What Teaching in Prison is Teaching Me
By David Corbett | May 10, 2019 |
“Prison” by Kim Daram
Every Thursday from 5:30 to 7:00 PM I join author Kent Zimmerman in teaching a class on writing at the California Men’s Facility (CMF) in Vacaville, California.
We cover fiction, memoir, poetry, even screenplays—whatever the men submit. Most of the manuscripts show a need for basic grammar, spelling, and syntax skills, while a few are as accomplished in style as anything I get from students outside, with stories that hands-down, in subject matter if nothing else, beat most of what I’ve seen from MFA candidates.
As Joe Loya, himself an ex-con (he served eight years in federal stir for bank robbery, and is the author of The Man Who Outgrew His Prison Cell), once remarked: Every convict has at least one great story—the story of his arrest.
The most surprising element of the writing, though, across the board?
Honesty. The men in my class have highly tuned BS meters, and have little patience for self-serving piety or glad-handing, from each other or from Kent or me. It’s made me far more aware of when I’m holding something back, or shading something to make it sound more interesting or less offensive than it really is. And that in turn has taught me to listen more carefully, and not to judge.
That lack of judgment is important. The men don’t need me to judge them. They need me to listen and help them write better, period. Funny thing, though. In the process, we’ve build a genuine bond of respect, fondness, and mutual concern.
A little background: Kent’s a long veteran of teaching in prison. He and his twin brother, Keith, taught at San Quentin for nearly a decade before submitting a grant proposal to expand their program to other prisons. Just as this effort was bearing fruit, Keith’s Scottish wife desperately wanted to return home to Glasgow, and so Kent was suddenly not only deprived of his lifelong sidekick and co-writer (working together, they’ve written a number of books on the music business, Hells Angels, the Chicago mob, and more), he lacked someone to help him teach some of these now far-flung classes, ranging geographically from Folsom to Chowchilla, 150 miles apart. Vacaville’s not far from where I live, he asked if I’d like to come aboard, and I said yes.
That was two years ago. Some of the men in the class have moved on, either through release or transfer, including a car thief nicknamed Sideshow who wrote some of the funniest, craziest, most interesting stories it’s ever been my pleasure as a teacher to read.
Several others, especially a core group of particularly strong and insightful writers, remain. At least six of them are serving sentences for murder.
What can you learn from a murderer? How one moment of your life can change it for the worst forever. How some mistakes can’t be corrected.
Two of the men convicted of homicide in my class committed their crimes in the grip of a rage they could not control. Several others did so when either blind drunk or high on drugs. (There too is a lesson: yes, drugs are a scourge, a fact that the War on Drugs has done virtually nothing to change.)
Every one of these men has taught me that, despite what cynics and ideologues—and far too many jurors, judges, and law enforcement officers—want all of us to believe, people can change. Yes, for each of these men it took a horrifying moment they could not take back—but who changes absent some crisis?
We in the writing biz call it the “change-or-die moment” for a reason.
Blake Synder, in his writing guide Save the Cat, refers to the “whiff of death” as the pivotal moment late in the story when the protagonist makes a fundamental change, usually because the threat—or reality—of death has become inescapable.
Those of us who have made major changes in our lives can most likely point to a moment when death or mortality made an indelible, inescapable impression on how we thought about ourselves and our lives. Basically, we found ourselves saying, “I can’t do this anymore. I don’t want to be this person anymore.”
Of course, most of us have not been directly responsible for the death in question. Imagine, though, if you were. Don’t tell me you’ve never felt hatred. Don’t tell me you’ve never, even once, indulged a murderous thought. Now, let that act of imagination be the first step toward understanding, toward compassion.
The most essential necessity for such a moment of clarity is the capacity for honest, unsparing insight. Each of the men I’m discussing here have shown me that.
