Author Archives: wendywelch

Trial and Punishment – and Life

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Jack’s Wednesday guest post is bitter sweet – –

Regular readers will probably know that I visit once a month with inmates in the local Federal Penitentiary (what a strange word!). I started doing this four years ago as part of the Prison Visitation and Support organization (PVS).

When I started I inherited two inmates from my predecessor and continued to visit with them, as is PVS policy, until they were moved to a different facility, as is the Department of Prisons policy to discourage close relationships between prisoners.

One of my guys was Bryan (not his real name) who was originally from Oklahoma (except he wasn’t). I visited with him for three and a half years and we got on well and always had lots to talk about. He was in for life – a real life sentence with no parole. Like anyone in that situation he needed some hope and for him that was continual pursuit of a successful appeal against his sentence. Our monthly conversations always ended up with his latest attempts to conduct convoluted conversations with folk ‘outside’ about his latest appeal.

Out of curiosity I googled his name and easily found details of two previous unsuccessful appeals. I was horrified to learn the details of his case. He had been the ringleader of a drug gang that had gotten into an argument with another one and folk had been murdered in various particularly gruesome ways. He never denied that folk had been killed but always talked of how corrupt the courts and the state justice system was, and how he’d been ‘framed’.

Notwithstanding all this I still found him to be a straightforward and easy guy to talk with. He was part Native American who helped organize a sweat lodge in the penitentiary and went to great lengths to stay away from any trouble.

Just about six months ago I went to my regular visit with him and he was much more depressed than I’d ever seen him and assumed he’d had a ‘knock back’ on his latest appeal attempt. But it wasn’t that. He had been having some problems with his throat that affected his voice and it had been determined that he should go for tests and diagnoses to see if he had cancer.

A month later we met again and he was euphoric – he had just gotten back the day before from hospital where he had had the tests and shortly after had been given word that he was clear – just an infection!

Then I had a visit here at the bookstore from the local Native American who oversaw the sweat lodge at the penitentiary. He knew that I visited with Bryan and wanted me to know that the diagnosis was premature. He had been given wrong information and the tests had actually confirmed that he did have throat cancer and it was beyond effective treatment.

By the time I went back he had been moved to a prison hospital and I never saw him again, but there’s a website where you can track the whereabouts of any inmate in the system and I checked on Bryan regularly just to make sure he was still in the facility.

Yesterday I did that and read this – deceased 01/10/2018

I don’t understand why I should feel so sad about Bryan’s death when I have lost quite a few close friends and family over the last couple of years. Folk who lived pretty blameless lives and certainly were never responsible for killing anyone. I know Bryan had done wrong, that he wouldn’t be considered “deserving,” but perhaps everyone deserves someone to mourn them, or just someone to talk to, even though they cause others to mourn. There are many reasons why I visit for PVS, but the main one is because even the worst humans are still human after all.

Maybe there’s a kind of justice in the way Bryan was given real hope and then had it torn away, but I miss him and wish he was still battering away at yet another appeal. RIP.

 

Angelic’s MONDAY BOOK

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THE STORY OF ARTHUR TRULUV By Elizabeth Berg

Angelic Salyer Veasman is this week’s book blogger. Thanks, Angelic!

truluvI attended the reading and signing of Berg’s latest release in early December 2017.  Kind of a Christmas present to myself. I purchased my book, took my line number and found a seat. I started reading the book immediately, while waiting for the event to start, but it was a week or two before I could get back to it again. I finished the book just after the New Year and thoroughly enjoyed it.  The author stated, of all of the books she’d written, this was her new favorite.  While it isn’t MY favorite of hers (that would be The Year of Pleasures), I wasn’t in the least disappointed. But, I’ve not read all of her books yet.

The Story of Arthur Truluv is several intersecting tales of loss and love, heartbreak and healing, family and friendship, aging and coming of age and the legacies we leave behind – intentional or not. While the main characters are Arthur, Maddy and Lucille, Berg’s ability to create deep, meaningful supporting characters is again wielded with her signature grace.  As with so many of her books and the lives she creates within them; you fall in love, learn to dislike, shake your head at, laugh with and care for these people.  They are easy to relate to; in some characteristic way or another they are your neighbor, your grandfather, that one teacher you had in junior high. Speaking of junior high, Maddy is in high school and I commend Berg for broaching the subject of bullying to her audience with a spare honesty that is still moving for the reader, without being imposing or cumbersome.

It’s a quick read – it wasn’t so much an I-can’t-put-it-down-kind-of-book – the story just moved forward, beautifully and effortlessly. The prose was ethereal at times, especially when it came to Arthur, who has a way of sharing his thoughts and feelings that is often poetic, floating through time and memories and  always a gentlemanly host.

Nestled within the pages of this little tome is a bit of advice or what could be considered an admonishment or even a challenge for some.  I plan to take it to heart.  I hope you do too.

Then Lucille says, “It’s so embarrassing to be useless.”

            “Why, you’re not useless!” Arthur says.

            “Yes I am.”

            “You’re just going through a hard time!”

            “Yes, I am, but also I am useless. I do nothing. I realized this was happening some time ago, everything falling off, but I made do. I had church. I read books, and the paper. I had my garden. And then . . . lights off! All the lights are off now. And I really don’t want to live anymore, Arthur. What is left for me now?  I am useless.  And so are you!”

            Arthur straightens in his chair, indignant. “I’m not useless!”

            Arthur rocks for a while. Lucille’s chair has gone still, but Arthur rocks for a while.

            “Let me ask you something,” he says, finally.

            “What.”

            “Did you ever hear anyone say they wanted to be a writer?”

            “Yes, I’ve heard lots of people say that.”

            “Everybody wants to be a writer” Arthur says.

            “Seems like.”

            He stops his rocking to look over at her. “But what we need are readers. Right? Where would writers be without readers?  Who are they going to write for? And actors, what are they without an audience? Actors, painters, dancers, comedians, even just ordinary people doing ordinary things, what are they without an audience of some sort?

            “See, that’s what I do.  I am the audience. I am the witness. I am the great appreciator, that’s what I do and that’s all I want to do. I worked for a lot of years. I did a lot of things for a lot of years. Now, well, here I am in the rocking chair, and I don’t mind it Lucille, I don’t feel useless.  I feel lucky.”

Angelic lives in Southern Missouri with her husband and their two cats and posts sporadically on her blog.