Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story
I. Anti-Hero
In the early hours of one day in 2003, I awoke alongside my girlfriend, Ambere, in our shared Venice Beach residence. Sunlight danced across the Pacific and streamed into our sleeping quarters. I had some breakfast and exercised. Then I started my daily activities, which, back then, meant selling cannabis. Ambere, like my folks, urged me to secure a legitimate occupation, and I intended to. Occasionally, I mused about penning a novel or a script. “That’s excellent,” Ambere would remark. “Just start writing it!”
I drove to Hollywood to acquire a large amount from a dealer named Earl at his place. I was in debt to him and had given him my firearm as assurance. However, he was no longer satisfied with the agreement’s details. We started quarreling. I sensed he was trying to deceive or manipulate me with words. I became incensed. He was impolite, so I made certain I was even more so. The argument quickly escalated into a physical altercation. It ceased when I shot and killed Earl.
Neighbors detected the gunshots and contacted emergency services. Police vehicles swiftly converged on the location, and a police helicopter hovered overhead. Law enforcement apprehended me, forced me onto my stomach in the building’s corridor, and restrained me. As emergency personnel entered the apartment, I could discern their startled reactions to the sight of Earl’s corpse. They discussed me as if I was not present. “We got him as he was leaving,” I overheard someone say. “He says he’s injured, but he seems fine to me.” Many hours elapsed before the police permitted me to contact Ambere. She did not answer. “I’m sorry I ruined everything,” I conveyed in her voicemail. “You must trust me. It was either him or me.”
The ensuing days resembled a prolonged processing in the concrete and steel confines of the L.A. County correctional facility. I was seated on steel benches, in close proximity with other men, and slept on the ground. I was eventually given a worn vinyl mattress and directed into a sizable room, one of numerous bleak housing spaces to follow.
Initially, Ambere visited me frequently. However, remaining in Los Angeles was agonizing for her, and throughout the three years I awaited a jury trial, she relocated to San Francisco. I did not encounter her again until she appeared in the courtroom, where she remained silent towards me. The jury required less than an hour to determine I was guilty of aggravated murder, which is ideally reserved for extraordinarily brutal slayings. This meant imprisonment for life without the option of parole.
On the transportation back to the correctional facility, I gazed through reinforced windows at avenues I no longer anticipated seeing again. “It’s finished,” I mentioned to my cellmates. But a fellow inmate, Smoke, disagreed. “It’s never finished,” he stated. “There’s ample time, numerous years of fighting left in you—appeals, legal challenges, new laws.” Smoke had received a sentence of life imprisonment without parole, but a higher court had recently granted him another chance at trial.
Approximately a week later, my court-appointed attorney, Steve McManus, paid me a visit. “That jury deliberated too swiftly,” he expressed to me. “I need time to ascertain if there’s anything I can accomplish.” And so, for the subsequent two years, I deferred each sentencing opportunity while McManus and an independent investigator pursued jury members. During this period, my mother developed dementia and was admitted to a residential care center. My father endured a major stroke, and I had to inform his medical staff that he had never wished to be artificially sustained. I was barred from attending his service. I was their only offspring, and they had not nurtured me to conclude in such a state.
Ultimately, I was granted a new trial—same judge, same accusations. Once more, I noticed Ambere across the courtroom. Once more, she refrained from speaking to me. I could perceive the sentiment on her countenance.
This time, the jury appeared more compassionate. Following more than two days of discussions, the presiding juror declared the verdict, commencing with the charges of aggravated murder/robbery.
“Not guilty,” she announced.
She progressed to first-degree murder: “Not guilty.”
McManus and I straightened up. He placed his hand upon my shoulder. The presiding juror proceeded to second-degree murder.
“Guilty,” she declared. McManus collapsed into his seat.
I was condemned to forty-three years to life. Under ideal circumstances, I anticipated being considered for a parole hearing in 2046, at the age of seventy-seven. I had murdered a man, ended a life. My existence also felt terminated.