One, a former general contractor who built high-end homes in northern California, beat his wife to death when he was blind drunk; she had confided to a woman friend that she was going to confront him and lay down the law: either he stop drinking or she was leaving. One of the most affecting pieces I have ever read anywhere was his account of regaining consciousness in an isolation cell, confined within a straightjacket, growing increasingly aware that something terrible had happened, having the gnawing sense he was responsible, but unable to remember what it was. He tried to ask the medical attendants who came to check in on him what had happened, and they routinely responded, “Don’t worry about that now. Right now you need to focus on getting better.” (He’s written some other wonderful things, especially about his childhood, but this particular piece raised the bar for the whole class in terms of focusing a pitiless eye on the worst thing you’ve done.)
This inmate is now clean and sober (both alcohol and drugs are readily available in prison, incidentally). He has learned Braille, and become an expert in transcribing science and math textbooks for the blind. He also volunteers for the hospice unit. (CMF has the only hospice unit in the California prison system; inmates too sick or too old to recover from their illnesses before release go there to die.) I asked this inmate why he volunteered. He responded, “I like helping the guys make a peaceful transition from this life to whatever comes after. I denied that to somebody once, and I’d like to make up for that somehow if I can.”
He recently petitioned the court for early release under new state guidelines. He was the first inmate in California to do so, setting a high bar for those who follow given his model inmate status. The judge, however, somewhat sloppily and disingenuously denied the motion for a hearing—despite a glowing letter not just from the CMF warden but the inmate’s brother-in-law, the sibling of the murdered wife (and numerous others, including me).
I could tell you that this has taught me: Never set your hopes too high, or put your faith in the system. Both are legitimate takeaways. Or, as the novelist Robert Stone once put it:
“What terror to fall into the hands of a system so cruel and arbitrary as the law…It was the kind of thing that made you want to pray.”
With that in mind, I’ve chosen to learn from the brother-in-law, not the judge, and to focus on the grace of forgiveness.
Another of my best writers was a star student with the prospect of early entrance to college at the age of 16—only to fall into methamphetamine addiction. He routinely went to an older man who paid him for sex so he could feed his habit. One day, when blisteringly high, he decided to steal one of the older man’s cars. He knew the man worked until 1 AM, so he broke in a few hours before that with the plan of stealing any money or ATM codes he could find, then heading off in the car. But as he ransacked the house, unable to find any money, he looked into the room where he and the older man had sex, and his rage began to build—not just at the man but himself. He hated who he was, hated who he’d become. Meanwhile his thoughts churned obsessively, his whole body hummed from speed and his flesh itched with the tiny imaginary creatures meth addicts feel bursting through their skin. The older man came home. The 18-year old hid behind the door, picked up a heavy rock used for a doorstop, and beat the older man to death when he entered.
The description of that episode is another of the most compelling and most searingly honest pieces of writing I have ever read. The 18-year-old is now nearing 50. He has been in prison for over thirty years. He continued using drugs when first incarcerated and embraced the hellish atmosphere of prison, girding himself with magazines, taping them to his torso and arms and legs to protect against knife wounds during the gladiatorial battles that sometimes took place on the tiers. It took over a decade for him to wake up, stop surrendering to his despair and self-loathing, and begin to find a way to live.
Which brings up another lesson learned: whether you rise up or give up, it’s your choice.
Not all of my murderers were high when they committed their crimes. One killed the man who raped and tortured his niece, and has candidly admitted he would do it again. He broke his back in prison in a fall a decade ago, and is confined to a wheelchair. Recently the prison doctor took his morphine away, claiming he didn’t need it. The pain is so severe he can barely get his thoughts straight, which brings up one more crucial lesson.
It’s something I’ve seen several inmates express in their writing. Far too often, prison has nothing to do with rehabilitation, or even punishment. What the men learn is that they are there to be hated. The goal of their incarceration is to convince them that they are not truly human. If they die in prison, regardless of their crime, who cares? It will put an end to the mess they’ve made of their lives, and the state will have one less mouth to feed. Win-win.
