This Is My America

by Kim Johnson

  I let out my first hearty laugh since before the Susan Touric interview. Glad I chose to come see Tasha and not lock myself in my room, holding my breath every time someone comes up the stairs.

  “That’s the problem with this generation, going on these reality shows because someone didn’t knock some sense into them before they get on the screen and have their dream snatched on live television.”

  “That’s cold, Ma.” Tasha crosses her arms. Then scowls at Daddy Greg as he enters, joining in naming all the careers she should try that require no musical talent.

  When things finally die down, Daddy Greg hands over his keys and turns to me. “How’s ‘Tracy’s Corner’?”

  “Good,” I say. “The column is getting popular. Readers are up.”

  “Most popular with Black folks,” Tasha says. “The rest hate-read. You know them white kids don’t like hearing about Black Lives Matter each week.”

  “That’s their problem. And they’re about to be big mad next year when I’m setting up feature stories.”

  “Let me guess,” Tasha says. “Court cases and police brutality on every page?”

  “Don’t let Tasha give you a hard time,” her mom says. “She stays reading ‘Tracy’s Corner.’ ”

  “The editor position is a lock.” Tasha gives a wicked smile because she was just messing with me.

  “Better be. I put in as many hours as the editor this year.” I glance at my watch. I want a lot of time with Daddy.

  “You got this, Tracy,” Daddy Greg says. “Speak your truth.”

  “So, whose fault is it you broke parole again?” Tasha rolls her eyes at Daddy Greg.

  “Don’t you start.” Her mom’s tone is icy.

  “It ain’t easy getting out and finding work. I’m lucky I did this time. You don’t know what serving six years can do. I was out early, thinking about who’s protecting my peeps. Are they gon’ feel some type a way I’m out?”

  “That’s your problem,” Tasha says. “You were thinking about them and not us.”

  “Tasha.” I touch her hand. We can’t understand what that life is like. Every moment of your day controlled. The people in there were his family for six years.

  “The last three years I was thinking about what kind of man I was gonna be when I got out. An end date became real after messing up. I wasn’t going to spend the rest of my life in there. I was caught up on that before.”

  I gulp hard, look away. He’s talking about people like my daddy who aren’t ever getting out.

  “I’m sorry, Tracy. I didn’t mean it like that,” Daddy Greg says. “I feel your daddy coming home. I didn’t mean to put you out like that. I’m just saying, I was gonna be ready this time.”

  Ms. Candice hands a glass of sweet tea to Daddy Greg. I look at them with envy that they’re back together, but Tasha’s not looking like she’s happy. She’s looking at them like she’s lost. Been betrayed.

  “We gotta go.” Tasha spins, grimace on her face. Not even realizing while she’s mad at her dad, mine’s still in a cell block.

  Tasha storms off without me.

  “All right, I’ll be seeing ya.” I lean back awkwardly with my hands shoved in my shorts pockets.

  “Don’t worry about all this,” Daddy Greg says. “I gotta prove myself. She’ll come around.”

  We look at each other, nodding. But Tasha’s gone hard; her walls have climbed so high that I don’t know if she can break them down and let anyone in.

  * * *

  The car is silent, so I pull out my notepad and start a letter to Innocence X.

  “Damn, you stay writing letters.” Tasha breaks the silence. “I’ve only written letters to Daddy Greg. Never even knew what to say then.”

  “Gotta reach them somehow.”

  “Why don’t you call them?” Tasha says, backing up her car. “Just call until they answer. Email.”

  “They don’t take email or phone calls for cases. Only letters and applications to their intake department.”

  “It sucks your dad’s locked up, but at least he’s still a good dad. Hell, he could trade places with Daddy Greg. I wouldn’t mind.”

  “Tasha.” I put my pen down. Jokes about death row I don’t take lightly.

  “Sorry.” Tasha taps my leg. “I didn’t mean you better off than me. Just having Daddy Greg home isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. He’s trying to fold into our lives, and he just don’t fit, you know.”

