Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story
I. Anti-Hero
In the early hours of a day in 2003, I awoke next to my girlfriend, Ambere, inside our Venice Beach dwelling. Light from the sun danced across the Pacific and filtered into our sleeping quarters. I had some breakfast and exercised. Then, I got down to the task at hand, which, in that period, involved selling cannabis. Ambere, akin to my parents, desired that I obtain gainful employment, which I intended to do. Sometimes I mentioned penning a story or a film script. “That sounds fantastic,” Ambere would remark. “Just get to writing it!”
I journeyed to Hollywood to procure a significant quantity from a seller named Earl at his place. I was in debt to him and had given him my firearm as security. However, he was no longer content with the agreed-upon terms. We started to bicker. It seemed to me he was attempting to deceive or talk circles around me. My anger rose. He was impolite, so I made certain I was even more so. Soon, the verbal exchange escalated into a physical altercation. It ceased when I fatally shot Earl.
Neighbors registered the sound of gunfire and contacted emergency services. Patrol vehicles rapidly filled the vicinity, and a police aircraft from the L.A.P.D. hovered above. Law enforcement apprehended me, forced me to lie prone in the building’s corridor, and put restraints on me. When paramedics entered the residence, I could perceive their stunned reactions upon seeing Earl’s lifeless form. They spoke of me as if I were not there. “We got him as he was exiting, attempting to flee,” I overheard someone declare. “He claims he’s injured, but he looks fine to me.” Many hours passed before law enforcement permitted me to telephone Ambere. She didn’t answer. “I regret that I ruined everything,” I voiced into her voicemail. “You must believe me. It was either him or myself.”
The subsequent days resembled an extended procession through the concrete and steel depths of L.A. County lockup. I occupied metal seats, pressed against other men, and slept on the bare floor. Eventually, I was provided with a worn-out vinyl sleeping pad and led into a sizable dormitory, one of many bleak housing units yet to come.
At the beginning, Ambere came to see me frequently. But remaining in Los Angeles caused her distress, and during the three years I awaited a court proceeding, she moved to San Francisco. I did not encounter her until she appeared in the courthouse, where she offered me no words. The jury required less than an hour to determine I was guilty of aggravated murder, typically saved for especially cruel slayings. It signified imprisonment for the duration of my life without any chance of release.
On the ride returning to the correctional center, I glimpsed through transparent polymer windows at roads I no longer anticipated ever seeing. “It’s finished,” I confided to my colleagues in the dorm. However, a friend, Smoke, demurred. “It’s never truly finished,” he stated. “There’s a great deal of time, numerous years of struggle ahead of you—appeals, formal requests, new legal decisions.” Smoke had been sentenced to life imprisonment without parole, yet a court of appeals had not long ago granted him another chance at trial.
Approximately a week afterward, my court-appointed legal representative, Steve McManus, paid me a visit. “That group of jurors made a choice far too hastily,” he told me. “I require additional time to ascertain if there’s anything at all I can pursue.” And thus, during the subsequent two years, I relinquished each opportunity for sentencing while McManus and a hired investigator sought out those who had served on the jury. During that period, my mother started to suffer from dementia and was transferred to an assisted-living establishment. My father had a critical stroke, and I was obliged to inform the health professionals that he had never wished to be artificially sustained on life-support measures. I was not permitted to attend his memorial. I was their sole child, and they had not brought me up for my life to conclude in such a state.
In the end, a new trial was approved for me—identical magistrate, identical accusations. One more time, I observed Ambere across the room. One more time, she offered no words. I could perceive the emotion displayed on her face.
This time, the jurors appeared to show greater understanding. Following more than forty-eight hours of debate, the spokesperson announced the outcome, starting with the indictments of aggravated murder/robbery.
“Not guilty,” she proclaimed.
She proceeded to first-degree murder: “Not guilty.”
McManus and I straightened up. He placed his hand on my shoulder. The spokesperson proceeded to second-degree murder.
“Guilty,” she declared. McManus sank backward into his seat.
I was given a sentence of forty-three years to life. In the most positive outcome, I anticipated being considered for a release hearing in 2046, when I would be seventy-seven years old. I had killed a person, extinguished a life. My own existence felt concluded, as well.
