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Category: character sketch

Posted
March 18, 2019
Category
character sketch, On My Block
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Josh

Iโ€™m so sick of talking about self-mastery… and the redemptive power of writing… and race. Ugh, race. I wrote a 140,000-word novel on the subject and still feel no closer to closure. How about Trump? Anybody wanna argue some more about Trump? Such an easy target. Lately, Iโ€™ve been noticing how all my essays adapt this stuffy, professorial tone. Like Iโ€™ve got it all figured out. Weird how I do that. Especially since Iโ€™m writing them from my bunk which, letโ€™s be honest, is a clear indicator that I donโ€™t know jack.

There is, however, one subject that Iโ€™m fluent in: Prison life. After two long bids and a quarter-century behind the razor wire, I feel like I have a PhD in this violent little microcosm of civilization. Since itโ€™s the anniversary of my last arrest (March 2005) and my time is finally winding down, I figured Iโ€™d write about some of the people who populate my world… Starting with Mustafa.

Crazy name, right? Mustafa is his Muslim name. His real name is Josh. And heโ€™s the smartest person I know. I can guess what youโ€™re thinking: The yard is not exactly a Mensa convention. Agreed. Still, I think youโ€™d be surprised.

I used to walk the track with a dude who taught literature at a state university. And every compound has a few former doctors and lawyers that walk among the uneducated and gang affiliated.

Not that all gang members are uneducated. Josh was a gang member. He was 16 when he got locked up. And thatโ€™s what young Latino men are expected to do when they come to prison, join gangs. So he did. It didnโ€™t hurt his rรฉsumรฉ that heโ€™d been boxing since he was 12 and was a technician with his hands. One of the first things you notice about him are the words โ€œThug Lifeโ€ tattooed across his knuckles. So misleading…

At age 24, right around eight years into a mandatory 25-year prison sentence, he found himself alone in a confinement cell, hungry, lonely, miserable, cut off from his brothers, cut off from his family, cut off from the world. His only company was a paperback someone had left under the mat, a book on the Jewish religion called The Road Less Traveled. He read it. Then he prayed the prayer that most of us humans pray in our darkest hour. There was no bolt of lightning, no sun breaking free from the clouds, no clichรฉ calm that fell over him. But if there was a watershed moment in his life, a pivot point between the unconscious gangbanger he was and the brilliant young man I call my friend today, that night was it.

The way back was gradual. Ground was gained incrementally. He spent two weeks in his bunk healing from the beating he took upon renouncing his affiliation. Then he went to the chapel. Ironic that a confirmed Catholic who found God via a Jewish book in confinement finally settled on Islam as his spiritual path.

But itโ€™s not jailhouse religion that makes him unique, itโ€™s what heโ€™s accomplished. Heโ€™s now a GED tutor with an unbelievable success rate. Once his students have demonstrated a firm grasp of the required criteria, he pushes them even further. He teaches them physics. Heโ€™s teaching ME physics. In addition to English and Spanish, heโ€™s fluent in Italian and is now tackling Japanese. But the coolest thing about Josh is his ability to impersonate any inmate or guard on the compound. Heโ€™s one of the funniest people Iโ€™ve ever met. Keeps me rolling. Keeps my time moving.

It couldโ€™ve gone either way. A 16-year-old gangbanger with a 25-year mandatory sentence does not have much incentive to evolve. Not in a beneficial direction at least. But against all odds, Josh has.
Iโ€™m proud to call him my friend.

(Next up, Eli. A half-Senegalese, half-Jamaican, 21-year-old surfer with the sunny demeanor of a Walmart greeter and the hardheadedness of an eighth grader.)

Posted
December 5, 2018
Category
character sketch, Criminal Justice Reform, On My Block, prison reform
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0 Responses

Scotty

I just assumed Scotty was a diaper sniper when he moved into my dorm. He fit the mold; 5 foot 5, big bifocals, quiet and never far from his bunk. Operating under this assumption, I dealt with him accordingly. Which is to say I didnโ€™t deal with him at all. Different prisoners have different approaches to child predators. Abuse, extortion, exploitation… Karmic law can sometimes be a violent force. My approach is to let it do its thing. So I was pleasantly surprised when I learned that Scotty was, in fact, not a cho-mo. He was doing life for murder.

