Prison? No. It Will Kill Mama.

Friend: “How’s he?”

Mother: “I don’t know. He doesn’t want me to visit him in prison.”

Mothers’ eyes should be a deterrent to crime, but they are not, because the immediate is committing the crime and how to make it fool-proof. Thanks to T.V. crime drama and movies, we know how to go about doing that, including killing another human being. Men who control drug routes internationally and locally don’t get their hands dirty. They hire professionals.

What does your daddy do for a living little girl?

He’s a cleaner, a night cleaner.

Some prisoners don’t want mothers to visit them because of the kaleidoscope of questions in a mothers’ eyes. She cannot ask them so she chooses easier ones like. “Are they treating you O.K.?” The answer is yes, even if the son is raped every night and guards starve him on the regular.

Some prisoners don’t want to see mothers because they might break down and cry at seeing women who raised them against all odds broken, shoulders thin like coat hangers. Mothers don’t cry, something that occurred to me very  late in life. My so-called ‘hard’ life is like floating in the clouds compared to what mama went through to raise us, but we never saw her cry.

Some prisoners don’t want mothers to visit them because of the doubt, in their eyes, doubt about the system that said guilty. Maybe it made a mistake. Not their son. The son knows the verdict was right because he did it for street credibility. That he’s a ‘man.’

Nonqaba waka Msimang

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