Burnt Water and Paper Dreams

Some men trade for coffee to remember home. I traded mine to chase the one thing that ruined me.

Photo by Alex Padurariu on Unsplash

Please note: This is fiction.

Coffee is the most valuable commodity in this place. I suspect it was cigarettes in a bygone era before the Surgeon General decided lung cancer wasn’t a God-given right. Instant coffee and maybe Ramen noodles are all we have left. They’re as close as we come to luxury, so they possess immense bartering power. Never mind that the coffee tastes like burnt water and leaves most of its grounds at the bottom of the cup. Some guys would trade their own mothers for a case.

Not me. I never considered myself spoiled until I drank my first cup of prison-issued instant coffee. I could tolerate the yoga mat they called a mattress. I haven’t complained about the oversized uniform that hangs off me like I’m wearing a khaki parasail. But I can’t choke down what passes for coffee around here. I spent too many years buying premium roasts imported from Indonesia and other exotic lands. My palate is now more of a diva than Mariah Carey.

I was watching a young guy—young enough to have a face thoroughly masked by pimples—playing Solitaire in the common area of our ward when I took my first sip. He noticed me grimace as I briefly debated whether swallowing was a good idea or even safe.

“I’ll drink it if you don’t want it,” he offered, never looking up from his cards.

After only a week into my sentence, I hesitated because I thought relinquishing even a bad cup of coffee might be seen as a sign of weakness. I’d watched enough prison movies, not to mention animal documentaries, to know where this might lead. I had enough problems. The last thing I needed was for this complexion-challenged kid to force me to wash his socks or become a mule for his contraband enterprise. Then again, this is a medium-security facility. They send the really scary guys to places with guard towers and armed personnel.

“You can have it,” I said, sliding the cup across the table.

“Got any more?”

I did have more. I was granted a small monthly stipend from the state, which I used to purchase basic necessities and a week’s worth of coffee from the commissary. I wouldn’t have given my toothbrush or shower shoes to anyone for anything, but I was now willing to consider a deal for what I’d previously hoped would be a comforting delicacy.

“Are you willing to trade?” I asked.

“I don’t got anything,” he said. “But I’m not too proud to take charity.” He grinned, either because his own cleverness amused him or he was winning his game. I couldn’t tell.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’ll just hang on to it for now. Maybe I’ll get desperate enough to drink it one day.”

“You got any letters to write?” he asked.

“Letters?” His question didn’t register at first. “Do I have letters to write?”

“Yeah. You know, letters. Dear Mom. Dear Dad. Dear baby mama. Letters.”

“Right. Um, no. I don’t—”

It’s strange how you can know something but not feel the weight of it until you’re forced to admit it out loud. Writing letters hadn’t crossed my mind until that moment.

I’ve been without family my entire adult life, unless you count my one and only friend. John was like family for the better part of twenty years. His girls called me Uncle Dan. Though I quietly hated being called Dan, I never corrected them because I loved hearing them call me uncle. Even so, I wouldn’t be writing any letters to John. What would I say? “Dear John, do you remember the time I sacrificed you and your entire family on the altar of my own self-indulgence? That was three months ago. I’m sure you and your wife are laughing about it by now.”

No, I wouldn’t be writing any letters to John. I’d consider making pen pals out of one of my old girlfriends except I can’t remember most of their names, let alone their addresses. There was an Amanda, a Jessica, and two Lucys along the way, which I recall only because I associated their names with familiar songs. While all of my relationships were consensual, I never let any last more than a few nights. They never reached the depths of intimacy required for such loving gestures as remembering names.

“I don’t have anyone to write to,” I said to my acne-riddled neighbor, trying to sound indifferent.

“How ’bout poetry?” he asked.

“What about it?”

“Maybe you could write some,” he said. “You like origami? Paper airplanes?”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, unable to see the connection between these things.

“I got a whole stack of paper in my cell,” he said. “I’ll give you all of it for your coffee. I’ll even throw in a pencil. It’s a little chewed up, but it works.”

Most inmates would have laughed at this proposal. They don’t write letters; they make phone calls. They don’t dabble in poetry; they etch profanities into the walls. Besides toiletries, no one’s interested in items of practical use, especially when one has no practical use for the item. They crave things that provide a sense of normalcy—of life outside this place. They want a hot cup of coffee, for example. If they close their eyes and hold the cup to their nose, as I’ve watched several men do, they can be transported back home. If only for a moment, they’re having breakfast with their wives or relaxing after dinner in the living room. An entire rainforest’s worth of paper can’t compete with that.

