Cliche

In one moment your life can change forever. It's a cliche, but cliches have begun to define my life. One day at a time. Easy does it. Let go and let God. The serenity prayer.

I spend my days staring out the tiny rectangular window that sits directly above my bunk, trying to sleep in the grey fluorescent light that remains on, even as the prison yard outside my window turns to black. I want to forget, but I can't seem to forget what I don't remember and the lights remain a constant reminder. Guilt eats away at your insides until you are withered and hollow. It is a slow and painful death, and they have had me on suicide watch since I got here.

Blackouts are moments of time that you never get back. I don't remember the thump of the car or the blood. I don't remember if there were screams of pain or if I slowed down to help. They tell me I kept on driving, that I ignored the ten year old girl who lay lifeless and bloody in the middle of the crosswalk, but I like to imagine that I wasn't the one who hit her, that I stopped to call 911, that I cradled her crumpled body and told her to hold on and everything would be OK. I try to imagine this, but more often I imagine the thud and my car speeding into daylight while the girl lies helpless and alone, dying on the street.

But I want to believe that this is not who I am.

My cell has a stainless steel sink and a toilet. It took me one week before I was able to take a shit without feeling self-conscious, one week of constipation that left me cramped and uncomfortable, trying desperately not to think as I lay curled up in a fetal position in the middle of the night.

Jimmy is in the cell next to me. At night, he cries himself to sleep. He is just twenty-one with peach fuzz gracing his upper lip and soft brown eyes that focus downward most of the time. He is serving time on a drug offense. He cries for his mother and his girlfriend, but mostly for himself, I think. His crying soothes me, as if he is emitting emotion that I no longer know how to give. It is cathartic for both of us. At the meetings they ask what we are grateful for and I say I am grateful for Jimmy's crying.

At mealtimes I give Jimmy my dessert. He accepts it without looking up from his tray, but I hope that in some way I am able to convey my gratitude for the pain he expresses. He doesn't have a long time to stay--only another two years, but to him it is a lifetime. I don't want to leave this place. I do not yearn for freedom, only redemption and death.

On the yard, I keep to myself. I do not smoke or play games. I walk aimlessly around and stare at the ground like Jimmy. I do not care about the sun on my back or the cool breeze in the air. I do not care about anything anymore.

I know that I will never drink again, but I go to the meetings anyway. There are others like me, serving time for vehicular manslaughter. One man killed his wife and his son in a rollover accident on the freeway coming home from a party on New Year's eve. He had just picked up his three year old son from the babysitter's and was headed home for the night. He swerved into the other lane and was met with a semi. He swears he wishes he had died instead, but now he is like me, eaten away and waiting for death.

She comes to see me on a Tuesday. I can not bare to see her and so I feign sickness and stay in the infirmary the day she arrives. She writes me letters and I throw them away, unopened. My sponsor tells me I owe her a visit. He tells me to pray to my Higher Power for a willingness to see her, and instead I pray for death and forgiveness. I cannot make my amends. And the guilt eats away at my insides, carves a hole into my heart.

She comes on Wednesday and again on Thursday. I develop severe anxiety attacks and pray that they are a harbinger to death, but they go away once I am on the cot in the infirmary. The grey blanket scratches my skin like sandpaper. The heat suffocates, and perspiration soaks into the seams of my grey jumpsuit. They send me back to my cell in the afternoon. I lay on my cot and look out the window onto the prison yard. Leaves cover the yard all gold and red, brown and yellow. The trees are naked, now. Their skeleton limbs reach upwards towards a Higher Power that I am convinced does not forgive.

She comes on Friday and I stay in my cell, listening to Jimmy cry.She comes to me in dreams. I wake up drenched and shaking, trying to erase the vision of her eyes, red with tears, from my mind. I cannot shake the image, and I lay in bed, shivering and alone.

These are the steps we took. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol; that our lives had become unmanageable. I am still on step one. My powerlessness overwhelms me.

Another letter arrives. The envelope is addressed in curly cue handwriting, childlike and innocence. Each curve of the pen screams accusation, and I throw it away, unopened, like all the others.

The visits continue. I remain in my cell, shaking and broken until visiting hours are finished for the day. I do not try to sleep anymore. The dreams and visions come to me each time I close my eyes, and so I lay awake underneath the lights and recite multiplication tables to stay awake. I have to add the twelves in my head and I am glad for the extra effort.