WEBVTT

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What I'm going to
do now, I'm just

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going to read a
little bit to you all.

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It's funny.

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What can I be thinking, right?

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What do you think about when
you hear the word "prison"?

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I mean, some folks,
they say violence.

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They say bars.

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They say time.

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If they know somebody
that's inside,

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they think about
how long it takes

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them to get from where they are
to hugging their loved ones.

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For me, when I think
about the word prison,

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I think about books.

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You got to understand that
there is no bookshelf in prison,

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no chance to grab something
and hold it, take it back

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to your cell.

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No.

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And to really get me,
to really understand

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what it means to live
distant from books,

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I got to take you back
to the summer of 1998.

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I should have been
basking in whatever

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celebrations come with
graduating from high school.

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I should have been
thinking about my prom.

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But the summer of 1998,
my world was like this.

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I was in solitary confinement.

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I was 17 years old and I
was learning how to bid,

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and it was wild because men were
yelling from 6:00 AM to 6:00

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AM.

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After a while, I got
acclimated to the noise.

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And every once in a while,
you would hear somebody shout,

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hey, yo, send me a book.

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We were in cells
that were parallel,

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which is concrete,
damn near ocean,

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a concrete separating us.

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And when you heard the call, you
would hear soon after, swish!

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And if it was a magazine,
it sounded damn near

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like birds swinging, like
birds wings flapping, swish.

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After a while, I got
my courage up, right,

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because I hear folks
call for a book

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and they say, where are you at?

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And then the voice
will say, cell 13.

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Swish!

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And I've realized that
books were a contraband,

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and these guys had created an
underground highway for books

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with a currency given for free.

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So one night I shouted,
hey, yo, send me a book.

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And the call comes
back, which cell?

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And I say 19.

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And I look out of my cell door,
and I see an arm on the ground.

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I know that man must have
been laying on the floor

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with his ear pressed
to the concrete

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as if listening for something.

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And he's swish, swish swish.

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He's so far away that
I can't see his face.

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And I can't imagine a book
making it from his cell

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to mine, but swish.

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It drops into my hand
like some kind of manna.

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The Black Poets by Dudley
Randall, you got to get this.

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I'm 17 years old
and I'm thinking,

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who would imagine me in
prison wanting to read poems?

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I was desperate though,
I had nothing else.

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It was the summertime.

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It was hot, I needed
to read something.

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And so I'm reading and I'm
discovering Langston Hughes,

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Sterling Brown, Lucille Clifton,
Sonia Sanchez, Nikki Giovanni.

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It got to the point where
I'm just stopping on names.

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Robert Hayden, that seems cool.

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I get to this cat
named Etheridge Knight,

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and I stopped by his poem,
not because I know who he is.

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I stopped on his
poems because then

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and now, I knew nobody's mama
who named them Etheridge.

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I'm reading Knight, and he
talking about 46 pictures

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taped to his cell wall.

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I had seven tapes to mine.

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And I'm like, he
got something there.

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He talked about
16-year-olds in prison.

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And I first came inside at 16.

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I knew somebody would
ask for the book

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and I would have to give it up.

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So I started writing the
poems down in longhand.

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Had to take it with me.

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Later, I learned that Knight had
actually served time in prison,

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and it hit me, that's
why beneath the poems

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I could hear him singing.

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Name a song that tells a man
what to expect after prison.

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Explains Occam's razor, you're
still a suspect after prison.

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And a wild thing is,
20 years later, I

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had wrote my own thing, Felon.

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It's crazy.

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Because if you skip
to the back and you

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read my acknowledgments,
you'll see

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that I dedicated this book
to men named Christopher

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Tunstall, Terrell Kelly, Rojai
Fentress, Anthony Winn, Kevin

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Williams.

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I did times with these dudes.

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Some of their names, I
only remember in dreams.

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The writing reminded
me of them, and I

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imagined that I was
writing this for them.

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Then I realized the
book is hardback.

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And in most prisons
in this country,

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this thing that I dedicated
to them cannot be slid under

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their cell doors.

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I had to figure it out, right.

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So I got with some folks that
had a little bit of money.

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And I said, we need to
make a prison edition.

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I did 8 and 1/2 years in
prison, and I came home

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and suggested that I should
make a prison edition of a book.

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A friend looked at
me and said, no, we

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don't make prison editions.