II. Reputation
My sentence commenced in an isolated desert detention facility where the majority of lifers presumed they had nothing to gain through model behavior. Stabbings and attacks occurred routinely. Illicit cellular devices and prohibited substances were widespread. Oddly, this also marked the phase when I evolved into a Taylor Swift admirer. I observed her being interviewed on television and detected a youthful sincerity that reminded me of Ambere. Upon hearing Swift’s compositions on the radio, I recalled that Ambere was present, perhaps even contemplating me.
In 2012, I was unexpectedly slated to meet with the Board of Parole Hearings (B.P.H.). I encountered a commissioner in a vibrant and antiseptic conference space. “I foresee changes in the laws soon,” he commented. “I doubt you’ll be required to serve more than approximately half of your term. But that is contingent on how you choose to spend your time.” I recollect experiencing the chilly, adhesive texture of my chair, questioning whether his remarks were a deception—an enticing incentive intended to steer me toward appropriate behavior. A fellow inmate in my building, who had been taken into custody for possessing a twenty-dollar rock while combating a crack dependence, was serving twenty-five years to life under the Three Strikes law. It was arduous to believe in a “justice” mechanism that would perpetrate such an act.
Nevertheless, with time, I acquired a standing. “Joe’s reliable,” individuals would express, with a blend of mockery and reluctant admiration. The correctional apparatus allocated each of us a security classification, partially based on our disciplinary histories; following a duration of positive conduct, I was transferred to a less-secure detention center proximate to Ambere. But soon I was reassigned, and I succumbed to a profound despondency. I concluded in a mental-health unit in San Luis Obispo. From my cell, I could observe a coastal valley and perceive train whistles resonating through the hills.
I consulted psychologists and participated in a support collective for lifers. We convened in a circle, on unsteady chairs, and deliberated on pursuing our “authentic selves”—the individuals we had each been prior to atrocious choices directing us to imprisonment. I refrained from contacting Ambere; a segment of me hoped, for her betterment, that she had discovered someone else. Yet I understood my authentic self was the individual who had fallen for her in 1995, when I was in my twenties. Within my cell, I would listen to “22,” by Taylor Swift, and contemplate those times.
In 2014, our collective learned that inmates who served twenty-five years and attained the age of sixty could qualify for release. I might appear before the parole committee in 2029 as opposed to 2046. “There’s considerable discussion within the B.P.H. currently to modify their perspective,” a former parole-board psychiatrist informed us. “Lacking any considerable warning signs, they are expected to extend you the benefit of the doubt and authorize your parole.”
In 2015, my mother’s caretaker arranged a phone exchange between my mom and me, with the expectation that a recognizable sound might penetrate her intensifying dementia. She seemed unable to recognize me. Later that year, upon attempting to dispatch my mom a Christmas card, I discovered that she had died. Due to me, both of my parents had passed away alone in unfamiliar surroundings, devoid of their only child to provide for them.
Following another relocation, I shared my cell with a septuagenarian who anticipated dying while incarcerated. Each morning, during my tooth brushing and coffee preparation, I inspected to determine whether he was still alive. I understood I might one day resemble him.
Subsequently, I received an ambiguous, one-sentence card from Ambere. We had not communicated in years, but she now appeared enthusiastic to reconnect. I dialed her former number from memory. Minutes elapsed as an automated apparatus prompted her to settle the payment for the call. Ultimately, I detected her amiable sound at the other end. She desired to update me regarding her novel existence. She sounded content and robust.
I devoted that year to eating, resting, exercising, and contacting Ambere. Each day, I was granted three hours outdoors in a concrete and asphalt enclosure where wild geese sometimes gathered. I listened to Swift’s initial albums, “Fearless” and “Speak Now,” which Ambere considered superficial and predictable. “You used to appreciate good music,” she playfully chided. “What occurred?” We spoke as companions, but I realized she was present, and that emboldened me to believe I could persevere until 2029.
One day in 2017, subsequent to a transfer to San Quentin State Prison, I observed a cohort of individuals encircling a pullup station in the recreation area. They were assessing one another on the ideas that surface at parole hearings: contributing elements, intrinsic and extrinsic triggers, coping strategies. “What is your objective?” I inquired. “With all due respect, why are you congregating in this space if you’re not exercising?”
“What truly matters to you?” one of them questioned me. “Freedom? Or executing pullups?”
