Yamiles Urena
November 15, 2011
Period 4
In the book Fish T.J Parcell was a 17 year old boy who went to jail for robbing a placemat with a toy gun. When he was younger, before going to jail, T.J did about everything and anything bad; barely went to school, drank and smoke illegally, paid for sex and so on and as forth. But then at age 17, T.J got to experience consequences for his action in prison for an unknown but long amount of time. In the beginning T.J got some often advice and support from his older brother (who also went to jail before) basically about how to deal with and survive time in prison. But as it got further in the book, Parcell came to be on his own. He was alone and abused physically and sexually regularly by two characters in the book, Chet and Slide Step. Because of this, Parcell started to often doubt his sexuality, questioning whether he was straight for sure or destined to be gay. Parcell finally realized the truth when he and an inmate, Paul, met and hit it off. Paul got Parcell through a lot of things and they both felt inseparable from each other. The two were so in love that it was reported how much time they were spending together and Paul was sent to a different facility. This separation broke Parcell apart and it shattered him even more when he found out after he and Paul planned to escape together he did it without him and was even caught and sent to solitary confinement. T.J. Was finally sent to a control center as consequence for even planning the escape with his lover. By the end of the end of the book, T.J Parcell made one year in prison.
"The day Paul escaped had been March 3, 1979. Exactly one year since I first came to prison. (Parcell 336) In this quote, T.J Parcell was sent a Control Center
