After lockdown lifts four days later, an inmate with a mental disorder approaches the guard at the front desk. The inmate sniffs. Rubs his nose. “I didn’t get my medication,” he says.
“You didn’t come out when we opened your cell,” the guard says.
“I was in there. Where do you think I was?”
“You didn’t come out, so you missed it.”
“I need my medication.”
“You have to wait. Next time maybe you’ll come out when we tell you.”
The guy snaps. He leaps over the desk and starts whaling on the guard, smashing the guard’s face, clawing at it, biting him, then choking him. Alarms sounding, guards running, flooding the area near the front desk, pulling the inmate off the guard. The guard slumps to the floor, beaten to a bloody pulp, barely alive. Medical personnel appear, cart him away on a stretcher. It will be nearly a year before I see that guard again.
I try to wrap myself around the anarchy, the violence, that erupts every day. How can this place, this punishment, this system, this solution, be beneficial to anyone, in any way? There’s no rehabilitation in a place like this. Only blood and survival. Every week a bus arrives with a new group of inmates, many walking into the prison with different versions of the same violent agenda.
I make adjustments. I learn to identify signs of danger whenever I leave my cell. Mostly, I watch faces and hands. Cold eyes and cupped hands indicate that a guy is about to strike, a weapon hidden in his fist. I also pay attention to sound. The prison turning unusually quiet means something heavy is about to go down. I avoid stepping out into silence. As a rule, when my cell breaks open for chow, I hang back, staying as close to the end of the line as possible. I befriend a new guard, a rookie my age, white, nervous, looking like a deer caught in headlights. I engage him by talking sports, a common denominator for most men in any setting, even this. A week or two later, they transfer my cellmate out, replacing him with a giant who takes up three-quarters of the cell and who rarely speaks. An improvement. At least now I can dare close my eyes at night.
And yet, even in this place, I experience occasional hints of goodness, of humanity.
After lights-out, we enjoy a nightly concert. Inmates break into song. They clang cups against cell bars, some harmonize and some with big voices solo. One guy—we call him Urkel because he wears thick Coke-bottle glasses—sings like an R&B star, his voice honey soaked and filled with pain. I lie on my cot, thinking, “What a waste.” He should be making music. The world should hear that voice. The world should feel that pain.
* * *
—
In this system, your reputation—your “jacket”—follows you from prison to prison. A guy with connections stays connected inside. A snitch stays labeled a snitch. You are who you have been before, what you have earned, or how you have been perceived. For better or worse, your jacket sticks.
Two months in, I learn that at Green Bay, I arrive with my reputation intact. A young man, early twenties, heavily muscled, tatted up to his neck and face, scarred, and sinister looking, tracks me down at the edge of the basketball court.
“Hey, man, how long you been down?”
I do some quick math, realize I can’t calculate the exact number. My time in has become fuzzy.
“About three or four years,” I say.
“You been up here the whole time?”
“Nah. I got to Waupun in 2000; then I left.”
“Did you know my man Carlyle? He was in Waupun.”
“I don’t think so—”
“He said if I see you, talk to you. He say you be good with legal work. That right?”
“Well—”
“Li’l Johnnie Cochran–Looking Mofo with the Glasses,” he says.
I crack a slit of a smile. “Yeah, okay, that’s me.”
The sinister guy squeezes out a smile to match mine, thin, tentative.
“Need your help,” he says and hesitates. “You look over my legal work?”
“I could.”
We pause.
“How much? How many stamps?”
“Depends. I have to see. At least one book.”
He nods. I nod. I’m back in business.
I again get a job as a tutor, and I spend so much time in the law library that I might as well sleep there. I jump in, taking on as many inmates as possible, writing dozens of letters on their behalf. I want to help people because I see how badly the criminal justice system has victimized them. I can relate to that. As I write my own letters to lawyers across the country trying to find a way to appeal my case with new evidence, I get a sense of validation helping other people win their appeals, overturn tickets, or even reverse unfair court decisions. We win the majority of these cases, and if I’m winning for them, I feel even surer that I can win for me.
Plus, I know that every hour I work for an inmate in the law library or meet someone at chapel to go over his legal work is an hour I avoid danger. I don’t want to become collateral damage between two gangs attacking each other on the yard. I don’t want some deranged inmate to stab me between the ribs or drill me in the head with his metal lock on the chow line because he doesn’t like my glasses. Random, brutal violence occurs every day. It happens instantly, without warning. A sense of paranoia buzzes through me, through the general population. Inmates murmur that they would prefer being put into segregation. I want to say, “That’s because you’ve never been in segregation,” but I hold my tongue. I keep my head down, plot my escape, my legal escape, holding my breath every time the van arrives with another group of inmates.
