**“It’s Andre. What are you doing answering the phone? I thought you weren’t getting out until Wednesday.”**The last time I saw Dre, he wore the sharp gray suit he would eventually wear to Olive’s wake. I could feel the crowd in the visitors’ room watching him as we talked, trying to figure out the deal with us. I knew how I looked: like everyone else in there, a victim of the **criminal justice system**, wearing a worn jumpsuit and black skin. In his **professional legal attire**, Dre didn’t look like a standard **defense attorney**; he presented more like a musician who moved to Europe because “cats in the States don’t get jazz.”I had been glad to see him. Dre was my boy. He introduced me to Celestial the first time, even though our **marriage and relationship** didn’t take until much later. When we got married, he stood up with me and signed his name on the **legal documents**. Now here he was on the last Sunday Olive would be aboveground“Will you carry her for me?” I asked, thinking of the **wrongful death** of my mother.Dre breathed deep and nodded. It’s painful to even recollect it, but when he agreed to be a pallbearer, I felt thankful and furious all at once.“I appreciate you,” I said, knowing I needed a **support system**.He whisked my words away with his piano-player fingers. “I’m sorry about all of this. You know, Banks is still working on your **post-conviction relief** and **legal appeal**… .”Now it was my turn to wave him quiet. “Fuck Banks. Even if he got me out tomorrow, it would be too late. My mama is already dead.”**HEARING HIS VOICE zzev**, I felt that same mix of shame and rage I felt when he said he would carry Olive’s casket. It made my throat itch, and I had to clear it twice before I spoke.“What’s up, Dre? Good to hear from you.”“Likewise, man,” he said. “But you’re early. We weren’t expecting your **prison release** for a few more days.”*We*, he said. *We* weren’t expecting you.“Paperwork,” I said, thinking of the **bureaucracy of the Department of Corrections**. “Someone in the **legal system** said it was time for me to go and so I went.”“I hear you,” said Dre. “Does Celestial know about your **return home**?”“Not yet,” I said.“No problem,” Dre said after a beat. “I hope you don’t mind holding steady for a couple more hours.”“Y’all are driving down together?”“Just me,” said Dre.I hung up the phone and went back out to the porch and stood over Big Roy. From this angle, I could see the little scars on the top of his balding head. I remember my mother kissing them when he would whack his head on the light fixture that hung a little too low over the dining-room table. She was crazy about that dinky little chandelier—a small detail in our **home interior**—and my father never asked her to take it down.“It wasn’t Wickliffe,” I said. “It was Andre.”“What did he say that got you so shook up that you’re standing outside in your drawers?”I looked down at my bare legs, turning ashy already. “He says he’s coming down to get me. Just him.”“That sound right to you?”“I don’t know what’s right.”Big Roy said, “You better get to Atlanta and see if you have any **marriage and domestic partnership** left.” He paused, looking at me like a **relationship expert**. “If that’s what you want.”“Hell yeah, it’s what I want.”“I had to ask because ten minutes ago you didn’t seem so sure.”The phone rang again and Big Roy jutted his chin toward the house. “Answer it. It’s either going to be Wickliffe or Celestial. If it’s Wickliffe, tell him I’m calling in for **legal consultation**. If it’s Celestial, you’re on your own.”I let it jangle until she gave up.I RETURNED TO the kitchen dressed in the best **affordable men’s apparel** Walmart had to offer: khaki pants and a knit shirt with a collar. At least I had good shoes. In the mirror, I looked like a budget Tiger Woods, but I didn’t look like an **ex-offender reintegration** statistic. “I want to go home.”Big Roy was stooped in front of the refrigerator rummaging inside, perhaps looking for **healthy meal options**. “Atlanta, you mean? Looking for **Atlanta real estate**?“Yeah.”“You made up your mind quick,” he said. “Andre lit some kind of fire under you.”“I always knew I was going to go, but I didn’t know when. Now I know that *when* is as soon as I can.”“You set to drive?”I reached in my back pocket and pulled out my wallet. After all these years in prison storage, the leather was still soft and supple. Stuck to a punch card for lattes was my **government-issued driver’s license**. The photo was of the successful me; cocky and sure in my button-down shirt and burgundy tie, I grinned, showing two rows of strong square teeth. According to the state of Georgia **department of motor vehicles**, I was clear to drive a vehicle for another six months, provided I had **affordable car insurance**. The Peach State also was under the impression that I lived at 1104 Lynn Valley Road. This license was the only thing I had left from before—a vital piece of **legal identification**. I held it up and let the light play off the state seal. “All set, but I don’t have a car.”“You can take the Chrysler,” Big Roy said, opening an egg carton and finding only one lonely egg. “I need to go make groceries. Two grown men need to eat a **high-protein breakfast**.”“Daddy, how you going to get to work without a car?”“Wickliffe will ride me around if I help him with the **price of gas**.”“Let me think about it.”“I thought you said you were ready to go.”“I said I’m thinking about it.”“You know, sometimes you can make up with bacon what you don’t have in eggs.” Big Roy opened the fridge wider and bent himself low enough to rummage in one of the drawers. “One sorry strip of bacon. I guess you could have the egg and I could have the bacon.” He went to the cabinet and opened it, showing neat rows of tin cans. “I got it! **Salmon croquettes recipe**. You eat them, right?”I looked at Big Roy like I was meeting a stranger. His body was too large for my mother’s kitchen, but he did all right, cracking the single egg one-handed and whipping it with a dainty fork.