Back in 1985, when Reagan was just beginning his second term, when breakdancing was still in style and artificial intelligence was only a plot point in a sci-fi novel, Scotty found out his old lady was cheating. The arrest report says he shot her lover six times after leaving a Lakeland bar. He doesnโ€™t remember any of it, but he was pretty drunk. While he was telling me his story, I kept doing the math in my head. Thirty-three years. Iโ€™ve been gone for 14 and it already feels like an eternity. When Scotty fell, I was only 11 years old. My life was really just beginning as his was coming to an end. (Although Iโ€™m sure the victimโ€™s family would argue that the only life that actually came to an end that day was their loved oneโ€™s.) Sad situation, all the way around. If life is really just this flow of atoms through time and space, this endless waterfall of moments, each fading into the next, itโ€™s amazing to fathom how a single drop โ€” a solitary frame in an infinite sea of pixels โ€” could have such far-reaching effects.

At age 20, Scotty was found guilty and sentenced to life with a mandatory quarter. Back in those days, Florida still had a parole system and this sentence ensured that he would serve at least 25 years, day for day, before being considered for release. This is what both the legislature and the court intended. Then came the 90s when the measure of politicians on both sides of the aisle came down to how tough they were on crime. Humane ideas such as empathy, forgiveness and second chances were viewed as weaknesses and quickly pounced on by political opponents. The parole system was abolished, the prison-building craze began, and life sentences suddenly meant exactly that… life.

But there was one problem: people like Scotty who were sentenced according to a different set of laws. This is why there is still a parole commission in the Sunshine State despite the fact that itโ€™s been almost three decades since the parole system was axed. But to many of these dinosaurs, the system is a cruel joke.

Scotty limped to the finish line of his mandatory 25 years in 2010, legally blind from retinopathy (hence the enormous bifocals) along with a host of other medical complications that come with being a type 1 diabetic at the mercy of a starch-laden prison diet. When he met with the parole examiner that year, he presented a stack of certificates; everything from vocational classes like cabinet making to small appliance repair to residential wiring (which he took and taught), to the Christian program โ€œKairos,โ€ to various anger and stress management programs, to the state-mandated Compass reentry course, along with both parenting pilot programs, from which he was the first in the state to graduate.

In addition to all these accomplishments, he also arrived at the quarter-century mark without a single disciplinary report. Just to add some perspective here, Iโ€™ve been incarcerated since March of 2005 and Iโ€™ve had eight DRs. Eight. And I consider myself a model inmate. Florida prisons are rife with drugs and gangs and undiagnosed mental illness. Even when one is committed to living righteously in these places, shit happens. Your bunkie hides something in the cell that youโ€™re not aware of, youโ€™re attacked and forced to defend yourself, you talk during count, you miss a call-out… Or you somehow manage to sidestep all of the above, but you have the misfortune of crossing paths with the wrong guard on the wrong day. Bogus DRs are almost a clichรฉ in here. This was especially true during the last two decades when institutional abuse was at its height. The fact that Scotty was able to avoid every pitfall and keep his nose pristine is a minor miracle. Even now, on the doorstep of his 34th year in the joint, he still has a clean disciplinary record.

And yet…

The parole commission set his presumptive release date for 2030. And every few years when some formality of a rubber-stamped kangaroo-court hearing pops up, they pretend to consider all the facts before banging the gavel and denying his release. Again. This despite overwhelming evidence of his rehabilitation, exemplary conduct and deteriorating health. The parole examiner who conducted that initial 2010 interview even recommended to the board that he be released. Didnโ€™t matter. Denied.

This begs the question: Why? Scotty is not the first person Iโ€™ve met in this situation. There are a handful at every institution (though Iโ€™ve never known anyone with 33 years DR-free). It almost seems that the state is bitter that there was once a time when sentencing laws were fair and provided a mechanism where men and women could earn their way out of prison with good behavior. So even though the parole commission is required by law to have these hearings, for the most part, people like Scotty are just set off until they die. The few that do make it out are those who are lucky enough to have friends and family to make phone calls and show support. This is more an exception than a rule. The reality is that people serving long prison sentences usually serve them alone.