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We make freedom editions.

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So we got together, right.

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And I was like, you're right,
we make freedom editions.

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We made this here.

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You flip the pages,
it actually sounds

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like birds' wings flapping.

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An edition of the book
that's just for men, women,

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and children on the inside.

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Me thinking that if I slide
this thing under your door,

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you read some of the
poems, and you'll

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hear me singing beneath them.

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Name a song that tells a man
what to expect after prison.

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Is this Occam's razor?

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Am I still a felon after prison?

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Blur history, the
things that abandon

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you get remembered different.

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The things that abandon you
get remembered different.

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The things that abandon you
get remembered different.

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The things that--

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[SIGHS DEEPLY] I was in a
cell with Juvie, at Sussex

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I state prison.

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And we was at one of these
spots that ain't have hot water

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or microwave.

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So if you wanted to make
yourself something to eat,

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you would take some toilet
paper and you would roll it

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around your hand like this.

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You cup it at the bottom.

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And if you could see through
it, you got you a winner.

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We called it a stove.

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You would sit it on
your tin can toilet.

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You would light the
ball, and the flame

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would shoot out through the
center, all flame, no smoke.

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You would take your soda
can, tie it to a string,

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and hold it over the fire.

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By the time the fire went
out, your can was bubbling,

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and you could make your coffee,
and you could make your soups.

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One time, I'm in
a cell with Juvie,

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and I got the flame going.

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But I ain't holding a soda can.

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I'm holding a sheaf of my
father's letters, five years'

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worth.

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And Juvie watches me
hold it over the fire,

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and the letters turn to ash.

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Blur history.

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The things that abandon you
get remembered different.

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As precise as the
English language

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can be, with words like
penultimate and persevering,

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there is not an
exact combination

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of sounds that describe
only that leaving.

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Once, drinking and
smoking with buddies,

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a friend asked if I
longed for a father.

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Had he said wanted, I would
have dismissed him in a way

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that youngins dismiss it all.

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A shrug, sarcasm, a sharp
jab to the stomach, laughter.

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But he said longing.

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And in a different place, I
might have wept, saying once,

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my father lived with
us, and then he didn't.

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And it fucked me
up so bad that I

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didn't think about
his leaving until I

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held my first son in my arms,
and only now speak on it.

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A man who drank whiskey and
Wild Irish Rose like water

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once told me and some
friends that there

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is no word for father
where he comes from,

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not like we know it.

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There, the word father is the
same as the word for listen.

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The plants we passed around
let us abandon our tongues.

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Not that much, though.

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But what if the old
head knew something?

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And if you have no father,
you can't hear straight.

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Years later, my pop says to
me, son, why you ain't give

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your boy your name?

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As if he ain't know.

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Some things turn your
life into a prayer

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the gods will certainly answer.

00:10:18.460 --> 00:10:24.180 align:middle line:90%


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March 4, 2005, I walked out
of prison for what I knew

00:10:30.090 --> 00:10:31.770 align:middle line:90%
would be the last time.

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I mean, I came home.

00:10:32.760 --> 00:10:38.030 align:middle line:84%
And I would be telling my folks,
yo, I came home on March 4th.

00:10:38.030 --> 00:10:40.310 align:middle line:90%
I'm in my mother's kitchen.

00:10:40.310 --> 00:10:41.900 align:middle line:84%
There's a crowd of
people around me.

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And I'm like, I came
home on March 4th.

00:10:44.690 --> 00:10:48.950 align:middle line:90%
March 4th, I came home.

00:10:48.950 --> 00:10:50.700 align:middle line:84%
And they look at me
strange because you've

00:10:50.700 --> 00:10:52.575 align:middle line:84%
got to understand I only
been home for a day.

00:10:52.575 --> 00:10:56.130 align:middle line:84%
So clearly, they knew that
I had came home on March 4.

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And my uncle, he's like,
you mean yesterday?

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And I mean, no, I came
home on March 4th.

00:11:00.570 --> 00:11:03.180 align:middle line:90%


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Shit is wild.

00:11:04.890 --> 00:11:08.340 align:middle line:84%
I went to prison as a
teenager with other teenagers

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who rechristened
themselves with new names--

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"Righteous,"
"Mathematics," "Wisdom."

00:11:14.355 --> 00:11:17.320 align:middle line:90%


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My man, Chris, became "Juvie."

