30 April 2011
Dear Anne,
"There was a woman afflicted with hemorrhages for twelve years.... She said, 'If I but touch his clothes, I shall be cured.'" Mk 5:28
After our visitors left, Desmond said to me: "My son...he keeps asking when I am coming home so I can make pancakes. He tells his mom she doesn't make them right..." Anne, you say there's something hard about me. You looked around the visitors room and said "Some of these men look scary." If only you knew our own fear, how hard it is to enter that visiting room... Cole on Friday night was clean-shaven and studded out with slicked hair to greet his lover. Afterward, when there were only remnants of the neighborhood late night snack he had prepared, he sat sullen in his room with Don, who, hyper as ever, after failing to cheer Cole up was probably desperate when he fetched a peanut butter wafer for me. Cole said, "Part of it was my fault. I had left my ID in the kitchen and couldn't find it." That slip ate ten minutes away of the visit. his friend came at 6:55 but because of the delay Cole arrived at 7:35, meaning only an hour and twenty-five minutes remained for a visit. "They should punish us, not them," Cole said. "They shouldn't treat our guests like that Greg agreed. But always a visit is bittersweet. Today I felt numb trying to believe your presence in the blueness of the veins in your hands, how you flip your hair back, and the silver hoop swings from your ear.
Chris
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