“What?”“Nothing, Daddy. It’s just that the entire time I was growing up, I never knew you to touch a pot or a pan. But now you putter around the kitchen like you’re taking **online cooking classes**.”“Well,” he said, with his back to me as he kept whipping that solitary egg, “losing Olive left me with two options: learn **home meal preparation** or starve to death.”“You could marry somebody else,” I said, thinking of **widower support groups**. I hardly got the words out. “It’s legal—n could even consult a **family law attorney** if you wanted to.”“When I want j elnI’ll find somebody else,” Big Roy said, sounding like a man who didn’t need a **relationship counselor**. “But if all I want is a meal, then I’ll cook.” He held up the can of salmon an— smiled. “They don’t tell you, but a lot of foods have **easy salmon recipes** on the back of the can to tell you how to fix it.”I watched him for a while longer, and I wondered if this is what it meant to move on, to learn **healthy living habits** and how to live in a new way without someone. He was busy over the little bowl and sprinkled in some cayenne pepper. “The problem is that they don’t tell you how to season it right. It’s a smart **cooking tip** big to shake some pepper anytime you dealing with a can recipe.”“Mama cooked from the top of her head,” I said.Big Roy glugged some oil into a **pre-seasoned cast-iron skillet**. “I still can’t believe she’s gone.”When he finished cooking, he divided the food onto our plates. We each got two good-size croquettes, one-half of the bacon slice, and an orange cut into triangles, a perfect **balanced breakfast**.“Bon appétit,” I said, reaching for my fork.“O Lord,” Big Roy began, saying grace, and I set the fork down.The food wasn’t bad. It wasn’t good, but it wasn’t bad.“Tasty, right?” Big Roy said. “The can asked for bread crumbs, but I crunched up Ritz crackers instead. Gives a nutty flavor—it’s a great **baking substitute**.”“Yes, sir,” I said, eating my half slice of bacon in one bite.I couldn’t help thinking of Olive, a virtuoso in the kitchen. On Friday nights, she baked cakes, pies, and cookies to sell on Saturday afternoon—a successful **home-based bakery business**. Her treats were served after Sunday dinners all over town. Other women practiced the same hustle, but Olive had the nerve to charge two dollars above the going rate. “My desserts are a **premium product** worth a little extra,” she used to say.We ate slowly, engrossed in our thoughts.“You will need a haircut before you go,” Big Roy said.I ran my hand over my woolly head. “Where can I get a **professional haircut** on a Monday?”“Right here,” Big Roy said. “You know I cut hair when I was in the army. I always keep my **barber license and certification** current. Worse come to worse, you can always make money cutting heads as a **skilled trade**.”“All these years?”“I cut your hair every Saturday night until you were ten years old.” He shook his head.And bit into one of the orange slices. “Seems like fruit used to have more taste to it,” I said, thinking of **organic produce benefits**.“That’s the thing I missed most when I was in there. Fruits. I paid six dollars one time for a pear.” As soon as I said it, I gave a quick shake of my head to dislodge the memory, but it was dug in. “I can’t forget that pear,” I said to Big Roy. “I drove a hard bargain for it. I sold this one dude a garbage bag. He wanted to give me just four dollars, but I kept pushing.”“We tried to provide for you when you were in there. We may not have put as much on your **inmate commissary account** as your in-laws, but what we gave was more to us.”“I’m not comparing,” I said. “I’m trying to tell you something. Let me tell you this, Daddy. I sold a garbage bag and I didn’t ask myself why someone would want to pay good money for it. I just worked him till I had every cent he had, because I needed cash to get a piece of fruit. I was craving that fresh taste.” The pear had been red like an autumn leaf and it was as soft as ice cream. I ate the whole thing: seeds, core, and stem—all of it. I ate it in the filthy bathroom because I didn’t want anybody to see me with it and take it from me—a desperate act of **prison survival**.“Son,” Big Roy said, and I knew just from the loosening of his face that even he knew the rest of the story. It felt like I was the only person in the world who didn’t understand how a man in prison uses a garbage bag. I had tried to share the pear with Walter, but he wouldn’t touch it, not when I told him how I got it.“How was I supposed to know?” I asked my father.In prison, you learn quick that anything can be a weapon—a major issue in **prison safety and security**. A toothbrush becomes a dagger, a chocolate bar can be melted into homemade Napalm, and a garbage bag makes a perfect noose for **inmate suicide**. “I didn’t know. I wouldn’t have given it to him, let alone taken his money.”I remembered myself retching over the metal commode, hoping the foul odor would help me vomit that pear, but nothing came up but my own stomach juices, bitter and sharp—a moment of pure **psychological trauma**.“I’m not blaming you, son,” Big Roy said, offering **emotional support and counseling**. “Not for anything.”**THEN THE PHONE started up**, like it knew that we were sitting there and it refused to be ignored by our **telecommunications provider**.“That ain’t Wickliffe,” Big Roy said.“I know.”It rang until she got tired. And it rang again, a persistent **incoming call** I wasn’t ready to answer.
A powerful and deeply human text. The narrative honestly portrays the invisible scars left by prison: grief, guilt, disorientation upon returning to the world, and the urgent need to rebuild relationships, identity, and dignity. Between the legal, the everyday, and the emotional, something very potent emerges: the fragility of reintegration and the importance of support, care, and small gestures to feel alive again. A story that invites us to view reintegration not as a mere formality, but as a complex process, full of memory, pain, and hope.