II. Reputation
My period of incarceration commenced at a distant desert correctional facility where the majority of inmates with life sentences presumed that they had nothing to gain through model conduct. Infliction of wounds and assaults were common. Forbidden devices and controlled substances were in frequent circulation. Oddly, it was simultaneously during this time that I developed into a Taylor Swift enthusiast. I saw her give an interview on television and detected a young sincerity that reminded me of Ambere. Upon hearing Swift’s melodies on the radio, it occurred to me that Ambere was out there, possibly even thinking of me.
In 2012, I was unexpectedly scheduled to appear before the Parole Board (B.P.H.). I had a meeting with a commissioner inside a brightly lit and immaculate room. “I can foresee regulations changing shortly,” he commented. “I doubt you’ll be required to complete more than approximately half of your allocated sentence. However, that is all dependent on your behavior while you are incarcerated.” I recall experiencing the cool, clinging sensation of my chair, wondering if his expressions were deceptive—a carrot dangling with the intention of coaxing me toward positive behavior. Another individual confined in my unit, who had been detained for possessing a small quantity of crack while wrestling with addiction, was serving twenty-five to life according to the Three Strikes legislation. It was challenging to have confidence in a system of “justice” that would do such a thing.
Still, as time passed, I developed a standing. “Joe’s on the level,” men would articulate, with a blend of mockery and unwilling respect. The penitentiary structure designated each one of us a safety grading, based in significant part on our documented instances of misconduct; after a stretch of proper deportment, I was moved to a correctional facility with lower security nearer to Ambere. But before long, I was relocated once more, and I experienced intense despair. I ended up in a unit for mental well-being located in San Luis Obispo. From my cell, I was able to perceive a coastal valley and register trains sounding their horns through the hills.
I consulted psychologists and took part in a support gathering intended for people serving life sentences. We seated ourselves in a configuration, on flimsy chairs, and had discussions regarding the search for our “authentic selves”—the youthful individuals we had all been before regrettable judgments resulted in our being confined. I did not venture to get in contact with Ambere; an element of me hoped, on her behalf, that she had encountered someone else. But I was aware that my genuine self was the individual who had fallen for her in 1995, when I was in my early twenties. In my cell, I would listen to “22,” by Taylor Swift, and think about those days.
In 2014, our assembly discovered that prisoners who had fulfilled twenty-five years and reached the age of sixty could become qualified for discharge. I might appear before the parole committee in 2029 in place of 2046. “There is substantial discussion transpiring within the B.P.H. presently to modify their approach,” a prior member of the parole board and psychiatrist informed us. “Barring any notable cause for worry, they are allegedly to grant you the advantage of any uncertainty and grant you your release.”
In 2015, the individual providing care for my mother set up a phone call between my mother and I, in the hope that a recognizable sound might cut through her escalating dementia. She appeared not to know who I was. Afterwards that year, when I attempted to send my mother a seasonal card for Christmas, I became aware that she had passed away. As a result of my actions, both of my progenitors had died in seclusion within unfamiliar settings, without their only offspring there to care for them.
Following another relocation, I shared my space with someone in their seventies who anticipated dying in prison. Each morning, while cleaning my teeth and brewing coffee, I checked to ascertain if he was still alive. I knew I could be in his position one day.
Then, I was given a puzzling correspondence from Ambere consisting of a single sentence. We had not communicated in several years, but now she appeared eager to reconnect. I entered her outdated digits by memory. Moments went by as an automated mechanism prompted her to compensate for the communication. Ultimately, I perceived her friendly voice on the other end. She had the desire to inform me regarding her current life. She came across as content and robust.
I used that period consuming food, reposing, exercising, and conversing with Ambere. Every day, I was allowed three hours outdoors within a concrete and asphalt enclosure where untamed geese would at times assemble in groups nearby. I listened to Swift’s earlier compilations, “Fearless” and “Speak Now,” which Ambere viewed as unsubstantial and following a rigid pattern. “You had the habit of listening to worthwhile music,” she joked. “What has taken place?” We spoke as friends, but I knew that she was there, and that gave me assurance that I would be able to make it until 2029.
On a day in 2017, after a transfer to San Quentin State Penitentiary, I took notice of a collection of individuals congregating near a bar for pull-ups in the recreational area. They were posing questions to one another concerning the notions that emerge during parole hearings: causative elements, triggers that are internal or external, abilities to cope. “What is your purpose?” I inquired. “With all due respect, why are you all assembled in this location if you are not engaging in physical training?”
