After Perfect

by Christina McDowell

  Amalia planned bus trips for families to see loved ones in prison because so often they cannot afford to travel. Many do not own cars or have the money to travel the long distances to isolated locations where many of the prisons are located. She also planned events for the families to gather, as a way to create a supportive community.

  “Can you call the number next to each name on that list and check off who is coming and who is not?” Amalia asked. We were planning a trip to the beach. Many of the children going didn’t own bathing suits, had never even set foot on sand or seen the ocean. In fact, most had never even ventured beyond a ten-block radius of their neighborhood.

  The next morning, we met at the public school nearby, where buses parked out front waited to take us to Malibu for the day. I was one of the chaperones.

  “You see?” Amalia said, pointing to what the children were wearing. About fifty Hispanic and black children climbed up onto the bus in their shorts and T-shirts. Most of them were being raised by a single parent, some with no parent at all, and all of them with a parent in prison or facing deportation.

  The afternoon was spent on the beach. I watched a young girl touch the ocean for the first time. I watched them learn how to surf and boogie board. They built sand castles and buried one another in the sand. And I spoke with the mothers and grandmothers, who shared their stories.

  Back in the office the next day, I was sitting at the computer, drafting the monthly newsletter, when Amalia walked over and asked point-blank what my story was.

  I told her everything. She listened, and then jumped up from her seat, excited, rubbing her hands together as if concocting a brilliant plan. I was hoping my sob story would warrant tears, but instead she beamed and said, “You’re coming with me to prison next week. You’re going to share your story in one of my victims’ workshops.”

  “Um, okay,” I said, having no clue what she was talking about. But I trusted her.

  The following week, at the crack of dawn, I met Amalia at her home. Another woman was coming with us to share her story too. Norma was the mother of a teenage son who was killed in a drive-by shooting, his body obliterated by an AK-47. He was standing on a street corner in Watts, headed for high school, when a gang member’s bullet blew off his elbow, soared through his heart, and blasted his abdomen. A senior, he planned to attend UCLA in the fall. This woman had more faith, courage, and forgiveness inside of her than anyone I had ever met. I didn’t understand at first why my story should be told, how it related to any of this, because of my socioeconomic background, because of my race, because of everything I thought made me separate or apart from. But Amalia kept insisting it didn’t matter. She’d say with affection, “Mija, it’s not about the money.”

  Pleasant Valley State Prison is an all-men’s prison about midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. It sits on a blanket of brown in an empty desert, like most prisons. The air was dry and smelled of cow manure, and the thermometer read 104 degrees. I could see the desolate compound in the distance as we drove through its deadbeat town filled with Jesus-themed clothing stores, frayed American flags, and scattered one-story homes. I was reminded of when I visited my father in prison. I asked myself why was it that faith seemed so prevalent amid such darkness and why, in the light, it’s often taken for granted. I didn’t tell Mom or Mara or Chloe what I was doing. They were on their own journeys of grief.

  “Amor, how are you doing back there?” Amalia looked at me in the rearview mirror.

  “Great.” I smiled back at her. I felt sweat from the heat forming on my forehead and upper lip.

  When we arrived, we walked through metal detectors and checked in. The experience was entirely different from when I checked in as a visitor to see my father. Pleasant Valley treated me like a staff member, with more respect. I was a victim to them now, coming to share my story. As if I hadn’t been a victim before, being the child of an inmate?

  We stood in front of the security booth as the chaplain’s hands strapped an alarm to the belt loop of my pants. “If you feel your life is at risk, just press this center button here, and it will sound an alarm for security,” he said, pulling down on the device to make sure it was secure. “See those monitors there? We’re tracking your every move, so we know exactly where you are at all times.” I pressed my hands and nose up to the thick tinted glass to catch a glimpse inside the security booth. Correctional officers sat wearing stab-proof vests in front of monitors, buttons, and gadgets. The chaplain grabbed a brown clipboard off the steel counter behind us and said, “Sign your name here and slide your driver’s license under the window.” I took the pen and began to write my name—a name I still wasn’t used to signing; a name that still didn’t feel like mine: Christina McDowell.