The fact that this only breeds even more violent criminals seems beyond the capacity for some guards and administrators to fathom. Hearing this firsthand from some of my students has taught me the truth to the following quotes from A Place to Stand, the excellent prison memoir by Jimmy Santiago Baca.
In one, he recounts being told by a fellow inmate of how he once had plans for a better life, hoping to do right, but the time when he felt that way passed while he was still in prison. Instead there was just the continuing punishment of incarceration past any time that was justified:
“[A]nd the hurt in your heart turns to bitterness, freedom turns to vengeance, and you look forward to getting out, not to resume your life but to hurt people the way they hurt you, for punishment that made no sense, for the hurting and hurting, for the day when you couldn’t take it anymore but you had to and you lost your humanity.”
Not everyone has the capacity to turn it around like the inmate I mentioned above who finally chose to live. Sometimes the crushing contempt and humiliation is too much to bear. And the lesson there? Again, from A Place to Stand:
The rage that came out of him was the kind of rage that can only be created in prison. The seeds of that rage are nourished by prison brutality and fertilized by fear and the law of survival of the fittest. It grows and grows, hidden deep in souls that have died from too many beatings, too many jail cells, and bottomless despair, contained like a ticking bomb. And this kind of firestorm wrath…once a man has it in him, the man, when the rage comes out, becomes a god.
I don’t want to end on such a harsh note, so let me wrap up instead with this: In our training, we are constantly cautioned against getting too close to the prisoners, feeling too sympathetic, or disclosing personal information about ourselves. The inmates are considered intrinsically manipulative, constantly seeking out human weakness in order to exploit it.
Part of the training program includes a film about a prison guard in Southern California named Felix who started by being friendly with one inmate in particular, then doing favors for the inmate’s family, and eventually buying drugs and bringing them into the prison. Felix is now incarcerated himself, and the training film ends with this stern admonition: Don’t be a Felix!
I relayed this to my class, telling them I’d been warned about just how devious and manipulative they are. One of them—another murderer, who writes wonderfully about growing up black in Sacramento during the 1980s—responded, “Damn straight. And I’m not just manipulative—I’m patient. Give me about 20 years? I’m gonna hit you up for a cigarette.”
And that’s one last thing I’m learning. These guys are funny. They almost have to be.
But the most important takeaway of all? I have it every Thursday evening right around 7:00 PM.
I get to leave.
Is there any activity that you’re engaged in that is creating a deeper understanding of the world, or a more profound compassion for people considered marginal in some way? How is that influencing your writing? If it isn’t, why do you think that is?
David Corbett (he/him) is the author of seven novels: The Devil’s Redhead, Done for a Dime (a New York Times Notable Book), Blood of Paradise (nominated for numerous awards, including the Edgar, Do They Know I’m Running?, The Mercy of the Night, The Long-Lost Love Letters of Doc Holliday, and The Truth Against the World. He has also published the story collection Thirteen Confessions and the novella The Devil Prayed and Darkness Fell.
David’s short fiction and poetry have appeared in a broad array of magazines and anthologies, with pieces twice selected for Best American Mystery Stories.
His non-fiction has appeared in numerous venues, including the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Narrative, Zyzzyva, MovieMaker, The Writer, and Writer’s Digest.
He has taught both online and in classroom settings through the UCLA Extension’s Writers’ Program, Book Passage, LitReactor, 826 Valencia, The Grotto in San Francisco, and at numerous writing conferences across the US, Canada, and Mexico. In January 2013 Penguin published his textbook on the craft of characterization, The Art of Character (“A writer’s bible that will lead to your character’s soul.” —Elizabeth Brundage), and Writer’s Digest published his follow-up, The Compass of Character, in October 2019.
David, what a wonderful thing you’re doing! God bless you. When I teaching through ICL, I had a couple of students who were in prison. They had a great sense of story and it was such a privilege to mentor them. One man found Christ and at the time I was going through my own conversion to Catholicism so in our letters back and forth we shared some of our faith journey as well. I, too, was cautioned not to get too personal…loved your cigarette story.
