Edited

I am there with him. We sit in a caged room cramping with tables. It is the prison meeting room from “Arrested Development” since that is the most prominent prison scene my mind has to offer up. He wears a vivid orange jumpsuit and his face is blackened with a physical misery that has swallowed his entirety. His body has been defeated by the cafeteria food, ropes thriving beneath his skin.
We sit in silence as I wait for thick, soulful words to come to me- words to express- but none arrive at my lips. Instead, I slide my pinkish hand into his and, for the first time since my arrival, he looks at me, but his eyes are too much to handle and I fall away from the scene.

This time it is a memory. His daughter is with him today and is abusing her power as teacher’s little girl by denying the boys in our class of candy. She grins at me and shyly puts forth a caramel apple sucker.

Now I am walking quickly at his side through the grey halls of his church. I am there to help him airbrush skin for a Halloween carnival. A small, vigorous woman with a plaster face and Walmart lips approaches us and grins him in a spouse hug that is clearly for the entertainment of surrounding eyes. “You must be his talented student of the year!” She says to me in a pitch that cracks my eardrums. I am deeply disappointed in his choice for a wife and concerned about his daughter’s upbringing, who is shuffling around with her mother.