Gathering Dark by Candice Fox (best life changing books txt) 📕

an excuse for panicking during a bank heist and killing a bunch of people.” By that you meant having a crappy childhood, feeling abandoned. But that’s just the thing—I didn’t panic. I’d already cut away, the way you’re imagining doing. It might sound scary to be out there, floating around, without all the things that tie people down—consequences, guilt, fear, panic. But if no one teaches you those things, if no one ever instills in you a sense of guilt, then there’s nothing riding on your shoulders, telling you to be a good person. The first sense of guilt you get is from your parents, for disappointing them. If you never get that, you never get the rest.

I killed all those people because it was the smartest way to get out of the situation I was in. That’s it. The cops showed up. A couple of hostages inside the bank got confident, started getting fresh with me, so I did what I had to do.

I knew an inmate who had a cell next to Manson’s in protective segregation at Corcoran. Pretty self-obsessed man, but very convincing, so I heard. A few times guards got shifted out of there because they got sucked into his teachings. A gifted bullshit artist both inside and outside of prison, it seems. I don’t know why everyone’s so obsessed with the guy. He wasn’t even there the night of the murders. Who organizes a party and then doesn’t go?

It sounds to me like you’re slipping, Dayly. You’re asking what it’s all about. I’m not the kind of guy people should take advice from, not in my current situation (although if I’m really your father maybe you should take it—maybe it’s fatherly wisdom). But I wouldn’t fight it. See where it takes you. If you packed a bag and just left, “broke free,” as you said, you might end up somewhere great. It doesn’t take worldliness and a car and all that bullshit to do it. Those things will come when you need them. But breaking free can be something different entirely. It’s like an experiment. Just say “fuck it.”

The first time I ever said “Fuck it!,” I was about ten years old, I think. Me and a couple of boys from school were out riding our bikes and we headed up to the school, which was closed because it was a Sunday. This is in Utah, where I grew up. We found a dumpster full of shredded paper and cardboard, and I wanted to light it up, because I always carried a lighter around and was always tinkering with it, lighting things. One of the boys with us gave a big speech about crime and badness, and the other two kids who were with us went along with it, so I got argued out. But I was dying to light that thing. I could feel it in my bones, the hunger. So I went back after we’d finished riding around and lit it up. The smoke was black and thick, almost like liquid rising up. I bolted right away, and after ten minutes I could see the smoke from the front door of my house.

The next day at school I heard some teachers talking about the fire, and they said there’d been a homeless man at the bottom of the dumpster who was using the cardboard and paper to stay warm, kind of like a nest. Another kid might have been horrified by that, but I was different. I figured I’d made a choice to try something, and sure, maybe it turned out bad, but I’d tried. I’d done something spectacular with that fire, something that could be seen from suburbs over, and making a decision like that when you’re just a little kid is kind of crazy. Maybe grand. In here, I hear the guards talking about their kids—it’s all they can think to do while they’re sitting around watching us, now and then getting off their fat asses to stop us passing notes up and down the row. Their kids sound like pussies. Their faces are buried in computer screens all day long. They don’t know the smell of free air, let alone the taste of smoke drifting on it. If I had a small kid these days I’d give them a lighter and send them on their way. Once you light a fire, you’ve committed to something, good or bad. I think kids need that.

You might think the guards are going to be angry at what I’ve said when they read this letter, but they know what I think. I’ve told them before. And as for the homeless guy, they could never pin that on me. The lawyers would put it down to jailhouse bragging. I’ve said it in interviews to journalists before. But it’s true, I did do that, and I’ve had to live with it all these years. If you’re worried about it, don’t be. The fact that he was hanging around the school should tell you something about the kind of guy he probably was, and the smoke would have got to him well before the fire anyway.

How’s your gopher? Surely you wouldn’t leave him behind when you went on your adventure. More pictures would be great, if you’ve got any—of you, not the gopher. I promise I’m not selling them around the block, though I probably could and get a good price. A guard said yesterday that you have my lips, but he’s an idiot.

Take care,

John

P.S. I’ve had one marriage proposal since I’ve been here. Maybe it’s my face! I have found that those kinds of ladies, the ones who fall in love with killers, tend to go for the more “traditional” serial killers—the rapists and abductors. I’m someone who’s only ever killed out of necessity (or accident), so I guess I don’t have the mean streak they’re looking for. If there was more money of mine out there, it would be stupid to tell a prospective love