In Chap­ter 195 of “All the Col­ors of the Dark,” Patch is filled with anx­i­ety as he antic­i­pates his week­ly meet­ings with Mar­ty Tooms, strug­gling to gath­er the ques­tions that plague his mind. His days become increas­ing­ly somber, prompt­ing con­cern from his col­league Coop­er about his men­tal well-being. While walk­ing the perime­ter of the yard, he observes the work­men and rem­i­nisces about his sur­round­ings, which are stark and full of reminders of the prison envi­ron­ment.

Dur­ing a stroll, he encoun­ters Tug, an old­er man known for his crim­i­nal past, specif­i­cal­ly for an inci­dent dur­ing a gam­bling loss in 1964. Tug’s life, marked by a dras­tic event involv­ing a deal­er and a tug­boat, reveals the pre­car­i­ous nature of human behav­ior under pres­sure. Their con­ver­sa­tion drifts from casu­al talk to Tug’s obses­sion with Ursu­la Andress, a Bond girl he has adored since 1955, express­ing his dis­ap­point­ment at the lack of enter­tain­ing mate­ri­als in the prison library.

Despite his short stature and eccen­tric­i­ty, Tug presents a form of opti­mism that con­trasts with Patch’s gloom. Their dia­logue reveals Tug’s wish to escape, illus­trat­ed by his fan­ta­sy of oper­at­ing heavy machin­ery to demol­ish fences and cre­ate chaos. Patch learns about a his­tor­i­cal escape involv­ing Son­ny Park­er, under­scor­ing the dif­fi­cul­ties of break­ing out of their facil­i­ty. The men­tion of a suc­cess­ful tun­nel escape and a smug­gled gun hints at the lengths inmates go to secure their free­dom, adding to the atmos­phere of hope­less­ness min­gled with rebel­lious dreams of free­dom held by the pris­on­ers.

As the chap­ter pro­gress­es, a brief dis­tur­bance occurs when a fight breaks out, but Patch remains detached, reflect­ing on his incar­cer­a­tion and lack of options. Ulti­mate­ly, the dia­logue between Patch and Tug expos­es the harsh real­i­ties of prison life, ambi­tion for escape, and the deep yearn­ing for con­nec­tion and val­i­da­tion in a place filled with despair. Patch’s state­ment of hav­ing “no place to go” serves as a poignant reminder of his con­fine­ment and lost oppor­tu­ni­ties.