  I handed the chaplain back his pen and clipboard knowing that I’d signed my life away. Knowing that if a riot broke out, this alarm, which resembled our garage clicker from the nineties, wasn’t going to save my life.

  Nervous adrenaline pumped through my arms and my legs to the tips of my fingers and up through my neck and temples as the three of us followed the Chaplain to the security gate leading out to the yard. Two correctional officers in khaki military-style uniforms sounded the alarm initiating the clicking of metal doors, a sound that was familiar to me. “Clear!” They opened.

  You could feel the desert heat rising from the asphalt. See its wavering colors in the distance, brown, blue, and beige. Brown for the desert, blue for the inmates’ uniforms, and beige for the run-down cells around us.

  We began walking, and all eyes fell on me. It was a vulnerability I’d never felt before, beating out of my chest as I kept my head held high and my eyes focused on what was right in front of me. These motherfuckers will not intimidate me; it’s too late for that. Basketballs dropped, weights dropped, arms let go of chin-up bars to an unsettling stillness as the three of us passed by, each inmate’s daily routine now interrupted by a visit from three women strolling across their yard. I was told they’re called lifers—these were men locked up for murder, serving the rest of their lives in prison. I still wasn’t sure why the hell I was there, but Amalia said all I had to do was share my story.

  As we entered the makeshift chapel, a few inmates known as trustees stood in a receiving line to greet us. They were a mix of black and Hispanic men. I was the only white person (once again) other than one correctional officer who waited outside in the yard. The inmates shook our hands and nodded respectfully. The ones who’d helped set up the room were preparing to go in front of the parole board, the panel of individuals who decide whether an offender should be released from prison, and had been awarded privileges and special work duties for good behavior. They entered and set up rows of chairs facing the front podium, which I would sit behind with Norma, facing everyone while Amalia gathered her papers on the podium. I wasn’t sure where to direct my gaze, afraid to inadvertently stare at anyone. I snuck in a few glances to see who trickled in. I saw an old black man with white hair who was having trouble walking; his left leg was limp, so he leaned on a cane as he sat down in the back row. Then I saw a young black kid who looked my age, midtwenties, wearing black-rimmed Ray-Ban glasses and Chuck Taylor sneakers. Others came in with gang tattoos covering necks, faces, and bald heads. The only white inmate I saw had the words “Fuck the Police” tattooed across his forehead.

  As the seats filled up, the energy became tense, as though everyone’s fear was right on the surface and the only thing keeping us in the moment was trust. A black man sat across from me. He had the darkest eyes I’d ever seen. He was staring at me, his eyes like lasers. I had read in a book about prison that staring is used as a technique for intimidation. Chances are he was the man who called the shots, deciding who needs to be killed, how, and when. I remembered to breathe and then exhaled, with my eyes focused on Amalia. There wasn’t a single correctional officer in the room with us, just me, Norma, Amalia, and a hundred lifers. I had no cell phone, no ID. No keys or pepper spray, just the alarm attach
ed to my waist. Well, if you die, you die.

  My fear dissipated when Amalia began to speak. “Take off your mask,” she said. “I don’t care where you’re from, what gang you’re a part of, what race you are, what your crime was. Today, right now, we are human beings sitting together having a dialogue with mutual care and respect.”

  When Amalia nodded at me, indicating that it was my turn to speak, I looked to Norma in sheer terror. I wanted to run, but it was too late now. Norma placed her hand on my back. “All you have to do is tell them the truth,” she said softly.

  I didn’t plan what I was going to say. Not for any reason other than it was too painful to think about beforehand, and I didn’t know what to expect. When I looked up at all of the men in blue and introduced myself, I wanted to know one thing before I began:

  “How many of you have a daughter?”

