The Valley of the Shadow of Death

by Kermit Alexander

  In 1697, in the Treaty of Ryswick, the island of Hispaniola was partitioned, with the western third, Saint-Domingue, going to the French, while the eastern portion, Santo Domingo, went to the Spanish. Saint-Domingue would rely on African slave labor to produce coffee, sugar, and indigo for export.

  In 1791, inspired by the French Revolution, with its message of liberty and equality, Toussaint-Louverture, known as the Black Napoleon, led a slave revolt. After more than a decade of fighting, the guerrilla warfare and yellow fever combined to defeat the French. In 1804 Saint-Domingue became the first and only independent nation to be run by its former slaves. The nation changed its name to Haiti, from the Taino Indian word Ayiti, meaning “Land of High Mountains,” or “home or mother of the earth.” Throughout the nineteenth century Haiti would relive its violent birth: coups, revolts, assassinations, and chronic indebtedness were the norm. Fearing that the chaos and instability caused both economic and security risks, and thus left it vulnerable to European incursions, the United States occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934.

  Following the U.S. departure, Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo used a border dispute as a pretext for genocide. In the 1937 Parsley Massacre, Trujillo institutionalized Antihaitianismo, the claim of Spanish Dominican superiority over Haitian blacks, and oversaw the murder of between ten and thirty thousand Haitians.

  Following a period of multiple elections, revolutions, and coups, dictatorial order was restored to Haiti in the late 1950s under the authority of François “Papa Doc” Duvalier. The regime relied upon voodoo mysticism and random terror to subjugate the populace. His rule enforced by uniformed thugs—the Tonton Macoutes, dressed in sunglasses and dungarees, and cagoules, their faces hidden by masks—Papa Doc ruled Haiti until his death in 1971. His nineteen-year-old son, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, continued his father’s rule until his ouster in 1986. Following the thirty years of stabilized Duvalierist terror, Haiti returned to repeating cycles of failed elections, coups, dictatorships, and revolutions.

  After a military takeover in the 1990s, U.S. president Bill Clinton intervened in an effort to restore democracy and free elections. The early 2000s saw elections marred by fraud and intimidation. At the time of our arrival in 2004, a coup was under way to oust President Bertrand Aristide for the second time.

  The constants of uncertainty, debt, and violence have crippled Haiti’s development and infrastructure. A satellite photo of the island, showing the Haitian-Dominican border, reveals the environmental toll. The Dominican side is forested and green, while the Haitian side is parched and desolate. Deforested, and devoid of natural defenses, Haiti is left vulnerable to the Atlantic hurricane season, suffering casualties unheard-of in its Dominican neighbor. The shelter is less, the soil weaker, the flooding intensified, and sources of fresh water and power depleted.

  * * *

  After Tami and I returned to the orphanage at Mission of Hope, she began looking for Clifton.

  She disappeared inside the mission. I waited outside by the car.

  I then saw a little boy peek his head around a corner, then dart from behind a wall and tear past me. He looked like a little escapee trying to run away from the orphanage. He rushed toward a group of kids playing soccer.

  I don’t know why—I had never seen a picture of the boy and didn’t know what he looked like—but I just knew it had to be him.

  “Clifton!” I called out.

  The boy screeched to a stop. He turned around and looked at me, and just as fast, ran and jumped into my arms.

  That was it. So natural, something meant to be. And he stayed in my arms, chattering away, grinning up at me, as if he’d known me all his life.

  And talk about presence, that intangible “it” quality, that boy had it. And he was calling out to me. A reason to live, held in my arms, babbling, my future, found on a dusty soccer field in an orphanage in Haiti.

  And that was the moment, the first glimpse of a second chance. The path was lit. I could see a way out of the Valley. Shed the ghosts of Watts in the Land of High Mountains.

  And Madee was there with me. But this time she didn’t need to say a word.