Until that time, my approach to obtaining parole had involved enduring incarceration without any disciplinary transgressions. Nevertheless, everyone nearby seemed to be pursuing release by maximizing their detention center assignments, their academic pursuits, their engagement in self-improvement collectives. I disliked the notion of rehearsing whatever we believed the parole committee desired to perceive. I was beginning to grasp that any trajectory toward emancipation, for me, would necessitate encompassing a genuine feeling of self-fulfillment. I aspired to endeavor to improve beyond my current state.
I commenced reporting articles for the San Quentin News, a detention center-endorsed publication, covering what I perceived as the ethos of rehabilitation. Imprisonment had rendered me cynical, yet I was moved by certain individuals I documented. I observed a cohort of young perpetrators—males who had matured into adulthood within the detention facility—attempt to recover a portion of the innocence they had relinquished. At their gatherings, on Thursdays, they would sometimes engage in charades or Pictionary. They also spurred individuals like me to contribute our meager savings to worthy causes, such as shelters for susceptible youth and guidance for children with incarcerated parents.
One individual continually surfaced in my reporting: Heidi Rummel, a parole advocate and reform champion at the University of Southern California. When contacting her, I would secure the phone between my shoulder so I could document feverishly within a notepad. “You need to adequately respond to and tackle three fundamental inquiries,” Heidi stated, pertaining to the parole procedure. “What was my action? Why did I act thusly? And how have I reformed? If you fail to comprehend your offense and the internal factors that precipitated your choices, then the Board cannot be assured you will abstain from enacting those identical deleterious choices again.”
III. Karma
The pandemic years transformed me. I survived a coronavirus contamination when numerous individuals I knew did not. Subsequently, every human interaction registered as invaluable and potentially transient. Ambere and I had been disconnected for a handful of years, but we were anxious concerning each other and reestablished communication. Meanwhile, California endeavored to alleviate prison overpopulation by designating a novel cohort of individuals eligible for parole. Presently, I would necessitate serving twenty years and reaching the age of fifty—a benchmark I’d surpass in 2023. In isolation within my cell, I listened to “Folklore” and “Evermore,” albums that Swift unveiled in 2020. “Time, wondrous time / Gave me the blues and then purple-pink skies,” Swift vocalizes on “Invisible String.”
And isn’t it just so pretty to think
All along there was some
Invisible string
Tying you to me?
At a B.P.H. consultation session in 2022, a commissioner informed me that I could appear before the Board in the upcoming year or so. “Prepare,” he counseled. “It would not reflect favorably on you to obtain a writeup between now and your hearing.” Ambere cautioned me to maintain a low profile. I commenced composing an essay regarding my affection for Taylor Swift’s music, inspired by her album “Midnights.” However, I had also been elected as the head of San Quentin’s Inmate Advisory Council, a post that mandated me to communicate the complaints of the populace. It arrived with unparalleled privileges that I savored flaunting, such as access to the entire facility and individual dialogues with the warden. I persuaded him that I should be housed without a cellmate whenever feasible.
One officer was inclined to assign me cellmates regardless, perhaps to assess me. Upon questioning him regarding this, he inquired of me, “Who do you believe you are?” Therefore, I ascended the chain of command and entreated his captain to intervene on my account. The captain conducted a hushed conversation with the officer directly before me, and I smirked complacently beneath a face covering as the officer glowered.
I soon lamented to officers regarding their procedure of confining us into shower spaces unattended, ostensibly as a means of asserting authority. The procedure persisted, therefore I communicated with the warden. He decreed that they cease. Initially, I boasted concerning my achievement. Staff commenced confronting me upon my entry to the shower. I simply shrugged and proceeded. I perceived invulnerability. Subsequently, I obtained a notification in the mail. An officer had cited me for “unauthorized” showering, alleging that I had challenged authority and disregarded direct directives. Abruptly, my impeccable record was defiled.
The burden of that solitary document propelled me toward unprecedented nadirs of humiliation and self-disgust. Was this retribution? Had I acquired nothing from these numerous years? Later that week, an officer situated me in administrative segregation—the Hole—on the rationale that I constituted a security risk. Confidential informants had apparently accused me of inflammatory remarks. I endured Christmas and New Year’s Day in complete detachment.
