Read Online Relation of My Imprisonment by Russell Banks - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Russell Banks
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that every man who is able to function efficiently and effectively in the world is, ipso facto, not a man of the eternal dead, it never the less is true that every man of time, if he does not agonize over his condition and fight against it, will turn out eventually to be one of our nationâs fine administrators, technicians or government functionaries. These people, because they cannot trust to luck or fate or to any of the various forces that transcend their own mortal lives, are forced thereby early in life to cultivate and refine to an amazing degree their skills and the quality of their attention to the ways of the world, with the result that they often become the men and women who are great in the eyes of the world. Only the dead, and those who worship the dead, do not envy them. The scripture says, Envy not the living. Cast not your eyes with longing upon their heaped up wealth and worldly honors, for they are but the wages of inattention to the dead, the fruits of a season lived as if it were endless. (I Trib. , ix, 9.) And (I Trib., xxii, 30): Look unto the heavens, and let your feet fall where they may. Whether the road be smooth or rocky matters not to them, nor should it matter to you.
Thus there got created, one afternoon during the first winter of my confinement, the organization that later became known as the Society Of Prisoners, which now employs thousands of collectors, clerks, attorneys, secretaries, assistant directors and directors, the organization responsible for the physical aid and comfort of millions of our citizens (not just the prisoners, who will soon receive their hope chests, but also the manufacturers of hope chests and the hundreds of purveyors of blankets, linens, and clothing, &c.) It is the organization that has come to own and manage large blocks of real estate and public bonds and which has recently funded chairs in the field of prison administration at several of the most prestigious universities in the land. And presiding over all this vast enterprise is the remarkable man, Mister Jacob Moon, who once was my jailor and, in a sense, my brother. My wifeâs cousin Gina is also an executive in the Society Of Prisoners, for her special skills were required by Jacob Moon hard upon its founding, and even my wife for a brief period was employed by SOP (as the journalists came to call it), albeit in a relatively menial position. Though her later illness and death, which, along with the spiritual clarities it provided her and our children and provided me as well, I will soon describe, prevented her from remaining at Jacob Moonâs and her cousinâs sides for long, even so, her salary and later her disability pension were more than adequate for the support of her and our children during the period of their greatest need. So while I do not envy Jacob Moon or any of those men and women whose association with the Society Of Prisoners has brought them wealth and worldly power, nevertheless, because it is not expressly forbidden by the dead, I am grateful to them. And, of course and most importantly, I am grateful to them for their enormous effort to make my coffin available to me at the time of my greatest need. Gratitude is a polite form of inattention, we are taught. It corrupteth not.
I was not, however, to come to possess my own coffin for a certain lengthy period of time, which delay came as a result of the numerous obstacles to be surmounted before the Society Of Prisoners could first be set up to function properly, many of which obstacles had been anticipated by my wife and me in the conversation recorded above, but a small number there remained that we had not anticipated and that were due to shortages and other market fluctuations in the nation during those years, and thus encouraged great delay in the delivery of the actual hope chests to the prisoners. During this period of waiting, I languished in many ways as a man of time, though not so much as before, when I had not yet
Thus there got created, one afternoon during the first winter of my confinement, the organization that later became known as the Society Of Prisoners, which now employs thousands of collectors, clerks, attorneys, secretaries, assistant directors and directors, the organization responsible for the physical aid and comfort of millions of our citizens (not just the prisoners, who will soon receive their hope chests, but also the manufacturers of hope chests and the hundreds of purveyors of blankets, linens, and clothing, &c.) It is the organization that has come to own and manage large blocks of real estate and public bonds and which has recently funded chairs in the field of prison administration at several of the most prestigious universities in the land. And presiding over all this vast enterprise is the remarkable man, Mister Jacob Moon, who once was my jailor and, in a sense, my brother. My wifeâs cousin Gina is also an executive in the Society Of Prisoners, for her special skills were required by Jacob Moon hard upon its founding, and even my wife for a brief period was employed by SOP (as the journalists came to call it), albeit in a relatively menial position. Though her later illness and death, which, along with the spiritual clarities it provided her and our children and provided me as well, I will soon describe, prevented her from remaining at Jacob Moonâs and her cousinâs sides for long, even so, her salary and later her disability pension were more than adequate for the support of her and our children during the period of their greatest need. So while I do not envy Jacob Moon or any of those men and women whose association with the Society Of Prisoners has brought them wealth and worldly power, nevertheless, because it is not expressly forbidden by the dead, I am grateful to them. And, of course and most importantly, I am grateful to them for their enormous effort to make my coffin available to me at the time of my greatest need. Gratitude is a polite form of inattention, we are taught. It corrupteth not.
I was not, however, to come to possess my own coffin for a certain lengthy period of time, which delay came as a result of the numerous obstacles to be surmounted before the Society Of Prisoners could first be set up to function properly, many of which obstacles had been anticipated by my wife and me in the conversation recorded above, but a small number there remained that we had not anticipated and that were due to shortages and other market fluctuations in the nation during those years, and thus encouraged great delay in the delivery of the actual hope chests to the prisoners. During this period of waiting, I languished in many ways as a man of time, though not so much as before, when I had not yet
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