Gantos often alerts the reader to the status of his face throughout the narrative. The first is at the beginning at the memoir, where he helps the reader interpret his prison picture: his greasy hair, long sideburns, and especially his pockmarked, acned face—the result of having picked at his face throughout young adulthood. At times of great stress, Gantos would pick at his face, worsening the acne already there and making it difficult to shave.

Awaiting trial, Gantos is in a hotel room, at the Chelsea Hotel. When he looks in the mirror, he sees “a disfiguring disease that was slowly reshaping his face” (132); as his options for escape fade, Gantos picks more feverishly at his face. Losing control over most aspects of his life prompts him to exert control over the few things he can.

While in prison, Gantos is again struck most by the lack of control he has over his own life; the lurking violence that threatens him and his fellow inmates is sometimes capricious, sparing one man only to victimize another. He finds a position that provides relative safety from having his number called, but he still struggles with the notion that his freedom and his fate are out of his control.