There are days, even here, when my life feels so pregnant with possibilities that I am almost paralyzed trying to decide what to do next. After I mop the bathrooms, my day is very much my own. I realize that sounds a bit perverse, considering I am in prison and my choices are severely limited, but the truth is, on the outside, I very much like to spend my time writing, reading and listening to NPR, and I do get to do that here.
Thank God they repeat some programs on NPR, or I would be listening to it all day. I find the world a fascinating place. I get drunk on information and I have always felt a ridiculous certainty that one day a President (not this one, that’s for sure) might call me for advice, so I must be boned-up on everything.
As an artist, I feel the obligation to be a reader, to be part of the audience as well as a creative producer of what others consume. So you can imagine the pull I feel between writing and reading, both essential activities for the writer. If one craves to be told “nice work,” one must be ready to say so to others. By the way, let me say to those who I correspond with to never worry about what to write to me. Everything goes, no complaint is trivial just because I’m in jail and you’re not. But just in case you’re really at a loss, “I LOVE THE WAY YOU WRITE” is always a safe thing to say.
So, yesterday, I listened to the radio, then forced myself to put the headset down and read some Gore Vidal. Then I wrote a poem, called “The Ketchup Kid” (below) which is about a neighbor. (I could not quite figure out how to describe this young man prosaically.)
And then I got 7 letters! It was the return of the good old days, after a lean week (for me) of one or two letters a day, max. How spoiled I am! How wonderful you all are—and that goes for just the readers as well as the writers. When my sister tells me I got 40 visits to the blog, meaning 40 different people bothered to stop in and read me, it makes my heart sing. (Oh Jeez I sound like Maya Angelou, but what the hell.)
I’m trying to make these entries a bit shorter, easier to digest over a cup of coffee and less work for my sister. I just wanted to say I feel thankful today.
The Ketchup Kid
His name is Adam Braithwaite.
And of all the unlikely characters I have met in here,
He is the unlikeliest.
He is African-American, 20 years old, and
6’2” or 3” or 4”; one of those bean-pole
kids who seem to grow an inch every time
you look away for a minute.
Adam doesn’t inhabit his body
His body inhabits him.
It seems to be pushing him upwards, like a constellation.
With just two stars, one accelerating ever north.
He is somewhat odd-looking. Unpicked hair,
a radically upturned nose,
and an attitude to match..
(He is from the Pacific Palisades,
which is as hoity-toity as California gets.)
He is obsessed with the 60’s
(worships JFK and anything Kennedy,
yet is a Bush republican)
He sings Frank Sinatra while taking a leak.
He wears his pants inside-out,
because he objects to the “CDC” insignia showing.
But he doesn’t wear his pants beneath his ass,
so he’s not a gang-member.
I don’t know why he’s here.
(He doesn’t drink or smoke or do drugs,
so I suspect computer hacking.)
He is irritable, corrective, imperious;
and in his nasal, “white,” voice, complains
when his bed is mussed by his bunky, D-Roll,
who could not be more his opposite.
Adam loves ketchup. Hoards it. Trades for it.
Ketchup is free here. Two annoying packets,
daily in one’s lunch.
But Adam likes to trade and buy more,
calling himself “a very shrewd businessman.”
So I call him “the Ketchup Kid.”
He is the saddest character I have met in here, because he is the loneliest.
MCO 2004
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