Johnny E. Mahaffey The Novelist Portent
March 16, 2016

JOHNNY MAHAFFEY SAYS: "Societal Schadenfreude Alive and Well!"

In my last post, "To live or not to live; that is not the question," did turn out to be the question--after all--for one unfortunate soul here. It was on March 15 that he was found hanging nude in a cell up in the solitary confinement area--supposedly on a suicide "watch" with a camera-clad cell. Yet, it is rumored that the time of death was 11:30 PM the night before, having been dead for twelve or so hours before being discovered.
A common thing here.
Last fall, an 87-year-old was brutally beaten to death by his twentysomething, meth-head cellie! And he was propped up in his bed, passing as alive all day. I don't know what Mr. Taylor was in prison for--but no elderly man--in palliative care at that--deserves to go out like that. It's horrible.
The prisoner who was found dead yesterday, at around lunch, was the same one I spoke of that had gone without eating--after his wife said she'd had enough of his prison circumstance by filing for divorce, and letting it be known he would no longer be seeing their children or be a part of their lives. It's sad, and many individuals could care less-- but I feel a pang of loss at wasted life. He didn't know what his children might have done later, after they'd grown, they may have come to visit him; but now they no longer have that option.
It's why I choose to go on--and to write--in case any of my five children need anything of me. Who knows? They could. I wish that my own father was still alive, somewhere, even if it was in a prison: I could correspond with him ... I have questions. His siblings did not exactly welcome me, he was the black sheep of their family, so as his son, I'm a blemish to their Christian name and faith. But, something in me feels as if I'm more of a Mahaffey than they ever had hope of realizing a Mahaffey to be.... I feel like my existential torments come from a long inherited line.
It's something I can't escape.
I could never be a happy white sheep, following the herd.
I'll close by saying I feel empathy for any lost life, and that includes the decedent in the case that has me here. If you use drugs (especially meth), stop! You need all your sense in tact to navigate this messed up world of ours. Be a solution, not another problem ... do something constructive. Learn a new hobby.
There is no pleasure in to be taken in another's pain.
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