18 October 2005 - P.S. Yer card came this evening! Made My Day!!
Dear Cait,
Haven't talked with you since the, what? 23rd of August. You doing all right??? Don't hear from you in awhile and all of a sudden I'm bombarded with fears, irrational or otherwise. If I don't hear from ya soon, I'll drop a letter to yer friend in California and see what's shakin' with ya.

I'm sixty now. Suddenly sixty. There was "nifty fifty" (which wasn't) but what the hell rhymes with sixty? Pixie? Dixie? How about ...DiXXXie's SiXXXty? Heh, heh. And you have a birthday coming up the 5th of November--right? So here's a premature but heartfelt Hippy Birthday Darlin'. Hope ya have a ton more of them.

Gawd. Some bad news today. Don't know if I've written about him before but my old pal from the Law Office, Dennis Fletcher, has gone to an outside hospital. This morning I talked to his Cellie, "the Professor," who tells me he packed Dennis out, which means Dennis won't be coming back. Liver Cancer, they say.

The last time I saw Dennis.. .maybe ten days ago ...I went up to ask him a legal question and he was lying in bed, bedclothes tossed off, and he had his hand pressed to his forehead, eyes closed. Asleep?
He ran this Law Office from 1995 until this past May when they fired him, using the excuse he'd been here too long. Best legal mind on the Compound, and now we are bereft of his experience. He was the classic "loveable curmudgeon." Guys would come in with these off-the-wall questions and Dennis would get a wild look in his eyes and would snap, "I un-der-STAND that, but what I'm trying to tell ya...." Only nine years older than me, but he felt more like a dad than anything else. So. I am sitting here in sadness because my old pal Dennis has liver cancer and is on his way to Rochester or Springfield or somewhere to die. The Feds have a so-called "Compassionate Release" program for guys like Dennis, but they hardly ever let anyone out. I don't expect Dennis to get outside, either. And he has something like another seven or so years to go on his sentence.

Big Chris went to the Hole the other day. So he may not be coming back to the Law Library. Sigh. The Beat definitely goes on but it seems I tap my toe in all the wrong places. I've been doing the stationary bicycle for the past week or so. Trying to put in a solid 30 minutes 6x a week. Get the breathing rate and pulse somewhat elevated. Trying to stay on the sunnyside of health and all that.

Guy down the range subscribes to the Wall Street Journal, so I am part of the line it gets passed down to. Read it five times a week. And it's surprising how often they'll come up with health-related articles. Guess all those rich fat cats are mostly in their sixties (GAWWWWWWD!!!!) when the body starts to go into this state of suddenly turning senile or watevvah and they got the big bucks to spend.

Anywho, I read all that stuff and am turning into something of a health fanatic, so don't mind me. Just who I izzzz these daze. But I read an article the other day about women and high-fat diets and it said there appeared to be a link. There's definitely all kinds of links for both men and women regarding diet and cancer. So this old boy has taken to eating even more cautiously than even before. Lots of veggies, beans and rice. Well, the reality is that in here there isn't a whole lot of healthy food a man can get. All the stuff I really like is bad for me. The grease-burgers they serve here are 90 percent artery-clog. So... I eat bland but boring but healthy. I try to buy the Vietnamese sauce that sort of jazzes anything up. Food. The big deal of the day here. And every now and then I'll eat something sweet. But trying more and more to do the apples and whatever fruit I can pick up.

I feel great. Little bit of protest from the left hip. Don't know if that's from the ultra-hard (packed) cotton mattress I have to sleep on or what. Maybe all those stairs I was climbing before the hip slyly suggested I transfer to the stationary bicycle.

My mother is 77. What's strange for me is that I'm still her son, but we're like both sort of old. I mean she is really there whereas I'm just sort of sticking my toe in the pool. But it's like we're getting closer and closer together and it feels so ... weird. Don't know if that makes any kind of sense or not.

Quite often I'll awaken when they unlock the cell doors. 5 AM during the week, 6 AM weekends and holidays. And frequently awaken waaaay before. 3 o'clock in the morning, for example. And then I can't get back to sleep so I lie there and sort of doze and sometimes try to get into a bit of prayer and meditation.

Sweet Thing... I really do not want to die in here. We had that little "maybe" mini-stroke last March, that "transient ischemic attack," as they call it. And I've been on one-aspirin-a-day since then. So I'm sort of covered as well as can be expected in that department. And I managed to lower my cholesterol to a healthy 152. Should get retested this go-round, bloodwork, so am looking forward to hearing the results. Am hoping to be down in the 130s or 140s. That's the key, Hon, to living long and healthy. Diet and exercise.