Like I said, sad situation all the way around.

Posted
November 10, 2017
Category
character sketch, My Story, On My Block, writing
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1 Response

The Behemoth and the Snowflake

They say that upon finishing a manuscript, writers should do something outside their comfort zone. Learn a foreign language, pick up a musical instrument, take a cooking class. Something that causes a different part of the brain to light up. I chose to learn Silat, an Indonesian fighting style that focuses on blocks, strikes and grappling.

The dude whoโ€™s teaching me is my polar opposite. A 330-pound, former powerlifter, military historian, ex-bouncer, Limbaugh-loving, NRA conservative who is always talking about the liberal media, fake news, and politically correct safe-space snowflakes.

Full disclosure: I think Iโ€™m a snowflake. Especially if that means Iโ€™m into human rights, civil rights, common sense gun legislation, clean water, clean air, and kindness. I even have a letter from President Obama in my photo album. Doesnโ€™t matter. Through Silat, this neo-con behemoth and I seem to have found common ground, and after a little over a month of drilling, training, and sparring, I am excelling at the art.

It feels good to be excelling at something because lately Iโ€™ve been questioning my ability as a writer. My Amazon author ranking is hovering around two million (are there even two million authors in the world?). Literati industry snobs ignore my existence and, worst of all, my magnum opus, my Pillars of the Earth, my lifeโ€™s work and beautiful child, On the Shoulders of Giants, has failed to place in a single contest this year. Crushing. I knowโ€ฆ I sound like a whiny snowflake. Whatever.

So it was with a fair amount of hesitance that I passed my novel to this gruff, Fox News defensive tackle. I would have never considered doing so had he not already proven to be extremely intelligent and well readโ€ฆ almost to the point of arrogance. I wanted to earn his respect.

He smirked when he accepted it. โ€œYou wrote this?โ€ I knew I was setting myself up for failure. On the Shoulders of Giants is a novel about race, addiction, lost love, gun violence, foster care and the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys. Even the title is a nod to a famous President Obama speech. Not exactly required reading for Republicans. To further lengthen the long odds of his acceptance, dude is a sci-fi fan. I had already spotted Frank Herbertโ€™s Dune series stacked on his bunk. Our literary tastes are as diametrically opposed as our politics. The question was not so much would he like the book? as it was would he finish it? Apparently my sadomasochistic snowflakery knows no bounds.

In the ensuing days, I watched him from across the dorm. Heโ€™s about as rough on a novel as you would expect from a sausage-fingered, powerlifting grizzly bear; dog-earing pages, folding the book back on its spine, setting his morning coffee on the cover. About midway through, we were sparring one day when I asked him how he liked it so far. He rolled his eyes. โ€œLaden with white guilt.โ€ But he read on.

It took less than a week for him to knock it out. One night he came and sat on my bunk, coffee-stained, dog-eared novel in hand. โ€œYou know,โ€ he said, โ€œwhat happened to Scarlett wasโ€ฆโ€ He couldnโ€™t finish his sentence. โ€œDid you like it?โ€ I asked. Tears streamed down his face. All the answer I needed. I placed a hand on his massive back. Humbled. Honored. Screw the contest snubs and academic cold shoulders. This guyโ€™s emotional response was all the accolade I needed. A supreme compliment from the unlikeliest of readers.

And, by the way, itโ€™s Mister Snowflake to you. Donโ€™t forget, I know Silat.

Posted
November 3, 2017
Category
character sketch, kindness, On My Block, writing
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1 Response

Paradox and reluctant compassion

Every writer loves a good paradox. Our brains are trained to sniff out life’s Catch 22s and spin them into plot points:

A doctor must decide between saving a pregnant mother or her unborn child. A cop with a drug dealer son must choose between loyalty to the job and loyalty to his family. A general has to decide between bombing a village or letting an international terrorist slip away…

These agonizing decisions are the beating heart of good fiction. They keep the pages turning and the reader engaged. But in real life, such dilemmas are a lot less fun. Consider the most recent in my world…

You’ve probably heard me talk about the blind man. He’s been in prison since 1986. I met him a couple of months ago when I moved into my current dormitory. He challenged me to a game of knock gin with his Braille playing cards and we’ve been cool ever since. I walk with him to the chow hall for meals, and most evenings we listen to Braves games together.

