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False Starts, Malcolm Braly. Memoir of San Quentin.

“The trouble with these jails”, Mick was saying, “is I can never figure whether I’m sleeping in the can, or shitting in the bedroom.”

“We walk and talk and the months pass. I seem neither to change nor to suffer very much. I am only waiting for my life to begin. But I am one of those who keep a tight lid, and underneath a lot is going on. I’m learning I’m mortal.”

“Anything could happen at any moment. The logical prediction was bullshit. The true nature of reality was madness.”

“If we depend on God for justice and mercy it’s only because we know He has all of eternity to straighten out His files.”

“The hardest part of serving time is the unpredictability. Each day moves like every other. You know nothing different can happen…..a month from now, six months, a year, you will be just where you are, doing just what you’re doing, except you’ll be older.” (kind of like living in suburbia)

About a certain though general C.O…“Our humor was made from our suffering and he wanted to share the joke without sharing the pain”…later he writes, “the only quality we admired in any bull was consistency.”

Great book. Check it out. I’m ½ thru.

Later.