Moderate consumption of alcohol (whatever that means, probably like, um, TWO drinks a day which is hardly worth it, eh?) and NO smoking. Grrrrr. Stuff like that. Course I can't smoke dope for three years after I get out because they'll be piss-testing me all the time. They are so ... sick when it comes to marijuana. But I gotta honor my freedom, assuming I ever get it.

I am mostly in a pretty good frame of mind. But I AM concerned that I've not heard from you in so long. I know you have this on-going treatment schedule and I want to hear from you. I need to hear your voice and you need to hear the old man tell you he loves you and cares about you and is sending you ultra good vibes. Eh? So ...write. How's yer dad, btw?

I know I need to get writing again. I even jotted down a few lines of a poem that "may" be coming. Don't know. There are times when my mind just feels so... disconnected, as if I need another three cups of super-strong java.

The Spanish continues. I'm now at the point where I can communicate just about anything that needs to be communicated, so if I decide to head south shouldn't be a problem. And some of the guys are talking about Belize. Some of these countries sell citizenship for a few thousands. Well, more than a few, but not terribly bad nor out of reach. And I am seriously considering being an expatriate once this Ordeal is behind me. Wanna come visit and drink a Mai Tai from funky tall glasses on sugar-white sand beaches with palm trees nodding toward crystal-clear waters? Ummmm? That ring yer bell jist a tiny bit? Grin.

So. HOW are you.doing? Tell me what's up with the treatment. Where are you in the process. Is there anything I can do from this end? When should I call? I can call you in early November, if you'd like, so just let me hear from you so I can know when.

Rainwater comes in the office and I tell him about Fletcher. Dennis was always helping Rainwater with his case. Of all the inmates here in El Reno, Rainwater has the latest release date--aside from those doing natural Life. Rainwater is scheduled to get out in about 78 more years. He's in his late 20s, so.... Young, black, handsome. Stuck.

He shakes his head. Damn, he sez. I am SO sorry to hear that about Dennis. Ain't no coming back from that liver cancer.

And now I am feeling the blood coursing through my body. A slight tingle, the way I used to feel when I was training for the marathon. Did I ever tell you I ran the Honolulu Marathon back in 1980? The day before John Lennon was murdered.

Here I am. Over the fence lies the Interstate down which your sister must go now and then. I'm sure she thinks of me each time she passes, assuming she's awake. They have sleepers in those things, don't they? And it's that same highway that Liz and I took on our way to Arkansas, where I was living when I met you online, after Liz and I had gone our ways.

The other morning I was walking along behind a group of inmates. Their shadows swept the freshly-cut grass, the shadows all leaning away from the rising sun in the East, looking like a bar-code moving along the grass, with all those tens of thousands of dewdrops glistening.

Here I am, Sweet Girl. And I have two years and three months to go. But that's surely so much better than when we started out, eh? I have so much living to do, Hon. So many adventures ahead. I want to be the kind of old geezer you read about who's always doing wild and wonderful things, all the way into my mid-80s which is when I plan to die. That gives me about 23 or so more years to go, eh? And I will be your friend all the way, if ya want me.

My beard is down to my chest now. I've never in all my life had facial hair this ... this ... LONG!! LOL. And my head hair continues to grow, too. I'll either look like an aging hippy or a resurrected apostle. Take yer pick. Hardy any gray in the head, bunches in the beard. Go figger. At any rate, I didn't suit up, show up, volunteer to be some kind of whatevvah. I'm just me. And I am not too terribly worried about anything at the moment, save I'm concerned about you right now and hoping all is going well. And Dennis, of course.

Try to bring this letter to a close with this page. How goes yr writing? Any new/nude poems? I still remember that one you wrote from the parking lot in, was it St. Louie? All those years ago. Gawd, I don't want to go morbid on ya.

We're well into autumn now. When I go out in the mornings to walk the Field, it's still dark. Inmates move in ghostly circles about the track whilst a block or so away the cattle are still lowing. Some kind of bovine upset. There was a calf born about 3 weeks ago. I saw the vulture hawks circle in. Apparently the afterbirth was some kind of treat to them. Seven of them came flying in to hop and flop about the ground, big clumsy creatures doing thankless work.
AO u: n
Three more months and we're down to two years. That's not a whole lot of time. I can do it. Grin. I continue to read and study. My mother is buying me this Bible for'my 60th. It's keyed to the Strong's Concordance, which means it's a reference thingie, very useful for looking up the original Greek and Hebrew.