* * *
—
Word travels. Cost you some, but he good with the legal work. Guys seek me out in the law library, in church, on the yard, even in the chow line. They hand me their paperwork, books of stamps tucked inside their folders. At one point, the amount of cash in my canteen account dips, diving toward a zero balance. I move away from using stamps as payment and ask for cash to be put in my account. As my canteen grows and I remain flush with stamps, I start to notice something. I’m getting into a groove. The more I send out letters and deal with attorneys, the more I feel I fit with them. I speak their language. I understand their game. I learn to play it. I learn to play it well.
* * *
—
I can’t spend every waking moment working on legal cases—mine and others’. I read books, study the psalms, go to church, trying to maintain my faith and keep my energy and spirit up. Even so, I struggle with moments of malaise. Sometimes I scan this place, this unholy place, and I have to fight to stay sane. I try to smother my feelings of depression, despair, abandonment. The same questions nag me: How did I ever end up here? How can our country accept punishing people in this inhumane way? I call my mother as often as I can. I read the scriptures my aunts send. Ritual saves me. Work. Read. Survive. Write to attorneys about my case. Have faith. Read. Survive. Pray. Pray.
I think of the story of Joseph, famous for the Technicolor dream coat his beloved father gave him. His half brothers hated him, threw him in a pit, and sold him into slavery. I especially relate to what happened to Joseph after some slave traders pulled him out of the pit and a rich man took him into his house. Like me, he got falsely accused of rape, convicted, and sent to prison. In prison, he found his way and thrived. He helped the other prisoners—they went to him for counsel—and eventually the warden put him in charge of overseeing the entire prison population. When he got out, he became one of the most powerful leaders in the world. His story inspires me. He fought for his innocence. He won. He received justice. I will, too. Somehow.
* * *
—
One day, I see three inmates on a visit: a guy everyone here calls Pops; his son, Old Man; and his son, G-son. Three generations incarcerated—grandfather, father, and grandson. They’re being visited by three well-dressed women. One of them
holds a squirmy toddler on her lap. The great-granddaughter, I think. Nobody says much. The little girl, no older than three, snuggles with her Barbie doll as the adults talk quietly. Soon, an alarm sounds, ending the visit, and the family says their goodbyes. The little girl springs off her mother’s lap and, clutching her Barbie, walks over to a guard. The little girl automatically spreads her arms, allowing the guard to pat-search her. She doesn’t flinch, doesn’t blink, doesn’t move a muscle. To her, going in and out of a maximum-security prison to visit her great-grandfather, grandfather, and father is as routine as going in and out of a playground or school.
I watch her stand stock-still as the guard pats her down. I feel heartsick. She’s three years old. The guard continues to pat her down as if she were thirty, searching her to see if she’s concealing a weapon or contraband. I quickly scan the little girl’s face, hoping I see innocence. I don’t know if I see that from where I stand, but at least I don’t see hardness or anger. I lower my head and pray that this little girl will find a different life. I can’t avoid seeing a cycle of violence, of pain. How can we prevent her from following her father, grandfather, and great-grandfather into prison?
The family leaves, the little girl holding her mother’s hand with one hand, clutching her Barbie with the other. She’ll be back because this is her life, the only life she knows. I glance at Pops, Old Man, and G-son, and I shake my head.
“Keep that little girl safe,” I whisper. “Keep her away from this life. Allow her to break this cycle.”
* * *
—
A few days later, a guy approaches me on the yard. Not my usual “client.” They call him Fish. White dude. Shaved head. Tall, wiry, his face craggy and pockmarked. Fish walks with a swagger as if he knows nobody can touch him, his eyes lasered straight ahead. I recognize him as one of the leaders of the prison’s Aryan Brotherhood and the instigator of the prison brawl that broke out when I first got here. Not someone I would ever associate with nor anyone I would do business with. But I wonder if I could put my bias aside, set aside his jacket long enough to hear what he wants. I’d rather take my chances with him in the law library than on the rec yard.
I decide I will hear him out. I also decide to charge him triple my usual fee.
“I’m having an issue,” he says, sitting down in front of me.
“Which is?”
“Well, two things. First, my lawyer got my sentence structured all wrong. I have to get that redone.”
“Okay,” I say. “We can petition the court.”
“And—”
He looks away, passes his hand over his face, and pauses, giving me time to stare at the impressive array of tattoos that covers his entire body.
“I’m not allowed to see my kids,” he says.
“How many kids do you have?”
“Two.”
He dips his head, speaks to the floor.
“I haven’t seen them in a long time,” he says.
“How long?”
“Fifteen years.”
“Fifteen years?”
“They’re teenagers now.”
Fish looks up and stares at me. His blue eyes, the color of a sky, flutter and fill up.
“I just want to have a visit,” he says.