  Bodies shuffled in seats before a few hands raised, and then a few more, until almost every single man raised his hand. I looked at all the arms raised in blue uniforms, and for the first time, I felt what I had to say mattered.

  When I spoke, the deepest pain I felt about my father’s betrayal unraveled before them. Everything I had wanted to say to him over the years but had never expressed, I said to them. I raged at them. I told them about the fraud, the facade, the promises, the lies, and that all I wanted—all I needed—were truth, accountability, vulnerability, and love. Love so badly that, look! It took me to the darkest place in America to find it. And all the drugs, alcohol, and sex I had to numb the pain, the way I abused myself, hated myself, because of the shame I felt for everything I had and everything I didn’t have. I told them of the things I wasn’t proud of, and that I took responsibility for those things now and that until I know what justice feels like, I will remain broken, wishing I could make sense of him and all that had happened.

  I sat down, and the black man who had been staring at me raised his hand. Amalia called on him. He stood up, and his body melted into humility when I found the courage to look him in the eye. “My name is Jerome. I am serving twenty-five to life for gang-related murder, and I have a daughter I have never met. I write to her, but she doesn’t respond.” He bowed his head, and his lips quivered. “I, um, I just want to apologize on behalf of your father, and was wondering if it would be all right if I shook your hand to thank you.”

  I extended my hand after Amalia nodded that it was okay to do so.

  “Thank you for listening.” As our hands met, he then asked, “Are your mom and sisters okay?”

  “Yeah, I think so; we’re each dealing with our grief in our own ways,” I told him. My heart felt depleted, though I hadn’t noticed yet—it wasn’t as heavy.

  The young black kid in his Ray-Bans raised his hand next. “Thank you for sharing your story. My dad was in prison my whole life, so I feel your pain. I understand your abandonment. I didn’t want to end up like my father, but here I am.” He had tears in his eyes and shook his head. “Drugs, man. You know, I hadn’t seen my father in seventeen years until I was incarcerated myself. We ended up at the same prison together.” When I heard this, my heart shattered, and I wondered if on some subconscious level the pain he felt of losing his father—the need for love from his father—led him to prison. His father’s prison. Although there is no statistic showing that men and women with an incarcerated parent are more likely to land in prison themselves, I couldn’t help but relate. As I stood inside that prison, I had been searching for him so I could let him go. I felt my anger dissipating as more inmates stood up and shared their stories, shared about the pain they felt after losing a parent, their struggles with addiction, their own need for love and purpose, recognizing their failures, holding themselves accountable for the crimes they committed. It was remarkable. Unlike anything I had ever witnessed in my life—an unspeakable power.

  After I shook a few more inmates’ hands, we left. Amalia, Norma, and I stepped out into the yard in the blazing sun. As we walked toward the exit, I looked into the distance and watched two correctional officers in full SWAT gear, wearing protective goggles, walking toward us with an inmate shackled at his hands low to his waist, his head bowed in shame. It felt like I was watching a performance, a play, everything made to appear darker, to keep us trapped and imprisoned in our own perceptions of what we fear, so afraid of a reality that might not be so terrifying if we had the courage to face the root of all our pain. And when I heard “Clear!” one last time, I wasn’t so angry anymore.

  A few days later, I walked into Amalia’s office. She had stepped out, and there was a note on her desk with a letter underneath it: “Christina: this was addressed to you.” It was a letter from the prison. I tore it open, sat down at Amalia’s desk, and read it.

  Dear Christina,

  I am writing to thank you for coming to Pleasant Valley to share your story in the Victim Awareness workshop. I must say, it was one of the most meaningful things I have ever done in my life, to hear your testimony; to hear the testimony of a daughter; the testimony of a prisoner’s daughter.