I don't talk much about my theological speculations as I don't feel that's your cup of tea. I see you as being a "natural." A person who is simply good from the heart and needs no instructions from anybody. So I don't want to bore you with what I'm working out in my own slow but laborious fashion. Still, it's something to center my life about.

My daughter Kathleen went to Japan October 1st. She had three concerts to do over there with her band, so I'm not sure if she's back yet or not. I keep telling her to send you one of her CDs so you can at least hear what's she's into. Good kid. And my ex- flew over also. She's full Japanese, born in Tokyo. I met her during her layover in Honolulu back in 1973. Sheesh. How things work out, eh?

I so look forward to competing again. Get my silk-screening business going again. I plan to make all the $ I'll ever need and I want to take you on a great vacation somewhere. Or ... provide ya w/ the wherewithall for you -n¬whoevvah. Big plans, eh? LOL.

I do appreciate you so much, Cait. You more than anyone else have been with me through this thing. I will never, ever forget you. If you were to turn and walk away tomorrow, I'd still be forever in your debt and would still think of you as one of those handful of forever-unforgettable people. They broke the mold when they made ya, babe.

Life goes on here. My dear young friend B from southeast asia...doing Life and he just turned 21 recently. Life Without. He was along for the ride during a holdup that went sour and someone got shot, died, and he was held as being just as guilty even though he was out in the car. Such a sweet young guy. Breaks my heart.

Hey, you. You're really special. Mark asked about you recently, as did Weed Head. You're the best of the best. Ya deserve the best and the best is just barely good enough for ya.

Aw....gawd, what a great card, Hon! I was sorta thinkin' (lump in throat) that maybe you'd forgot about me or...whatevahh. And of course it gets holes punched innit and goes straight to the Journal. My prima facie evidence that someone still cares.
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Tell me when you want me to call. I'd like to call by yer birthday if possible. Strange, how just hearing from you has helped lighten the load. Thank You, Precious One, for remembering me. I luv ya girl. Always and 4-evvah and one more day after that.
Remember that. 4 evvah yer pal,
diXXXie-siXXXty - LOL

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26 October 2005, Tues.
Dear Cait,
Fletcher died. Gawd, hon, it appears they got him out of here and rushed him to a hospital in (I hear) NORTH CAROLINA where he died, far from friends and family. Liver Cancer, or so the rumor goes. I heard several days ago and it was one of those major downers and pretty well trashed the day. Lots of long faces that day and since, as Dennis Fletcher was a legend in his own time, doing time here in El Reno. He'd been down fourteen years on this bit and still had something like seven to go. And he always thought he was gonna make it, right up until the end when he became so weak, tired, and sick that he just wanted the damned thing to be over with.

Sigh. So I've been dealing with that.

Otherwise, life continues about the same. I put my name in for Unicor, the in-prison cheap-labor gang. But it's more $ than I'm making now, but it'll take months to get approved, so ... one of those hurry-up-and-take-yer-time deals. Plus they'll take half of the check for that gawd-awful fine they laid on me. Ohwell. Part of the deal.

Been going over to the gym and putting in 20-30 minutes six days a week on the stationary bicycle. Work up a pretty good sweat and get the heart rate up, deep breathing and all that. Plus eating "right." Meaning cutting waaaaay back on fats and sweets.. This incredibly young (mentally, at least) 60 year old is hoping to last into his 80s. And that's something, considering how I've treated myself the past forty-plus. Lots of boozing and smoking, both tobacco and the marijuana.

YOU DOING OKAY?? Be sure to write and let me know when I can call ya. I want to call you on or near yer birthday, kiddoo. How is the treatment proceeding? Staying together in the mental/emotional department?

Hey, guess what I'm reading! On The Road by Jack Kerouac. Gawd, Hon, I'm digging it. I mean, I'm not that far into it, but he's telling about his hitch¬hiking and, Christ, I've done tons more than he ever thought of, but have never written about it much. And he's a good writer. I'd not read any of his stuff for, what? 30 years? Probably, at least. Just like I stopped reading Hemingway about 40 years ago. Gawwwwwd. Anywho, reading Kerouac and digging it thus far. A sadness, though, cuz I know how the characters all turn out. Carlo Marx is the fictional name of Allen Ginzburg, the poet. Just died a couple three or four years ago. Sad to lose him. I always dug on old Allen. And of course Kerouac drank himself to death at the age of 47 or thereabouts. And Neal Cassady died walking down some railroad tracks in Mexico in 1969 or there¬abouts. Remember you talked about one of Cassady's sons a few years back? And from what I understand, Neal had some other brothers, but was estranged from them. The beat goes on.

