Write On

9 March 2011

Dear Anne,

"The Lord forbid," Nabath answered him, "that I should give you my ancestral heritage." Ahab went home disturbed and angry at the answer Nabath the Jezreelite had made to him: "I will not give you my ancestral heritage." Lying down on his bed, he turned away from food and would not eat. 1 Kings 21:3-4

Before I finished the 12 rules of better breakups in Psychology Today Jan/Feb 2011, Cole entered the cell and exposed the issue. "So I have somebody you should talk to , to be celly with. He's in five house downstairs."

"Wow, I thought we were getting along."

"Yeah, we do. It's not you. Matt's not getting along with his celly and he's been on me to move in."

"You could own up, man. I know you guys wanted to be together before I came. I respected the you that was blunt and just said you wanted him to move in."

He shows me the guy, not knowing his name, "I think he's lonely." It turns out the cell is one of the loudest and according to the guy he was put there to detox. He says at least twice, in spite of my descriptions of dealing with worse, that I really wouldn't want to live there.

I go and find Matt, my opponent in Stratego. He's narrowly dodged the bullet twice on getting assigned a celly. He wants to keep the cell to his own, naturally. Nothing personal. Cole and Matt play pool. It turns out according to Matt that he and Mel have patched things up. I'm curious about Mel because Stratego Matt said, since I admired him for being a reader/writer type, that Mel could be someone to talk to. Since we sometimes sit together for a meal and have a pending chess match I'm further intrigued when I hear Mel likes biographies. Stratego Matt rotates into the pool game and next I do.

He lost his career as a slot machine technician. The guy he helped attempt robbery on the casino turned him in. What have been a state crime by law three years ago became a federal felony. On top of that he got put on the blacklist, sent to Vegas, and distributed throughout the nation to put the watch out against anyone who has ever tried to wrong a casino.

He puts four hours a day into the creation of the fantasy mentioned a few days ago on our walk. The maps, character backgrounds, chapter outlines, language dictionary. Its a labor of love now nine months and 70% complete. "For my kid," he says.

Chris