By Davin Jake Douma
The day the 16-year-old boy was arrested everything in his life was taken away, except his mind and body.
After 25 years, there was one coveted place in the prison yard, beneath the sole tree, and it became Arizona’s favorite place to sit. He had fought hard to hold onto to this shady spot over the years because he knew in his bones that he didn’t belong behind bars. He was more sensitive and felt more deeply than those around him. Like the tree, he was one of a kind.
Arizona is a good guy and loves to study people: “They are fascinating to watch and I constantly wondered about their motivations and strange impulses. When I study them, the crazies and the sane, the gangs and the independents, I’m trying to understand myself. Who am I and what the hell am I doing here?”
Looking up at the barren sky that forgave and forgot, Arizona wasn’t sure how he ended up here, on the ground with a huge cut across his belly like a giant red mouth. Memory could be such an awful thing.