Jim Ray Brook, New York — 1983 Pennies from Heaven

When I got out of jail I still felt locked in. I was out, free! I should have been ecstatic. But I was like a bird that’s been caged too long. I was earth bound. I didn’t know where to go or what to do… certainly not how to spread my wings or fly.

I had no money, no direction, no compass.

I left the jail in clothes I hadn’t worn for many years. They were stiff with time, lost years and folly. It was odd not to be wearing a uniform that made me look like an oversized pumpkin.

Once outside, I just stood there smelling the sky. It was fall. The air was laced with a tiny hint of warning cold. My back pocket rustled like old leaves. It felt heavy and slightly warm. Reaching inside, my hands closed around an envelope. On it, written in letters careful and constrained as spider web, in red ink so dark it was almost black, was my name, Jim Jackson.