00:11:20.170 --> 00:11:21.820 align:middle line:90%
Rojai was "Fats."

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Anthony was [? "Abso." ?]
Terrell was "Born Star."

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And me, I'm around all of these
dudes rechristened themselves

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for what they might be
or become, and I said,

00:11:34.330 --> 00:11:36.280 align:middle line:90%
call me "Shahid."

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I looked it up, and it
meant "the witness."

00:11:40.590 --> 00:11:46.230 align:middle line:84%
What kind of fool am I, naming
myself something like that

00:11:46.230 --> 00:11:51.450 align:middle line:84%
and believing that I could
turn the first corner

00:11:51.450 --> 00:11:56.520 align:middle line:84%
without confessing
where I've been.

00:11:56.520 --> 00:12:01.750 align:middle line:84%
Last four lines of a
love song after prison--

00:12:01.750 --> 00:12:08.400 align:middle line:84%
prison killed you, my love,
killed you so dead that you're

00:12:08.400 --> 00:12:10.950 align:middle line:90%
not here now.

00:12:10.950 --> 00:12:17.550 align:middle line:84%
You never hear your always,
and brown liquor owns you.

00:12:17.550 --> 00:12:20.100 align:middle line:90%
Those cells own you.

00:12:20.100 --> 00:12:25.130 align:middle line:84%
And there is no
room for me unless I

00:12:25.130 --> 00:12:32.325 align:middle line:84%
call the police, the state, upon
my pistol, and set you free.

00:12:32.325 --> 00:12:35.650 align:middle line:90%


00:12:35.650 --> 00:12:40.210 align:middle line:84%
Dear warden, my
time been served.

00:12:40.210 --> 00:12:42.490 align:middle line:90%
Let me go.

00:12:42.490 --> 00:12:48.650 align:middle line:84%
You promised that some
of this I wouldn't

00:12:48.650 --> 00:12:51.680 align:middle line:90%
recollect after prison.

00:12:51.680 --> 00:12:57.750 align:middle line:90%


00:12:57.750 --> 00:13:04.470 align:middle line:84%
And my lover, my lover
don't believe in my sadness.

00:13:04.470 --> 00:13:08.700 align:middle line:84%
She says whiskey
and not time is what

00:13:08.700 --> 00:13:11.265 align:middle line:90%
left me wrecked after prison.

00:13:11.265 --> 00:13:15.040 align:middle line:90%


00:13:15.040 --> 00:13:16.810 align:middle line:90%
Maybe she's right.

00:13:16.810 --> 00:13:21.700 align:middle line:84%
My liver awash in oil, but the
dregs of a charred old cask.

00:13:21.700 --> 00:13:24.580 align:middle line:84%
soaked in barley's
amber, shadowed as blood,

00:13:24.580 --> 00:13:29.170 align:middle line:90%
dim as a cell in a hole.

00:13:29.170 --> 00:13:36.050 align:middle line:84%
Survived brackish prison water
only to become collateral.

00:13:36.050 --> 00:13:40.990 align:middle line:84%
The things that haunt
me still, drown,

00:13:40.990 --> 00:13:49.080 align:middle line:84%
now, friends say, in nearly 50
pounds of brick- hued rotgut,

00:13:49.080 --> 00:13:52.860 align:middle line:90%
spiritus frumenti.

00:13:52.860 --> 00:14:00.520 align:middle line:84%
A gallon of whiskey weighs
eight pounds, and I am riven.

00:14:00.520 --> 00:14:04.670 align:middle line:84%
And all this becomes
a man confessing.

00:14:04.670 --> 00:14:09.370 align:middle line:90%


00:14:09.370 --> 00:14:17.630 align:middle line:84%
My father, he took two buses,
a train, and another bus,

00:14:17.630 --> 00:14:20.960 align:middle line:84%
and then he walked
a quarter mile

00:14:20.960 --> 00:14:25.340 align:middle line:84%
to get to the law firm of
Attorney [? McClement. ?]

00:14:25.340 --> 00:14:33.330 align:middle line:84%
He walks into the building, and
he stops at the reception desk.

00:14:33.330 --> 00:14:37.470 align:middle line:84%
And it's a young woman
there staring at him.

