True Notebooks

by Mark Salzman

  “You got picked on?”

  “In junior high school, guys used to fill up squirt guns with piss and use me as a target. Not because they had anything against me. They did it because they knew I wouldn’t fight back, and that seemed to egg them on.”

  “So why didn’t you fight back?”

  “Because I was too scared to. Is there any other reason?”

  “Sure. Not wanting to get in more trouble than you already are.”

  “You’re much less of a buster than me, Benny.”

  Victor stepped into the room and asked where I had been on Wednesday.

  “I didn’t feel like coming.”

  “Oh. Hey, this music is nice.”

  “It’s one of my favorites.”

  “Yeah, it’s cool. Did you hear about Javier?”

  “No.”

  “He started trial last week. He won’t be in the class no more, I don’t think.”

  “Why?”

  “While he was at the courthouse, he got caught jerking off in the holding tank, so he got transferred to the sex offenders’ unit. Now he’s with the rapists and queers.”

  This was disturbing news, but I couldn’t dwell on it just then. When everyone was in the room, I turned the music off.

  “A couple of things, guys, then we’ll get back to work. From now on, there won’t be any writing about someone else in the class. I expect better from you than that, and I know you won’t let me down again. Second, we’re going to have a quiet time for writing during each session. It’ll last thirty minutes. There won’t be any talking during that time. If you finish writing earlier than that, you’re welcome to read or relax as long as you do it silently. If you slip up and start talking, I’ll remind you once of the rule, no problem. If you slip up a second time during that class, you’re out, because it means you don’t really want to be here. I do this because I’ve seen the kind of work you’re able to do, and it makes me feel badly when you waste time goofing around instead. It means I’m not doing my job, which is to help you focus and get something done.

  “I brought this tape player today and we’ll try listening to music during the writing period. If it works well and you like it, I’ll bring it every time. Does anybody have a problem with any of this?”

  None of them stirred—except for Jose. He snickered, then raised his hand.

  “Yes?”

  “My pencil broke. I need another.” He held the pencil I’d given him out so I could see it. He’d snapped the tip off.

  I gave him a new one.

  “All right. The quiet time starts now. In thirty minutes, we’ll read aloud and talk.”

  I started the tape again. All of the boys started writing— except for Jose. He flipped loudly through the pages of a magazine, scraped his chair back and forth on the floor, then raised his hand again.

  “This pencil got some kinda problem too. It broke.”

  I handed him another.

  He flipped through another magazine, then broke another pencil. I gave him another. Then he turned to Victor and said, “Man, did you see that fool in school yesterday? He tripped out in the—”

  “Jose, I’m reminding you now of the rule about talking. That was your warning.”

  “Oh yeah, sorry. I forgot about that, Mark. Sorry, Mark.” He sighed loudly, then raised his hand. “Can I get a drink of water? I’m thirsty.”

  “Go ahead.”

  He got his drink of water, came back to the library, sighed again, glanced at another magazine—then started writing.

  I thought time passed slowly when the boys were goofing around, but I died a thousand deaths that morning when they all behaved. My credibility—and the future of the class—was on the line, and I wouldn’t know the verdict until they had all read aloud. If they wrote bullshit about Benny Wong now, I would be finished. I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the window and saw that the armpits of my shirt were soaked through. So much for my hopes of appearing calm.

  I don’t remember who volunteered to read first. I was so tense I couldn’t really pay attention to any of their work, but no one wrote bullshit about Benny Wong. Their essays that day were cautious, designed to please, but not particularly memorable. Even Jose retreated to neutral ground, writing about the importance of giving one’s mother a hug and a kiss on Mother’s Day.

  When Mr. Sills gave us the signal to leave I thanked everyone, shook their hands, and said goodbye.

  “You comin’ on Wednesday?” Kevin asked.

  “Yes, I’ll be there.”