Since moving to SC, I’ve been going to Adoration on a regular basis–this is sitting with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament (we believe He is truly and physically present). I mostly just sit with my own poor thoughts of praise and thanksgiving, petitions, pondering Scripture verses, but I also write (given that I think better with paper and pen) and I am often amazed at the insights given to me. It’s given me a heart.
Thank you, Vijaya.
Hey David – My wife and I always point out instances of “life’s little pleasures” when we come across them, and this morning I pointed out that opening WU on a Friday morning to find a David Corbett essay waiting is one of them.
And, geez, David—here I thought that I already admired you. I sincerely appreciate that you speak up (on Twitter and elsewhere), but even more that you “put your money where your mouth is.” You act. Kudos.
So, do I have a similar example? Yeah, no. There’s no way anything I’ve got is going to live up to volunteering to teach in prison. And this is going to sound pretty lame in contrast, but your piece reminded me of my time in the business world. (Apologies in advance, but this is going to require a bit of setup.)
In our mid-twenties, my wife and I had joined my step-father’s wholesale lumber firm, only to find that he intended to cheat us out of the stock we were earning (the intent had been that we would take over as he retired, but he simply couldn’t let go). We sued and he settled. It was a win for us, but needless to say, it was ugly, for us and for my family. And part of the settlement included our departure from the firm.
Luckily, we’d gained a pretty solid reputation, with customers, vendors, and competitors. Within a few months, we were courting multiple offers for our services, a couple as managers with opportunities for ownership. The one we accepted took us to Chicagoland. The firm was similar, but much larger. It was 100 years old, family-owned (till us), and located in an old rail-born town in the rural area 40 miles south of the city. It was the second largest employer in town (behind the pig slaughterhouse). We partnered with the sales manager to buy out the final family member. The idea was, I would take over the operations, and my wife the sales department, and our partner would become president.
All of this to set up me stepping in to manage 35 men. Most of them grew up on farms, or still farmed. They “threw lumber” for a living (including Douglas fir timbers up to 12” X 18” X 40’); drove forklifts that could lift other forklifts; ran saws that could take a limb in a flash; and drove 40’ semis stacked to the 14’ limit into one of the busiest cities in America (often having to back them into alleys in peak morning traffic), five and a half days a week. There wasn’t a one of them who couldn’t lift me over their head and spike me like a Bigtime wrestler.
I was 30. And, yes, cocksure.
Their former boss had been 70. And “one of them” (burly farmer type). He’d managed them with divisiveness, pitting one crew against the other, belittling them, to their faces and behind their backs to their coworkers. Some of them had worked there all of their adult lives (a few as long as I’d been alive). The area is literally the wind-swept plain, with breath-stealing cold in winter and brain-melting heat in summer. The place made hard men harder.
My initial rah-rah, teamwork, customer-orientation management tap dance went over like that scene in Captain America where Cap does a USO song-and-dance routine to frontline troops in WW2 France. It went that way for months. Hard glares and few words of reply (mostly snark) to my every overture.
One day realization struck. I wore work clothes rather than a golf shirt and khakis, showed up at 6am rather than 8, and reported to the yard office rather than the front office. I forced them to train me like a newbie. For every job.
I have never worked so hard in my life. I lost twenty pounds, and gained a new level of respect for what it takes to actually get things done. And more importantly, a new life-perspective. And, in time (several years, actually), I earned their respect. I learned to listen (really, for the first time in my life). Some of those I’d had the scariest run-ins with became confidants and supporters. These guys actually ended up bringing their problems to me. Not just their work issues, their life issues and problems. And I don’t quite know how to explain what it meant to me other than to say I remain humbled and honored by it.
As for my writing, I see some of what they taught me in my primary protagonist. He (eventually) wins the respect he gains as a young chieftain by never looking down on his people, by being willing to lead by actually charging into battle ahead of them—by never asking anything of his followers that they know he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, do himself.
