excuse me, i'm a poet AND i don't have a title.

Six months--how the balance had tipped to the end of his term, Jesse didn't know and didn't want to know. The seven behind him made the coming six no less a nuisance or a relief. Jesse had grown accustomed to his six-by-six habits. The mind starts to gray after the first few months--at least, that's what old, grizzled Charlie told Jesse.

Charlie was the charmer of the Monroe Valley Penitentiary. He was the kind of prisoner they specialized in: efficient, equable, and a leader among the rest of the inmates. Jesse had the unique privilege of having been his cellmate for the first three months of his term. "You lucky bastard," someone had told him in the lunch line with a swift elbow or two to boot. "Occupyin' wit Charlie is like winnin' the whole damn jackpot." All the inmates treated him like a free pass, but Jesse preferred his solitude.

That fortune found him as well. Charlie was called up for parole, but to the surprise of both inmates and guards, he was denied. Rumor was there was some finagling and politicking involved: Charlie ended up in a larger cell adjacent to the guards' recreation room as some sort of trade-off, an "eighter" as the men called the 64 square foot cells.

That week, the guards were doing their routine night watch and passed by Jesse's cell just before he dropped off. Their voices were hushed, but reverberated down the block.
"... really a good thing when it came down, you know? This place wouldn't run the same without him."
"Yeah, I figure the same--seems fair when you look at it. He gets an eighter, and we get our annual pay raise for being the highest performing penitentiary in Mississippi!”
“You sort of feel for the old guy, though—he’s been here since ‘72”
“Yeah? But he hasn’t had a visitor since ’81, so what gives?”
The guards grew quiet and kept on down the block, checking that the men were quiet, in their cots, thinking about their lives before Monroe Valley, or not thinking at all.

Jesse thought about what the guards had said during his three months without Charlie. He’d see him in the mess hall, or leading one of the optional “personal growth” groups. His old, gray face looked less winsome and more wry all the time. Jesse thought hard about this face. Sometimes when he stared at the various pocks and scars in the cell wall, he could make that face appear. But usually, it was his father’s.

Jesse wasn’t quite sure what his father’s face looked like anymore, or if his father even had a face. He trusted that his ma would have sent word if Mr. Daniel Carter was six feet under, but there was no way to tell. His ma had only visited once, two weeks into his stay, to drop off Jesse’s legal documents—she wanted not part of responsibility for him.

“Hey, Jesse-man! How’s my favorite inmate doin’ today?” Jesse’s aimless thoughts were interrupted by Will, one of the fresh, young guards who failed police academy and so was assigned to prison duties before trying for the badge again. Will was friendlier than the other guards, but that’s because he was a rookie. It wasn’t as if the older guards were cruel—they just sort of went blank after a year or two in the pen. Like the prisoners.
“Same as always,” Jesse replied. He waited. “I’m comin’ up for parole in six. Six from today.”
He tried not to act interested in Will’s response. “Oh, you know what they say, Jesse-man, you know what they say...” Will trailed off as he made his way down the block, whistling like a fool in some damn musical they had to watch when their walking hour was rained out.

“Oh, Jesse-man,” Will appeared at the bars again, “you ever get more word on your pop?”
Jesse had received a letter from one of his five aunties that his father had leukemia, that Jesse needed to do everything he could do get out and help his ma, even escape. Of course, Jesse wouldn’t put it past Aunt Silvie to concoct a disease. Silvie mentioned money in the postscript, to send some if he came across any. She may not be a sweetheart, but she knew her nephew was a Carter. And Carters made things appear like magic.

These things passed through Jesse’s mind as he shook his head in response to Will’s question.
“Well, man, I hope for your sake, you bust outta here, so you can help out your pops.”
“Ha, yeah—me too,” Jesse said, trying to sound convincing. When he lifted his head from between his knees, Will was gone. Jesse couldn’t see his face at that moment, but had a feeling that if he could, it would look like Charlie’s, dried out and sour.