  I got a few yards outside the unit when I heard Mr. Sills calling me back. I turned around and saw that he and Mr. Granillo were standing in the doorway with goofy expressions on their faces and enormous wads of toilet paper sticking out of their ears.

  “What was that racket comin’ outta the library?” Sills asked me. “You don’t call that shit music, do ya?”

  “I’ll be bringing it every week from now on.”

  “Oh yeah? We’re tellin’ that nun, Sister what’s-her-name. She’ll straighten your ass out.”

  They high-fived each other and disappeared back into the unit.

  I started across the yard again, only to hear someone thumping on a window to get my attention. Victor was standing on his bed so I could see him. When I waved, he pounded on his chest with his fist, the homeboy salute, then gave me the thumbs-up. Jose was his roommate and had to have been in the room to see that. My credibility had held. But I couldn’t really relax until I’d opened the envelope Benny had given me. Inside was a letter he’d written during the week, when he wasn’t sure if I would be returning.

  Dear Mark,

  Hey, what’s up? I’m just writing to let you know something. Yeah, as you probably could tell, I was pretty sad about what some of them wrote. And I could tell you were, too. It was pretty hard for me to get all those negative comments from them all at once in front of the group. I had to do my best to hold in my tears too, but I listened very carefully also. Some of the things they said were true, some weren’t.

  If you remember some of the things I wrote, you might remember I told you I learned a lot from this place. When I came here, I didn’t know how to get along with people. Maybe because I was brought up as a single child and even when my brothers and sisters visited me, they would treat me too well too. Patrick was my first roommate and some of the things he mentioned were true so I felt very bad. I apologized to him a while ago already but I guess he didn’t really accept it.

  A lot of things and people seemed very scary to me when I first came in here because I’ve never been in jail or know much about the “unwritten rules” here. People punked me and I would just hold in my anger, thinking that I would be out of this place soon. It took a long time for my fear to go away. I started standing up for myself more and more and it seems like it’s a little better than before now.

  The reason why I wasn’t really that mad at the people that wrote the bad things about me is because I can really understand the way they think. I know I’m not a buster like the way they said I am (yeah, I’m scared sometimes, but not that bad or any worse than the real punks here). The way they think now was once the way I thought about people too. They judge people but never judge themselves. Some of them think they are hard just because they’re big or their “group” is “deep” (meaning there are a lot of them) in this place. I’m not angry at them but I truly feel sorry for them because they are so ignorant, too ignorant to understand more about life and too ignorant to change the way they think. I really have sympathy for them and wish they can realize their mistakes like I did, before it’s too late.

  The good thing about having them around is that I can learn from their negative acts. If it weren’t for them I wouldn’t have learned so much in this place. And also because of them, I will never ever put myself in a situation to risk my freedom anymore when I get out. I can’t imagine how I can spend days after days for years with some of the people here. Fortunately, I believe I can get out this yea
r and I’m going to live happily ever after. I’m going to go to a community college far away from L.A. and not look back at the bad part of the past, but plan and work for my future instead.

  Mark, I was really sad but it made me feel even worse when I knew you were feeling sad with me. I really think you have a nice heart (at least, in front of me, maybe you’re evil too—joke) and I learned a lot from you too, i.e., you come all the time to work but you don’t get a penny. That taught me that money is not always people’s motive to do things. Well, got to go now, take care.

  Your student,

  Benny

  21 / No Mercy Walls

  “Hey Jenkins!” Mr. Sills yelled across the yard. “Send me somebody strong, I need a hand.”

  Mr. Jenkins nodded from the entrance to K/L. A few moments later a dark-skinned boy wearing no shirt jogged out of the unit. Even from two hundred yards away I could see that he had the physique of a professional athlete.

  “No, no!” Mr. Sills hollered, waving the boy back. “Not you! I wanted a Crip, not a Blood!”

  The boy turned around and started back toward the unit. Mr. Sills shook his head and muttered, “Einstein he ain’t. But you oughta see what he can do with a football.” He cupped his hands around his mouth and called back across the yard, “I’m just playin’ wit’ you, boy! Come on out here. Show me some game speed.”