  “He’s been gone,” I say, then pause. “Time stopped for him but kept moving for y’all. You guys will figure it out. Even if he was here all that time, you’re seventeen—you were gonna give him hell anyways.” I bump her shoulder and she only gives me a sliver of a smile.

  I bite my tongue to keep from saying how easy it is for her to think that. She had a clock to work with. Mine is different. Mine is a countdown.

  “Can’t change the past, Tasha.” My voice is strained from irritation.

  Tasha huffs but keeps her thoughts to herself.

  We keep our chitchat light for the next hour, knowing we’ve touched nerves. I count down signs until we reach Livingston, a small town where Polunsky Prison is located.

  Silence completely takes us over again. Everything else washes away except the fast beat of my heart as we take the long road past acres filled with grass and farmland. Then we see the fenced-in wall of the maximum-security prison. It’s twenty feet tall along rows of cinder-block towers with razor wire atop it. From a distance, you can see the guards standing on top and the surveillance cameras lined up around the perimeter. As usual, an uneasy feeling swirls in my stomach. But this time is different—I defied Mama during Jamal’s interview. Lied about new suspects, and I’m certain Daddy’s heard all about it by now.

  THE APPLE OF OUR EYE

  We turn into the prison’s parking lot. A roar of laughter escapes a group of boys perched outside. They circle around one guy who’s trying to play it low-key. His eyes shift, watching the parking lot. A black garbage bag is sprawled on the ground in front of his feet, confirming he’s the one just released. Also by how his boys are all hype. They punch playful fists at each other, rapidly spitting out catch-up stories to him. I think they might be so into themselves they’ll ignore us parking, but the second we drive toward the visitor lot, I hear their chatter.

  “There you go, man.” I’m not sure who says it.

  A whistle blows out long and low.

  “Not a chance,” Tasha says out the window.

  His boys huddle, laughing, saying “oooh.” Their voices eventually fade as she pulls into the lot farther away from releases.

  I give a grateful smile to Tasha for driving me the two hours to visit Daddy. Knowing she’ll be out here waiting for me when I’m done.

  I enter the first small building and join a short line, dump my things in a yellow bin. The security woman smooths her hands down my arms, up my waist, across my bra line, then down my legs.

  Then I go to the next building and wait until I’m called over the loudspeaker. I sit by a small round-table bench as the prisoners line up behind the glass. I’m grateful they changed the rule to visit death-row inmates, and I don’t have to come all this way to pick up a phone to talk to Daddy through a glass window.

  There’s a buzz, then a clank as the locks release and the door is propped open by an officer. Rushing in to see their visitors, a few guys bump into one another.

  My heart stops, hoping this doesn’t turn into some altercation that’ll shut down visiting hour while they go into lockdown. Or worse, I witness Daddy getting into it with someone. I shut my eyes for a moment, thinking about the first time I saw him with injuries. I blink the memory away.

  It takes so much out of me and the family getting ready for a visit, hiding our own troubles. Always finding a way to ball it up during our visits so we don’t put th
at stress on Daddy.

  The men size one another up until one’s distracted by his son yelling, “Daddy! I see Daddy!” He turns to mush, then gives the guy a dap.

  A grin takes over my face when I finally spot Daddy in line. He’s tall, with broad shoulders that are covered by his white jumper. His beard is grown in a bit, and he’s kept his Afro about two inches. He used to keep his hair lined up before prison. Considering everything, he still looks the same to me, which gives me comfort.

  Daddy scans from corner to corner until he finds me at the table. I warm over at his matching grin. I tap my fingers nervously until Daddy takes a seat in front of me.

  “You came,” Daddy says.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I thought your mama might’ve locked you up after that stunt you pulled. What were you thinking?”

  I put my head down.

  Daddy flicks at my hair, then shoots out a bellowing laugh.

