Shelton Family Saga

Chapter 62

The 4th Letter

My dearest sweet Cinnamon Stick Frankie,

I hope everything is clear to you now. I also hope you find love again. Don't bother seeking out Kevin cause no one knows his whereabouts. Once he got grown and left Ms. Hatties place, he became a drifter; just drifting through life and popping up sporadically in different places, at different times. Last I ever heard from him was in 1996, and never again since then. Figure he must've gotten himself killed or locked up somewhere. I never did find out much else about Dusty or Gloria's whereabouts.

Well, this is the final letter from me. Angola is not a place for any human being, even though its where I've been ever since Kevin, Dusty and Gloria left me. Suppose, I'll die here, unless.... well it's a long shot, but unless you can talk to that God of yours about talking to these lawmakers about death penalty reform. The thing I will be put to death for, 1st degree rape (victim under 13 years of age), is the very thing I myself was desperately dying to be saved from. Why was Gloria saved and not me? Was it because she became pregnant, but when it was happening to me as a kid, I never had any revealing signs like that because I'm a male? Either way, we both suffered the same unspeakable abuse; yet she's viewed as a victim and I as a perpetrator. Why did she receive infinite amount of help and care, but I was just left to my demise. Truthfully, I don't recall ever touching her. Some psychiatric expert people say I had a mental break, and lost touch with reality, suffering memory lapses; but, I don't recall doing nothing to my sweet Gloria. With everything catastrophically abounding around me, I don't know what's true or not about the situation, only what the lawmakers tell me, and my fate rests in their hands. The attorney offered me a deal to plead guilty and be locked up for thirty five years, but I turned it down, cause I didn't do nothing wrong. So now I'm in here waiting to die and I didn't even kill nobody like you did. You see Frankie, I always questioned my existence upon this Earth. Like you before your trial, I never believed in a higher power. I figured if there was one, why'd he do me so dirty? When I was a little kid, I'd learned a song called Jesus loves the little children, but because of my circumstances, I felt he made a mistake with my birth. I'd heard he doesn't make mistakes, but I always felt he did with me. And now, I sit on death row staring my own mortality in the face, just slowly awaiting my demise. You ever heard of the Houston, Texas rapper Scarface? I heard him say in a song one time something about never seeing a man cry. I was brought up like that, watching men in my neighborhood do dirty shit to others mostly cause it'd been done to them, and they never shed a tear. I guess it takes something like having to watch a man die; and, I can't describe my appearance to you, cause I stopped looking in the mirror a long time ago cause I just might cry. The shell of my body may still be here, but am I already dead? Was I cursed from birth? I know we cannot help the family we are born into, but if we are all sent here from the same creator and are truly sisters and brothers in Christ, then why am I regarded as the stepchild? I actually have two sisters, but they don't support me, emotionally or otherwise, so that's how I feel. I never knew any purpose for my birth. I never even had no person to care. To teach me like those kids born into those families with a bunch of money that live in fine houses and get even finer educations so they can throw away people like me. So after being born into an abusive and neglectful family, growing up in an un-nurturing environment and never being taught real knowledge or spiritual wisdom, I sit here and watch the people in the world, with all their freedom to judge, show me how worthless my existence is to them. I hear incarceration is to rehabilitate and prevent recidivism, but all I see is folks in here becoming institutionalized in their thinking, reduced down to nothing but modern day slaves. Sometimes, I feel people like me will never be free. It seems we're trapped by our birth and our upbringing so our fate is sealed right from the very beginning of existence along with any misstep along the straight and super narrow path of a happenstance origin. It results in a death before actually dying. So, what I'm asking Frankie, if the same God that saved you from being put to death for killing your brother is the same merciful God of us all, can you put in a word and have him do a thing for me? I would ask him myself, but seeing how my hands are tied, I figure you have enough faith, seeing what he did for you and all, not to put no handcuffs on him. Can you see if his omnipotence will work for me, too? I heard he works through people to accomplish his mission on Earth. Even if my death sentence was commuted to life without parole, that would mean my birth was not in vain and he, our creator, truly doesn't make mistakes. Whatever you, God and the lawmakers decide, just know I exist, I matter, and my life here upon this Earth is for a purpose.

Signed: The Righteous Sinner
               Louisiana State Penitentiary, Angola