Maurice "Reese" Anderson Timeline and Summary

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• We meet Reese on his first day at Evergreen, an eldercare facility where he's spending ten days a month as part of the new Progress work program.
• Progress is a juvenile prison and Reese has been behind bars there for twenty-two months so far.
• Reese's job at Evergreen involves picking up garbage and talking to residents, who are hostile and racist. We know Progress must be bad because Reese thinks Evergreen's practically paradise.
• Back at Progress, trouble's brewing. Some of the inmates are picking on Toon, who's young and scrawny.
• After Toon is beaten to a pulp, Reese appoints himself as Toon's defender. This leads him into a series of fistfights, starting with a guy named Cobo.
• Reese gets in huge trouble and almost loses the support of Mr. Cintron, who runs Progress (and the work program). Reese narrowly manages to keep his job at Evergreen.
• Reese swears to do better, but soon enough he's fighting another dude who's been picking on Toon, and he gets in trouble again.
• Meanwhile, Reese's work at Evergreen is going pretty well. He's well liked by the other employees, and he's forming a special friendship with a resident named Mr. Hooft.
• Reese and Mr. Hooft got off to a rocky start because Mr. Hooft's a cranky racist. But as Mr. H talks about his terrible experiences during World War II, Reese gains insight into his own situation.
• Back at Progress, Reese gets into fistfight number three, which lands him in solitary confinement for five days.
• While he's alone, Reese pushes back his despair and strengthens his resolve. He can do this.
• But on the other side of his confinement, Reese finds more trouble: Two cops want to pin him with a murder he didn't commit.
• Reese freaks out, for real—he's literally sick with worry.
• Meanwhile, Reese finds a reason to live that's outside of himself: He decides to focus on his little sister, Icy. He wants to help her get through college.
• And finally, it looks like he can. The cops drop the trumped up charges and Reese should be headed home soon on early release.
• Except he doesn't get early release. Four more months of Progress, then. Reese is bummed, but he's okay.
• One year later, we see Reese is back home and doing pretty well. He's tentatively hopeful about the future.