Here's something weird--Walter told me that prison was actually good, at least for him. When I talked to Phil about his time in prison, he never said much, but it wasn't anything positive. I doubt most anyone would say that prison, or jail, or incarceration for months on end was something good. But Walter said it was good. This was all before his accident.
Walter told me that when he stepped out of the yellow lights of Central Booking and into the acrid streets of downtown Baltimore, that he got into Austin's car and Frankie Valli was playing. He said he broke down and started crying, and that Austin kept driving, not saying much. Walter said that his bunkmate used to sing "(Oh) Baby Baby Baby" every single night while Walter and four other cell mates laid and listened silently in the almost-darkness.
Walter described the ride home as an ambivalent euphoria, a foreign sense of pure harmony, and I could only imagine--like a major blood vessel bursting with emotion, of freedom and safety and cleansing, of graciousness, an end to the months of longing, of longing to return to a life that would never be the same. He said he wasn't crying for any reason at all other than that his feelings, like himself, were no longer locked away; they were no longer dormant or put on hold, that they were free to crawl around the walls of his heart, swelling and pushing, bouncing and careening until finally bursting out the corners of his eyes. He said that hearing that song in Austin's car had unlocked the chest in his chest, the steamer trunk they were stored in, and that the song was the trigger, the crowbar that cracked open their seal and let them come wild and flyin' through. Oh, baby.
He said that while his bunkmate would sing, he and the others would listen in contemplative silence. He said they had a bond, everyone in jail did, but especially the six who shared Walter's cell, that moments like this reminded them that they were still human, that they could still feel, that they needed to remind each other of these simple facts. He said that while Kevin, the crooner, a forty year old black man who coincidentally grew up ten houses from Walter, that while Kevin crooned, Walter would picture his life leading up to his incarceration. Walter said he would think of Maggie, and how she would ask to take walks around their neighborhood in Charles Village, or down the green paths of Wyman Park, or even just around their own block on 27th to look at the old rowhomes. He said he never went, but would, at that moment, in his cell listening to the nightly crooning, most obviously do anything to go for a walk with her.
Walter was telling me all of this while we sat in my living room. I hadn't seen him since he had gone to prison. We'd known each other for ten years now, and in intervals of every couple days, weeks, months or years we would cross paths. We were sitting together in my living room, rain dripping through the crumbling ceiling, plaster littering the couch in melted globs. He told me that prison was good for him, that now he was almost finished with his engineering degree at UMBC, that after this semester, he was going to start applying for jobs. We had picked up right where we left off that rainy night, like we always did.
Where we had left off before that rainy night was before he went to prison, and before I had left the country, at my old house in P-ville, after we had discovered we were living down the road from each other. We started catching up again. He brought a blunt over. We talked about Salisbury, WuTang, our lost, sick friends, college. He had just started going to UMBC, and I at Towson--neither of us lasted at Salisbury, and it had taken us both a while to academically readjust. I had always known that he sold herb, but I wasn't aware of how much he was pushing anymore. That said, I wasn't surprised by the amount he was pushing because Walter was a yes man. Nothing could stop a yes in Walter's life, not even the ramifications for being considered a kingpin to both the city of Baltimore and the county. I guess it's all relative, but Walter has always just been Walter to me, and I feel like Walter has also maintained the same, genuine self-understanding--whether he was giving you a gram or picking up 25 pounds, he was always just Walter.
And Walter never said yes out of self-profit, or even for the wealth of experience; he said it out of the well-being of the people he cared about. I'm not saying that Walter went to jail for all of his friends; I'm just saying that Walter was there for all of his friends. He was the guy, and no one ever stopped him. If someone asked him to stop, I bet he would have, but no one ever did. So he kept expanding, and so would the people, all gathering under the radius of his giant wings. He was the guy, there for you when you needed him. He was unconditional--he never held a grudge, never raised his voice, never flinched at the request of a "fronted bag," met ya when convenient, and overall, never made it a business, at least not first, second, or even second-to-last. And Walter doesn't live with regrets; in that growing sea of all of those yeses, it's just how he operated. The only yes to which he would never subscribe was the only yes that would haunt him--Maggie's request to go on a walk. He brought that up in my living room, before the accident.
This story is not about the time Curtis stabbed Walter with an ice pick. However, I think it's important to mention because I think that's when Walter said yes to the game. This was freshman year, when Walter lost three grand of herb to the Salisbury football team, maybe more. In a way, it wasn't even Walter's fault. After setting up the deal between Walter and some old teammates, a mutual friend/ex-SU football player tried stealing a tiny nugget (for himself) from a QP bag. During the exchange, Walter waited in the car while the mutual friend attempted to liaison the deal. The mutual friend stepped outside with the little nug in his hands, claiming to "smoke a cigarette," only to have the players kick the door shut on him. Someone jumped out the window with the goods, leaving the mutual friend, and consequently, Walter empty-handed. After that, Curtis came after Walter in a cocaine rage, broke into his house, stabbed Walter in the side and left. Walter didn't even fall over; he said it felt like Curtis had punched him, but then he looked down and saw blood pouring down his hip. When Walter left the hospital a few days later, he never actually gave away Curtis's name. Anyway, I think that's when Walter said yes to the game that put him in prison for five months.
That was all before the accident.
tbc...
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