Hole in my Life

By Jack Gantos

The prisoner in the photograph is me. The ID number is

mine. The photo was taken in 1972 at the medium-security Federal
Correctional Institution in Ashland, Kentucky. I was twenty-one
years old and had been locked up for a year already— the bleakest
year of my life— and I had more time ahead of me. At the time
this picture was taken I weighed 125 pounds. When I look at my
face in the photo I see nothing but the pocked mask I was hiding
behind. I parted my hair down the middle and grew a mustache in
order to look older and tougher, and with the greasy prison diet
(salted chicken gizzards in a larded gravy, chicken wings with oily
cheese sauce, deep-fried chicken necks), and the stress, and the
troubled dreams of capture and release, there was no controlling
the acne. I was overmatched. I might have been slight— but I was
smart and cagey. I managed to avoid a lot of trouble because I
knew how to blend in and generally sift through the days unnoticed
by men who spent the majority of their time looking to inflict pain
on others. I called these men “skulls” and they were freaks for
violence.

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 Here we were, all of us living in constant, pissy misery, and
instead of trying to feel more human, more free and unchained in
their hearts by simply respecting one another and getting along,
many of the men found cruel and menacing ways to make each day
a walk through a tunnel of fear for others. Fear of being a target of
irrational violence haunted me day and night. The constant tempo
of that violence pulsed throughout my body and made me feel
small, and weak, and cowardly. But no matter how big you were,
there was no preventing the brutality. I had seen the results of
violence so often— with guys hauling off and smashing someone’s
face with their fists or with a metal tool, a baseball bat, a rock—
and all for no other reason than some imagined offense or to
establish a reputation for savagery.

When I lived and worked in the prison hospital— especially

after I had become the X-ray technician— I was part of an
emergency medical response team. I was called on day and night to
X-ray all types of ugly wounds to see if the bones behind the
bruised or bleeding flesh had been cracked, chipped, or broken. As
we examined them, the patients would be telling the guards, “I
didn’t even know the guy” or (my greatest fear) “I never heard
’em, never saw ‘em.” It was this lottery of violence that haunted
me. Your number could come up anywhere, anytime— in the dark
of night while you slept in a dormitory with a hundred other men,
or in full daylight on the exercise field while you strolled in the
sun. Once, in the cafeteria line, standing directly next to a guard, I
watched a skinny black kid stab some other “blood” with a dinner

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fork. He drove it into the guy’s collarbone so deep the doctor had
to remove it with a pair of surgical pliers. AIDS wasn’t a factor
then. The blood that sprayed over the food trays was wiped off by
the line workers and they kept spooning up our chow.

I wasn’t raised around this level of violence. I wasn’t

prepared for it, and I’ve never forgotten it. Even now, when
walking some of Boston’s meaner streets, I find myself moving
like a knife, carving my way around people, cutting myself out of
their picture and leaving nothing of myself behind but a hole. Like
most kids, I was aware that the world was filled with dangerous
people, yet I wasn’t certain I could always spot them coming. My
dad, however, was a deadeye when it came to spotting the outlaw
class. He had never been in prison, but he always seemed to know
who had spent time in the “big house” or who was headed down
that path. In his own way he tried to warn me about going in their
direction.

When I was young, he would drive the family from Florida

back to our hometown in western Pennsylvania to visit relatives.
Once there, he’d troll the streets with me in our big Buick and
point to guys he knew and tell me something wicked, or weird, or
secret about them. “He killed a man with a pitchfork,” Dad would
say, nodding slyly toward some hulking farmer in bib overalls.
“Look at his hands. He’s a strong SOB— could strangle the life
out of a cow.” Or Dad would point to a woman. “She had a kid
when she was in ninth grade and sold it to a neighbor.” He knew it
all. “He burned down a barn. He shot a cop. He robbed a bank.”
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Dad went on and on. I was always surprised at how many people
from such a small town had been in prison. And I was really
surprised that after committing such despicable acts they were
back out on the street. They were a scary-looking lot, misshapen,
studded with warts and moles, and I was glad we were in the car.

But not for long. He’d take me to the Elks Club, or the Am-
Vets hall, or Hecla Gun Club in order to get up close and personal
with some of the criminal class. He’d order a beer and get me a
Coke and some sort of food treat that came out of a gallon pickle
jar of beet-red vinegar— a hardboiled egg, or a swatch of pig’s
skin, or a hunk of kielbasa. Everything smelled like a biology
specimen, and with the first bite the red juice spurted out and ran
down my chin. I must have looked like I’d split my lip in a bar
brawl. Then, once we were settled, Dad would continue to point
out the criminals, all the while using his Irish whisper, which could
be heard in the next town over. He pointed out bank robbers,
church robbers, car thieves, and a shadowy “second floor” man,
known for snatching jewelry from the bedrooms of sleeping
homeowners. I began to imagine the entire town was some sort of
bizarre experimental prison camp without walls— a punishment
center where criminals were sentenced to living only with other
criminals. Dad snapped his fingers. “These folks zigged when the
rest of the world zagged. And once you cross that line, there’s no
coming back. Mark my words.” All this was my father’s way of
letting me know he was in the know— he had the dirt on everyone,
and it was the dirt that made them interesting. At the same time he

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made it clear they were damaged goods and could never come
clean again.