  Like your father, I am a prisoner; a father of three daughters. I have been incarcerated for 25 years. So with this background review, you can see that I have been practically absent from their lives. And what little time I have been, the memories are more mine than theirs. And I cling to those memories as a man clings to his very breath.

  To be honest, I do not feel close to my daughters and I am learning I have myself to blame for that. It is I who abandoned them; it is I who refuses to write when they don’t. I should write them regardless if they write back or not.

  The best thing you can do for your father is tell him exactly what you told us fathers. Christina—Mija—God used you as a vessel on October 24, 2012. You have set a part of me free, and for that I shall be forever thankful.

  Be good to yourself. God Bless You.

  Steve

  -30-

  Good-bye, Dad

  It was Mara’s wedding day. As much as she had denied the truth, I knew it was within her as I watched my sister walk down the aisle in her white veil, being given away by a man that wasn’t our father. I held steady up at the altar of St. Alban’s Church in Westwood next to Chloe in our lavender gowns, looking at our beautiful, brave sister. Knowing he was gone. It was this image, his absence on a day we had dreamed about as three little girls, that ignited my acceptance, the culmination of everything that made my father’s disappearance from my life real.

  He wasn’t there.

  It didn’t matter how many times the pain would strike me and attempt to take me down, I refused to set myself up to be hurt by him again. I had heard through my cousin Alex, who had heard through the grapevine at the wedding after-party, that my father was fine. He had remarried, was traveling the world, and was continuing to do business overseas. Of all the truths, it was the most painful to discover. There had been so many nights when I wondered if I should reach out to him because: What if he were homeless? What if he were sick with cancer and living on the streets? He was getting older. Would I be able to forgive myself if he died and I never saw him again? All of the things I never said to him; would I get to say them? The truth is, it doesn’t matter. I’ll never know the truth surrounding him. It sounded as though he had landed perfectly, just as he always did. And I had been the fool once more for believing it would be any different. My father was doing fine without me. Without my mother, without Mara, and without Chloe. How do you reconcile with someone who believes—who really believes—the lie is the truth? You cannot. Any letter I wrote, any words I could say, they wouldn’t matter, it wouldn’t change him. I had created a prison for myself while chasing his love. The letter I would write wouldn’t be for him. It would be for me. And I could do that without having to see or speak to him ever again. And I could accept that. It was my only path to freedom.

  Dear Dad,

  I wanted to write you this letter to tell you a little bit about who I am today and to share some things with you I thought you should kno
w. My journey hasn’t been easy. And I’ve often battled whether or not I could or would ever share these things with you because a part of me feels you don’t deserve it and a part of me longs for you to know. All my life, I wanted nothing more than for you to be proud of me. Over the past three years, after I decided I could no longer be in communication with you, those were the darkest days of my life. I turned to alcohol, drugs, and men to numb my pain. It was more betrayal than I could handle, and I’m sensitive to the truth. Before I hit rock bottom, I discovered you went back to prison a second time, and that’s when I decided to change my name. I discovered the truth, you know, and if I could take it all back—to have a Dad, I would. I’d take it all back. Take back the Tiffany watch you gave me when I was fourteen, the watch I showed off at school bragging to all of my friends, and instead, I’d rather you teach me about hard work, teach me about showing up for people, teach me about humility. Take back the trip to the Plaza Hotel with our toys from FAO Schwartz and our lobster dinners, and instead, take me on a walk in the park and teach me how to put one foot in front of the other, and how to walk through fear. Teach me about kindness and patience. Take back those weekend trips in your private plane and instead bang on the door of my bedroom when you hear me crying because the first boy I ever kissed broke my heart. Teach me about friendship. Take back the diamonds and the pearls you gave us—you gave Mom, and tell her she’s beautiful without them, tell her she’s enough. Tell her you will never abandon her or hurt her, take back all of those broken promises, the bank accounts, the credit cards, and the friends we had because of the last names they carried, the illusions that they would make us feel enough. I want you to tell me that we are enough without a penny to our name.