Whether or not I’ve succeeded on the page, I know these guys have loomed large in shaping the man I’ve become. I’m grateful.
Vaughn, just wondering where your lumber business was, as I lived and worked 34 miles south of Chicago (Park Forest South, Chicago Heights). I taught at Bloom Township High School in Chicago Heights and later, I was a nurse at St. James in Chicago Heights. Beth
Keep going south, Beth. In the little town of Momence, (on the banks of the Kankakee River), the yard is (still) at the northern village limits on Dixie Highway (one of the oldest highways in America). So when I say 40 miles, that’s south of route 80. We lived in Beecher, which is 20 miles north of Momence, and not far south of where you were. I used to say the land is so flat, you can watch the dog run away for days.
Makes you wonder whether our paths have crossed somewhere along the line. :)
Hi, Vaughn:
I absolutely love that story, and am happy what I wrote inspired you to share it. I’m sure that experience shaped your fiction — how could it not? I’m particularly moved by the bit about getting them not only to trust you on work issues but personal ones. When that line is crossed, when you get the men to trust that you’ll listen and take what they have to say to heart, it makes all the difference. Yesterday I mentioned the Jimmy Santiago Baca quotes above and it opened up a really heartfelt discussion about what it feels like to punished long past the point it can have any effect on the inmate’s insight or behavior. The guys also admitted that they are encouraged to write up “personal transofrmation narratives” for their parole and probation hearings, and they say our class has been more helpful than any other not just in the writing of those but in their ability to open up and express themselves freely and confidently. That means a lot to me and kent. It’s the real reason we keep doing it.
One clarification: I’m not as noble as you make me out to be. I don’t volunteer. I get paid by through the art collective that has a grant from the state.
Vaughn, All those places are familiar to me. Beecher had some lovely antique stores and yes, I used to comment that St. James was built on the corner of Dixie Highway and Route 30 (Lincoln Highway)–so in many ways it sat in the middle of the country. We southsiders have always been criticized for our lack of cache, but Bloom Township was a great school in its day and we provided an excellent education to young people of diverse backgrounds. Sometimes I believe I learned more from my students then they learned from me. Not dissimilar to what David is writing about today.
Your piece took my breath away. Talk about insight. DAMN. Talk about man’s inhumanity to man, and yet, despite all that, a rose can grow in a garden of weeds, cruelty, hatred and despair.
This is the best thing I’ve read in a long time.
I’ve never been to prison, but I have been to jail. Once for a minor traffic offense (the cop didn’t like my lefty bumper stickers) and once for my work with Occupy. What I saw there, heard there, I will never forget. And I was only behind bars for two or three days. That’s the hardest part of being in there, by the way. You have no idea of time. It’s maddening.
So thank you for your work. I am sure it is wildly rewarding. And thank you for this blog piece. I won’t soon forget it.
Thanks, Stacey. Yeah, it opens your eyes when you’ve been on the other side of those bars. Or dealt with a lawman who thinks the law is, “What I say goes.”
Fantastic work, David. Keep it up, it’s much needed. Prisoners are some of the forgotten ones, along with the elderly, homeless, and kids in foster care/high risk situations. I worked with foster care and high risk kids (and their families) for several years. Their stories are unbelievable tales of cruelty, loneliness, poverty, rejection, labeling, and so much more. I imagine some of these men have similar childhood memories.
The lives of these children haunt me. I’ve tried to give them a voice by working their stories and feelings into some of the kidlit I write. However, thus far, feedback hasn’t been positive. The saddest, and yet most realistic response, is people have a hard time ‘connecting emotionally’ to the characters. I wonder why.
You see, it never failed at Christmas when the children were asked what they wanted from Santa (our agency purchased gifts for them) there always came replies such as…a family or someone to love me. How do you wrap that in a box?
Thank you both for giving these men love. I’m thrilled to hear of their change of heart and dedication making the lives of others better.
