It’s hot when i walk inside the production area of my first job after prison, and within five minutes I am already sweating so bad that my shirt sticks to my chest and back. I immediately think of prison. It was hot in prison too.
Then I think about how, even though it is sweltering inside the facility, today I am going to earn my first day’s honest wage in more than three years. This thought makes me smile. But when I smile I feel awkward. So I stop smiling, even though inside I am still grinning ear to ear.
I am starting work as press operator. It is hot and fast paced work and though I don’t particularly care for it, I have to pay my bills. My fines have to be paid.
I primarily work alone as steam billows like a giant steel dragon from the front of the machine I am assigned to. I collect the Styrofoam parts it has just made and stack them neatly inside of a box while the steam drenches me in its humid mist. Every once in a while another employee stops by and asks how I am doing. Eventually he asks about my tattoos.
“Get those in prison?”
I don’t want to answer him. I don’t want to tell him yes. I also don’t want to lie.
“Yeah,” I say, my voice soft.
“Thought so.” Then he frowns, leaving me slightly confused because I don’t know if he is commiserating with me or if he just found his first reason to dislike me. Either way, I don’t have time to adequately gauge his reaction before he speaks again. “Go to lunch,” he says. “Be back in thirty.”
At lunch everyone is friendly and wants to know my backstory. What brings you to Sallisaw? How did you end up at Cellofoam? When I tell them that I was just released from prison and that I have only been out a few days, they fall silent. A guy from the other end of the break room yells out, “Gangsta!” I tell him that I am far from a gangster. I had made some mistakes and had to go away for a while as a result. Nothing about that is gangster in my opinion. It is humiliating.
Then another person comments on how responsible it is of me to begin work so quickly. I tell him thank you.
After work I start my three mile walk home. I put my earbuds in and blast some Deftones into my head as I try and stay in the shade. The walk takes me an hour to complete.
On the walk home, I think about the first $150 I’d made and how good it felt to use my body and my hands to earn it. I didn’t steal it and I didn’t sell any drugs to earn it. I feel light-headed from the buzz of it. This is progress I think. This is what it feels like to move forward and mature and pay my way and contribute to society. Something normal for most people. But not me. For me, this feeling is kind of alien and strange. I am used to feeling like a criminal and an outsider. Like a pariah.
At home, dinner is ready. I sit at the table with my Mom and stepdad Gary and we say grace. Then we begin to eat.
“Are you okay?” my mother asks from across the dinner table, the tines of her fork resting against the side of her plate. Our meal consists of grilled pork chops, salad and roasted vegetables. It looks like a meal fit for any King to me, but she must disagree. She’s silent as she pushes the food around on her plate. Hair pulled back. Lips thin and slightly curled upward at the corner. I, on the other hand, waste very little time before slicing another piece of pork chop away from the bone and stuffing it into my face. Then I take another. And another. In between bites, I have the notion to turn my mother’s question back on her. Ask her if she is okay. In the end I decide against it.
After dinner, I visit with my Mom and Gary. Mostly it is casual conversation. The weather and our work schedules the next day, when everyone will be home, and what we will do for dinner. Prison doesn’t come up once and I am grateful. I just want to forget about that chapter of my life.
As the conversation winds down, my Mom asks again if I am okay. Again I tell her that I am.
And I want to believe that I am. I just don’t know yet. It is still too early to tell.
