Juan Gonzalez

The day room erupts in shouts of joy and frustrated cursing as the score changes unexpectedly on the TV screen. Fans of the winning team jeer and laugh at fans of the losing team and boasts and predictions are made on the next game’s outcome. Those predictions are quickly converted into wagers. It is a scene played out in living rooms, garages, and bars across the world. It is no different here in prison. Each dorm in TDCJ has a day room area with 2 TVs. By policy, one is considered a sports...

I live in a community consisting of almost entirely of men, each of whom is trying desperately to appear manlier and tougher than the next.

I stand suffocating in this 6’x10’ cell, holding on to the bars as I feel the walls closing in on me. It’s Friday afternoon and I’m watching the wing officer sort our mail, 15 feet in front of me. I watch and analyze the size of the mailbag and squint, trying to make out the writing on the envelopes as he pulls them out a few at a time, stacking them by rows. I am on row one, so my stack is either the first or the third one. The bag empties all too quickly and he sorts each row’s stack by...