by H. M. Mann
I fill out my visitor’s sheet, listing Mary and Auntie June. I’m allowed up to three visitors, and I tap the third space. “Do cousins count?”
“Sure,” Jones says.
I write “Olivette Howard” on the form, hoping I’ve spelled her name right since they check the ID for any visitor.
“Is she over eighteen?” Jones asks.
“Yes.” I wonder how old she is now. She has to be at least eighty, maybe ninety.
“You expect her to visit?” Jones asks.
I smile. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
After that, I become prisoner #438729 in a Pod on level 6 in general population in the largest jail under one roof east of the Mississippi on June 21, the longest day of the year. My luck. I have a view of the Monongahela River through the little slit of a window. I always hated that river before, but now it contains so many possibilities. I can always hop a barge and go on another trip, even if it’s only in my head.
Half the folks in here are minority, which doesn’t mesh with the rest of the city population, and fully half are minority male like me. I fit in, but I don’t belong here. Instead of hanging out in the Day Area where I’ll eat meals and occasionally talk to the correctional officers wandering around among us, I’ll probably stay in my “room” and write. Dr. King had a cell. I don’t. The floor is tile, and I have a nonflammable mattress on my narrow bunk. Like I’d ever set a nice mattress on fire after all the places I’ve slept. I have a sink, a toilet, and a metal cage for my belongings, which right now is empty. And if I had a pen, I’d be writing on that toilet paper over there.
They had asked if I wanted to make my “call,” but I said no. What would I say? Hello, Mary, I’m in Pittsburgh, and you can visit me Sundays and Thursdays? I didn’t call because I didn’t want to break down in front of all those people. That’s not a good way to start another tour of duty.
County usually only puts two to a room, but I’ve been told they’ve been double-celling since March, and the long, hot summer is just beginning. I haven’t talked much to my three cellmates, mainly because they’re short-timers, un-convicted guys just hanging here until they get to court or finish thirty-day sentences. Most of the guys in here are like that. They’re just visiting, unlike me.
I’m sure I’ll get six months or more once the judge signs the papers. I won’t have a trial. I violated probation, case closed. There’s nothing to talk about to anyone unlike the short-timers who can’t talk enough about their cases, like any of us actually care. This is not a place to make friends. If I just keep to myself and do my time, I’ll get out. It seems like a revolving door sometimes, only I don’t get to use that door, probably until after Christmas
The only thing I do the next day, Sunday, is attend a service, and I may be the only one feeling the message. Maybe half the people in County go to religious services sometime during the week, but they only go because it either gives them something to do or reduces their time for good behavior. I go to learn what I don’t know. And there’s so much I don’t know.
On Monday, I call Auntie June, mainly because I’m still not ready to talk to Mary. I’m not hardened enough yet, and that’s one thing you got to be in County. If you start even tearing up or sniffing while making a phone call with twenty guys waiting in line, you’re in trouble for the rest of your “tour.” You can’t be soft here even though I know now that shedding tears are part of being a real man.
“Oh Emmanuel, it’s good to hear your voice,” Auntie June says. “You know I’ve been praying for you, and at least you’re close by.”
So much for any mystery about where I am. “I got to Crawford and Centre, Auntie June. I was so close.”
“I heard all about it from Dot Williams. She was driving by in that old Buick of hers. She told me that you looked good. Didn’t you tell the police about Mary?”
“No. They wouldn’t have understood.” I nod at the guy waiting in line behind me. I know he’s listening. Guys like him just stand in line all day listening to other conversations partly because they have nothing better to do but mostly because they like to feel they have important knowledge to share with everyone in the Day Room.
“Oh, I had the furnace repaired,” Auntie June says.
“I thought you were getting an air-conditioner.”
“Well, I thought about it, but I bought a couple of box fans instead. I put one in the front window and one in the back. It’s a regular windstorm in here. They keep me cool enough.”
“Well, at least you’ll be warmer this winter.”
“Yes, I will. They did tell me I should replace the furnace before it dies of natural causes.”
“Well, keep that money I sent you handy, just in case.”
“I put the rest of the money in the bank.”
“Good.”
“So if you need it to get Mary a ring, just let me—”
“What ring?” I interrupt.
“Emmanuel Malik, I thought you knew me. I’ve been talking to Mary’s mama from the very second I knew Mary was having your baby.”
“Babies,” I correct.
“Say what?”
Mary’s mama hasn’t been telling it all. “We’re having twins. A boy and a girl.”
“You are? Why didn’t that woman tell me? Those Catholics. Always holding back the whole truth.”
I laugh. “They probably just found out, Auntie June.”
“Well … well, praise the Lord!”
Auntie June is happy about this? “Um, what changed your mind about me and Mary?”
“I’m still worried, you understand, I mean, it’s my job to worry, right? I’ve been your mama for thirty years, and I hope to be your mama for thirty more.”
I fight back the tears. She’s right. She’s been my mama. All that time. “I hope so, too.”
“It’s just that, well, Mary makes you happy. And you … you went out and fought for your life, and Mary, well, Mary helped you do it, so … so there.”