Hi, Vicki:
Boy, you nailed it. A lot of these guys tramped through the foster home system, or suffered some other form of parental neglect or abuse.
And kudos to you for working with those kids. My God, that must be heartbreaking. And yet that’s the kind of heartbreak that can crack open your soul and let the light in.
Even more heartbreaking — that readers “can’t connect emotionally” with the characters you’ve based on those kids. That’s stunning and sad and infuriating and…
The culture of cruelty we’re seeing explode across the national landscape right now I think is born of a lack of empathy that is also a lack of imagination. I also think those lacking imagination secretly fear that they themselves are not seen or heard. It’s our job, as writers, to rectify that as best we can. It doesn’t mean we’ll get through often or ever. But the worse option is silence.
Thanks for bringing this up, Vicki, and for doing what you’re doing.
David,
Thank you for this piece. What beautiful insight your bring to such a dark situation. Whatever happens in their lives, these inmates are blessed to have you for that short time every Thursday.
Thanks, Elaine. I tend to think I’m the one who’s blessed. Like I said, they’re teaching me all kinds of things, and not just “There ain’t no good chain gang.”
David, thanks so much for this post today. I am currently reading BLACK BOY by Richard Wright and it underlines more and more how fierce the core of personality has to be to withstand physical and mental abuse as one is growing up. Poverty, drugs, anger overcome that core of wanting to do good–but it’s still there, as you point out, and it often fights to become stronger than past mistakes. I am not currently teaching young men and women from struggling suburbs outside of Chicago as I once did, and I’m not helping teen moms give birth at Mercy Hospital in Chicago, as I once did, but my writing reflects my experience. My husband (who is retired) now spends three days a week helping homeless people living in Thousand Oaks, CA, He evaluates their skills and helps them find jobs and get off the street. Thanks for what you are doing. If John can help people get jobs they can also avoid prison.
Hi, Beth:
Yeah, Richard Wright is our national poet of oppression. BLACK BOY and NATIVE SON I think were the last great books in the Naturalist tradition, and they punctuated that era with a boom. How sad we seem not to have the stomach or conscience any more for those kidns of stories.
Your husband sounds like a pretty good guy. And yes, keep that flame of hard experience and acquired compassion alive in your writing. We have to give that world the voice it deserves.
David, this is a great piece, showing your typical perception and discernment. Thanks for it, and for working with people in harsh circumstances on a creative, compassionate level.
I’ve been corresponding on and off for a couple of years with a lifer about working on his novel, where the main character is a gun, something he’s very familiar with, having used one to murder someone. He’s given me some insight into his prison routines, which are dreary, and his writing life, which isn’t. He writes well.
He’s been incarcerated for years, and has some complicated, serious health problems (prompting his moving—with only hours’ notice—to a new facility), but his attitude, in his letters at least, is remarkably stoic.
You remind me that I need to write him again, because I haven’t heard back from my most recent letter, from a couple of months ago, and I fear his condition might have deteriorated.
Thanks for this good work.
Thank, Tom. And good for you helping this man put on paper what it swirling inside his heart and mind. I’ve found that many of these guys, by just ebing able to get it oout and get it down, see it all so much more clearly, which helps immeasurably in their attempts to take stock and face themselves and their lives more honestly and capably.
And yeah, I’d check in on him. Health care in prison is almost an oxymoron some places, and who knows how much his own prior lifestyle has undermined his body.
Powerful!
Thanks for reading and commenting, Jessica.
Hey David, I love what you’re doing and what these men can teach about compassion, forgiveness, and humor. I learned much of the same as a prosecutor. It was easy – usually – to feel empathy for the families of murder victims, but I also had brushes with defendants that hurt my heart. There was the teenager who’d witnessed his brother’s shooting, testified at trial, and continued to stop by my office from time to time to let me know how he was doing. He was candid about selling drugs for money while trying to get a McJob. When a cop caught him with drugs and he faced a probation revocation hearing, he asked if I would come to the hearing and speak on his behalf. I did, only to be berated by the judge for doing so. Huh.
