5157. MY UNCLE JOHN

MY UNCLE JOHN

My Uncle John was a prisoner in chains for so

many of his years. I used to visit him in Dannemora.

The guard would mispronouce my name each time.

My uncle was in serious sentence : he'd killed three

men over a quarrel about prostitution. Or was it three

prostitutes in a quarrel over men? I forget; never got

it straight. Little mattered. He was in; I was young.

He said they had him working in the kitchen. Spitting

in bowls of gruel. He like to shave the carrots thin,

after, I'm afraid, sticking them where they shouldn't

have been. A real character actor, this guy was.

-

He never got out  - died of a cancerous tumor on his

face after 14 years. Seems like prison medicine could 

have done more. I always thought anyway. They have

a captive audience for their own ways of experimental

medicine. Why not give it a try? I know my Uncle John

sure did. He could have been in star in any prison movie

ever made : I'd have gone to watch, for sure. Over and

over again; I always thought he was the best.

-

As I got older, every visit became more and more

difficult  -  what do you say to a man down on his luck in 

this way? Not destitute, mind you  -  everything was

takken care of; he was well-fed, well-rested, and all that.

Yes. But the conversations always lagged, nowhere to go 

with words, no sense of what to say. I think back - maybe

now, I realize, it would have been better if that film had

been a silent movie, the kind they used to make, before

the days of sound, and before the burden of words.