“What is it that you authentically regard as crucial?” one of them asked me. “Liberty? Or performing pull-ups?”
Until that point, my tactic for acquiring parole had been to endure confinement without any recorded offenses. Yet everyone around me seemed to be pursuing discharge by optimizing their assignments within the penitentiary, their education, their involvement in assemblies designed to help themselves. I was not fond of the concept of rehearsing whatever we believed the parole board wished to hear. I was starting to comprehend that any route toward emancipation, for me, would be obliged to incorporate a tangible sense of self-fulfillment. I wished to endeavor to be an enhanced version of myself.
I started to report narratives for the San Quentin News, a paper accepted by the facility, providing information concerning what I perceived as the culture of rehabilitation. Imprisonment had made me pessimistic, yet I was moved by a selection of the individuals about whom I composed articles. I observed an assemblage of young offenders—men who had grown into adults within the correctional facility—attempt to recover a fraction of the innocence they had relinquished. At their gatherings, conducted on Thursdays, they would at times engage in charades or Pictionary. Additionally, they motivated men similar to me to donate our meager funds to beneficial endeavors, such as residences for youth in peril and advice for offspring with incarcerated parents.
One specific individual arose often in my reporting: Heidi Rummel, a legal representative and proponent for reform situated at the University of Southern California. When I contacted her, I would press the telephone against my shoulder so that I would be able to record details rapidly in a writing tablet. “You are required to have the ability to fully address and react to three uncomplicated queries,” Heidi articulated, in connection with the parole process. “What was the nature of my actions? What led me to perform them? And how have I evolved? If you lack an understanding of your transgression and the intrinsic aspects that motivated you to arrive at those judgments, then the Committee cannot have confidence in your not making those comparable regrettable selections once more.”
III. Karma
The years of the pandemic changed who I was. I endured a coronavirus disease when a multitude of the individuals I knew did not. Subsequent to that, each interaction with others seemed valuable and possibly fleeting. Ambere and I had not been communicating for a couple of years, but we were concerned regarding the welfare of the other and reestablished contact again. Meanwhile, California attempted to reduce the overwhelming amount of individuals incarcerated by making a recent assembly of individuals qualified for release. At this point, I would be obliged to fulfill twenty years and achieve the age of fifty—a threshold that I would surpass in 2023. By myself within my cell, I gave ear to “Folklore” and “Evermore,” albums that Swift made available in 2020. “Time, wondrous time / Gave me the blues and then purple-pink skies,” Swift articulates in “Invisible String.”
And isn’t it just so pretty to think
All along there was some
Invisible string
Tying you to me?
During an advisory session conducted by the B.P.H. in 2022, a commissioner informed me that I had the possibility of appearing before the Committee in the ensuing year or so. “Prepare yourself,” he stated. “It would not reflect positively on you to receive a formal admonishment in the period between now and your session.” Ambere warned me to avoid calling attention to myself. I commenced writing a written piece regarding my fondness for Taylor Swift’s musical creations, influenced by her compilation “Midnights.” However, I had simultaneously been chosen to lead San Quentin’s Inmate Advisory Council, a position that obligated me to express the complaints of the general population. It accompanied exceptional rights that I took pleasure in displaying conspicuously, such as admittance to the entirety of the grounds and private conversations with the superintendent. I persuaded him that I should be accommodated without a roommate whenever possible.
One particular sergeant was inclined to allocate me cellmates in any case, possibly to put me to the test. When I questioned him about it, he posed the query, “Precisely who do you think you are?” Thus, I proceeded up the sequence of power and requested his captain to become involved on my behalf. The captain engaged in a muted exchange with the sergeant directly in front of me, and I grinned smugly under a face covering while the sergeant glared.
I shortly thereafter lodged grievances with officials regarding their procedure of locking us within locations for bathing without supervision, seemingly as a method of asserting dominance. The procedure persisted, so I conversed with the warden. He directed them to discontinue it. Initially, I gloated regarding my accomplishment. Personnel commenced confronting me when I proceeded to bathe. I merely shrugged my shoulders and departed. I experienced a sense of being invulnerable. At that point, I obtained a notification in the mail. An official had officially reprimanded me for bathing in an “unauthorized” fashion, claiming that I had contested authority and disregarded direct directives. Suddenly, my unblemished past was stained.
