True Notebooks

by Mark Salzman

  “I don’ wanna read mine tonight.”

  “Come on. If the staff see we ain’t readin’, they gonna send Wu to the Box.”

  “Fuck it, then.” Victor took a deep breath.

  Two-face. That’s how I call myself. I say two-face because in this place that I’m housed in, it is real hard for a person to be himself in here.

  Because people might think you are weak and might mess with you, in my own time I sit in my room and I’m a real sentimental person, but once it’s time for me to go out of my room I go back to my second face.

  It is not a good thing and I know, but I know that you can’t do nothing but keep on doing what I’m doing, because if I was the real me around my fellow inmates they will consider me a wimp or a schmuck.

  Just as before, the mention of genuine emotion was followed by embarrassed silence. This time, however, Francisco dared to speak out. “Wimp!”

  “Schmuck,” Jimmy added, handing back the pencil I’d given him.

  This broke the tension; once everyone could laugh about it, they were able to admit that this was a universal problem. “It’s like crying,” Jimmy said. “Everybody cries in their room here, but you can never talk about it. If your roommate is in the room, it’s just understood: he pretends not to hear it.”

  “ ’Cause he knows he gonna be cryin’ one day.”

  “No doubt.”

  I asked them if they could describe the prisoner’s “second face” to me.

  “Sometimes,” Victor said, “it’s the face that’s like, ‘I don’t give a shit.’ Other times it’s the clowning around face. Inside you want to die, but on the outside, you’re laughing and joking around like it ain’t no big deal.”

  “Then there’s the ‘fuck you’ face,” Kevin said. “You gotta wear that when you first get here. You’re nervous inside, ’cause you walkin’ into a room full a killas. But you can never let that show! You gotta look stone cold.”

  I asked what would happen if someone came to juvenile hall and would not—or could not—put on the “second face.”

  “Woooong!” four of them said at once, laughing.

  “It’s true,” Benny said. “I take a lot of shit for it, but I’d probably get even more shit if I tried to act tough.”

  Francisco nodded gravely. “Most normal people, though, they be like—what’s that fuckin’ lizard called again? You know, the one that changes colors an’ shit?”

  “Chameleon,” Benny said.

  “Yeah. Hey—I heard if you put one a them chameleons on a mirror, it’ll die. ’Cause it won’t know what color to change to—he be, like, all confused an’ shit.”

  “So if you put one on a piece of glass, would it go transparent?” Victor asked.

  “Naw, ’cause then you’d see its guts, fool. The guts can’t change color, only the skin.”

  “Uh-oh—here comes Jenkins.”

  “Staff gonna kick us out.”

  “No he ain’t. Not when he hears Wu’s gonna read.”

  Mr. Jenkins came in the door and pointed to the clock. “Time to go, guys.”

  “Hey Jenkins, we ain’t heard Wu read yet!”

  “I already let you go overtime. Don’t give me any lip.”

  “For real, Jenkins—Wu was writin’ the whole time and he just finished. Let him read! It’s his last class!”

  Mr. Jenkins looked at Jimmy, then leaned against the wall. “Read fast, Wu.”

  Jimmy spread the pages out in front of him and read the way he and the other boys always read, which was without a trace of sentimentality in his voice:

  At the sound of the door opening to our holding tank, my conversation with the three other inmates came to an abrupt end. Looking over my shoulder, I saw my lawyer walk into the room. “How are you doing?” he asked. “I’m doing pretty good,” I replied. We talked about nothing in particular for a few seconds until I finally popped the question. “So what’s going to happen today?” He told me that I would be getting sentenced unless there was some good reason for me not to. We went over what he would present to the judge on my behalf, and when there were no more questions that I needed an answer to, he told me that he was going to go find my codefendant’s attorney. “You’ll be coming out soon,” he said. And with that, he left the room.

  Thirty minutes later, the door to the holding tank opened once more. “Gentlemen, step out,” a voice called out. My codefendant and I exited the tank and the bailiff that was standing outside the room told us to turn around and put our hands behind our backs. As the cold steel of the handcuffs were snapped onto my wrists, my heart started to pound furiously and I thought to myself, “This is it.”