  39

  WE CAN’T DO THIS

  ON DECEMBER 13, 2005, thousands of miles from Haiti, rapper Snoop Dogg held a free outdoor concert in Northern California. It was nighttime and a light rain fell, but the thousands of fans didn’t seem to notice.

  The performance was held outside San Quentin’s east gate, in support of clemency for Stanley “Tookie” Williams. It was the date set for his execution. Supporters felt he had reformed, and therefore his life should be spared.

  Following the death penalty’s return, this was the greatest drama surrounding an execution since Robert Alton Harris.

  Tookie Williams, Crip pioneer and prison badass, bodybuilder supreme, spent the last ten years recasting himself as reformed, redeemed, a new man. The new Tookie’s mission: to keep youth out of gangs, to broker treaties between rival factions, and to promote a “peace protocol.” He began publishing books for young readers promoting an antigang message, Gangs and Wanting to Belong, Gangs and Drugs, Gangs and Violence, Gangs and Your Neighborhood.

  Whether this transformation was real, whether it did anyone any good, and whether it was enough to save Williams’s life depended upon the source. Not surprisingly, as with every issue dealing with capital punishment, opinions fell into polarized camps.

  For supporters of Williams, here was a changed man, someone who saw the light during his long stay in prison. He genuinely cared about his community and was doing something to help. Who would have more street credibility to reach young minds than a man like Tookie Williams—tough, street-smart, from the hood. Testimonials poured in regarding the effects of Tookie’s books. A Swiss national legislator, as well as anti-death-penalty activists, nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize and a Nobel Prize for Literature.

  While Williams never admitted to the crimes, a murder of a man in a botched robbery and the killing of a couple and their daughter a month later, he did apologize for his role in organizing the Crips. Supporters pointed to both his potential innocence as well as his story of redemption as reason to spare his life. Celebrity activists included Jesse Jackson, actor Mike Farrell, South African president Desmond Tutu, former California state senator Tom Hayden.

  Law enforcement officers, prison guards, and those opposed to Williams’s clemency saw the record differently. For them, the evidence of guilt was overwhelming, with Williams making statements regarding specifics of the crime that only the killer would have known. They cited his unwillingness to admit guilt as proving a lack of remorse and an inability to take responsibility for his actions. Additionally, many questioned the sincerity of the conversion.

  Williams’s critics further pointed to his unwillingness to debrief, or tell officials all he knew of the workings of the Crips both in and out of prison. Prison guards stated that when he entered the exercise yard, the sea parted and cronies wiped down his bench and table before his arrival. In other words, he still ruled his gang in prison, where underlings rolled out the “blue carpet” in his honor.

  Finally, many questioned whether Williams even wrote his books; they claimed that Barbara Becnel, a sometime coauthor, actually ghostwrote everything, including his full-length memoir, Blue Rage, Black Redemption, which charts his saga from Crip to antigang activist.

  For San Quentin spokesman Vernell Crittendon, Becnel was the driving force behind Williams’s message, and Williams was ultimately a kind of walking contradiction. Crittendon felt Williams did want to be seen as a force against gangs, but was motivated by the desire to save his own life. Williams did want to reduce violence on the streets, but was unwilling to give up the prestige and benefits that Crip gang status bestowed upon him in prison. Williams wanted to renounce the gang but bask in its glory. Finally, Crittendon saw the ultimate undoing of Williams’s redemptive quest as the unwillingness to admit responsibility for the homicides.

&nbs
p; Once his appeals were exhausted, Williams asked for clemency. This was Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s second request since taking office in November 2003. But the execution of Donald Jay Beardslee, early in 2005, presented none of the complications of the current case.

  Prison spokesman Crittendon termed Beardslee’s execution—with no issues of guilt, no extenuating circumstances—the most clear-cut of the new era. Beardslee confessed to murdering two young women, garroting one in Lake County, shooting another in Half Moon Bay. The most memorable moment: when a reporter from the San Mateo Daily Journal collapsed and had to be rushed away from the death chamber by ambulance. Otherwise, proceedings were described as “very unemotional.”