Dad’s keen eye for spotting criminals of all stripes was

impressive. But it wasn’t perfect. He never had me pegged for
being one of them. Ironically, in spite of all the fear and remorse
and self-loathing, being locked up in prison is where I fully
realized I had to change my life for the better, and in one
significant way I did. It is where I went from thinking about
becoming a writer, to writing. I began to write stories— secret
stories about myself and the restless men around me. While among
them, I may have feigned disinterest, but like my father I watched
them closely and listened whenever they spoke. Then back in my
cell I would sit on the edge of my bunk with my journal spread
open across my knees and try to capture their stories with my own
words.

For some paranoid reason the warden would not allow us to

keep journals. He probably didn’t want the level of violence and
sex among both prisoners and guards to be documented. My secret
journal was an old hardback copy of The Brothers Karamazov by
Dostoyevsky, in which I spent hours writing in a tiny script
between the tightly printed lines. I kept the book like a Gideons’
Bible on top of my locker and, as far as I know, its true purpose
was never discovered.

Someone once said anyone can be great under rosy

circumstances, but the true test of character is measured by how

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well a person makes decisions during difficult times. I certainly
believe this to be true. I made a lot of mistakes, and went to jail,
but I wasn’t on the road to ruin like everybody said. While I was
locked up, I pulled myself together and made some good decisions.
Like any book about mistakes and redemption (Oscar Wilde’s De
Profundis is my favorite), the mistakes are far more interesting to
read about (and write about)— so I’ll start with where I think I
went around the bend.

……………………………………………………….

I was nineteen, still stuck in high school, and I wasn’t living

at home. I had unlimited freedom. No supervision whatsoever. I
had spending money. I had a fast car. I had a fake ID. My entire
year was a grand balancing act between doing what I wanted and
doing what I should, and being who I was while inventing who I
wanted to be: a writer with something important to say. During my
junior year my parents had moved the family from Fort
Lauderdale, Florida, to San Juan, Puerto Rico. My dad, who had a
lifelong habit of switching jobs almost every year, took a position
as a construction superintendent rebuilding a beachfront hotel and
casino. My mom and my older sister were all for it; my younger
brothers were ready to live like surfer boys. It sounded like a big
party to me. I turned in my books, packed my bags, and said
farewell to my few friends and teachers at Sunrise High School
without shedding a tear. Since I had already gone to nine different

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schools, I was skilled at being a professional acquaintance. I didn’t
have a problem with saying good-bye to old friends and walking
away forever.

On the plane down to Puerto Rico I figured I’d never see

them again, and I’m sure they thought the same of me. New friends
were always around the corner. I didn’t speak Spanish so I
couldn’t go to the public schools in San Juan, and since my parents
didn’t have the money for private school we decided it would be
best for me to just go to work. My dad fixed me up with the
electrical subcontractor on his construction project, and right away
I found myself wiring hotel rooms. The money was good. Half of
the existing hotel was shut down while we added two new floors.
A lot of the workers were from the States and one of the perks of
the job was that they were given hotel rooms to live in. I was, too.
This was ideal. I had privacy. I had my own TV. I even had maid
service— didn’t have to make a bed or pick a wet towel off the
floor for half a year. Plus, my parents lived in an apartment a block
away. Each evening after I showered in my hotel room, I would
carry my dirty laundry down the street where I joined the family
for dinner. Afterward, I’d go back to the hotel with clean laundry
and play cards with the other electrical workers who lived down
the hall. They were nice older guys who flew in from Miami every
week to make fast money working double shifts. They let me drink
a little, but not too much. And they let me lose a little, but not too
much.

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 On the weekends they’d fly home and I’d drink a little too
much and wander around the tourist zones. I’d go to the casinos at
the El San Juan and Americana. I’d imagine I was James Bond
meeting beautiful older women at the roulette tables and walking
arm in arm up to their rooms where something dangerously exotic
might happen. But the only arm I managed to warm up was on the
slot machines. I loved playing them. The flashing lights and the
sound of the gears spinning and the wild thrill of the jingling coins
pouring into the metal pay-tray and the waitresses dressed in
skimpy outfits bringing me free drinks for good tips was a blast.
And if I lost too much I’d hop up and walk for an hour down the
beach and look out at the stars and listen to the surf and inhale the
whole world’s briny smell rising from the ocean I loved. Then it
never felt as if I had lost. And once, I had won so much I stood on
the beach in the moonlight skipping silver quarters across the calm
water as the little waves pawed the shore.