The heaviness of that individual page compelled me toward recent depths of humiliation and self-hatred. Was it payback? Had I failed to gain knowledge from all these years? Afterwards that week, an official put me in restrictive housing—the Hole—on the basis that I posed a threat to security. Classified informants had ostensibly accused me of inflammatory remarks. I spent Christmas and the first day of the New Year in complete isolation.
Once per week, if I was fortunate, officials escorted me to a telephonic enclosure, where I usually called Ambere. I was refused admittance to my possessions. Acquaintances mailed me paper free of markings so that I would be able to persist in working on my literary work concerning Taylor Swift. No implements for writing were authorized within the Hole—merely the delicate reservoirs of pigment from inside writing implements. I was required to wind paper densely around the pigment containers, affixing the paper into place using wet cleanser, and wait for all components to become desiccated.
I changed my pattern of sleep to have the option of working during the tranquil hours of night. We had the option of listening to melodies exclusively by making use of radios that were small and hand-cranked, and I persevered through interference to hear “Anti-Hero,” “Karma,” and “Snow on the Beach.” I composed writing concerning the particular relevance I discovered within “Daylight,” a song that concludes with a genuine recording of Swift speaking. “I aspire to be defined by the aspects that I cherish,” she states. “Not the aspects that I despise, not the aspects that I dread, the aspects that haunt me during the middle of the night.”
Following six months within the Hole, I was moved to High Desert State Penitentiary. I contacted Heidi. I wished to ascertain whether my term in restrictive housing would sabotage my release hearing. “They are going to pose questions,” she informed me.
IV. Labyrinth
In September of 2023, The New Yorker disseminated my composition, “Listening to Taylor Swift in Prison.” My editor informed me that it became highly popular on Facebook and Twitter—platforms that I had never even utilized, due to their not being in existence when I was apprehended. My piece did not mention Ambere by identity, but when she distributed the URL to her associates and close relatives, her mother informed her that possibly we were meant to be jointly subsequent to everything. I asked Heidi to act as my legal counsel for release and, in time, she consented. “I would like to express myself with clarity,” she stated. “I do not have the time for dishonest behavior or nonsense. I require you to be completely honest with me, concerning everything. That constitutes the exclusive manner in which I function.” Ambere compensated for Heidi’s payments to attorneys. “You do not belong in that environment,” she conveyed to me.
My session for release was ultimately scheduled for April of 2024. Heidi provided a cautionary statement. “I am aware that you take pride in your contributions, but do not portray yourself as a highly regarded individual within the correctional system,” she stated. “Do not embody that persona.”
I commenced preparing for an assessment administered by a specialist in forensic psychology. “It does not constitute a competition for attractiveness,” Heidi stated. “It serves as an assessment of hazard. Specialists in psychology are educated to perceive beyond deceptive practices to assess the circumstances that are genuinely occurring.” She instructed me to embody my authentic self, but I was cognizant that my assurance could come across as abrasive. Had I embodied my authentic self in 2003, when I had incited Earl’s irritation and then acted in an excessive manner in response to it? Or in 2022, when officers stated that I challenged their authority?
In connection with the assessment, I occupied a position facing a display screen within an area adorned with flags of the United States and of California. A female individual’s facial features materialized. The psychologist’s inquiries—concerning my early years, my encounters involving intoxicating substances, my documented conduct within the correctional system—came across as deliberately neutral. “I observe that you do not possess an allocation to an assignment nor any existing programming at this moment,” she stated. “What actions do you perform to occupy your time?”
I perceived myself conveying to her, with a sense of pride, that I remained a busy individual even in the absence of an assignment. I was a journalist. I composed writing for external publications. When she inquired as to the significance I attached to that assertion, I made the attempt to suppress a grin. “In effect, I had an article published in The New Yorker during the previous September,” I responded.
“Are you stating that you had something published in The New Yorker?”
I provided her with details concerning my composition. I elucidated that journalism had provided me with instruction in the examination of reality, inclusive of the selections I had made throughout my existence, from a multitude of vantage points. Possibly that constituted rehabilitation?
