom says, / “Ma, wherever you see a cop beating a guy, / Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries, / Wherever there’s a fight against the blood and hatred in the air, / Look for me Ma, I’ll be there”

Where’s it going to end? When will we finally not need a Tom Joad? Who will lead us down the right path? What will the future hold if we cannot end the hatred? How will we survive when we can’t stop hating?

“Wherever you see someone struggling for a place to stand / For a decent job or a helping hand / Wherever someone’s struggling to be free, / Look in their eyes Ma, / You’ll see me”

-flocat

P.S. The song lyrics are from "The Ghost of Tom Joad" written by Bruce Springsteen.