Weekly, if fortunate, officers escorted me to an enclosed telephone, where I typically contacted Ambere. I possessed no accessibility to my belongings. Companions mailed me blank stationery so that I could persist in laboring on my Taylor Swift composition. Pens were prohibited within the Hole—solely the flimsy ink reservoirs from within ballpoint cases. I was compelled to secure the stationery tightly around the ink cylinders, affixing the stationery into position with moistened soap, and awaiting the complete desiccation of the ensemble.
I amended my resting schedule so that I could operate in the tranquility of the night. We could solely appreciate music utilizing diminutive, hand-cranked radios, and I endured static to perceive “Anti-Hero,” “Karma,” and “Snow on the Beach.” I documented the personal significance I discovered in “Daylight,” a song concluding with a heartfelt recording of Swift speaking. “I aspire to be characterized by the elements I cherish,” she expresses. “Not the elements I detest, not the elements I fear, the elements that haunt me in the middle of the night.”
Following six months within the Hole, I was reassigned to High Desert State Prison. I contacted Heidi. I sought to ascertain whether my duration in administrative segregation would jeopardize my parole session. “They will pose questions,” she informed me.
IV. Labyrinth
In September, 2023, The New Yorker disseminated my essay, “Listening to Taylor Swift in Prison.” My editor apprised me that it circulated virally on Facebook and Twitter—platforms I had never even utilized, since they were nonexistent upon my arrest. My item failed to cite Ambere by name, but upon her dispatching her acquaintances and family the link, her mother conveyed to her that perhaps we belonged together ultimately.
I entreated Heidi to serve as my parole representative and, ultimately, she consented. “I aspire to be exceedingly unequivocal,” she stated. “I possess no patience for any games or deception. I necessitate your complete truthfulness with me, concerning everything. That constitutes my singular mode of operation.” Ambere settled Heidi’s attorney disbursements. “You do not belong within that setting,” she conveyed to me.
My parole session was definitively slated for April, 2024. Heidi imparted a cautionary note. “I comprehend your pride in your work, but refrain from presenting yourself as some variety of detention center celebrity,” she stated. “Do not embody that persona.”
I commenced readying for an assessment by a forensic psychologist. “It’s not a popularity challenge,” Heidi stated. “It’s a hazard evaluation. Psychologists are educated to perceive beyond the facade to evaluate the actual proceedings.” She instructed me to merely be myself, but I recognized that my self-assurance could register as abrasive. Was I embodying my authentic self in 2003, when I had incited Earl’s ire and subsequently overreacted to it? Or in 2022, when officers alleged that I had disputed their authority?
For the evaluation, I was situated before a computer display within a room adorned with U.S. and California flags. A woman’s countenance materialized. The psychologist’s inquiries—pertaining to my childhood, my experiences with narcotics, my detention center record—registered as meticulously neutral. “I perceive you lack any job designation or current programming currently,” she conveyed. “What actions do you undertake to occupy your time?”
I overheard myself inform her, proudly, that I was a occupied individual even devoid of a job. I was a journalist. I composed for external publications. Upon her inquiry regarding my intent, I endeavored to suppress a grin. “Well, I had a piece released in The New Yorker last September,” I retorted.
“Did you utter The New Yorker?”
I educated her regarding my essay. I elucidated that journalism had instructed me to scrutinize the truth, encompassing my own existence preferences, from all standpoints. Perhaps that constituted rehabilitation?
For the ensuing thirty days, as winter snows diminished to frigid precipitation, I fretted concerning the psychologist’s documentation. I ultimately perused her report, in solitude within my freezing cell, and I apprehended that my destiny was recorded somewhere within.
“With time, the examinee has discarded much of his conceit and ego, though he unquestionably does not lack in conviction currently,” she inscribed. “He conceded to projecting arrogance at times, and during the occasion of the crime he possessed restricted empathy.” The report referenced my numerous years devoid of disciplinary infractions, violence, or drugs as proof that I was not acting “for the purposes of impression management”—she did not infer I was feigning it—but rather that I had enacted “modifications that will be evident for the long duration.” To my astonishment, the psychologist referenced my essay within a segment designated “Rehabilitative Programs/Self Help.” She concluded that my hazard of future violence was minimal. Upon seeing those terms, I wept.