I laugh, and the tears evaporate. “Thanks for telling me that, Auntie June. I needed to hear that.”
“So if you need some of that money, you just tell me, okay? I’ll even go pick out the ring for you.”
Aren’t I supposed to pick out the ring? “I’ll let you know. Um, could you tell Mary I called and that I’m okay?”
“You haven’t called her?”
“No ma’am. I’m …” I turn away from my listener and lower my voice. “I’m feeling that I let her down again.”
“Boy, just having you back alive has picked us all up. And Mary already knows you’re back. You know Dot Williams. She runs that Buick and her mouth all over town.”
“Call Mary anyway, okay?”
“I’ll call her for you.”
“Thank you.”
“I just hope those babies can hold off until January,” Auntie June says. “I’ll pray that they do. Wouldn’t that be something if you could be there for their birth?”
“It’d be something all right.” It’d be a miracle in more ways than one. “I gotta go, Auntie June. You stay cool, you hear?”
“I will. Oh, I just have to tell you something. A couple times while you were gone, I woke up in the middle of the night with the overwhelming need to pray for you. I pray for you all the time, you know.”
“I know.”
“But these times were different. Like you needed prayer especially hard, like if I didn’t pray, you’d end up hurt or dead. The one time I was convinced that you had fallen or something and just couldn’t get up, like you were stuck to the ground with the weight of the whole world on your shoulders.”
“That happened to me a lot, Auntie June.” She had to be praying while I was trying to catch that first train.
“Well, you got up, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“A saint is just a sinner who fell down and got right back up. You remember that song.”
“I will.”
“And you stay strong.”
�
�I’ll try.”
I attend a Narcotics Anonymous meeting the very next day as a condition of my incarceration. I had gone to a few meetings before, but I never listened. I listen now, and when I tell my story, all thirty-five hundred miles of it, I notice people listening to me. Some look interested, and I know that some are just marking time and trying not to fall asleep, but again it’s the telling that’s good for my soul. I haven’t truly made it yet, but I’m on my way. And it’s funny how many details I remember, like Flake’s spooky voice, Slade’s huge hands and the chicken soup, Rose’s chicken in that paper bag, Penny’s little nose, Rufus’s laugh and the brand on his arm, Red flying off the train, Hughes’s pretzel pancakes, Jeff’s bug eyes. They all come alive in the telling, like they’re in the room listening to me, urging me on.
After the meeting, a Rasta brother wearing a multi-colored hat and dreads stops me on the way back to the Day Room. “You mentioned Flake when you told your story. Have you heard?”
“No.”
“Flake died. They found him at the Ellis.”
Now I won’t get a chance to thank him. “When?”
“Sometime last month.”
I might have been the last person to see him alive. “Thanks for telling me.”
“Keep strong, my brother.”
I could never be a Rasta. I doubt my hair could ever grow that long. And though I like reggae music, I can’t listen to it twenty-four hours a day. It all starts to sound the same.
But Flake. The brother’s dead. And he saved my life. Maybe I could have saved his. I should have dragged him along with me. I should have done more for him.
After dinner, I head to the cell and stare at the ceiling from the top bunk while the rest of my cellmates watch TV out in the Day Room. They haven’t given me my notepads yet, though I’ve repeatedly requested them. I just want to re-read them, to re-live my journey, maybe to recapture some of that life out there. I want to remember, like Slade said, I want to remember everything.
It’s all in your head.
I literally jump in my bed and look at all the bunks. The Voice is back.
Even if you didn’t write any of it down, you’d never forget your journey.
Where have you been?
Around. And don’t move your lips. Folks will think you’re crazy, and you don’t want to spend the rest of your time in solitary. You figure out who I am yet?
No.
You have to know by now.
I don’t.
I’ll give you a hint. You looking like you seen a ghost.
Wait a minute.
And I was almost one when you saw me. Or maybe I was one. I’m still not sure. I might have been on my way out of this life when you saw me. Maybe I was just somewhere in between.
Flake?
Yeah.
I don’t … I don’t understand.
You think I do? Manny, how you think I feel? Being dead and traveling around in someone else’s head ain’t my idea of a good time.
I still don’t understand.
All I can tell you is this. I took my last shot, and poof! No bright lights, no angels, no tunnel, no nice music, nothing. It was dark, so dark that the darkness had a flavor. I was flying through the rain and the lightning, and that was scary, let me tell you. I ended up squeezed inside some little wet bird.
The sparrow!
Pray you come back as something else, Manny. I was hungry as a mug the whole time. Them little birds can eat, let me tell you, and that’s all they seem to think about. Anyway, there you were flying off the bridge, and there I was all wet and cold and hungry, and somehow I joined you. Don’t ask me how that happened.
I won’t.
Somehow you jumped, and I jumped into you. And I’ve been trying to make sure that you got the cure. You said getting the cure from me was like a dead man telling you how to live. Kind of like most religions, huh?
Yeah. I guess. But you spent most of your time tempting me. Why?
