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305memory cards in illegal cell phones, mine was grandfathered in.One of my homies at San Quentin had a pristine radio that played CDs and cassette tapes. When he earned parole, everybody hounded him for it. He knew how much I%u2019d appreciate such a luxury, but I didn%u2019t join the herd of pesterers making offers, and I think he appreciated that. He gave it to me as a parting gift. I was even able to have it officially documented on my property card. The MP3 player clipped neatly into the cassette door, so now I could see my playlists while I listened. My neighbor, Rasta, was the weed man for the building, so I played Swift to drown out the guys who were lighting up outside. Rasta made fun of me, but the crowd always liked her %u201cBad Blood%u201d remix, featuring Kendrick Lamar. %u201cThat%u2019s the s %u2014right there,%u201d they%u2019d say. %u201cWho would%u2019ve thought?%u201dSeven months after %u201cLover%u201d came out, C.D.C.R. shut down all programming because of the Covid pandemic %u2014 no indoor group interactions, no volunteers from outside the prison, no visitors. C.D.C.R. brought the coronavirus into San Quentin when it moved some sick guys from another prison in. By the end of June, 2020, hundreds of us were testing positive and getting sick, including me. I lugged all my property to an isolation cell in a quarantine unit, where I shivered and sweated through a brain fog for two weeks. My only human contact came from nurses in full-body P.P.E., who checked my vitals, and skeleton crews of officers %u2014 the ones who weren%u2019t sick themselves %u2014 who brought us intermittent meals. I followed San Quentin%u2019s death tallies on the local news. Would I die alone in this cell, suddenly and violently breathless? I made a playlist of Swift%u2019s most uplifting songs, listening for the happiness in her voice.Alone in a prison cell, it%u2019s virtually impossible to avoid oneself. As my body and mind began to recover, I started to question everything. What really matters? Who am I? What if I die tomorrow? I hadn%u2019t been in touch with my sweetheart in more than two years, because she had told me that she was trying a relationship with someone who cared about her. Now, though, I wrote her a letter to see if she was O.K.A week after I mailed my letter, I received one from her. Prison mail is slow enough that I knew it wasn%u2019t a response%u2014we had decided to write to each other at the same time. %u201cThe lockdown has afforded me plenty of time to reflect on all sorts of things,%u201d her letter said. %u201cI%u2019ve been carrying you with me everywhere.%u201d Reading it brought to mind Swift%u2019s lyrics in %u201cDaylight%u201d: %u201cI don%u2019t wanna think of anything else now that I thought of you.%u201d She was single again, and we started talking every week. In lockdown, between paltry dinner trays, I did pushups, lunges, squats, and planks in the twenty-two-inch-wide floor space in my cell. The twentieth year of my incarceration was approaching.In 2020, the California legislature passed a law that made anyone who served twenty continuous years, and who was at least fifty years of age, eligible for parole. I%u2019m fiftythree, and I%u2019ll get my first chance at release in 2024. I couldn%u2019t help but think of %u201cDaylight%u201d again. %u201cI%u2019ve been sleeping so long in a twentyyear dark night,%u201d Swift sings. %u201cAnd now I see daylight.%u201dThese days, I call my sweetheart as often as I can. Officers can shut down the phones with the flick of a switch, and technical glitches often take the system offline, so I treat each call as if it were my last. It often feels like she%u2019s waiting to hear from me. She tells me that it%u2019s complicated and confusing for her, speaking to the ghost who disappeared twenty 155 Joe GarciaCopyright %u00a9 Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. Distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. For review purposes only. Not for redistribution.