Another time, I lost a murder trial that presented a plausible (but not overwhelming) self-defense claim. The decedent was as big and bad a drug dealer as the killer. But he was somebody’s child. After the not guilty verdict, the victim’s mother gave me a big ol’ hug and thanked me for standing up for her son.
Then there was the coked-up witness who, when I admired her stilettos, offered to boost a pair for me.
The world, as you point out so beautifully, is full of people who are hurt, who are trying to be better, who are funnier than hell, and who make us realize how lucky we are to share all that, if only for a time.
Mary
Thanks, Mary. I worked the opposite side of the aisle from you, as my PI firm did a lot of criminal defense. So I was no stranger to siding with the accused. And guilty.
This has offered a whole new level of insight, however. There is no denying the harm these men have caused. There is also no denying how hard they have worked on themselves trying to figure out what led them to their crimes and how they can change the course of their lives.
Last night, a refrain we head from several of the guys was, “If I hadn’t gone to prison, I’d be dead. Prison saved my life.”
True story: one editor turned down my upcoming book on motivation, THE COMPASS OF CHARACTER, because she thought it painted too rosy a picture of human nature. “I don’t think people change all that much,” she said. I replied, “I do, because I teach in prison, and see it every time I hold my class.”
I’ve also heard that about prison from potential jurors during voir dire, e.g., even though my son went to prison, I could be fair because prison saved his life. Working either side of the aisle, you sure do learn a lot about human nature.
I don’t think that editor has seen enough!
Mary
Is there any activity that you’re engaged in that is creating … a more profound compassion for people considered marginal in some way?
The harder your premise is to swallow, the better your writing has to be.
The main purpose of the novel trilogy I’m writing, Pride’s Children, is to be entertaining – because otherwise people won’t read.
But one of my main reasons for writing it is to create empathy in readers for those who live with chronic illness – a life sentence. To let someone be disabled or ill for long enough to learn what it can be like. And then walk away with that understanding, maybe to be a better person toward those who can’t walk away.
I figured if I showed it from the inside, how anyone could suddenly have their entire life turned upside down, their career halted and destroyed, by an illness that won’t ever go away, and still remain a person with the same dreams and aspirations everyone else takes for granted, it would be worth the effort it costs me to do it.
Society has expectations of the worth of prisoners, as you pointed out.
It also has expectations, stereotypes, and judgment for those who can’t pull their weight in the accepted way. It isn’t pretty.
I have tried to keep author separate from story, because I am not the character, and because there is a tendency to assume more worth in the writing if the author is an outsider: a man writing women’s fiction gets more praise than a woman writing the exact same story (or a better one); cf. praise heaped on Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden.
But I am one of ‘them.’ Maybe it’s time to make a bigger deal of that.
The hardest part so far has been getting enough other people to read.
Interesting perspective, Alicia. Thank you. Regardless what makes other people or society define you as “less than,” it can become a prison.
After the moment of change has occurred, I ask: Why are these men still in prison?
It might be said that prison is a safe place for them to be. It might be said that would not stay straight and sober outside. It might be said that they, perhaps, would not write as well if given their freedom. The box is an incubator; the world is a feeding ground.
Those things might be said.
I don’t agree. Changed is changed. When changed men remain caged for decades, I question whether that is justice. I have seen for myself how well it can go when people genuinely turn their lives around; when wisdom and mercy override punishment and vengeance.
Prison is measured in time, but the condition of the human soul is not. I admire these men for writing honestly; I thank you for teaching them–and us.
