Born a Crime

driving with bad number plates. He
had committed a crime, but he was
no more a criminal than I was. The
difference was that he didn’t have
any friends or family to help him
out. He couldn’t afford anything but
a state attorney. He was going to go
stand in the dock, unable to speak
or understand English, and
everyone in the courtroom was
going to assume the worst of him.
He was going to go to prison for a
while and then be set free with the
same nothing he had going in. If I
had to guess, he was around thirty-
five, forty years old, staring down
another thirty-five, forty years of