CULTURE CLASH (Express Yourself)
Tethered to Life By Juan Gonzales
I stand suffocating in this 6’x10’ cell, holding on to the bars as I feel the walls closing in on me. It’s Friday afternoon and I’m watching the wing officer sort our mail, 15 feet in front of
Illustration courtesy of Vector.me
me. I watch and analyze the size of the mailbag and squint, trying to make out the writing on the envelopes as he pulls them out a few at a time, stacking them by rows. I am on row one, so my stack is either the first or the third one. The bag empties all too quickly and he sorts each row’s stack by cell order. I am in cell two, so my mail, if any, will be about first or last in the stack. Some officers start at the top, some at the bottom. Really, no amount of analyzing or squinting helps me determine if there is anything there for me, but it means so much, that I do it every Monday through Friday. Each weekday builds up to this one time, mailcall! It is a chance to be reminded that I am still a part of somebody’s life out there and not just a cell or TDCJ number. I am a son, a friend, a loved one again for a short while, and not just an offender. Statistics have shown that those with a solid support base in the free world have a substantially lower chance of returning to prison. Those thrown out into the real world with no one waiting for them, come back into the system all too quickly. The penitentiary always has an open bed and will even 14
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