My proudest achievement in all my years in solitary was teaching a man how to read. His name was Charles. We called him Goldy because his mouth was full of gold teeth. He was a few cells down from me on D tier. I could tell he couldn’t read but was trying to hide it. I knew the signs because my mom did the same things to hide the fact she couldn’t read. One day I told him about my mom, about her accomplishments. I told him she couldn’t read or write and asked him if he could. “It’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” I said. He told me he never learned to read because he didn’t go to school.
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