  The bailiff led us to the door to the courtroom as I silently said a prayer for everything to go well. Opening the door, he ushered us inside, and when I looked to see who occupied the seats for the public, I saw unfamiliar faces. Feeling depressed, I asked myself, “Where is everybody?” Glancing at my lawyer, I noticed that he was nodding his head towards the door that led to freedom. The bailiff removed the handcuffs and told me to take a seat in the chair that was directly in front of the judge. The sound of a door opening filled my ears, as did the shuffling of several feet. I sneaked a peek to see who had come in and I was amazed by what I saw. Every chair in the room contained someone that had come to court to give me support. People were lined up against the walls smiling whenever I made eye contact with them. The whispering died after everyone settled down and my judgment began.

  The judge opened up by acknowledging me and my crime-partner’s presence in the courtroom. She informed everyone that if there were no legitimate reason for us not to get sentenced, that would be taking place today. My attorney stood up after we agreed that there didn’t seem to be a good excuse, and began pleading to the judge for her to allow me to be housed in Youth Authority until I reached the age of twenty-five. From my viewpoint, he presented a strong statement that should have been taken under serious consideration. Every word that came out of my attorney’s mouth seemed to go through one of the judge’s ears and out the other. She kept referring to the law book that stated how I would not be eligible to go to YA because of my age and because I would not be able to serve all my time by the age of twenty-five.

  As my lawyer continued to argue that this law was passed well after my incarceration, every hope and dream that I had for my sentence to be reduced or for me to be housed in YA slowly vanished. The full realization of what was taking place hit me like a car ramming into a concrete wall at full speed. In a few minutes, I would be a criminal for the rest of my life. In the book that I have to carry for the remainder of my existence, I will be labeled as a convict. A felon. While I was fighting my case, I still had a clean record despite being locked up. Now, my record will forever contain this one mistake that I made when I was a young and naïve adolescent.

  I thought about all the people that were sitting in the courtroom giving me their support and love and I lost complete control of my emotions. The tears that I had held in for so long streamed down my face as I cursed myself for letting these people down. Why couldn’t the judge see that the young man sitting before her was not the same person that had entered juvenile hall two years ago? Why couldn’t she see that I had dreams of getting out and getting my life together, to be somebody?

  After a long and hard battle of trying to get me housed in Youth Authority, my attorney finally realized that the judge’s mind had already been made up. She was like a tree stump that refused to be moved. Her final decision was to send me to state prison for fifteen years, eight months, and two strikes. We asked if she could recommend fire or work camp, which she did, but that does not seem likely because of the fact that I do not fit the criteria due to the number of years I have to serve. A week or two ago, I thought of fifteen, eight, and two as numbers and nothing but numbers. Sitting in that court with my life in someone else’s hands made me open my eyes to the harsh reality of what these numbers really mean. Those numbers that at one point in my life meant
nothing were now representing the number of years that I would be away from my loved ones. The worst of the worst had happened and there was nothing I could do about it.

  Through tear-filled eyes, I looked at the judge and silently asked her, “Why couldn’t you give me a chance? Why are you taking away fifteen years of my life for one mistake? I know that I have to pay the penalty for what I did two years ago, but why can’t you look at me and see how I have changed?” As I rose to leave the courtroom, the judge looked into my eyes and said, “Good luck, gentlemen.” Thank you for that. Thank you for destroying my future, too.

  Now a few hours later, I am in some ways relieved that everything’s over with. There is no more worrying about how much time I’ll get or where I’ll be sent. The decisions have been made and I have to live with that. There is only one more thing that I can do, and that is to stay strong. For my parents, for my brother, and most importantly, for myself. Because I have to.

  Jimmy handed me the sheets of paper and said, “Guess there’s no point in typing that up for me.”

