Bobby had just arrived at M-R and Dad and Sharon had gone to see him first. My Dad looked great-much younger since he had stopped drinking. Sharon looked the same.
"We only have a few minutes," she said. "We have to get home because we have company coming by the house tonight."
Even though I was getting better at hiding my emotions, I must have shown disappointment, because Sharon's tone changed for a second. "What took them so long to get you out here?" she asked.
"I had to shower." It was common for inmates to shower before a visit, even if they took one earlier in the day-to wash away any prison smells.
"Well that's what took so long," she said. "It's your own damn fault."
"It is not," I protested. Even on Christmas she was looking for a fight.
I looked to my dad for help. He was staring off at some people on the other side of the room. "What's he in for?" Dad nodded across the way.
"I don't know," I answered, wondering why they weren't more interested in their own son.
In the row behind my parents, an inmate sat with his family. There were six of them in total, and the youngest reminded me of myself, when I first went to visit my brother. I remembered how Rick used to brag about what went on in there, much in the same way this inmate was now holding his family's attention. I wondered what that boy would take away from the visit and whether he'd romanticize his brother's experience the way I had. Would he be forced to learn the hard truth like us?
"Well, anyway," Sharon said. "How are you doing?"
"Good," I said. We sat there awkwardly for a moment.
"Well, you look good," she said.
"My face keeps breaking out."
"I can see that," Sharon said, nodding. "How's the food?"
I changed the subject. "How's Bobby doing?" I didn't want to talk about the fucking food.
"He's OK, I guess, but it's a damn shame. He didn't need to get ten years."
"He should have taken a plea," I said.
"It's not right," Sharon said. "Your brother is the one who should be over there."
"That's enough," Dad said.
"We'll it's true, damn it. If Bobby would have just told them who he was with, he never would have been sent to prison."
"Now God damn it, Sharon. We said we weren't getting into this here."
Once more I was reminded that this was the home I'd return to after prison, and again my spirit sank in despair. What kind of future was that? And what difference would it make if I told them right then that I was gay? Sharon would probably have loved it. Something else she could hate me for. Mostly, I worried about how Dad would respond. He was always concerned about what others thought of him and my being gay would be a lot for him to handle. He hadn't been around that much anyway-and even when he was-he wasn't really present. But he was all I had.
"You have to tell you parents," I remembered Paul say. "It's the only way to accept yourself."
"I accept myself."
"Look, all I can say is that when I told my parents, it didn't matter what they said. I was finally taking over my life. It wasn't until then that I could start to be proud of who I am."
"Proud? What's to be proud of?"
Sharon voice was starting to rise.
"I'm so sick and tired of sitting in these visiting rooms," she complained. "It's a damn shame-to have to sit over there and listen to Bobby as he tried to entertain us. Like he had to make us feel good and convince us that nothing was wrong."
Sharon's anger was nothing new to me, but her sadness was. Bobby was her oldest son, her favorite, and I could see that she was heartbroken. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a hanky. Suddenly, she wasn't as large as before. I had spent so much time hating her, directing all my anger at her-but the truth was-she was the one who had been there a lot of the time. Seeing her crying, I felt sorry for her for the first time.
Maybe it was all the violence and terror I'd seen in prison that opened my eyes, but I could see in Sharon someone as frightened and powerless as I was. She was only twenty-four when she moved in with my dad, and was suddenly saddled with five kids to take care of. Twenty-four didn't seem that old to me anymore. Yes, I still resented her. However, she now seemed as vulnerable as I was. I didn't understand all of this at that moment, but I saw enough to pity her life.
She was in a rage at Rick, because she blamed him for Bobby going to prison. But not all her anger should have been directed at Rick. Bobby was responsible, too.
If Bobby had tried to entertain them, he was only trying to help. Across the visiting room, I noticed this going on everywhere. Inmates were exaggerating prison life so that it sounded amusing and relatively harmless. They wanted their visitors to laugh and have a good time, because maybe if they enjoyed themselves and kept ignorant of what really goes on inside, they'd come back and visit again.
I remembered how fascinated I was by Rick's stories. Did the pleasures they gave me mean I was gay? And then I started to wonder if I wasn't reading too much into those fantasies. Maybe it was just a phase I was going through after all. Maybe I was just gay for the stay, as some inmates say.
Just then, the inmate sitting behind my parents said loudly, "That's one right over there." He pointed at me, while the six members