So I'm enjoying reading that seminal "beat" work. After all this time. I read The Dharma Bums when I was about 14 and it had a major steamroller effect on my thinking. Everything was romanticized. I hitchhiked to LA when I was 17 years old and was a runaway. Been on my own since I was 16.

I bought a "banana" radio w/ the Birthday $. It's your radio and I expect it to last me throughout the rest of the bit. And have it in the World. It has my # engraved on it, per institution rules & regs. Bright yellow Sony w/ headphones, little dealies that fit in the ears. Quiet. I listen to classic rock whilst over there pumping the bike. I think of you often.

This will finally wend its weary way to wherever it is worn-out sentences go when they're all used up and done. I just try to hang in there and not worry about the time. I find that time is going really quickly. Keeping myself busy with the Spanish. My new goal is to learn 360 new words each month. That's 12 per day and is waaaay too easy. But I'll see how this goes. I would like to be able to pick up any Spanish newspaper or magazine and be able to read it w/o having to stop every other paragraph and look up a new word.

And I'm studying shorthand again. The Gregg shorthand method. I was studying it and got discouraged and backed-off, but now I'm back in it. Thing was, this fellow that loaned me the book wanted it back, and that threw a wrench into the project. Then he got deported and by then I was off into something else. So now... found the book again and am back in it. Will keeep ya posted.

So. Are ya back working on the Hold yet? How's yr energy? Been getting laid at all? I sort of remember what that was like waaaaay back when. Heh, heh.

Gonna buy a bag of coffee this afternoon as my mind just turns to m-u-s-h when I go without.
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27 Oct. 2005
Fella we call “Tex” apparently ate a poisonous mushroom thinking it was the psilocybin variety. i hear he’s gone. that is, “packed-out – transferred somewhere.

Rain & fog. When there’s fog the prison basically shuts down for “security” reasons. We stand for an unscheduled count.

Aw, Sweet Lady, i think good thoughts of you so many times during the day. You deserve to be really and truly happy.

So…. you were married? Somehow i have a hard time picturing that! LOL. About halfway through On The Road. Leaves falling now and flies very annoying. In a short time the cold will be fully upon us.

Drive carefully and allthat. You ever see that movie Sex, Lies, & Video tapes?
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6 January 2005, TH,
Dear Cait,
Gawd, Hon, forgimme for taking so long to answer va. Came over a week ago and my brain just wouldn't work. And you deserve far better than gibberish at an 8th grade level. So here I izzzz, brain hummin' along at 9th grade level and... sheesh, what kin I say? Some days I'm just plain D-U-M-B.

Delighted to hear you're okay and that you're gonna stay that way. This world needs angels like you in a most desperate manner and fashion. And thank you from the bottom of my black, black heart for making my Christmas happen. It was all YOU, Cait. You are simply astonishing.

I bought one of those fancy scientific calculators (for doing algebra). I'm taking this "Bonehead Algebra" class which is just barely dumb enough for me. Kinda mathematically challenged, ya might say. But hanging in there with the rest of the guys. And some mustache scizzors, since someone ran off with my old pair which were getting kinda dull anywhich. An d food. Lots of ...ga.sp... ice cream. Musta put on 10 pounds over the holidays.

And ... bought this won-der-ful Greek/English Dictionary for doing my theological studies. Wow, Hon, it's like ... just about everything of value I have can be traced back to YOU. Little Ms. Amazing. Babe, one of these daze you and I will trip the light fantasic together and have us a major blast. Or ... maybe I'll just sit over in the corner wearing my Michael Jackson hat and grinning atcha from behind amber shades. At's my paaaaal, the dynamic Msallthat. I surely do love ya, Sweet Lady, always and forevvah and one more day after that.