  “Looks like you got visitors, Wu.” Mr. Jenkins pointed to the entrance to the unit, where Sister Janet and Javier Patin, her successor as Catholic chaplain, were letting themselves into the building. As soon as they reached the library, Sister Janet rushed forward to embrace Jimmy, accomplishing in an instant what the six of us boys had talked about for an hour but had not been able to do. She held on to him for a long time, reassuring him in a quiet but firm voice that he was loved and that what had happened to him was a miscarriage of justice. She and Javier offered to help him find a qualified lawyer to handle his appeal, to fight on his behalf to see that he was placed in a facility designed for nonviolent offenders, and promised to help keep his mother informed of his whereabouts at each stage of his transfer to the penitentiary.

  “I’m sorry,” Mr. Jenkins said, “but it’s time.”

  I knew what I had to do. I went around the table and shook Jimmy’s hand, then gave him a hug. What should have been a tender farewell became, instead, a reminder of male awkwardness. We stood there like two forklifts that had bumped into each other, each waiting for the other to back up.

  “Let’s go, Wu.”

  Jimmy opened his folder, pulled out a small envelope, which he handed me, then followed Mr. Jenkins out. Francisco, who was gulping down water from the fountain in the dayroom, stopped long enough to watch Jimmy’s departure. Water continued to arc out of the fountain as he stared.

  “Javier!” someone bellowed from the office. “Either drink your drink or take it down to your room.”

  I expected Francisco to talk back, or look indignant, or pretend not to have heard the order, but he just lowered his head and gulped some more.

  When I got outside I stopped under one of the security lights to open Jimmy’s letter. The envelope held a Hallmark card. On the cover was a picture of Snoopy dancing under the word Thanks. The printed message inside confirmed Superintendent Burkert’s fears about the writing program. It read, You really made me feel special.

  19 / Send in the Clowns

  Christmas Eve fell on a Wednesday that year. To lift the gloom around juvenile hall, I brought a strawberry sheet cake with me large enough to feed everyone in the unit. The staff had not been expecting any volunteers that night, so all of the inmates were in the dayroom watching television when I arrived. I slipped into the library with my odd-sized box, attracting surprisingly little attention, and waited for the members of the writing class to join me. Then I unveiled my surprise.

  “Holy shit!” Francisco yelped.

  I asked Kevin to fetch enough paper plates from the kitchen so we could distribute pieces to the boys in the dayroom.

  “Wha—? Hold up, Jackson. Mark, they don’ need cake, they’re happy watchin’ TV.”

  “This cake’s designed to feed fifty, Francisco. Relax.”

  “I’m tellin’ ya, they’re cool out there. Let’s not disturb ’em.”

  “We gotta share, Javier.”

  “Shut up, Wong. Do those fools write? No! Why should they get cake?”

  “ ’Cause that’s what Mark said.”

  Francisco looked desperate. “Can we at least start first?”

  “Sure. There’s some forks in the box.”

  “We don’ need forks.”

  Letting them get an early start was a mistake; letting them eat with their hands was an even bigger one. They fell on the cake like wolves. I soon realized that if there was going to be enough left for the others, I had to act quickly. I waved Mr. Jenkins into the library and invited him to join us.

  “Make room,” the big man said, reaching into the box.

  “I was thinking we might give a piece to everybody,” I said. “Including the staff, of course.”

  Mr. Jenkins sighed. “OK, everybody, time-out. Put that piece back, Javier.”

  “What piece?”

  “The one you just tried to hide on the shelf. Careful, boy— don’t get frosting on those Bibles.”

  When Mr. Jenkins left with the remains of the cake, Francisco wilted. He had so much whipped cream around his mouth that he looked like a gingerbread cookie. “Now fat-ass Jenkins is gonna eat it all by himself,” he moaned. He slumped into his chair and searched the folds of his clothing for crumbs.

  Our class felt empty without Jimmy, Nathaniel, and Patrick in it. The reality of the situation at last began to sink in: I would never see any of them again. Not only did I miss them, I worried about them. They were somewhere in the adult prison system now, where they would almost surely be targets for abuse and cruelty.

  “So what will you guys do tomorrow?” I asked, trying to sound cheerful. “Will your parents visit?”

