(Continued from page 4)
"Stay home, man," Paige shouted as his young relative turned to
walk out of the penitentiary gate.
"I'll write to you, dog," Banks yelled back, as he turned one
last time to look at his cousin and the prison yard that caged him for over a
year.
After his release, Banks was back on a Baltimore street corner
-- but this time he wasn't hustling, he was waiting for a ride to the detox
center.
After a mandatory month-long stay at a drug treatment center,
Banks will live for eight months in the shelter, where he will have to hold a
job, pay rent and attend daily drug treatment and therapy sessions.
As he waited for his ride, Banks
met Archie Hill, an ex-offender who directs the Barnabas Ministry, a weekly
support group for prisoners. Hill smiled as he saw Banks in an oversized
prison-issue T-shirt. Together, at the gates of the prison yard, they joined
hands and prayed, asking God to bless them both and give them strength to
succeed in life.