For the duration of the ensuing thirty days, as wintertime snowfall diminished into frigid precipitation, I experienced anxiety regarding the written pronouncements the psychologist would commit to paper. I ultimately perused her written assessment, in isolation within my frigid chamber, and I was cognizant that my destiny was committed to writing somewhere within it.
“Over time, the individual being examined has cast off the preponderance of his excessive self-esteem and egotism, even though he unquestionably does not exhibit a dearth of assurance at this moment,” she wrote. “He acknowledged that he at times projects an attitude of arrogance, and at the time when the transgression occurred, he possessed restricted empathetic ability.” The assessment referenced my extended duration in the absence of recorded infractions of conduct, acts of violence, or utilization of intoxicating substances as substantiation that I was not behaving “for the objectives of manipulative strategies intended to create a positive impression”—she did not form the belief that I was deceiving others—but in preference to that, that I had effected “modifications that will be in place for the extended term.” To my astonishment, the psychologist referenced my composition within a section termed “Rehabilitative Programs/Self-Help.” She inferred that my hazard of perpetrating acts of violence sometime in the future was minimal. Upon perceiving those pronouncements, I wept.
Heidi transmitted to the B.P.H. an extensive compilation in connection with release, which incorporated written reflections originating from me and correspondence providing endorsement originating from associates and colleagues. I contacted Ambere on a daily basis. “All that you retain the ability to perform at this moment is to proceed within that venue and articulate your position,” she stated. During the forenoon of my session concerning release, I arose at 6:15 A.M. in response to the accustomed sounds of doors being closed forcefully and echoes of articulated statements. I ingested breakfast within the refectory by myself. When an official made an appearance in order to obtain me, I experienced a characteristic of tranquil emptiness. My years within the correctional system had furnished me with instruction in the acceptance of the circumstances that lay beyond my jurisdiction.
I situated myself within the worn chair from which I had articulated my sentiments to the psychologist. From a slender folder of notations, I eliminated a pair of images—individual reminders of the associated hazards. One consisted of my progenitors. The other consisted of Ambere, displaying a self-assured smile as she positioned her hand upon her hip.
At 8:37 A.M., Heidi and I entered into a virtual assembly. The family of the person who sustained the loss has authorization to be present during sessions regarding release, hence I anticipated that the relatives of Earl would be in attendance, but merely a duo of commissioners from the B.P.H. were present. I acknowledged the presiding commissioner as an individual who had been employed as a correction officer for his entire career, and who had been elevated to the position of superintendent at San Quentin—a background that induced apprehension in me. “We are not assembled here in order to reconsider the conclusions of the courts that conducted the trial and/or heard the appeals, nor are we assembled here in order to conduct a second trial of your matter,” he stated. “Alternatively, the objective of the session being conducted at this moment is to ascertain the individual you embody at this moment and irrespective of whether you would constitute an unreasonable hazard to society if you were to be discharged.”
Both commissioners took exception to the manner in which I delineated the transgression I had perpetrated. Earl and I had engaged in dialogue in an argumentative manner and had been involved in physical conflict. He had directed my personal firearm toward me, and we had struggled with violence for the purpose of securing control, in the manner I had attested to during the trial. The deputy commissioner appeared to believe that I was alluding to self-defense. Subsequently, when we engaged in dialogue concerning my challenging period of service on the Inmate Advisory Council, the presiding commissioner manifested the appearance of suppressing a muted chuckle. Possibly an individual who had formerly been a warden would, paradoxically, comprehend the circumstances I had undergone.
They barely made inquiries of me concerning instruction or employment. “Your matter possesses a degree of uniqueness,” the deputy commissioner stated. “You distinctly possess the capacity to sustain yourself, and you possess instruction.” I had been presented with a fellowship in journalism from U.C. Berkeley in recent times. But both of the men made inquiries of me concerning the recent instance of being formally reprimanded. I possessed the capacity to have managed that particular scenario with a heightened degree of tact and a diminished quantity of bombast, I conveyed to them. In a brief period of time, the deputy commissioner was making inquiries of me concerning narcissism and modes of reasoning that are peculiar to those who commit crimes. I had long dreaded the possibility that the B.P.H. would discover that I was excessively refined, excessively superlative to conform to reality. Certainly, the deputy commissioner made the inquiry of me, “Have you at any time become cognizant of the expression ‘manipulative strategies intended to create a positive impression’?”
