A Place to Stand

Baca learns he must spend thirty days in isolation following the assault on the guard, so he spends the idle hours delving into memories of his past.

He thinks of his childhood adventures with his friend Mocoso and of the years when his family was together. He recalls his grandparents and uncles, and he begins to spend hours lost in his memories.

Baca remembers a confrontation between his father and mother after she married Richard. His father had begged her to return to him and promises that he will quit drinking. She reveals that she loves his father, but she stays with Richard because he is sober and non-violent.

Baca’s mother tells Damacio that she tried to return to him on the night she left town with Richard. If even one car had stopped, she says, she would have left Richard asleep at the motel where they were staying. When no one would give her a ride, she returned to Richard.

Baca spends so much time in the world of memories that he begins to question his own sanity. In these reveries, however, Baca is free of the confines of prison, and he begins to have hope in the future once again.