For the record, I am not friendly and I don’t require camaraderie. I think of myself as fully self-contained. I could do years on this bunk without speaking to a soul and be perfectly fine. I really prefer the conversation in my head to the conversations around me, and get cranky whenever someone interrupts. But I was intrigued by the blind man. Although my latest novel,ย On the Shoulders of Giants,ย touches on a form of blindness called retinopathy, I’ve never actually hung out with a blind person and I was curious to learn how accurate my assumptions were. Plus, this dude has a sunny disposition in spite of his handicap and I admired his self-sufficiency.

The more I got to know him, the more I liked him. He told me stories about riding bicycles while flanked tightly by his two brothers who kept his course true, about the one time he drove a car (!), about his proficiency at the sport of wrestling as a kid in the 50s. When I asked him about the school for the blind where he lived from ages 5 to 18, his usual smile faded. “There were some nice people there, but some were just plain evil.”

I shouldn’t have looked him up. I usually don’t. Nobody is in prison for going to church, and I’d rather not know the sordid details of people’s criminal histories. But there are a couple of exceptions: 1) if we’re cellmates; and 2) if we’re friends. Then I need to know.

In hindsight, it was pretty obvious. What else could he be in prison for? Racketeering? Arson? A blind armed robber? I think I just assumed it was murder. I mean, he does have a life sentence. Turns out, it was something much uglier. Sexual battery. The worst kind. On a child younger than 12. Enter the paradox.

I know what you’re thinking: What paradox? He’s a diaper sniper. Case closed. I feel you. In the hierarchy of prison, child molesters are at the very bottom of the food chain, just below punks and snitches. During my quarter-century in the joint, I’ve witnessed them get turned out, pimped out, and traded like baseball cards until they eventually either commit suicide or check into protective custody. Those who manage to escape that fate are still robbed, extorted, or at the very least, slapped around and relentlessly ridiculed. Although I don’t participate in the abuse, I don’t have any sympathy either. I see it as karmic law in action.

I’m sure there are parents out there who take small solace in the fact that these men are being tormented in here. I know if one of my nieces or nephews were victimized, I would transfer to every prison in the state until I found the predator and punished him for his actions.

But this blind man… I can’t make myself hate him, or even be cold to him, in spite of whatever he did thirty years ago. This is a big-time conflict of interest. No self-respecting convict would ever treat a cho-mo like a human being. I keep rationalizing, maybe he’s innocent. It seems like the only thing worse than being a child molester is being an innocent man wrongly convicted of those charges.

And then there’s the evil he alluded to at the school for the blind. They say most predators were once victims. The idea of a little blind kid, hundreds of miles from home, being abused by some twisted staff member is as sickening as it is heartbreaking. I couldn’t hate that kid, even though he is now pushing 70. The best that I can do is this reluctant compassion. But see what I mean? Paradox.

[This post originally appeared on malcolmivey.com in July 2016.]
ย 

Posted
September 29, 2017
Category
character sketch, kindness, life philosophy, On My Block, writing
Comments
2 Responses

Simplicity of kindness

I’ve been in a slump lately. I think it’s some kind of writer’s postpartum. Now that On the Shoulders of Giants is complete and in the editing phase, I don’t know what to do with myself. Without a working project, I feel adrift. Anchorless. And my old diversions only leave me hollow and unfulfilled.

So I was already grumpy when I sat down with the blind man this morning, but the USA Today Sports Weekly doesn’t come in Braille and I gave him my word. (Dude is a die-hard Braves fan. He listens to their games every night on AM radio. He’s also a baseball historian. Pretty amazing, really. Born blind and can still see the game in vivid detail. I never knew the difference between a sinker and a slider until he broke it down for me.)