Heidi transmitted to the B.P.H. a voluminous parole package, encompassing written reflections from me and letters of endorsement from acquaintances and colleagues. I contacted Ambere daily. “All you can execute currently is enter there and articulate for yourself,” she stated. On the morning of my parole session, I awoke at 6:15 A.M. to the customary sounds of clanging doors and reverberating voices. I had breakfast within the chow hall by myself. Upon an officer’s arrival to retrieve me, I felt a semblance of tranquil emptiness. My years within the detention center had instructed me to concede what resided beyond my jurisdiction.
I occupied the same worn-out chair from which I had spoken to the psychologist. From a slender folder of notations, I detached two images—personal reminders of the stakes. One depicted my parents. The other depicted Ambere, smiling assuredly with her hand upon her hip.
At 8:37 A.M., Heidi and I joined a virtual assembly. The victim’s family is authorized to attend parole sessions, therefore I half anticipated spotting Earl’s relatives, but there were solely two B.P.H. commissioners in attendance. I recognized the presiding commissioner as a lifelong correction officer who had ascended to the function of warden at San Quentin—a heritage that concerned me. “We are not present to reconsider the determinations of the trial and/or appellate courts, nor are we present to retry your case,” he stated. “Conversely, the objective of today’s session is to discover your present identity and whether you would present an unreasonable risk of peril to society upon release.”
Both commissioners disputed the manner in which I depicted my crime. Earl and I had quarreled and battled. He had aimed my own firearm at me and we had struggled fiercely for dominion, as I had testified at trial. The deputy commissioner seemed to sense that I was inferring self-defense. Later, during our discussion of my arduous duration on the Inmate Advisory Council, the presiding commissioner appeared to restrain a faint chuckle. Perhaps a former warden, paradoxically, would grasp my experiences.
They barely inquired regarding education or employment. “Your case is somewhat unparalleled,” the deputy commissioner stated. “You evidently possess avenues to sustain yourself, and you are educated.” I had recently been extended a U.C. Berkeley journalism fellowship. But both men inquired regarding the recent disciplinary writeup. I could have managed that circumstance with greater tact and diminished bluster, I conveyed to them. Shortly, the deputy commissioner was inquiring regarding narcissism and criminal reasoning. I had extensively feared that the B.P.H. would discover me too polished, excessively ideal to be authentic. Assuredly, the deputy commissioner inquired of me, “Have you ever perceived the term ‘impression management’?”
“I’m certain there’s a multitude of elements I execute that seem positive,” I stated. “I prefer to believe it’s because they genuinely are positive. But I thoroughly comprehend that it’s all somewhat subject to the discretion of whomever is scrutinizing you.” I gazed at the images of Ambere and my parents. The remainder of my existence hinged upon how these men evaluated my credibility.
During a ten-minute recess, Heidi was anxious. “I disliked that inquiry regarding impression management,” she stated. “It implies they do not confide you are communicating the truth.” Oddly, I discovered myself reassuring her. Her closing statement struck a modest tone. “He does not contest or argue with his past persona,” she conveyed to the commissioners. But she reminded them of my record and invited them to envision me following imprisonment: “He will achieve triumph, he will be pro-social, and he will refrain from engaging in violence or harming another human being.” In my own closing statement, I expressed gratitude to the commissioners for perceiving me as I truly was, aspiring that, ultimately, they would. “I perceive inner conflict here because I’m requesting the opportunity I never bestowed upon Earl—the opportunity to proceed freely into the daylight,” I stated. “I’m certain that within numerous individuals’ perspectives I do not merit such an opportunity.”
At 10:36 A.M., the commissioners recessed for deliberation. Upon their return, the presiding commissioner recited their decision. “Based upon the legal standards in the evidence considered, we determine that you, Mr. Garcia, do not present an unreasonable hazard to public security,” he stated. “This panel determines you are suitable for parole.”