  The young prisoner shrugged and started toward us again. He closed the distance in eight or nine seconds, making it look effortless. The officer in the guardhouse at the edge of the field whistled in admiration.

  Mr. Sills looked pleased. “We got the relay race locked up this year, Mark.”

  The prisoner thundered past us, needing twenty yards to slow himself down. “Don’t get any funny ideas,” Sills yelled after him, laughing. “Don’t make the old man have to take you down.” The boy circled around and stopped in front of us, breathing deeply but smoothly.

  “OK, Mark,” Sills said. “I got business to take care of with the Flash here, but you go on ahead, your table’s all set up. Jenkins knows who’s in your class.”

  When I got to the unit, the boys were already in the library, but Mr. Jenkins took me aside for a private conference. “There’s a kid who’s asking to be in your class. You taking anybody new yet?”

  “Do you think he’d be good?”

  “Hard to say. He’s no clown, but he’s no Hemingway neither. His name’s Jones.”

  It sounded familiar, but by then a lot of names at juvenile hall were beginning to sound familiar. “Can’t hurt to give him a try.”

  The boys filed in quietly as I set up the boom box. Francisco was the last to come in.

  “Hey Mark.” His face looked pale, and his eyes were swollen from crying.

  “Francisco—are you OK?”

  “I lost my case, Mark. All counts. It’s over.”

  I let him sit next to me and I stayed quiet.

  “I hear you bringin’ in music now,” he said, looking at the boom box. “What we gonna listen to this time?”

  “Mozart.”

  “If you listen to Mozart, your IQ goes up,” Benny said.

  “Fuckin’ Wong,” Francisco said, managing a smile.

  The door to the library opened behind me. I turned and realized why the name Jones had sounded familiar: the new student was the boy Mr. Sills had recommended, then chewed out for not wanting to join.

  “Dale,” I said. “Glad to have you.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck, stared at the floor, and mumbled.

  “I’m sorry, Dale, I didn’t catch what you just said.”

  “YouthinkSillsgon’bemad? ’Bout changin’ my mind?”

  “Will he be mad that you’ve changed your mind? I don’t think so. You’re here now, and that’s what matters. You know how the class works?”

  He nodded.

  As they had the previous week, the boys obeyed the rule about not talking during the writing period, but they weren’t writing either. They were stretching, sighing, twirling their pencils, and squirming in their chairs. I stayed next to Francisco in case he wanted to talk, but he only stared out the window.

  Benny Wong raised his hand. “Can I make a suggestion?” he whispered.

  “Sure.”

  He pointed at the boom box. “This music is too fast. It’s making us nervous.”

  “Is that true?” I asked the group. “Is the music bothering you?”

  They all nodded. Mozart got the thumbs-down.

  “Could we turn on the radio instead?” Francisco asked.

  Someone suggested a rap station, but I drew the line there. Instead we compromised on an R&B oldie station. The boys seemed to relax right away, and within a few minutes all of them except Francisco and Dale were writing. I pulled my chair alongside Dale’s and asked if he could think of something he’d like to write about.

  “Notreallyrightnowsir.”

  Remembering that Mr. Sills had described Dale as someone with a lot of anger bottled up inside, I asked if I could suggest a topic.

  “Mm-hm. OK sir.”

  I borrowed his notepad and wrote the word “anger” at the top. “Can you write on that?”

  His eyes widened and he nodded.

  When I turned my attention back to the class, I saw that Jose was talking to Victor. I got his attention and wagged my finger, but he looked indignant.

  “You were talking just now,” he said.

  “Yes, but I’m helping someone, Jose.”

  “So am I! Martinez needed something.”

  “OK. Just go back to writing.”

  A few minutes later Francisco tapped me on the shoulder. “What is it?” I whispered.

  “I can’t write, Mark. I feel like I’m goin’ crazy.”