  “He’s gone,” the prosecutor said following the execution. “Go home and hug your daughters. And hope like hell that a predator like him never gets hold of them.”

  Williams’s case, unlike Beardslee’s, was complicated by the global media coverage, the redemptive angle, and the fact that Williams insisted upon his innocence.

  Ultimately denying clemency, Schwarzenegger stated: “Clemency cases are always difficult, and this one is no exception. After studying the evidence, searching the history, listening to the arguments, and wrestling with the profound consequences, I could find no justification for granting clemency. The facts do not justify overturning the jury’s verdict or the decisions of the courts in this case.”

  After the execution team experienced some trouble getting the needles through his oversized arms, Stanley Tookie Williams was declared dead shortly after midnight.

  * * *

  In 2005, while the Tookie Williams redemption saga wound down, we took another trip to Haiti to visit Clifton.

  After meeting Clifton, I had tried again with Tami. This time she said yes, and in May 2004 we were married at Lake Perris. We took our honeymoon in Haiti. Our first goal as a couple: adopt that little boy.

  I was open again to God and woke up early each morning to express thankfulness for this new opportunity and to pray: “I hope I don’t miss anybody today. . . . I can’t miss someone and have them turn into Tiequon Cox. Please, Lord, don’t let me miss Clifton. Please don’t let me miss anyone again.”

  There was no way I would betray this moment, miss this chance. This time my eyes were open. I would not slip.

  In addition to working to get Clifton into our home, we also wanted to make a bigger difference in the lives of the people of Haiti. Tami’s memory of the windmills in Amarillo spurred the idea of what would become “Operation Windmill,” an effort to bring a desperately needed clean energy source to Haiti. The windmills would generate power and pump water. This was also a vital step in weaning the Haitians off charcoal use. The charcoal came from trees, which led to chronic deforestation and environmental distress.

  The process of adoption was brutal, mired in endless bureaucracy, paperwork, fits, starts, denials. It called for superhuman patience. But I welcomed the opportunity. I could once again help, and with a purpose came a sense of control, something lost for twenty years. During 2004 we took a half a dozen trips to Haiti, where we visited Clifton, and advanced the windmill project.

  Between trips we also bought a house in Riverside. It wasn’t modern or fancy, but it had three bedrooms, a pool, a horse stall, and a big yard surrounded by palm trees. We couldn’t wait to get Clifton into his new home and begin our life. We pictured him exploring all the rooms, looking in wonder at his new surroundings. For a boy from an orphanage in Haiti, we hoped a home in California would feel like paradise.

  In between our Haitian trips, Tami served as the catalyst, reuniting me with my estranged family. The process was slow and painful, but positive. Once I could finally forgive myself, I forgave others.

  The vengeance had been burned out of me. I had been brought back to life.

  * * *

  After two years in the adoption trenches, we were met with deflating news.

  Clifton, we were told, was not available for adoption.

  To allow Clifton’s adoption, the people at Mission of Hope informed us, would be against the very mission of the mission, which was to raise educated, stable young people, imbued with Christian values, who would remain in the country and begin to build a self-sufficient and stable Haiti.

  I sure couldn’t argue with the message. But I sure wished they had told us that earlier.

  While crushed, we both knew we had to continue to be a part of the child’s life. Every month we sent him money, bought him clothes, and covered his medical expenses.

  Clifton continued to call Tami “Mom,” and began introducing me to everyone as “my dad.”

  During this period we were flying to Haiti every few months. The problem was, whenever we left, Clifton sank into depression, so bad that he wouldn’t eat and often became quite ill.

  Finally, the director said to me, “I have to ask you to stop coming, because he falls apart after you go. It has put his health at risk.”

  * * *

  Throughout the first decade of the twenty-first century, Tiequon Cox was confined in the Adjustment Center at San Quentin Prison.

  During this stay, Cox gave up all personal belongings. He forfeited his television and refused to take a mattress. When a guard asked him why he didn’t want his TV and mattress, Cox replied that possessions became attachments, which correctional staff could then take away from him, thus placing him under their control.