  “You should’ve seen your mama’s face on television. Eyes all bugged out. It’s probably the one time in my life I was glad to be locked up, so I wouldn’t be on that car ride home or have to stay up listening to your mama talk my ear off all night about you, girl.”

  I laugh with relief. “I’m sorry. I know you said not to.”

  “You wrong. This was Jamal’s day today. My baggage don’t need to follow him to college.”

  “I know, but we gotta catch Innocence X’s attention.”

  “You’re a fighter. I love that about you.” Daddy brushes my hair back. “But you need to start preparing yourself—”

  “Never.” I glance away.

  A bald-headed, muscular white guard watches us; the way he’s looking at us bothers me. Daddy follows my gaze.

  “Don’t pay them no mind.”

  Daddy rubs his hands together, callused from the three-hour daily work outside. He gets one hour in the library, another break from his concrete sixty-square-foot cell. In his cell, he reads five hours a day. That’s where Daddy picked up studying the law, after being filled with disappointment with each appeal. This is what we share between us on visits. Our ability to swap facts back and forth and all my letters to Innocence X. Mama tells him everything going on with us kids. Jamal fills the visit with things Daddy likes. Like his working hard, his track practice, Mama, and all the notes Jamal’s left for Corinne that week. Daddy loves that the most.

  When I talk to Daddy about his case and get too hopeful, he makes me promise not to be upset if an appeal doesn’t happen. Because getting one grows more unlikely with each day. But Daddy’s also not the type to give up. He could’ve accepted a plea deal, but he said he wouldn’t admit to something he didn’t do. God would be watching over him and set him free. He believed there’d already been tragedy enough with the Davidson couple being murdered, and him and his best friend, Jackson Ridges, being blamed. Mr. Ridges was killed by the police as they tried to take him from his home. Daddy thought God wouldn’t let more pain come from that tragedy. So he pled innocent, and life without parole was off the table. It would be a death sentence if found guilty.

  I used to believe that what Daddy said about no more pain was true. Like the Messiah himself would walk right through the courtroom and carry my daddy out. Now I know it’s up to us.

  “I didn’t mean to ruin Jamal’s moment.” I watch him with hopeful eyes.

  “I see no one else came to make this visit.” Daddy squeezes my hand. “I need you to stay close, not pull apart.”

  “I just wish Jamal’d understand what I was trying to do. I couldn’t not talk about you.”

  “I knew you wouldn’t be able to control yourself if you had the chance. I had a bet out here when we watched it, but I didn’t expect you to lie. You don’t know what that does in here.”

  I look away. I know I shouldn’t have lied about possible suspects. I only wanted to attract Innocence X’s attention.

  “Someone got away with murder, and it’s never been right I had to do the time. Trust me, no one knows that injustice more than me. I feel it every day. But you can’t make stuff up.”

  “But if we get someone to look into your trial, they could see they didn’t have any evidence to convict you in the first place. Then they’d find new suspects.”

  Daddy pats my hand. I try to let the topic go. We’ve talked about this too many times. I’m preaching to the choir. The fact is, the gun that killed the Davidsons was never found. Daddy never owned a gun. They arrested him anyway.

  Next, they went after Mr. Ridges. He paid with his life when he refused to open the doors for the police. Mama had called to warn him that Daddy’d been taken in. Mr. Ridges didn’t want to go out like that. Not in front of his kids. But it was too late. The police shot up the house, hitting Quincy, who was my age, and killing Mr. Ridges with shots through the window. They didn’t wait for a negotiator like they do on TV. They straight-up started shooting.

  After he was dead, it was easy to put blame on Mr. Ridges. They needed him to be guilty. Especially when they could’ve killed Quincy. I’ve always believed the police and prosecution were willing to do anything they could to justify killing Mr. Ridges and shooting a ten-year-old. Regardless of whether Mr. Ridges or Daddy owned a gun, they both had alibis. Their fingerprints were found in the office meeting room, along with the prints of multiple other people who’d met with the Davidsons, but it didn’t seem to matter that their prints weren’t found in the back, where the bodies were discovered.

