Jesse’s Lost Journal — by Mark Patton

After months of sleeping in the park it really feels like a home to me. I received handouts of clothing and money from people and I am grateful. In the daytime I use the public library as an office and begun to pull my life together again.

I paint in the afternoons and have some success selling my work on the street, I usually sit near the Museum of Modern Art. My paintings and drawings are beautiful but the interior is always very violent, sometimes people do not notice the violence because the colors are so pretty.

I am making very good money and have saved a lot. I am careful in my selection of friends… I know many people from the streets and they are a colorful group. Nobody ask questions as each of us carry a secret so we accept people as they present themselves. I have more to hide than most. Many nights I sit in my bramble and talk to Fred (although now that we are in the city he likes to be called Charles)… he comes and goes at will. My foolish belief that I had trapped him is long gone, he returns to me because he wants too.

Some nights he is gone and I believe he returns to Springwood. I do not question him in that regard. You may think our friendship strange but he is the only one who truly knows where I have been… what I have seen. I had to accept the he and I are the same. Yes, he is a murderer but so am I. I made the decision to kill two people and one of those people died because I needed to be free. Fred saved me. He has a weird sense of humor and sometimes calls me Patty Hearst… it IS kind of funny and true (although he really should call me Tanya). ..

It is warm but we are getting close to fall so I need to find a home. I thought I saw Grady on the street the other night but of course it was not him, I followed the guy for quite sometime… finally he stopped and ask me if I wanted something …I was so nervous I ran away.