Jail Time

He looked dirty. His face was really dark and he badly needed a haircut (and shampooing). Somehow his toenails managed to look clean. Aside from the pounds he gained, he was unmistakably the classmate I had 12 years ago.

I knew him even before I reached high school. His name preceded him. My Math tutor always raved about his knack for the subject that when I reached high school I wasn’t surprised at all. He was really good with numbers.

The room stank. There was no ceiling below the galvanized roof which made the atmosphere stifling. The walls were grubby and aside from a bench and a table, dilapidated furniture were scattered about. How on earth did someone like him end up in this Godforsaken place?

He wasn’t really everybody’s friend to start with. In high school I started to dislike him when he ate my dinner share during one of those stupid boy scout camp outs. I was so hungry that night that I left the camp and went home never to finish the activity. Somehow, others seemed to have their own personal grudges against him.

But that was high school. I never saw him again up until now, but talk about him impressing people with his math abilities in college came around, so I assumed he was doing well. The next thing I know was that he was behind bars for some drug trafficking case and now he was standing before me. He’s been in jail for two years now and only one person from the batch has visited him.

What was there to talk about but of old classmates, and then the similarity ends there. I wouldn’t think he’d be interested in my life, or my cat, so I just asked him what he needed while spending time inside. He apologized for looking the way he did as he wasn’t expecting us. He said he needed items for personal hygiene. And after a few more minutes of idle talk (because there was nothing more we could talk about), we bade him goodbye promising to visit the next day.

Before I left home the next day, I was thinking of what to give him to make his time inside worthwhile. I asked myself what would I want to have had I been in his shoes? And the answer came to me. Books. I found my old calculus book (its thickness can protect you from a gunshot) on a dusty shelf, and together with a condensed Reader’s Digest book, shoved it into a plastic bag.

He surprised us with a new haircut and cleaner clothes. More small talk followed until we realized that we were just repeating yesterday’s conversation. It was as if we were just waiting for visiting time to be over, and soon enough, the jail warden came in to tell us it was time to leave.

I don't know if he will ever have his freedom back. The law will be the judge of that. I just wish him safety and good health inside that forbidding place. Also, may he find all the solutions to the integral problems in my Math book, most of which eluded me. I'm quite sure he will.


There’s a lot to be thankful for.

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hey you former HS classmates of mine who are silent viewers of this blog, go visit!