Saint James Harris Wood is doing time in a California penal colony for some heroin related stuff. He writes Esquire letters A lot of letters We love them all. In the letter below, St. James explains how and whyhe was fired (the injustice!) from his beloved job as prison librarian.Also, you'll notice that he mentions us, Esquire, at the end ofa letter that is presumably to us. We figure this means he sends thesame letter to all of his correspondents. We don't really mind.

Dear Camille,

I hope your life lately is steady, true and most important...normal. Mine is not. Chaos has stirred the pot of Saint James, grabbed me by the hair and cracked my head against the sidewalk. I lost my stupid job in the library. 99.9% of the time, if a convict loses his job while in prison, there's Punishment, write-ups and new dirt in the convict's permanent record. But none of that happened to me. I was relieved of my duties as Library Overlord because my rookie free staff boss mailed one of my stories out to the local Art's Council. Nothing written by an inmate is supposed to leave the institution without scrutiny. Every letter, story, political manifesto or poem is checked. I didn't ask the librarian to mail my story out, which is why I'm not in the hole writing you letters on toilet paper; but, one day, idly at work in the library (I loved it!), a week after the "incident", ignorant of my transgression, I am arrested (in prison!) by two special squad cops and taken to a secret room where a high ranking special squad officer (who looks like a cruel mustachioed movie star) literally ripped my library work card into shreds, then tried to interrogate me as if I were an assassin or Republican. I first stood accused of circumventing institutional security and manipulating staff. Lieutenant Cruel started off by telling me I was going to the hole. It sounded restful to me, regardless of how others feel. But after a spirited discussion with the special squad, being told that the investigation was going to continue for an indefinite period during which time I was banned from the library even to check out books . . . nothing happened except that I am branded as an, irascible mapcap who is not allowed to be a clerk for a year. No one will ever love those books like I did. Documents are provided. And then . . . with shocking quickness I was assigned to the lowest of the low jobs in the kitchen/dining roan which is only manned by the people who don't have the juice, wit or resources to get the hell out. Table wipers make nothing per hour and aren't even fed well. I developed a host of physical problems the very day I was assigned to the new job. These ailments actually exist and have a history supported by X-Rays (traumatic arthritis; sciatica; and a career ending knee injury tock basketball out of my life) and my lazy doctor who I've never seen in two years. These afflictions helped the prison to let me go unemployed for a minute, which is what I really and truly want ~ so that I can write all day and all night until I have a mental breakdown and then I'll write about that. Now I'll have time to finish the dozen or so short stories I'm working on, and letters obviously. What have you been reading? Details please. I just read "Stolen Lives" by Malika Oufkir (whole family in Morrocan penal colony), and "Wild Palms" by William Faulkner—I think you'd like it—a beautiful, weird kidney jab of a book. I shamble through hundreds of books a year. It's great. My totally unfocused research tells me that in the 1920s & 30s the most popular fiction writer in Germany (can't recall the name) wrote a couple dozen novels about the American West featuring the most savage, fearless fighters and killers who ever lived (according to these novels): Indians! One of the reasons the Nazis put off attacking America is because from the foot soldiers in the ranks to the Generals and Admirals, no man of fighting age in Nazi Germany wanted to fight Indians. I used to be afraid of Tongans until this kid from Tonga played keyboards in my last prison band. 15 (Nov. ) Still selling more poems than stories, rather it was the other way around. However, an interesting development: Esquire wants to publish some of my letters. A lot of them are basically pieces of my diary ("Diary of a Mad Poet in Prison") which I've also sent to you. Do me a favor and see if you can find me on their site. I have no access to the world in the web and it drives me crazy. It's Esquire's web site, not the mag.

Your Possibly Unemployable Servant,

Saint James

About the author: Saint James Wood currently resides

in a California coastal

penal colony thanks to a heroin smoking habit he picked up while on the road

with his gothic blues band. He has reinvented himself as a poet and writer of the

darkly absurd. (www.darklyabsurd.com) Correspondence can be sent to: Saint

James Wood (T30027),



P.O. Box

8101 /

CMC 6126, San Luis Obispo, CA93409-8101.

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