  This was Cox’s effort to assume complete control of the most controlling environment. It was this single-minded commitment to nihilism that made Cox so dangerous. He had absolutely nothing to lose, he was free of all possessions, attachments, values, and restraints. No religion, no belongings, no future.

  By taking control of his death row experience, Cox had made it part of his fantasy, a Rolling Sixties world taken to its ultimate extreme. Even in the inverted world of death row, he was the nth degree. It was Cox in the AC they would talk about on the streets. It was the warrior of the row to whom the songs would be sung. They could bring the fire, but they couldn’t break Li’l Fee.

  Others within the staff noticed that Cox never seemed to sleep. The light in his cell burned around the clock. And there he’d be, sitting on the floor, back propped against the cell wall, legs stretched straight in front of him, peering at you through squinted eyes. “If you just gave him a sombrero,” one guard said, “he would have looked just like a Mexican worker taking afternoon siesta.”

  During his decade in AC, Cox delved into yoga, meditation, and martial arts. But most of all he just sat there, “staring straight ahead, like a man in a trance, like some kind of monk.”

  With the weights confiscated and yard time reduced, Cox became inventive in his routines. Pass his cell at 2 a.m. and there he was working out. Endless sets of push-ups, sit-ups, burpees, one-legged burpees, lateral burpees, and extreme burpees, all involving squats, kicks, leaps, and jumps. The workouts were reminiscent of George Jackson, known for his AC fingertip push-ups—part of the mind-body steeling process.

  Cox was described as having no body fat and being cut like a gymnast. One guard was struck by the flexibility of such a large and muscular individual, continually repeating, “He’d be exercising in his cell and he could kick straight up, just kick straight up.” Another practiced move: he’d stand on one leg, with one foot on the ground, and another placed flat against the wall. Guards surmised that this was a kind of training, just in case he ever “got loose.” The raised foot would be at a perfect height to take out a short female guard, just plant a hard kick in her face.

  “Preparation and opportunity,” that was the key for people like Cox, said the guard. “Be prepared and just wait for that opportunity to strike.”

  * * *

  After crushing us, the mission director subsequently told us that given Clifton’s state, he ultimately thought it would be best for him if we went through with the adoption after all.

  What a roller coaster.

  This new news brought momentary
joy, until I realized we had simply been returned to where we had just been before. But compared to being told that the adoption was impossible, merely being returned to the world of an endless theoretical adoption felt like a victory.

  But the adoption policies in Haiti, to the extent there were any, were inscrutable, and ever changing. We kept trying.

  When we next returned to Haiti, we once again got what we expected: more surprises. This twist dramatically complicated our plans for adoption.

  When we left the Mission of Hope to deliver provisions to other orphanages, Clifton wanted to join us. He would be our guide, he said.

  After entering the Good Samaritan Orphanage, to the north of Titanyen, we saw Clifton begin to play with four other children. It was another humid Haitian afternoon, and the kids were in a cracked cement yard.

  They were high-fiving each other, laughing, roughhousing, and tumbling about like a litter of puppies. They ranged from four to twelve years old.

  At first we didn’t want to disturb him, then finally couldn’t resist any longer.

  “Clifton!” we shouted. He smiled and began to come toward us. “Who are your friends? Introduce us.”

  Clifton’s impish grin began to light up his face. He smiled at his playmates and said something in Creole. They snickered. We looked at each other and shrugged.

  He then looked back at us and in a thick accent, in broken English, responded, “These are not my friends, these are my brothers and sisters.”

  “This,” Clifton said, “is my sister Manoucheka,” pointing to the oldest girl. “And Jameson,” he said, touching the oldest boy. He then introduced another boy, Zachary, and a little girl, Semfia.

  We went dumb, couldn’t say a word. Smiling awkwardly, trying not to look at each other for fear of revealing our shock. Now what? Break them up? Leave others behind?