Yours for Eternity: A Love Story on Death Row (33 page)

*
I met Rick when he first wrote me a letter in the midnineties. He was a dealer and trafficker in prison art by notorious inmates, such as Charles Manson, John Wayne Gacy, and Richard Ramirez, among others. His initial pitch to me was that he could “find a market for my work.” He and his partner used to come see me at the prison and take my paintings and artwork to sell, though I never did see my cut of the sale if there was one. When Lorri and I started writing to each other, he did do us the favor of storing our letters and keeping them all in one place. (Except for, I suspect, the few that have found their way to eBay and elsewhere.)—DE

*
I would come to realize the magnitude these small treasures had on Damien’s life after he was released. I would open the refrigerator to find bits of aluminum foil, drinking straws, plastic cups—all stored in the side compartments. There would be such a stash of these items, and I wouldn’t know what to do with them. It seems they were precious commodities in prison. Foil could be used to keep your food from the rats, a plastic cup was a luxury, and a straw was a golden ticket. Damien used one straw he was fortunate enough to come across for years.

So I left them in the refrigerator and said nothing, along with the bottles and bottles of tap water he would store. He would reuse plastic milk containers, glass soda bottles, water bottles—the whole fridge would be teeming with what looked like a crow’s haven.—LD

*
This was a course Damien took with a nondenominational church, studying the Bible, and it took about a couple of months to complete. They ended with a test, on the Book of Matthew, say, or Revelations, and then Damien would send me his certificate of completion. As he put it, they become so fundamentally fundamental after a while, he took to his own studies.—LD