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I don’t know if I lost the courage to kill myself or I gained the strength not to, but I didn’t do it. I kept living and drinking and doing drugs and fucking up. Eventually I ended up here. Unlike the rest of what I told you about, I don’t feel regret or remorse about what I did to that Priest, and to be honest, I think he deserved it. But it has haunted me. At that moment when I was kicking that Priest I could have killed him, and I wanted to kill him, and knowing that I was capable of doing that and willing to do it and out of control enough to do it, scared the shit out of me. I don’t want to be that way again, and I think talking to you about what I did and confessing it, if that’s even the right word, will help me to prevent something like that from happening again. Now that I have, and now that I have told you everything else, I’m finished.

Father David stares at his desk. I stare at him. I wait for him to speak, but he doesn’t. He just stares. I stand.

Thank you for listening to me.

I walk toward the door. As I reach for the knob, I hear him speak.

James.

I turn around.

I’m sorry.

You didn’t do anything.

I’m sorry anyway.

Thank you, and thank you again for listening to me.

I open the door and I step into the Hall and I close the door behind me. I take a deep breath and I let it out slowly. As it leaves me, so does everything I wrote, everything I said, everything I have done. It’s gone. All of it. It’s fucking gone.

I walk back to the Unit. My step is light and easy, I have a smile on my face. I go to my Room and there is a note on my door that says call your Brother at work. Beneath the writing there is a number.

I take the note and I walk to the Phone Booth and I step inside and I shut the door. I dial the number wait while it rings. A woman answers I ask for Bob Frey she says just a moment, please. My Brother picks up and he says hello. I say what’s up, Motherfucker, and he laughs and he says congratulations, you’re getting out. I say thank you and I ask him if he can pick me up and he says yes, he’s taking a few days off and he’s hoping that I’ll stay with him. I tell him that sounds good. He tells me my friend Kevin wants to come up from Chicago to see me and he asks if that would be okay. I tell him it would be great and he says he’ll call him. He asks me what time he should come and I say ten-thirty or eleven or whenever he can get here. He says he’ll see me at ten-thirty. We hang up.

The men are leaving for lunch and I follow them. As I walk toward my Room I see Miles stepping out of it. He turns to me and smiles.

Hello, James.

He shuts the door, starts walking with me.

Hello, Miles. How you been?

Busy.

With what?

My Wife is coming tomorrow. Doing all of the things we’re expected to do here. And I’ve been trying to help Ted.

What’s up with Ted?

Ted is looking at Life-No-Parole in Louisiana. I have been trying to help him avoid it.

Any luck?

No, I’m afraid I can’t help him. The Girl’s Father wants him put away.

Fuck. Does he know?

Yes.

What’s he say?

He wants to stay here for as long as he can, and then he thinks he can hide with Relatives in Mississippi.

What do you think about that?

I think it is very sad.

We enter the Corridor between the men and women. Miles nudges me and he motions toward the Women’s Section. I look over and I see Lilly. Her back is to me and she is sitting at a table with three other women. Her hair is in a ponytail and she is wearing a T-shirt. Her arms look too thin, as if she has lost a lot of weight.

I smile. I see one of the women say my name and I wait for Lilly to turn around I hope she will turn around, but she doesn’t. One of the women sitting at her table is the Supervisor of her Unit.

As I get in line, I stare at her. As I get my food, which is a turkey pot pie, I stare at her. As I walk through the Dining Room toward the table in the corner, I stare at her. I want her to turn around, I want to see her face. She doesn’t.

I sit down. Miles sits with me. We are joined by Ted and Matty