I, however, felt differently. My first sip didn’t evoke pleasant nostalgia. If anything, it reminded me of all-night road trips when I was desperate for caffeine but every Starbucks closed hours before. My only option was to choke down the black sludge first brewed by a gas station attendant earlier that day and left on the burner until it was practically solid. While the prison’s coffee is significantly weaker, neither appeals to me.

I reluctantly agreed to the exchange. Part of me thought I might grow to like the coffee. Maybe it’s an acquired taste. Another part of me, though, couldn’t resist the temptation to write again, even after writing has stolen everything from me, including the next ten years of my life.

Some would consider an artistic impulse this strong to be a calling. “Don’t fight it,” they might say. What these hypothetical enablers fail to realize is that I’ve been writing for most of my life. As I understand it, callings—divine or otherwise—are supposed to lead the called to better places. If followed, one should find happiness, success, or at the very least, a measure of fulfillment. They’re like fairy godmothers showing us the way out of the evil stepmother’s dungeon and into the prince’s palace. Evidently, my fairy godmother was confused about her mission.

I don’t have a calling. Addiction would be a more appropriate word for it. What else would you call something you can’t stop even after it destroyed you? The specific drug of choice hardly matters.

I blame Mrs. Scott. She was a sweet woman who fooled me into believing she had my best interest at heart. I was in the fifth grade when she assigned our class homework, which she defined as “a fun little project.”

“I want you to take some time this weekend,” she said, “and write a short story about anything you want. Anything at all. It doesn’t have to be long—only a page. It can be a true story if you want, or even better, you can make one up. One page. That’s all.”

Conventional drug dealers use the same tactic. They offer potential customers a small sample of their best product, knowing the product will soon sell itself. “It’s free and fun,” they say. “You’ll really enjoy it.” That’s probably true but also the problem.

Mrs. Scott promoted her particular brand of poison with all the promise and enthusiasm of those sixty-second commercials for new migraine preventatives. Though I’ve never had a migraine and couldn’t know the thrill of relief, I could practically envision myself smiling, drinking wine in France, and skipping through a flowery meadow. Unlike the commercials, however, Mrs. Scott never mentioned potential side effects such as financial ruin, isolation, loneliness, and incarceration.

I accepted her assignment with minimal groaning. On the one hand, I had better things to do that weekend. It was late September in northern Indiana. Days for playing outside without the risk of losing toes and fingers to frostbite were running low. A boy my age had to take advantage of milder climates before the permacloud formed and snow drifts reached my neck until March.

On the other hand, my teacher practically guaranteed a passing grade. Asking a ten-year-old kid to fill an entire page with original prose is like telling a fish to climb a tree, yet my potential subject matter had no limits. “Write about anything,” she said. “Anything at all.” If I wanted to tell the story of a disgruntled student forced to stay inside on a surprisingly warm fall day to work on a meaningless English assignment, I had every right. Mrs. Scott had practically encouraged me to do so, and I seriously considered it.

My fascination with dinosaurs and love for Michael Crichton novels steered me in another direction. I often wondered what it would be like to come face-to-face with one of those prehistoric monsters. If I stepped out of a cornfield to find a Tyrannosaurus Rex staring back at me, what would I do? Would I stand in awe, eyes fixed and mouth agape? Would I wet my pants? Maybe I’d turn and run, assuming there was time for that. The most likely scenario seemed to be a T. Rex would’ve had me chewed and swallowed before I could process what I was seeing.

That’s how my young mind worked. Like all children, my imagination loved to conjure the impossible, but I could never leave it there. My brain insisted on analyzing even the most fanciful fiction. When I overheard a classmate expressing a desire to fly like Superman, I was quick to ask, “How do you plan to circumvent FAA regulations?” I wasn’t trying to ruin his fantasy. I, too, dreamed of soaring above the clouds, but I was incapable of escaping reality altogether. In hindsight, this quirk might explain why I never finished one of the dozens of novels I started over the years. I analyzed them to death before they had a chance at life.

I left school on Friday and returned Monday morning with twenty-five handwritten pages stowed in my backpack. Friends may have noticed me beaming. I was proud of the work I’d done. It had been effortless. Once I decided my story would feature a time-traveling protagonist who gets trapped in the late Cretaceous period and finds himself surrounded by packs of both large and small carnivorous theropods with sharp claws, powerful jaws, and insatiable appetites for flesh (i.e., scary dinosaurs), I couldn’t stop the words from forming.