V. Fresh Out the Slammer
California is one of solely two states wherein a governor possesses months to veto a parole determination—a waiting span that can register as the most excruciating within an individual’s entire incarceration. Acquaintances inquired why I registered as apathetic concerning potentially obtaining release, but I discerned no rationale to celebrate. Earl remained deceased. I had forfeited twenty-one years that I could never recoup.
Nonetheless, Ambere was rearranging her agenda to arrive and retrieve me. A documentary filmmaker persuaded detention center administrators to authorize him to film what would ideally represent the culmination of my incarceration. During moments of solitude, I played “The Tortured Poets Department”—“T.T.P.D.”—on an endless repetition. It encompassed a love composition designated “Fresh Out the Slammer.”
Two weeks preceding the culmination of the waiting span, Heidi transmitted an unexpected message through my detention center tablet. The governor’s office would not challenge my parole determination. “Welcome home,” she penned. At a juncture during the upcoming week, I would be discharged to a transitional residence within the Los Angeles vicinity. Ambere resided in L.A. alongside her canine, Winston. “He’s the affection of my existence,” she frequently informed me. “He never abandoned me for twenty-one years.”
My concluding full day inside the detention center was September 12, 2024. My routine weekly gathering of lifers evolved into a commemoration of my release. I was ecstatic, but I also discerned that I would miss them. I comprehended that CDs registered as inconsequential within the outside environment, therefore I relinquished “Midnights” and “T.T.P.D.” to two companions. That night, I contacted Ambere, who was in the midst of a ten-hour expedition to arrive and retrieve me. We conversed for hours, until the telephone app upon my detention center tablet ceased operation at 9 P.M.
I arranged my possessions and pondered the destiny until 4 A.M. An hour and a half thereafter, I was upright once more, brushing my teeth and cleansing my visage. I appeared to have forgotten the composure I had acquired from two decades internally.
At 6:05 A.M., an officer materialized at the window within my cell door. “Garcia, are you prepared to parole?”
I exited the cell bearing a plastic refuse sack of paperwork, toiletries, apparel, and a few sentimental objects, encompassing the MP3 device that housed my Taylor Swift playlists. Individuals were slamming upon doors and proclaiming congratulations. “All right, everyone!” I shouted in return.
Within a cinder-block detention cell, I was situated across from another parolee, but we remained taciturn with each other. We simply confronted each other from our distinct states of intellect. I perceived residing within “Waiting for Godot,” or perhaps the finale of “Seinfeld.” A medical professional presented me with Narcan and condoms, even following my endeavor to decline them. “You can dispose of it within the refuse subsequently, for all we regard,” an officer stated, grinning. I shed my detention center attire, retaining a T-shirt and sweats. The officer presented me with a two-hundred-dollar debit card recognized as “gate money.”
One concluding detention center vehicle transported me through numerous guard checkpoints to a rural intersection. I was discharged upon the soil verge of an asphalt path. The daylight registered as brighter there.
Ambere was across the route, smiling. I proceeded directly toward her and we embraced each other. She positioned her hands behind my cranium. “You’re genuinely present now,” she conveyed into my ear.
We halted at a diner and partook in the variety of breakfast we previously consumed: eggs, biscuits and gravy, fresh fruits, and French toast for sharing. Devoid of a valid license, I could not contribute to the expedition. But, due to my release transpiring upon a Friday, my parole bureau within Los Angeles was not anticipating me until Monday. That night, within a motel, Ambere and I descended into a comforting, recognizable slumber, her cranium upon my chest and my arm wrapped around her torso—virtually identical to our arrangement prior to my crime.
I was unready to absolve myself for the years we had forfeited. It registered as arduous for me to deem that I merited such kindness. But the subsequent day, a handful of hours into our expedition, I observed the L.A. skyline materialize upon the horizon, and I commenced to weep. I had returned to my genesis. I was home.
VI. Daylight
On Sunday, November 3rd, I awoke alongside Ambere at 3:30 A.M. I necessitated reaching the airport.
“You’re genuinely departing me for Taylor Swift?”
“Yeah, I must enact this.” A segment of me merely aspired to remain, remain, remain.
