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>>22791
I don't remember his name; he was my very first cellie.
He was probably in his early seventies, thin, tall, and in excellent shape. His bunk looked ready for military inspection at all times — not a wrinkle anywhere — crisp, sharp folds.
He arrived just a few hours behind me. After making his bed up, he launched into an exercise routine.
I learned later that he had spent forty-seven years behind bars, more time incarcerated than I had been alive at that point. He started off with some minor infraction while in the military, and was sentenced to the brig. When he got out, his dishonorable discharge made it hard to fit back in. He would commit offense after offense and be sent back for increasingly long periods of time.
Life on the installment plan they call it.
He was institutionalized. He couldn't survive out in “the real world.” Nothing in forty-seven years of prison had ever taught him how to hold down a job or make ends meet on a paycheck.
I suspect he had never known a woman's love.
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