Catching Up - Sort Of 9-3-2015 (Part One)

 [ I am back working through my prison journal. It is out of order… Well, the order is as I have opened boxes. The date in the title is the date it was written. I hope this is not confusing. What you are reading is what you get for your tax dollars. sch 10/10/2025] 

I ought to write about Joni Renforth. I learned of her dying this past Saturday from her former husband. I've written the words but still the shock roils me. We went without speaking for the better part of a decade, then she called me and I thought we patched things up. But things were complicated - involvements with other people - kept me from keeping in touch. Besides, I was all about pushing away what friends I had. Then came the arrest. I figured that would break all my ties. It did, kind of. Others suddenly reappeared; others refused to let me go. So I assumed people like Joni - the ones I heard nothing from - didn't want to hear from me. Now, I wonder if I had been there, if I had written, if I had shown any backbone, I would have been of any help. I do not have a clear image of all that happened to her - cirrhosis of the liver, I know - but I fear she died alone. She had a good heart and got a little lost in the shuffle, sometimes too passive. She was a better friend to me than I was to her. I do not do her justice here.

Not doing any landscaping today. Going to be hot and not much can be done with the flowerbeds as of the beginning of September. 

I am mostly well. No word about my false teeth. So far learning not to bite off more than I can chew is progressing - it has been about a month since my choking incident. I have had a welt - red, painful bumps about as big as the tip of my ring finger - appear first in my left arm pit and now in my right. The one in the left dissipated into a small lump. I cannot afford going to sick call, so I won't. I mind terribly the thought of Joni dying alone and in pain, but prefer dying alone for myself.

I need to kick myself in the ass. I fear I underwrite. I finished "Perversion: A Modern Morality Play" differently thanks to help from Russel Ochocki and Joni. I had thought of the Prosecuting Attorney as a Hannah Arendt sort of bureaucrat. Russel thought her too sympathetic, too beguiling. So, I made her noisier. Too worried about form., about being clever rather than making my point. Doesn't matter how hard something is to write - and I expect nothing will be as hard as this short play - it needs to be written directly than cleverly. Leave the cleverness to the subtext. 

My fellow prisoners worry about their release dates. I have death on my mind. Part of me wants to get onto meeting my Maker before I can do any more harm. Another part wants me to get the stories out of my head before I die. Death cuts off any revisions, so I need to get the job done as well as possible.

Patience - work on this almost daily. I have so far to go. When I was about 5 years old, I was outside the Anderson YMCA waiting for my Grandma Downes to pick me up. Older boys - but not all that much older - harassed me into walking home. We lived then a bit west of Cross and Silver Streets. I decided to walk home. I went north on Jackson Street, but then cut over to Delaware Street. There was a bridge there. I cannot recall now why I did not go from Jackson across the White River to Broadway. Maybe I was smart enough to know sidewalks were (and are) in short supply till one gets north of Shadyside Park. (North of Vineyard? My memory falters here.) I recall having cleared the old Delaware Street bridge (which was steel grating and scared me a bit, as I was even then averse to heights), and thinking Grandma would certainly have called the cops on me. So, I walked the railroad tracks to Vineyard. Then up Silver Street to home. Where I found, my Grandma had not only called the police, but my father. My father seemed so much taller then. No more YMCA, he told me. I think the most shocking thing was Grandma calling Dad for help. In my mind, Rush Limbaugh planting a big wet kiss on Hillary Clinton would not shock as much. Fifty years later, I am a bit less impatient.

sch

 [Continued in Catching Up - Sort Of 9-3-2015  (Part Two). sch 10/10/2025]