Okay, at first I was angry that you had made it, you know, jealous cuz you didn’t die when you jumped so we could fly through the darkness together. So yeah, I tempted you. But in Louisville, well, things changed, for the both of us. When that dealer rolled up to us, and I felt how much you wanted to change, I backed off some.
You were still tempting me all the way to Atlanta.
It’s called reverse psychology, fool! I was saying those crazy things to make you think, to help you make the right decision.
My guardian angel is a junkie.
I ain’t no junkie no more. I’m a man, and so are you. We have always been men, Manny. We just forgot.
Yeah. Flake, what’s death like?
I ain’t telling, and you’re not supposed to know what it’s like to die for a long, long time, Grandpa.
What?
Sorry, that slipped. And don’t tell anybody I told you. They try to keep the clamps on future history out here.
Out here? Where are you?
It’s awesome when they let some light in, that’s all I can tell you, and don’t ask no more questions about it. You’ll get me in trouble.
But you’re dead.
Oh, rub it in why don’t you.
Sorry. So I’m gonna be a grandpa one day.
Shh, they’ll hear. I better go before I slip up and tell you any more.
No. Wait. Where are you going?
I don’t know. Wherever. I’m kind of new at this dead thing myself. Maybe I’ll be off to haunt another junkie who’s a man in disguise, who knows? Nice to be of use, though.
Yeah.
Anyway, I got to see the world with you, Manny. I just wanted to thank you.
Thank me? I wanted to thank you. You saved my life.
No I didn’t. You saved your own life. I was just along for the ride. I hope I find someone else like you, maybe right here in County. You watch out, okay? If you see a brother moving his lips and shaking his head funny …
Then I’ll know it’s you.
Be strong, Mighty Manny. You got a lot of folks out here rooting for you. And they all look like you. You got a lot of relatives, boy. They been in and out of my ears from the get-go. They’re strong, Manny. You got you some strong people.
I know.
Take it easy, and always remember what Rose told you, to make haste slowly.
I will.
Goodbye, Emmanuel Mann. Make us all proud.
I feel a clearing in my head, but other than that, I don’t feel that much different. Flake was with me the entire time? That’s so …
There isn’t a word to describe it. He and my ancestors were looking out for me—
“Yo, man, who you talkin’ to up there?”
I look over at Luther or Loot or something, a new short-timer on the Pod. “Nobody.”
“Your lips was movin’, yo.”
I smile. “I was just praying.”
“Oh. You a Muslim?”
“No.” I smile. “I’m a Baptist.”
He nods and walks away, and I lay back on my bunk. At least I think I’m a Baptist. I’ve spent a lot of time in the rain. I look out the window. Lightning flashes light up the river, and rain screams down mixed with thunder. It’s going to be a powerful storm. It’s going to be quite a show. I look out into the Day Room at the other inmates watching some educational show because the correctional officers control the remote. What they’d learn if they’d only look out the window.
I get up mighty the next morning and attend the Positive Life Awareness Program run by some well-meaning folks. It’s mostly common sense, like some of the self-help shows I’ve seen on TV. I listen, even though I’m fully aware of a positive life outside of these walls because of my travels.
After the meeting, I enroll in a GED class, and later that day, I take my first class. We do some math drills, and I nail them. The English part gives me some trouble until I write down the answer I wouldn’t say in conversation. But when it comes to American history, Dr. Taylor, a retired history professor, focuses
only on white American history. I know it’s what will be on the GED test, but it’s not the whole story.
“There are those who feel the Civil War was fought for states’ rights,” Dr. Taylor says. “There are others who believe it was fought to end slavery.”
A few of the brothers in the class raise up in their seats, but they quickly slide back down.
“There are still others who think it was simply an inevitable clash caused by the industrial North versus the agrarian South, a war of lifestyles that was bound to occur sooner or later.” Dr. Taylor takes a breath, turning a page in his “sermon.”
I raise my hand. “So what’s the right answer?”
He squints at me. “Well, it’s a combination of everything I told you. History isn’t as easy to pin down like mathematics.” He looks back at his notes.
“Why not?” I ask.
The brother next to me gives me a dirty look, like I’m trying to become the teacher’s pet.
I’m not. I really want to know.
He looks up again abruptly. “Because there’s so much of it. Because there are so many sources to sift through. Because none of us were there to experience it.”
“I’ve experienced it,” I say.
I hear a squeaking of chairs and a few sighs from the inmates around me, but I don’t care.
“We’ve all experienced it,” I say. “Maybe not the actual events, but we’ve felt the effects.”
Dr. Taylor takes off his glasses. “What do you mean?”
I look down at my notes. “Okay, you said slavery ended officially in eighteen-oh-eight. What about the folks from Africatown?”
Dr. Taylor blinks. “Africatown?”
“Down in Mobile, Alabama. They were slaves from Ghana brought to this country in eighteen-sixty.”
“I’m not that familiar with that.”
“A rich Southern white man took a bet from some Northern rich white men …” And then I tell the entire story of Africatown from start to finish, and the chairs stop squeaking, many even turning away from the teacher and facing me. I even see a guy taking some notes. I can’t explain the feeling. It was like I had something to say, and it was important, and people were listening.