You touched a chord with that, Don. I do feel concern for several of the guys who I think might not fare well in the outside world, especially after 30+ years of regimented shelter. They can’t expect forgiveness or kindness out there. The best many can hope for is indifference. And so there’s that first drink, or first whatever. The way things work creates a cynical self-fulfilling prophecy– we will do as little as possible to help you once you’re free, and will at every step suspect you will backslide. That’s almost daring a parolee to re-offend. And yet several of these guys have worked so hard and traveled so long over such rough terrain that I think they’ve built up sufficient character to do okay. The ones I feel best about have some positive connection to family or friends outside. The loners, I fear, are lost.
But the biggest takeaway from all of this for me has been: dig deeper, feel more, be honest about it. Then let’s talk.
Thanks for the kind words.
Call me naïve but I am big believer in rehabilitation. Stories like this, reminds us of prisoners’ humanity and their need to produce something good out of their lives.
Thanks, Rebecca. It also reminds us how much they themselves WANT to produce something good out of their lives.
Wonderful essay David! Thank you so much for sharing it with us. What a wonderful opportunity for both you and your students.
Thank you, Sheri.
David:
My transforming experiences pale in comparison to those I’ve read here, but here goes: years ago, when I traveled more and before the entire world was connected by smart phone, I was in the habit of helping stranded motorists along the highway. Once I came across two men sitting on a broken down car on a scorching Mississippi afternoon. They were young, black, and physically imposing — all of which I am not. I passed them by. Even then I didn’t kid myself — I was afraid of them, pure and simple.
A few miles later, I had the chance to make up for it. These guys were older and toted a cooler and fishing poles between them. From the smell when they got in the car, it was apparent that the cooler held as much beer as fish. I drove them to a house off the highway, off the state route, off a county two-lane. One of the men broke off a branch of gladiolus for me as a thank you gift. It kept its blooms for a week.
I was probably a little crazy in those days. Still, it makes me wonder what kindness we miss, both giving and receiving, when we pass by people in their hour of need.
Thanks for the chance to share that story.
I think I can speak for the group, Christiine, that the pleasure is all ours.
David, you have not made my day. You have made my week. This privileged look at a world many of us have not experienced is bound to ferment in our writing, whatever our genre, and deepen it. Make it essential. Make it indispensable and not to be ignored.
Your mention of A Place to Stand by the poet Jimmy Santiago Baca reminds me that I have his earlier book Working in the Dark and now must read it.
Some time ago I listened in horror to a friend’s account of being picked up for Walking While Black and tossed into jail because of an ancient bench warrant for a pitifully trivial offense. The bench warrant issue, with its potential for massive abuse, was entirely new to me, and his account has haunted me ever since. Your essay joins it and Jimmy Santiago Baca’s writing on my list of “stuff I need to do something about–but what?”
Thanks for chiming in, Anna. We can make sure to vote for candidates who see criminal justice reform as a top priority.
Getting to cross paths with people like you, David, is the main reason I’m glad to be part of the WU community. Thank you for your efforts, and for passing on the wisdom you’ve gleaned through them.
My recent efforts mostly involve advocating for an aging parent, and older characters show up regularly in my fiction. I’m interested in how we all navigate the choppy dance from their full independence to potential dependence, and how challenging it can be to differentiate a quirky response to an existential struggle from mental illness, or even dementia. Anyway, thoughts like these form the backbone of my present WIP. We shall see how it goes.
Hi, Jan:
My late wife and I worked in the probate/estate planning area, and we had a number of cases involving serious elder abuse. The elderly have enough issues to deal with, but add greedy relatives waiting for that pot of gold (however small) to drop from the sky — it reminds you that justice is always sought, seldom achieved, and one can never, ever give up.
“…justice is always sought, seldom achieved, and one can never, ever give up.”
Absolutely, David!
I meant to mention above that the Milgram Experiment shows that at least two-thirds of us are capable of murder. All we require is an alpha who asks us to abdicate our integrity through stepwise and gentle “asks.”
“He eats your soul in small bites.”
Yes. A nation-wide Milgram experiment. ;-(
Wow. Powerful piece. You write about things I’ve never thought of. Thank you for sharing this slice of reality with us.