“I am certain that a multiplicity of the actions I perform have an aesthetically pleasing quality,” I stated. “I would prefer to espouse the view that this occurs for the reason that they genuinely possess that quality. But I completely comprehend that it is, to a certain degree, contingent upon the discernment of whichever individual is assessing you.” I focused my gaze upon the images of Ambere and my progenitors. The residual portion of my existence depended upon the ratings these men would confer upon my credibility.
During a recess that spanned ten minutes, Heidi manifested apprehension. “I did not harbor a favorable sentiment regarding that particular inquiry concerning manipulative strategies intended to create a positive impression,” she stated. “It implies that they do not maintain a belief that you are articulating the reality to them.” In a peculiar manner, I discovered myself bestowing reassurance upon her. Her closing declaration struck a tone that was temperate. “He does not contest or enter into argumentative exchange with the individual he embodied at one time,” she conveyed to the commissioners. But she provided them with a reminder of my documented conduct and extended to them an invitation to envision me subsequent to my release from the correctional system: “He will attain accomplishments, he will be oriented towards activities that promote societal benefit, and he will not participate in acts of violence nor inflict injury upon an additional member of the human species.” Within my personal closing declaration, I extended my gratitude to the commissioners for regarding me in accordance with my genuine essence, maintaining the aspiration that, with utmost certainty, they would. “I experience conflicting sentiments within this venue for the reason that I am soliciting the opportunity that I never bestowed upon Earl—the opportunity to depart without constraint into the brightness of daylight,” I stated. “I am certain that I am not worthy of such an opportunity within the estimation of a multiplicity of individuals.”
At 10:36 A.M., the commissioners adjourned for the purpose of engaging in deliberations. Upon their return, the presiding commissioner articulated their determination. “Based upon the criteria stipulated in the regulations and the substantiation that has been taken into consideration, we form the determination that you, Mr. Garcia, do not constitute an unreasonable hazard to the safety of the public,” he stated. “This panel reaches the determination that you are appropriate for release.”
V. Fresh Out the Slammer
California constitutes one of a small group of states within which a governor possesses a duration of months in which to negate a determination pertaining to release—a duration of awaiting that possesses the potential to constitute the most excruciating period of time within an individual’s entirety of incarceration. Acquaintances made inquiries of me concerning the rationale underlying my manifesting the appearance of apathy regarding the potential of gaining release, but I perceived the absence of any rationale underlying the act of engaging in exultation. Earl continued to exist in a state of nonexistence. I had forfeited twenty-one years that I would never regain.
In spite of that fact, Ambere was in the process of reorganizing her schedule in order to arrive at my location and obtain me. An individual who creates films of a documentary nature induced administrators of the correctional system to accord permission to him to record video of what would hopefully constitute the termination of my period of confinement. When I possessed an interval in which I was by myself, I engaged the compilation entitled “The Tortured Poets Department”—“T.T.P.D.”—on a continuous loop. It incorporated a composition of a romantic nature entitled “Fresh Out the Slammer.”
A duo of weeks antecedent to the conclusion of the period of awaiting, Heidi transmitted an unforeseen communication by means of my digital device within the correctional system. The office of the governor would not interpose an objection to my determination pertaining to release. “Welcome to your abode,” she wrote. During a particular juncture in the ensuing week, I would be discharged to a dwelling that facilitates transition within the urban area of Los Angeles. Ambere inhabited Los Angeles in conjunction with her canine, Winston. “He constitutes the object of my affections,” she conveyed to me on a frequent basis. “He has never abandoned me during a duration of twenty-one years.”
My concluding entire day within the confines of the correctional system was September 12, 2024. My customary weekly assembly of lifers evolved into an act of commemorating my release. I existed in a state of profound elation, but I simultaneously came to the realization that I would undergo feelings of missing them. I was cognizant that compact discs possessed no significance within the emancipated world, hence I accorded “Midnights” and “T.T.P.D.” to a duo of acquaintances. During that nighttime period, I contacted Ambere, who was in the midst of a drive that would span a duration of ten hours in order to arrive at my location and obtain me. We engaged in dialogue that spanned hours, until the application that operated by telephonic means upon my digital device within the correctional system ceased to operate at 9 P.M.