But after a while, I began to think of school again. Besides, I

knew nothing about electricity and nearly electrocuted myself
several times. After I had melted my third pair of Klein sidecutters
and scorched a number of body parts while working on live wires,
I admitted that electrical work was not in my future and I made the
decision to get my high school diploma. After six months on the
job I had saved enough money to afford a private school. But I
couldn’t get in. My grades had always been mediocre, and given
that I had never finished eleventh grade, the private schools in San
Juan wouldn’t accept me as a senior. The thought of repeating

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eleventh grade was too depressing. I talked to my parents and they
arranged for me to return to my cast-off school back in Florida and
live with a family who had an extra room. My parents thought this
was the best opportunity for me. I had my savings and had never
been much trouble, so they must have reasoned it was an
opportunity for me to spread my wings and make something of
myself. I packed my bags, said good-bye to my family, and
returned to Fort Lauderdale.

When I reenrolled as a senior at Sunrise High, no one asked

about the second half of my junior year, and I didn’t volunteer any
information. It turned out that the people my dad arranged for me
to live with— the Bacon family— were desperate for extra cash.
My dad had met Fred Bacon while at an Elks Club benefit to help
needy kids. The Bacons had purchased a new house with a
swimming pool, had two new cars, and were raising two preschool
kids, all on an income selling mail-order prosthetic limbs out of
their garage— which looked like a morgue of plastic parts. Mr. and
Mrs. Bacon had limb disabilities themselves— he with a missing
arm and she without a left foot— and so were well suited for their
business.

“Can’t make a dime,” Mr. Bacon said one night after a few
beers. He yanked off his flexible rubber arm and waved it overhead
like a giant bug antenna. “All these old people come down here
with prosthetics that look like something whittled out of a baseball
bat. You’d think they would want something snazzy-looking. But

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no. They’re just happy to be alive. In the meantime, we’re
starving.”

So my rental money was welcome. Plus, with my new

grocery store job at Winn-Dixie I was always bringing home bags
full of dented cans, crushed boxes of cereal, half-open packages of
dried beans and rice, and frozen food with freezer burn. The Bacon
family didn’t mind the misfit food, but soon they found out I was
the greater misfit. It took them about six weeks to realize I was a
live-in party crasher. After having my own hotel room in San Juan,
I wasn’t ready to live with other people. I’d go out drinking with
my friend Will Doyle, and afterward I’d come home late and play
my stereo at full volume, smell up the house with cigarette smoke,
and make long distance phone calls on the Bacons’ bill. I kept
drinking more and more until I discovered I could drink lots of
beer. Nearly a case of it in a sitting. Unfortunately I was also in the
process of discovering I had no tolerance for that much alcohol and
I always became blind drunk and ferociously ill, spending almost
every night loudly heaving my guts out in the toilet while begging
God for mercy. I was a mess.

After one especially robust night of drinking with Will, I

stumbled home, crawled up the sidewalk, stabbed my key in the
front door, let myself in, and power barfed all over the living room.
After I sloshed blindly through that mess on all fours, I splattered
the bathroom, my bedroom, the bathroom again, my bedroom
again, until I passed out in the bathroom with my arms draped
around the toilet and my head on the cool rim of the bowl. When I
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came to the next afternoon, after the carpet cleaners had finished
their work, I was summoned into the kitchen, which had been
closed off with plastic sheeting and heavily sprayed with
institutional-strength air freshener. I was promptly informed that I
had to pack my bags and be out of their lives in an hour. Mr.
Bacon tapped on the face of his watch— with his flexible
prosthetic finger— to show that he meant business.

I didn’t debate their judgment of me as “an immature, spoiled

brat who needed a major butt-kicking in order to straighten up.” I
didn’t have time to defend myself. I suddenly felt sick all over
again. “Excuse me,” I belched, and quickly covered my mouth
with both hands, nodded my agreement to their assessment of my
character, and ran down the hall to the bathroom.

Mrs. Bacon limped behind me yelling, “Don’t you dare soil

my carpet again!” I didn’t. But I threw up something so harshly
acidic it left me with canker sores on the inside of my mouth. As I
stumbled out of the house, Mr. Bacon hollered out one final
warning: “Keep this up and you’ll fall flat on your ass.” I spit up
on the grass.

I spent the night in my car, parked next to the Dumpster

behind the grocery store.

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