The View From Scranton

Some Go Home, Others Go Back

They took another man away the night before last. The second this week. Seems he went out and got himself all liquored up. Then he had some bad words with the local folk at Sal's. Rule #1 for halfway housing parolees: Don't Drink or Drug. Rule #2: Don't piss-off the locals. Someone says something wrong to you, walk away. Otherwise you go away. Back. Guess the liquor kinda dampened the man's senses.

Now he's got at least six months of stir to do nothing but think about it.

The first con went to parole for his lie detector test and just never came back. See the cons who fall under Megan's Law gotta strap on the polygraph every once in awhile. This must've been one of those once-in-awhiles when truth got in the way. Or got away. Whatever it was he didn't get away with it. Bad for him. Not so bad for me. Or the community. I mean, even a con's gotta have a set of standards, right? And anyway, I didn't have to see him go. Didn't much care either.
Last night's case was different. Not because I cared all that much (truthfully, I didn't; we come alone, we leave alone), but because it happened right in front of me. When you hear the sound of shackles, cuffs and bellychains, then you see a man trussed up and taken away, you're heart misses about half of that long hard minute's beats. Maybe more. Breath stops too. Right where it started. Gets a cat to thinkin' about how tenuous this freedom really is.

And how stupid some people are for re-losing it. It's not like they don't know how bad it is to be locked-up; they do, and then some. Yet still some gotta go out and waste their precious personal time drinking with their buddies (who by the way remain at large), arguing with the locals (ditto), or, like one particularly filthy rotten apple, scouring the playgrounds and the parks and the internet for more victims. Good for them. Let 'em go back. And rot. World's too crowded anyway.

On a brighter note, one fella did go home. A Korean/Irish cat named Sam, who has the simple grace and good humor of those born cool. Talented too, with a penchant of the louder among louds. I tell ya, if not for drugs and geography, he coulda been a contender. Might still be. Now that he's been given his next last chance. Good luck, brother.

posted by John Hood. @ 5:36 PM