Stage 4 Cancer

I have a friend; we’ll call him Marky. I was in Victorville prison in CA with him for a few years and we were locked down a lot there. Very violent place. We’d spend time together when not locked down and even when we were locked down, we’d shoot over on lines from cell to cell(called "fishing"), exchanging books and kites and food when we had it. He lived only a few cells down from me. He’s a very goofy kid and I never had a little brother, but I imagine the dynamic ought to be like ours. HIs family is in Montana(the feds put us wherever they like, even though they have "rules" that tell them to put us as close to home as possible. I’m writing this in Florence CO and I am from Phoenix AZ) and he didn’t get visits very often so he was understandably excited that his mom was flying in to see him on the weekend. Saturday came and he was dressed in his finest federally issued clothing and even combed his hair and they called his name over the speaker to report to visitation and then... "LOCK DOWN!" Before he even got out of the building, we heard the keys jangling and saw cops running to a different house full of people none of us have any control over and who wouldn’t listen to us anyway. So, we locked down, Marky included. And we waited. Lots of people were yelling out to him to stay dressed, it wasn’t a big deal and we’d be out soon. Hours passed. Visiting hours end at 3pm. That passed, night came. Visiting is the whole weekend, so we were hoping he’d get out on Sunday. The weekend passed, the week too and still locked down. No phone calls or word from his mom, that isn’t allowed on lockdown. No way to know that she waited that whole week and another weekend. No way to know that the prison staff coldly and institutionally told her again and again when she called that "maybe we'd be off lockdown soon."

She flew back on Sunday night. She has a job and family and can’t spend thousands again on hotels and plane tickets, couldn’t stay a third week on the hopes that MAYBE the staff wouldn’t be lying this time. By the time we came out after 10 days, she was back at home in Montana. Marky called that Monday morning, and she told him on the phone what she wanted to tell him in person.

That would have been the last time Marky saw his mom.