A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

This is not my story. Although after some deliberation there is simply no alternative than to write in my own voice. The main character and I were in extremely close proximity (the layman’s term of course being cellmates) in the Boulder County Jail for a period of time in 2017. During this period of my life, I read more books than my entire life prior. To this point I would like to note that jails and prisons are in fact one of the last great bastans of literature. A good book provides a temporary key to the gate that is passed from tier to tier, faster than an exceptional fifi (if you don’t know what that is, consider yourself lucky). This chance encounter combined with my new found love of literature lead me to first desire, then believe that I could write a novel of my own. I wrote the entire first draft while incarcerated, the majority of the writing was done with a tiny golf pencil (due to the danger of weaponizing; regular size pencils are prohibited) and on scraps of paper and the backs of legal forms. Upon my eventual release I transcribed the papers through cracked cell phones and an hour at a time on the computers at the public library. The writing, rewriting and editing was a far greater endeavour than I ever could have anticipated and the final product is less polished than I envisioned. I wish I studied the craft in a classroom or maybe read more Kurt Vonnegut, while in reality I read mostly Harry Potter and Stephen King while locked in a six by eight cage for twenty-three hours a day. With that said, I vowed I would write the thing and I did just fucking that. I ain’t no Twain or even a Clemens, but I gave it my best and hope I did the story some justice. I can only attest to that this is a true jailhouse tale. But enough about me, let's talk about Benjamin “Buck” Harris.

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