Werth Relishing

I hadn’t visited my best bud, Moore, in four weeks. I always go on Thursday but had been thwarted by two concerts (Tool and Mariah Carey), Thanksgiving, and a trip to Maine. Tonight was a must. He was enduring his birthday—the first of seven with good behavior—in prison.

“I can’t show you your present since my phone’s obviously in the locker,” I told him midway through our hour-long chat, “but Mira Sorvino's verified Instagram account replied to a post I tagged her in pimping out my book!”

“Holy shit!” he said. “No fucking way?!”

“Plus, Josh emailed me. Been a weirdly kismetic day.”

Josh was the third member of our high school friendship triumvirate, and if there was one woman the three of us all unconditionally loved, it was Mira. I hadn’t heard from Josh in years, but his “frozen in amber” (his term) references to Richard Ford and Celine and Julie Go Boating (high esoterica, I’m aware) along with an offer to chat on the phone had added unexpected cheer to a celebratory day.

“What was the highlight of your birthday?”

“Getting some D&D books in the mail, talking to my parents, and seeing you.”

“Anything else been going on?”

“Jason came into the library today. The motherfucker has diabetes but doesn’t take care of himself. And he refuses to let the doctor in here chop off his feet. He took off his shoes and I could smell rotting flesh from the sepsis. There’s a bleach stain on the carpet from the cleanup I did after he left.”

I cringed and shifted uncomfortably in my blue plastic visitor’s chair.

“He needed the address for CNN headquarters. He wrote a pardon letter to Trump a couple weeks ago. He does it all the time. He wrote one to the governor of Georgia recently too. Said something like, ‘I know I’m in Connecticut and you’re in Georgia, but please pardon me because my governor won’t. Since you’re Georgian, I’ve included a photo of Gladys Knight.’ For some reason, he sent Trump a photo of Gloria Estefan.”

It took me a few seconds to stop laughing.

“Oh yeah!" Moore said. “I also ordered about ninety dollars’ worth of commissary shit because they add the best stuff at Christmastime.”

“Jesus! What the hell did you buy?”

“Well, I ordered two bags of Werther’s but got four. I felt bad so I went back to the guy and explained the fuck-up. He let me keep an extra bag.”

“That was nice of him.”

“But when we locked up for the night, I realized they gave me extra everything. I wound up with eleven more bags of Werther’s! I’ve been making it rain Werther’s during every D&D game since!”

Once again, I was cackling like a fool.

“Then I asked Mikey in the kitchen if I could get some relish. He told me it was gonna be four bucks, which seemed high, but I bought it anyway.”

I had no clue where this was going.

“I had asked for a tiny, no more than eight-ounce bottle. Mikey tracks me down and has two pounds of relish in two separate bags with cake decorating-like nozzles on them!”

More hilarity.

“So, I’ve been doing the only logical thing possible: trying everything I bought with relish on it.”

One of the correctional officers on duty set Moore’s badge next to him, signaling we had to wrap things up within five minutes. Both of us got in a few last “Oh yeah…” tidbits before meeting for a farewell hug.

“Happy Birthday again, bud!”

“Thanks. Going back to the cell now. Whole thing smells like relish.”

“Whatchya putting it on next?”

“Werther’s. Strangely not bad with relish.”

Like usual, I walked to my car and thought of something silly I wished I’d said before time ran out. It’s too bad Jason couldn’t mail some pickled caramel candy to Gavin Newsom instead of a photo of Paula Abdul.

Birthdays in prison: They’re not ideal but they are memorable.