The experience was strange and exciting. An invisible spirit seized control of my body, writing scene after scene that threatened to kill my main character. Then I’d wake from the trance, assess the situation, consider plausible escapes, and write my hero back to safety. The final product was two parts thriller and one part field guide for surviving a dinosaur invasion without modern technology. I thought even Crichton might be jealous.

Later that day, Mrs. Scott called me to her desk. I assumed she’d read my story during recess and was prepared to award me a Pulitzer Prize. Granted, the board at Columbia didn’t have much time to review all submissions, but it probably wasn’t necessary after reading mine.

“Daniel,” she said, holding my novella in hand, “you wrote twenty-four pages.”

“Twenty-five,” I said. She stood corrected.

“Twenty-five pages. Can I ask you something?”

I nodded eagerly.

“What made you decide to write twenty-five pages?” she asked.

I hadn’t anticipated this question. If anything, I thought she might ask why my story wasn’t longer or when she could expect the sequel. Could I be in trouble for doing twenty-five times more than the bare minimum? What kind of teacher punishes a student for going above and beyond with his homework? I briefly considered blaming my dad. “He made me,” I could say, which wouldn’t have been completely out of character for him. Of all the virtues in this world, he believed hard work belonged near the top of the list behind only love and integrity.

My shoulders slumped as I timidly replied, “I don’t know. I guess I was just having fun.”

“So, you enjoyed writing this?” she asked. I wondered when she might shine a hot lamp in my face and refuse me a drink of water. I wanted to argue that my crime wasn’t so bad, but it occurred to me that I was only one of twenty-three students in her class. I’d single-handedly doubled her grading workload. She’d still be awake at midnight, resenting me and every word I’d written for stealing her precious time. “And for what?” she’d say to no one in particular. “I’m losing sleep to grade a stupid fifth grader’s story about dinosaurs. I hate dinosaurs.”

“Yes,” I confessed. “I’m sorry it’s so long. I guess I got carried away.” I hoped she’d be merciful.

“Don’t apologize,” she said, reclining in her chair and removing her glasses. “Daniel, I’ve been doing this for ten years, and I’ve never had a student take off like this with a writing assignment. Sure, I’ve had a few turn in half a page more than I asked for. Maybe even a page. But this?” She held up my work and shook it. “You even broke it into chapters. Ten years—I’ve never seen this. And it’s a pretty good story at that.”

I wasn’t in trouble, after all, though I now realized I hadn’t yet earned a Pulitzer. “Pretty good” doesn’t win prizes. I’d have to settle for the satisfaction of knowing I’d saved this woman’s career. Ten years is a long time to wait for fruit from your labors. For all I know, Mrs. Scott was planning her retirement. This year was supposed to be her last. The following August, I might have seen her scanning groceries at the supermarket if I hadn’t offered her a glimpse of my potential gift. I humbly accepted my role as a promising student and author, grateful to have given her a reason to stay.

“And you say you had fun with it?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I answered. “I kinda liked it.”

“Well, Daniel, you just may have a calling.”

At eleven years old, I wasn’t sure what she meant, yet her optimistic tone communicated a sense of destiny. She led me to believe writing was an unrealized superpower within me. I’d lifted one tractor over my head, which wasn’t especially useful, but if I developed my power and learned how to employ it for the good of humanity, maybe I could save the world.

Three decades, however, is more than enough time to change one’s perspective. I didn’t possess superpowers, and I wouldn’t change the world, not for the better, anyhow.

If I knew then what I know now, I would’ve stared Mrs. Scott in the eyes and shouted, “Get thee behind me, Satan. Thou art an offense unto me.” I would’ve known she was a snake in a cardigan and low heels tempting me with forbidden fruit. One bite wouldn’t make me a god or even a critically acclaimed author. I would’ve settled for a published manuscript. Instead, I’ve wandered dry and desolate places far from paradise, wasting my life on words no one would read, immersing myself in fantasies that slowly devoured reality, and seeking affirmation of the tempter’s promise. She said I had a calling. Then again, she didn’t specify to what I was being called.

Even now, I can’t bring myself to repent of my literary aspirations. I’m literally a prisoner, straining to see the paper under the dim light of this cell and struggling to concentrate as an old man snores from the bunk below, yet I can’t stop. I’ve traded all my coffee and, arguably, the last remnant of my dignity to continue doing the very thing that led me into this present hell. I’ve become the guy still smoking cigarettes through a hole in his neck long after the habit has destroyed his airway. It’s not even fun anymore and hasn’t been for a long time, but I need my fix. Worse yet, I know it won’t kill me, which would end my misery once and for all.

Utter madness is a distinct possibility but not death.