  “Don’t think I haven’t thought this through a million times. Sometimes these things happen. Everything kept boiling down to the fact I was about to do business with Mr. Davidson.”

  We both look down.

  They’d questioned other suspects. Rumors flew around town that Daddy was upset with Mark Davidson. It’s true Daddy and Mark Davidson had gotten into an argument the day before, but it was because Mark didn’t want to join their business venture with Jackson Ridges, just with Daddy.

  That’s not worth killing someone over.

  Daddy changes subjects, tells me a story about when I was a baby and he’d knew I’d be trouble, but I’ve heard this story a million times. The only thing in my head is what I can do in the next nine months to bring Daddy home. A chance to stall his sentence. Save him before it’s too late.

  * * *

  When I get back in Tasha’s car, I can’t hold in all the disappointment from The Susan Touric Show and the helplessness from seeing Daddy. Each moment replays in my mind. I hold my mouth closed to stop a cry from escaping.

  “Let it out, girl.” Tasha rubs my back. “Don’t hold that shit in.”

  “I just don’t know what to do,” I say between cries. “I’ve tried everything.”

  “Not everything. You still got something left. I don’t know you to give up. What you did today could’ve worked. You don’t know yet.” Tasha hands me my notepad to finish my letter to Innocence X.

  Blurry-eyed, I take the notepad from her, the pain still sitting in me. Tasha drives away as I finish my letter.

  I used to plan the letters out more, writing pages and pages on why Innocence X needed to help Daddy, but time is running out. The climate’s changed with a new governor who’s stricter on sentences, filling up for-profit prisons with minor convictions. Increased visibility of racial injustice in policing adds more pressure for Innocence X to respond to cases hitting the media. My fear is they’ll forget the old cases—unplug the chance for those, letting the clock wind down. Because I know the truth is, no one’s excited to look into a seven-year-old case. Attention spans are reserved for big stories and hashtags following the next news cycle.

  Innocence X knows who I am, and now it’s the principle of writing. There’s nothing I’ve been able to control about what happened to Daddy. I’m broke. Can’t vote. Can’t afford a lawyer. But I’ve got control of my voice and my mind, and tha
t means I can do at least one thing: write a letter.

  Saturday, May 1

  Stephen Jones, Esq.

  Innocence X Headquarters

  1111 Justice Road

  Birmingham, Alabama 35005

  Re: Death Penalty—Intake Department

  Dear Mr. Jones,

  Congratulations on the Donovan case out in California. I’ve been watching it progress this last year. Every time I see good news, I think you might be ready to take on our case, but then you don’t. Will you do it this time? Everyone in my family has given up. They want me to accept that my daddy will be killed in less than nine months.

  My friend Tasha got her dad back, but she acts like he’s still locked up. When he’s around her, she acts like he’s got the plague or something. Is it like that for any of the families you work with, or is it different for the ones not innocent? Seems to me it’s harder to adjust to life when you’re innocent. Because you think you’re losing your mind trying to prove the truth. But when you’re guilty, you accept it. Not happy about it, but there’s time to learn. Rehabilitation. I tried to tell Tasha this, but she’s still holding on to being mad. I know it’s not fair to compare. I guess I’m just looking for answers.

  Did you watch the Susan Touric interview of my brother, Jamal Beaumont? It aired today (on Saturday).

  Please review James Beaumont’s application (#1756).

  Thank you for your time.

  Tracy Beaumont

  MISSION

  (UN)ACCOMPLISHED

  Usually I roll to school with Jamal, but Monday he dipped out of the house before I could ride with him, and then he crept in close to curfew. Skipped a visit with Daddy. Again. I shouldn’t have expected different just one day later; now it’s Tuesday and I have to go with Mama to Galveston so I can catch a ride with my best friend, Dean, at his parents’ antique store, where she works.