Hole In My Life

Gantos establishes the basic schema for events in his memoir in the first two chapters. Several chapters in the book begin like Chapter One: the timing is not the present, but it is a more recent event; this is clear because Gantos reflects on an aspect of prison life before moving back further into his past, examining how he ends up in prison. Since Gantos’ primary impression of prison is violence, the memoir deftly weaves a chief moment from his childhood that foreshadows the violence yet to come. Gantos recalls the memory of his father in a town in Pennsylvania, pointing out the men and women he knows committed crimes. While he means this as a cautionary tale to his son, he describes the people as strong, but violent, clever, but devious; as an adult, this dual nature to criminality seduces Gantos. In the flashback, he explores the color red—a color he will see frequently in the prison hospital ward. He describes himself as a child, when a splash of red would run down his chin after biting into piece of meat or beet-red egg at a bar with his father. He reflects that with the bright red on his chin, “he must of looked like he was in a bar brawl” (6). The sight of Gantos, as a young boy, with blood on his mouth, foreshadows the base desire for immediate gratification that will lure him right into a prison cell. 

The second chapter also introduces a common end to many chapters: in this case, the story ends with him losing money in a casino. Gantos remembers that if he lost a particularly large sum, he would go to the beach and watch the stars. This infuses Gantos with positivity and a belief that even though things look bleak now, they will improve. He, essentially, makes a poor choice and lets himself off the hook for it. This pattern leads to many of Gantos’other poor choices. Instead of learning from his mistake, he externalizes it: he leaves his future in the hands of fate. He counts on this luck throughout the memoir and he uses this mentality to negate his father’s words as he summarizes the criminal mind: “once you cross that line, there’s no coming back” (7). Gantos allows this forced positivity, this skill of putting a bright seal on failure, to lead him over the line, to a point from which he cannot return. 

These chapters also introduce the contrast between freedom and incarceration. To begin, Gantos describes his mindset in prison: “[f]ear of being a target of irrational violence haunted me day and night. The constant tempo of that violence pulsed throughout my body and made me feel small, and weak, and cowardly” (4). This quote from Chapter One contrasts with the start of Chapter Two, where Gantos says he will start to explain where he went wrong. He states that as a nineteen-year-old, he had “unlimited freedom” (9). Compared to the haunted mind he has in prison, one that he feels can never rest or he may die, Gantos’ path to prison begins with an unfettered mind, and Gantos does little past drink, daydream, and gamble. These chapters force the reader to consider the difference between being free and using that freedom effectively. Gantos’ time with the Bacon family and decision to move into King’s Court reveals he feels the need to be free from disinteresting people, people that have no desire to truly live. He views Mr. and Mrs. Bacon as “miserable and loveless” (15) and himself as “full of promise” (15), so he ignores Mr. Bacon’s warnings. Once incarcerated, that freedom becomes a much more valuable thing, something that Gantos resolves in the very last lines of his memoir.