I packed my possessions and pondered the future until 4 A.M. An hour and a half subsequent to that, I was conscious once more, cleansing my teeth and abluting my facial features. I appeared to have disregarded the state of equanimity I had attained from a duo of decades within the confines of the correctional system.
At 6:05 A.M., an official materialized at the aperture within the entrance to my chamber. “Garcia, are you prepared to be released?”
I proceeded from the chamber while carrying a refuse receptacle composed of a polymeric substance that contained written documentation, items employed for personal hygiene, articles of clothing, and a collection of sentimental objects, inclusive of the apparatus that possesses the capacity to reproduce digital audio files and contained my compilations of musical compositions by Taylor Swift. Individuals were striking the entrances and voicing pronouncements of congratulation. “All right, everyone!” I shouted in response.
Within a restrictive chamber composed of cinder blocks, I occupied a position across from an additional individual who was being released, but we did not utter a solitary articulated sound to each other. We merely situated ourselves facing each other from within our distinct subjective conditions. I experienced the sensation of occupying a position within “Waiting for Godot,” or possibly the concluding scene of “Seinfeld.” A health professional accorded me Narcan and condoms, subsequent to my having made an effort to refuse them. “You possess the capacity to cast it into the location where refuse is deposited at a subsequent time, as concerns our sentiments,” an official stated, while manifesting a grin. I cast off my garments that signified my being incarcerated, continuing to wear a shirt of informal nature and articles of clothing conducive to physical exertion. The official accorded me a card, composed of a polymeric substance, valued at a duo of hundred units of currency and known as “gate money.”
One concluding conveyance that belonged to the correctional system conveyed me by means of multiple security posts to an intersection that was of a rural nature. I was disembarked upon the slope that contained detritus that existed contiguous to a thoroughfare composed of asphalt. The brightness of the daylight possessed a heightened quality there.
Ambere was located on the thoroughfare, manifesting a smile. I proceeded directly toward her, and we embraced each other. She situated her extremities in a position that lay behind my head. “You genuinely exist here at this moment,” she stated into my auditory apparatus.
We made a cessation at an establishment that dispenses meals to those who pass by and ingested the classification of breakfast that we had formerly been accustomed to consuming: ova, products composed of flour that were saturated with a preparation of animal fat, portions of consumable plant matter that possessed a state of freshness, and slices of bread immersed in a preparation that consisted of a combination of eggs and milk, for the purpose of sharing. In the absence of a certificate that attested to my capacity to operate a motor vehicle that was of a legitimate nature, I did not possess the capacity to be of assistance in the operation of the vehicle. But, for the reason that my release transpired on a weekday that possessed the designation of Friday, the office that exercised control over my state of being free on specific conditions did not anticipate my arrival until Monday. During that nighttime period, within an establishment that provided temporary lodging, Ambere and I subsided into a slumber that possessed a warm and acquainted nature, with her cephalic extremity situated upon my thorax and my superior limb coiled in a configuration that encompassed her trunk—in a manner that corresponded with a heightened degree of accuracy to the manner in which we had existed prior to my transgression.
I was not prepared to accord forgiveness to myself for the years we had forfeited. It was arduous for me to espouse the belief that I was worthy of such benevolence. But during the subsequent day, a limited duration into the period in which we were operating the vehicle, I espied the topography of Los Angeles materializing upon the visual periphery, and I commenced to lacrimate. I existed in the location where I had originated. I was at my abode.
VI. Daylight
On Sunday, November 3rd, I awoke adjacent to Ambere at 3:30 A.M. I required to proceed to the location at which aircraft arrived and departed.
“Are you genuinely deserting me for Taylor Swift?”
“Indeed, I am obligated to perform this action.” A fraction of myself merely desired to persist, persist, persist.
Roughly a month subsequent to my release from the correctional system, my supervisor at The New Yorker had astonished me with an inquiry. If there existed some approach by which I could be in attendance during the performances that composed the Eras Tour, would I have the desire to compose a literary work concerning it? I was necessitated to solicit authorization from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and from the B.P.H. for the purpose of traversing a distance in excess of fifty units of measurement from my abode, and they conferred it—contingent upon my supervisor accompanying me.
The performance that constituted the concluding show in the United States within the context of the Eras Tour was situated within the city of Indianapolis. When I arrived at that location, subsequent to my initial voyage by aircraft in excess of a duo of decades, I
Sourse: newyorker.com