Approximately a month following my discharge from the detention center, my editor at The New Yorker had astonished me with a query. If a means existed for me to attend the Eras Tour, would I desire to compose regarding it? I was compelled to implore the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the B.P.H. for authorization to traverse beyond fifty miles from my residence, and they sanctioned it—on the stipulation that my editor accompany me.
The ultimate U.S. performance within the Eras Tour transpired in Indianapolis. Upon my arrival, subsequent to my initial airborne journey in excess of two decades, I observed Eras Tour globes, banners, and beverage menus; I passed a three-story replica of Swift. At my hotel, abandoned tables were strewn with friendship-bracelet beads. We hastened to the football arena where the concert was transpiring. The sixty-nine thousand enthusiasts internally felt akin to my community.
I’d perceived narratives of Swifties leaping and exclaiming so intensely that they triggered earthquake detectors. Upon the diminishment of the lights, I felt the quakes myself. I could barely decipher the opening melodies of “Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince.” Subsequently, I perceived the lines, “I counted days, I counted miles / To see you there, to see you there / It’s been a long time coming.” I contemplated the days I’d counted within the detention center. It felt inaccurate to reside two thousand miles distant from Ambere.
Swift executed three of my all-time preferred songs: “Cruel Summer,” “The Man,” and an abbreviated adaptation of “You Need to Calm Down.” Her every motion was choreographed, but she succeeded in registering as genuine. Upon her deceleration to execute “Lover,” she registered as voicing the sentiment I possessed regarding Ambere: “Can I go where you go? Can we always be this close?”
I texted Ambere, but for an unidentified rationale my communications were undelivered. I commenced to register as unduly miserable. “We’re happy, free, confused, and lonely in the best way,” Swift sang in “22.” I aspired to abandon the entire scenario and telephone home—but I initially necessitated perceiving “All Too Well.” Swift was in solitude onstage, strumming her acoustic instrument. The assemblage harmonized collectively, and we evolved into an instrument of our own.
A few songs later, with Swift performing “Cardigan” upon the piano, I exited. Ambere answered following one ring.
“Why are you phoning me?” she inquired promptly. “Aren’t you at the concert reveling in yourself?”
“Yeah, but I’ve been contemplating you the entirety of the duration.”
One of my preferred compositions from “T.T.P.D.,” “Down Bad,” likened affection to an extraterrestrial abduction. I’d consistently contemplated my incarceration in the contrary manner: my actions had extracted me away from affection and into an otherworldly setting. Upon a screen above the stage, a flying saucer descended—an image that persists in my intellect.
The concluding track was “Karma.” Upon Swift’s vocalization of “I keep my side of the street clean,” I apprehended that I would be endeavoring to enact the identical for the remainder of my days. I possessed no remaining duration for anything additional. At the culmination of the composition, Swift conveyed gratitude to the assemblage and observed her fellow performers taking a bow. Upon the illumination of the lights, I felt an immense shared disappointment. The performance had concluded, as had an era.
Since the concert within Indianapolis, I have infrequently ventured beyond sight of the L.A. skyline. Ambere is present, and a semblance of an invisible string ties me to her. We share a residence alongside Winston, a curmudgeon of a bulldog whose gaze seems replete with judgment. (Thankfully, he approves of me.) Each day, I possess a sentiment that everything I necessitate or desire is directly present. Every repast, every cup of coffee, every expedition or evening excursion, registers as significant.
During my concluding months within the detention center, Ambere listened to all of Taylor’s music, endeavoring to perceive the pertinence and allure that I had perceived. Upon my day of discharge, I pestered her akin to a querulous adolescent: “I necessitate an iPhone. I necessitate Spotify. I necessitate catching up.” More than once, she overheard me listening to “Daylight,” and she mocked me by mimicking the chorus: “Daylight, daylight, daylight, day-light!” Her rendition may register as my preferred.
At the cessation of 2024, Spotify informed me that I had listened to Taylor Swift more than any additional artist, and Swift materialized in a special video dispatch to convey gratitude. I discovered it amusing to ascertain that she was Ambere’s top artist, as well. She texted me, “This is entirely your culpability, damn it!” And it was. I accept complete accountability—for that, and everything supplementary. ♦
Sourse: newyorker.com