Well, I tried the sweatshop thingie called Unicor from the 6th of December until the other day and it was ...um, NOT ME!! I mean, I picked up this package of welding wire and read the warning label: Do not breath fumes without adequate respirator. So I look around and the doors and windows are all shut and there are seven welders going and fumes and smoke are making everything look like a scene from fogland or something and even the young guyz are kinda gasping and wheezing and eyes watering and all that. So I reads further: Sez: Central Nervous System Damage Warning Due To High Levels of Manganexe. Whatevvah that is. Some kind of heavy metal, probably.

So ...I got out. Bailed. Ms. Wilson at the Law Library sez, "Oh, Mr. Dickens, please come back. We sure do need you." Heh, heh. Nice to feel needed. So Ms. Wilson is on vacation and should be back soon and has promised to hire me back. And I am just fine with everything. I can breathe again and...

Fuck. It was like this: the alarm clock went off at 5 AM and I was immediately awake and thinking, damn, I gotta go to that fooking Unicor in 2 hours and ten minutes. Dig? So I sit there and drink the coffee and kinda psych myself up and eventually put on the steel-toed boots and wander over. And spend the day laughing w/the guyz whilst trying not to keel over from the fumes. At 3 PM my head would finally turn off and I got to relax for about two hours. And then at 5 PM it would suddenly switch back ON, realizing that in only twelve more hours the alarm clock would go off and I would do it all over again--for 23 cents an hour.

BUT. At least I got to check it out so when you and I get together at a poetry reading or whatevvah, at least I'll have that to talk about. Plus all the rest, of course. The recent murder, natch.

FCI El Reno has been... choke, gasp, sputter ... SMOKEFREE for the past couple of days. Inmates who had thought they'd "just quit" are suddenly discovering their nerves have shed sheathing or something and are crawling ever whichaway and are starting to croak, Anybuddy got a smoke???? And the guvz who stocked up are selling 70cent bags for $5 and up. LOTS of profits for those budding capitalists. But the Units are already a lot fresher air-wise. My Cellie and I don't smoke (I got 20 months without awreaddy) so it doesn't bother us, but the others are starting to get a little wild-eyed.

One of the Montana Freeman types finally got out of the Hole after having been down since early March last year. About 10months in solitary. Russ, the Freeman, is still locked-up. We're getting a new Warden March 1st, so maybe Russ'll get out then. Seems he somehow sued the Warden and managed to attach his house and bank account' on some kind of default judgment. Man-bites-dog story. Amazing that they've been able to hush it up so effectively.

Precious One, I kinda think I'll be out next year. Ain't that a hoot! If they gimme six months of halfway house, should get out a year from this July. So keep ya fingers crossed. I'm expecting to transfer to N. Carolina sometime before this July. Could happen at any time. Shrug. Guess it'll happen when it happens. One thing about prison--ya learn patience. Not to get your hopes up too high or anything like that.

I have a lot of ideas for what I wanna do back in the World. Tons of ideas for t-shirts, so I'll probably buy a silkscreening machine and start selling my shirts again. That's what I was doing when I met you. But before that, when I was in Honolulu, I was averaging $100 per hour up on Diamond Head crater/ mountain. I won't do anything like that well at first, but if I can make $20 an hour I would be tickled.

I am reading like a maniac, taking notes, studying Greek. Whatever it is I end up doing out there, a part of you will always be a part of me. I don't wanna jinx anything here, but if I get out next year, I ain't coming back for no reason whatsoever. I'll have three years of paper, so that will mean toeing the line which I don't see a problem with. Hell, I've been down 4'2 years already w/o a single write-up.

My son writes that he's teaching some highly advanced karate classes up in Vancouver. He's one of the best in his field in the entire country, so that makes me proud. And we're drawing closer together, which is a real hoot. He's a helluva good kid. Bet yer daughters would love him, heh, heh.

Well, Sweetie, I will try to get this in the mail and you should have it by next Monday. I want you to keep on keeping good care of yourself. Loved your artwork. Wish they'd let us put it up on the walls, but they won't. We have bare-wall cells. It is such bullshit to see how Hollywood treats inside-prison scenes. Ain't nothing like that at all.

Ya going to California this March? When was that again? Hey, would ya take a bunch of pictures. And one of yer pal out there, the one I have the phone number of? Tell her hello for me. I hope to visit Buk's grave myself one day. Hopefully with you. At any rate, you're a totally free spirit in my books and I hope you always stay that way. And stay healthy. Gawd, babe, I want both of us to live like decades and decades and decades more. And even more for you.

You know I literally luv ya??? Hmmmmmm? You-are-the-ab-so-lute-great-est-on-the¬planet.
diXXX

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