00:14:37.470 --> 00:14:41.070 align:middle line:84%
And he says, my name is
Reginald Dwayne Betts,

00:14:41.070 --> 00:14:44.450 align:middle line:84%
and I'm here to see
Attorney [? McClement. ?]

00:14:44.450 --> 00:14:49.550 align:middle line:90%
And the woman stares at him.

00:14:49.550 --> 00:14:53.330 align:middle line:84%
And he says, Reginald
Dwayne Betts.

00:14:53.330 --> 00:14:57.000 align:middle line:90%
She says, I heard you.

00:14:57.000 --> 00:15:03.455 align:middle line:84%
And she's tapping on a desk,
and she's like, I think, Mr.,

00:15:03.455 --> 00:15:06.650 align:middle line:90%
I think I'm dating your son.

00:15:06.650 --> 00:15:09.830 align:middle line:84%
He says, nah, my
boy's been locked up

00:15:09.830 --> 00:15:13.520 align:middle line:84%
since he was 16 years old,
and he's still in prison.

00:15:13.520 --> 00:15:18.380 align:middle line:84%
And she says, nah, I met him at
this bookstore around the way.

00:15:18.380 --> 00:15:22.550 align:middle line:84%
And a few months later,
we ran into each other.

00:15:22.550 --> 00:15:23.520 align:middle line:90%
You know he in college.

00:15:23.520 --> 00:15:25.520 align:middle line:84%
We ran into each other
at the community college.

00:15:25.520 --> 00:15:30.480 align:middle line:90%
And I think I'm dating your son.

00:15:30.480 --> 00:15:35.100 align:middle line:84%
My phone rings, and I
see it's her, so I smile.

00:15:35.100 --> 00:15:38.090 align:middle line:90%
And I answer.

00:15:38.090 --> 00:15:41.520 align:middle line:90%
My dad says, son.

00:15:41.520 --> 00:15:48.150 align:middle line:84%
You see, no letters distinguish
my father's name from my own.

00:15:48.150 --> 00:15:55.640 align:middle line:84%
No signal for the mailman,
the postman, my employer.

00:15:55.640 --> 00:16:00.320 align:middle line:84%
The man before them is me and
not what follows after grief.

00:16:00.320 --> 00:16:03.230 align:middle line:90%
We are no goldfinch.

00:16:03.230 --> 00:16:08.090 align:middle line:84%
Instead, a kind of crow,
a murder of us looming.

00:16:08.090 --> 00:16:11.750 align:middle line:84%
Search your history and
find felonies and divorce

00:16:11.750 --> 00:16:13.190 align:middle line:90%
proceedings.

00:16:13.190 --> 00:16:15.290 align:middle line:84%
The online account
of our background,

00:16:15.290 --> 00:16:18.530 align:middle line:90%
a song of tragedy and regret.

00:16:18.530 --> 00:16:21.200 align:middle line:84%
A dozen men with
portions of our name.

00:16:21.200 --> 00:16:23.630 align:middle line:84%
Variations and
fragments, evidence

00:16:23.630 --> 00:16:26.000 align:middle line:84%
of being called before
a judge for everything

00:16:26.000 --> 00:16:29.900 align:middle line:84%
from domestic violence, to
traffic tickets, to something

00:16:29.900 --> 00:16:33.060 align:middle line:84%
called jury trial
prayer, and all

00:16:33.060 --> 00:16:37.880 align:middle line:84%
I did to land me in
those prison cells.

00:16:37.880 --> 00:16:42.690 align:middle line:84%
There is no way
to distinguish us

00:16:42.690 --> 00:16:46.410 align:middle line:84%
without a birth date,
a social security

00:16:46.410 --> 00:16:52.610 align:middle line:84%
number, a witness, and
the tatt along the inside

00:16:52.610 --> 00:16:53.460 align:middle line:90%
of my right arm.

00:16:53.460 --> 00:16:56.340 align:middle line:90%


00:16:56.340 --> 00:17:01.640 align:middle line:84%
Name a song that tells a man
what to expect after prison.

00:17:01.640 --> 00:17:03.800 align:middle line:90%
Is this Occam's razor?

00:17:03.800 --> 00:17:13.250 align:middle line:84%
Am I still a suspect,
a felon after prison?

00:17:13.250 --> 00:17:15.169 align:middle line:90%
Thank you.

00:17:15.169 --> 00:17:16.000 align:middle line:90%