Okay, today I’ll be reading an excerpt from my poetry collection, A Generation of Dark, by C.F. Villa. The excerpt is from my personal essay, “Doing Good.”
I once joked that doing good was going to kill me. This was before I was sentenced to a lifetime of death. Before the people I loved had died. Before, when things died of natural causes, like a tired cigarette or a worn tire. And this is the part where an innocent bystander would say, “Doing good is not always dependent on the physical act of kindness alone.” And I, standing by my innocence, would respond, “Doing good can be just as violent as doing bad, and often you find yourself drained and dirty and stained in blood.”
I remember one year when I was much younger than I am now, and in a room lonelier than this; an old fashioned, windowless county-raised, state-based structure. The kind with cork board partition walls and chocolate brown, threadbare carpet. The kind with two chairs and a rectangle boardroom table. In the middle, a wooden box with huge plastic pegs for small, funny-shaped holes. And a psychologist who sidled too close to boys, who always stunk of Hai Karate cologne and antiseptic. Who had yellow nails and labored breeding. Who stared at you from over the rim of his wire glasses. Who liked to play word association and ask for personal histories. Where leather straps and iron cuffs and long chains were still in style. Where little men, like these, jogged down notes and determined futures of young boys like me.
He asked about my mother. I thought of a girl I knew who often stood under the colossal tree in our yard, her palms open, catching blossoms that looked like soft porcelain buttons. I remember how she collected them on her shoulders, in her hair, how I watched them bury her feet, as if burying was something beautiful, suffocating, tantamount to Savior. The way I just liked to watch. And I said nothing to no one. Least of all, not him. I said, “My mother likes two seasons: Spring for its giddy, brisk freshness and Autumn for its brilliant flaxen hues.” Something we all knew. He asked about my father. I said, “My father values work.” I know this because his face glows best when he stinks of paint thinner and automotive dust. I remember this even today. On a good day, I can still catch it in my throat on the prison yard, padding around in my circle. I hack and I smile.
There are times like this moment, like today, when I have to write about these things, those memories. Other times, I just like to sit in the cold and absorb them. Head down, fingers laced. My fondest memory was of a summer Sunday morning, 1973. My mother sitting on the sofa, her auburn hair in waves over her shoulders. Studious glasses tied on her face. Her legs crossed, her nose buried in the book How to Understand Your Dream. My father, with paint-stained hands, callous and thick, was bent over the ink of a newspaper at the kitchen table. I never knew what he was looking for, but he read that way every Sunday morning, as if his life was hidden somewhere between the lines. This was my life circa early 70s: the family buried in print.
Even I found the likes of S.E. Hinton enthralling. What kid wasn’t captivated by the adventures of The Outsiders? I too, wanted to go on the lam, but not quite ready to burn down the church, my mother being a devout Catholic and all. Should you remember one thing about me, remember my love for literature, for writing. I was born on the birth of this image. At one end of spy glass, we couldn’t be more detached. At the other end, none could claim a closer family. I was twelve years old, a fitting end for a fond moment.
These commentaries are recorded by Noel Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