  “Fuck no,” Francisco muttered. “No visitors allowed on Christmas. It’ll be like any other day in here.”

  “No presents, no family, no nothin’,” Victor said. “And the staff’ll be all pissed off that day ’cause they gotta work on Christmas instead a bein’ home. It sucks.”

  Francisco stared out toward the office, where the staff were enjoying their portions of the cake before distributing the rest to the inmates. “This is my fourth Christmas locked up. I hardly even remember what a real fuckin’ Christmas is like.”

  “All I know is, it’s when the Grinch comes on TV,” Kevin said. “That’s my favorite show.”

  Benny cocked his head to one side. “That’s your favorite? How come?”

  “I dunno.” He had a tennis ball stuffed into the toe of a sock, and was swinging it like a policeman’s baton. “What’s your favorite?”

  “Frosty the Snowman.”

  “Yeah, but he gets smoked in the end! The sun comes out— and R.I.P. Frosty. It’s too sad.”

  “He comes back, though. That’s cool.”

  “That’s why you like it? ’Cause he come back?”

  “I dunno.”

  “See?” Kevin said, swinging the sock until it smacked Benny in the shoulder. “Sometimes you just like somethin’, that’s all. Don’t always gotta be a reason.”

  “My favorite was Rudolph, the fool with the red nose,” Victor said. “An’ I got a reason, too. Everybody made fun a the way he looked, but in the end he topped ’em all. Fuckers! I’da left ’em behind. Me and Santa, we could cut costs and split the profit. Gimme a pager and some presents and I’d have my side covered. In five years I’d sell my half back to those punks with the regular fuckin’ noses, give ’em a fuckin’ flashlight so they don’t get lost, then head down to Mexico and buy all the pussy I want.”

  “Reindeers don’t want pussy, fool! They like female reindeers.”

  “They’re called does,” Benny said.

  “Shut up, Wong.”

  “Damn,” Francisco said, watching the last of the cake disappear as it made its way around the dayroom. “If I lose my case, I’ma spend every Christmas I got left in the pen. You ever think about that shit? We may none of us ever see the inside of a house again.”

  Victor insisted w
e talk about something other than holidays or family. “I can’t take this shit no more, I gotta think about somethin’ else.”

  “Like what? Tell me somethin’ to think about, I’ll think about it too.”

  “Girls.”

  “Fuck no! That only makes it worse. We may never touch a girl again, homes. Pick somethin’ else.”

  “Cars?”

  “We may never drive again! Face it, there’s nothin’ to think about. I just wish I could shut my mind off like a TV, and set it to turn on only if I get released. Otherwise just let it stay off till I die. Fuck it.”

  “Hey guys, shut up—Sister Janet’s comin’ this way.”

  Eager for distraction, the boys watched as the nun crossed the yard, then let herself into the unit with her key. She came straight into the library and asked the boys how the writing class was coming along.

  “We just lost three guys,” Francisco told her.

  “I heard. I’m so sorry. I’m sure you miss them terribly.”

  “Yeah,” Francisco said. “It feels kinda empty in here now.”

  Sister Janet nodded, then pointed toward the dayroom. “What about them?” she asked. “They’re just stuck in front of the TV. Why aren’t more of them in this class, boys?”

  “They think it’s for losers,” Benny said.

  “They do?”

  “Sure. They think anything where you’re learning is for losers. It’s just ignorance.”

  “Maybe if they heard some of your work, they’d change their minds,” she said.

  “That’s what changed my mind,” Benny said. “I read one of Wu’s poems. That’s why I’m here today.”

  “Maybe we could change a few more minds tonight,” Sister Janet said. “Would you boys like to choose something for me to read out there?”

  None of them wanted his own work read aloud to the entire unit, but Francisco had an idea. “Read Hall’s story, Sister Janet! The one about the iceberg prison!”

  “Yeah, everybody likes that one.”

  “Mark, do you happen to have a copy of the story they’re talking about?”

  I always carried copies of each of the boy’s work with me in case they lost their own, and I hadn’t removed Nathaniel’s work from my bag yet.