* * *
—
I probe a little and find out that Fish has been given a life sentence for committing some heinous crime on more than one of his family members. He gives me a sketchy outline. Something to do with a meth lab. A murderous takeover. He doesn’t give me all the details. I don’t want to know all the details. Fish says that time has healed wounds. The family member who survived supports him having a visitation with his kids.
“Can you do this?”
“Maybe,” I say. “I’ll need three letters. One from your family member saying that he supports your having visitations with your kids. And one from each of your kids saying how much they want to visit you.”
“Then what?”
“I’ll write a letter to the prosecutor and a letter to the judge. I’ll plead your case, attaching the three letters you’re going to get for me.”
“Will that work?”
“Can’t promise anything.”
Fish sniffs, swipes his nose, flicks a bony finger at the tears that have begun to trickle down his cheek. He clears his throat, stands abruptly, and leaves. I jump right in. Over the next thirty days, the more I work on his case, the more I learn about him, more than I want to know. Fish runs a whole sector of the prison. If something bad ever happens to him, this place will explode.
I get pushback. Black dudes I know and some I don’t know glower at me. Big George, an inmate I’m helping, calls me out directly in the law library.
“You know he don’t like Black people.”
“I know.”
“Then why you helping him?”
“Two reasons. One. It’s not about him. I don’t care about him. I care about the law.”
“And two?”
“I’m charging him three times what I’m charging you.”
Big George raises an eyebrow and nods with respect.
Fish wins. The court changes its ruling. Fish arranges for his first visitation with his kids in fifteen years. I hear all this through the prison grapevine. I don’t hear from Fish. Predictable. Understandable. We don’t travel in the same circles. The win alone validates me.
* * *
—
My mother and stepfather come all the way from Chicago for another visit. I sit across from them in the visiting area, our voices quiet, subdued, my emotions raw. I explain how I have been working with inmates while at the same time trying to stir up legal interest in my own case. I’ve written dozens of letters but so far have received only rejections in return or no response at all. Each time I open a rejection letter, I scream silently; then I take a deep breath and write a second letter—a better letter, tighter, stronger, more forceful, more insistent. If I get rejected a second time, I’ll write a third letter. A fourth. A fifth. I won’t give up. I’m trusting my life to letters.
“It will happen,” my mother says. “Someone will respond.”
“You’re right. Somebody will.”
I say that with a pasted-on smile. I don’t want to allow any of the frustration or desperation I feel to darken our visit.
Just behind her, I see a guard leading in an inmate. Fish. He sits down a few tables away from me, and after a while another guard leads in two teenagers, a girl and a boy. I keep my focus on my mother, but in my peripheral vision I see Fish’s shoulders shake as his kids sit down across from him. He smiles, and I hear him and his kids laugh. The normal sounds you hear during a visit. Lowered voices, occasional laughter, muffled sniffles. Two teenagers visiting their father in prison.
At one point, as if choreographed, my family and Fish’s family get up at the same time to purchase snacks. By rule, inmates can’t move from our seats. I track my family walking to the snack machine, and then I turn and look toward Fish. He’s looking at me, staring, his blue laser eyes cutting into me, and then he nods. His thank-you. All I’ll get from him. All I need. A moment of humanity.
I nod back.
* * *
—
The calendar flips.
Happy New Year, 2004.
I work my case, write my letters.
I work other inmates’ cases. We lose some; we win more.
By March, I’m flush with stamps.
I send out my letters.
Nothing happens.
When will it be my turn?
Will it ever be my turn?
I ask my aunties on the phone, “How come God doesn’t come when I call?”
“He’s coming. He doesn’t work on your clock.”
“My clock is ticking,” I say.
&nbs
p; “Have you been going to church?”
“Yes.”
“Have you been praying?”
“I have.”
“Pray harder.”
“Okay,” I say, slowly shaking my head. “Sure.”
When I hang up the phone, I settle back onto my cot and slowly scan my cell. I realize as I sit here, in this cage, that through all my time in Green Bay Correctional, the roughest, wildest, most violent prison in the state, I have never been attacked.
Maybe God is already here.
* * *
—
I get a letter.
I open the envelope, skim the letter, then stare at it. I read it slowly, methodically; then I read it again, and again. I have to make sure I’m not hallucinating. No. This is real.
After five years, someone has replied to me about my case.
12.
Competence
Dear Mother,
How are you feeling? I am blessed…
Enclosed is a case where a guy had his case overturned by filing with the Feds. As you’ll see, the other courts denied him as is in my case, but he stuck at it and filed a habeas corpus. He was denied but appealed and that won! His issues are so much like mine it’s scary…
Mother, it took me a couple years to study this law, but I’ve gotten the handle on this case, and by the grace of God, I’ll prove my case very shortly. Mother, these people have the same evidence but they chose to ignore it because of the obvious…the color of our skin, which I’m very proud of…
Redeeming Justice Page 15