  I signaled for him to join me in the far corner of the library so that we wouldn’t disturb the others.

  “My lawyer says I gotta have hope for my appeal. I do, but I’m still stressin’. What if I get sentenced before graduation?”

  “Graduation?”

  “Yeah, didn’t nobody tell you? Me and Jackson and Chumnikai—hell, everybody in the class ’cept Renteria—we all gettin’ our high school diplomas. There’s gonna be a graduation ceremony here an’ everything, with gowns an’ shit.”

  “Congratulations, Francisco.”

  “Thanks. I told my lawyer he gotta find a way to delay the sentencing. I gotta be at that graduation so my mom can see it.” He was looking down toward our feet—I thought he was about to cry—when he started laughing. “Damn, Mark—look at your socks! You got two different colors on!”

  My wife was always pointing out that my socks didn’t match, or that they were turned inside out, and I always argued back that no one on earth but her noticed people’s socks. Apparently I was wrong. But now I could say that my sock problem had cheered someone up at a difficult moment, so on balance, I felt vindicated.

  “I can’t write, Mark, but I wanna write. I wanna do something.”

  “Do you want to write about the trial, the way Jimmy did?”

  “Naw, I feel like I’m gonna be sick when I think about it. Maybe I could write a letter. To my mom, so she knows I’m OK.” He nodded. “Yeah, I’ma try that.”

  When Francisco and I returned to the table, Jose and Victor were talking again. “OK, guys, this is your warning,” I said.

  “But Javier was just talking! It distracted us.”

  “Give me a break. Just write.”

  Toward the end of the hour, a female guard stepped into the library and asked how everything was going. I had seen Ms. Brigade before, but she usually worked on the far side of the unit, so I had fewer opportunities to speak with her than with Jenkins or Sills. She was tall and graceful, with her hair cropped short. She had a surprisingly gentle voice for a correctional officer.

  “Everything’s fine,” I said. “We’re just about to start reading aloud.”

  “Mind if I listen in?” she asked. “I’ve heard good things about this class.” I
looked around the room and the boys nodded their assent.

  Having a woman present—especially one who had expressed an interest in their writing—breathed life back into the room. The boys all sat straighter in their chairs and I didn’t need to ask for volunteers to read.

  “I’ll start,” Francisco declared. His letter began just like the one he had written the previous fall, with apologies for his behavior and promises to change, but this time he ended with a request:

  Please help me, Mom! I don’t want to find myself lost. I want to live a wonderful life for God and for you. Maybe if you fast and pray for me, God will have mercy on me. There isn’t too much time, but I want you to forgive me for all the bad things that I have done to you. I need you, Mom!

  “That’s quite a letter,” Ms. Brigade said. “I’m sure your mother will appreciate it.”

  Francisco nodded.

  “But I have a comment. In the end, you ask your mother to fast and pray for you. You’re still asking her to solve your problems. You’re a man now, Javier—you should be doing the fasting and praying, don’t you think?”

  All the color returned to Francisco’s face—and then some.

  “Don’t get angry, I still think it’s a beautiful letter. I think you’re ready to step up a level, that’s all.”

  Kevin read next, an essay about sunlight and the way it reminded him of summer days when he was a child. Jose declined to read; my guess was that he had written something silly and was embarrassed to read it aloud in front of Ms. Brigade. Patrick had written a poem about the moon, and Benny had come up with a story about an extraterrestrial sent to earth to observe human behavior.

  “Mine’s kinda strange,” Victor said. “It’s about all the stuff I forget. It’s just a list. Now that I look at it, it looks kinda stupid.”

  “Better to write something stupid than to not write at all,” Ms. Brigade said. “I have to write lots of stupid things before I get to the stuff that’s good.”

  “You write too?”

  “Don’t look so shocked, Martinez! Just because I work here doesn’t mean I don’t do anything else. I write almost every day.”

  All of the boys were interested to hear this. “So how come you don’t bring in something and read it to us?” Francisco asked.