I’m usually in awe of the blind man. Just the sound of his stick tapping the concrete will make me smile. He’s a good guy with good energy. Both are rarities in here. But today I wasn’t feeling it. I was wrapped up in my own problems. No book to consume me, no woman to love me, no rec yard, no mail, and a release date that is still thousands of days away. Me and my problems. Me me me.

But something happened as I began rattling off batting averages, OBPs, and ERAs to this guy who’s been in prison since 1986 and blind since birth. When I glanced up from the magazine and saw his unseeing eyes darting right and left, processing the information I was relaying, relishing it, I realized I was no longer annoyed. My heart was suddenly wide open, my troubles were forgotten, and in that moment, I was happy.

Why do I always forget this simple truth until it sneaks up on me? Nothing feels better than kindness. I need to practice it more often.

[This post originally appeared on malcolmivey.com in June 2016.]

Posted
April 21, 2017
Category
character sketch, life philosophy, My Story, On My Block
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3 Responses

Finding peace without hope

Recent photo of J.G.A few years ago, I used to walk the track while pondering the cosmos with my homeboy JG at a private prison in the Florida Panhandle by the shady name of Blackwater (no relation to the infamous private-sector security firm that dominated the headlines in Green Zone Baghdad during the second Iraq war).

Although he was 15 years younger than I was, JG and I had a lot in commonโ€”same hometown, same circle of friends, both audiophiles, both sports fans, both committed to self-mastery and a life free from the enslavement of addiction. We were also both doing a substantial amount of time: him, 10 years; me, 30. But for all the things we had in common, there was a fundamental rift in our philosophies regarding the prison sentences we were serving and how we approached them.

JG is a Christian who is also well versed in The Secret, The Prosperity Bible and other new-thought, mind-over-matter, mustard-seed doctrine. His guiding principle is Biblical, Matthew 21:21-22 which, to paraphrase, says “Prayer and faith without doubt can wither fig trees and move mountains.”

While I don’t subscribe to any religion, I lean Eastern, spiritually, and call myself Buddhish. Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha has had a profound impact on my life. I’ve read Michael Singer’s The Untethered Soul three times, and We’re All Doing Time by Bo Lozoff has been a constant companion and manual to me for over a quarter-century in the chain gang. My guiding principle is straight out of The Four Noble Truths: Desire is the root of suffering and contentment is the way out.

Day after day, lap after lap, we debated our philosophies and invariably arrived at the same dead end. In a nutshell, JG believed that through prayer, visualization, and faith, he could will his way out of prison long before his distant release date. I believed that through meditation, gratitude, and acceptance, freedom could be attained right here, right now, regardless of my release date.

We hit a stalemate. He thought it was cowardly of me to accept my conditions without a fight. I thought he was naรฏve to believe in the impossible. In the end we had to agree to disagree. I was in my tenth year of incarceration at the time and he was on only his second. Sooner or later he would come to the realization that hope hurts and learn to find peace in the present moment without clinging or resisting.

Fast forward two and a half years. We had both been transferred to different prisons, and I was so immersed in writing the final scenes of On the Shoulders of Giants that the only time I departed the story world of Izzy and Pharaoh was to eat, sleep, and shower. So I was shocked when I called home one day and my mom told me that JG had won his appeal. It was all over Facebook.

That night as I lay in my bunk, I thought about JG and Blackwater and all those afternoons spent walking the track and debating the power of faith vs. the freedom in acceptance. Guess he won that argument.

But since then I’ve been wondering, have I robbed myself of miracles by failing to expect them? Would I be home right now if I hadn’t tapped out and surrendered to my circumstances? Are desire and contentment really mutually exclusive? Maybe there is a Tao between these two polarities, a middle road that allows for both ambition and inner peace.

I won’t say that JG’s release caused a radical shift in my belief system, but it did inspire me to open my mind, adjust my philosophy, and leave a little room for hope… at least a mustard seed’s worth.

Posted
February 1, 2017
Category
character sketch
Comments
1 Response

The honeymoon is over

SONY DSCWas I an idiot for giving Trump the benefit of the doubt? This is a guy who with a straight face alleged that Ted Cruz was the Zodiac killer, alleged that Cruzโ€™s father was behind the Kennedy assassination. Despite all reason he maintains that he wouldโ€™ve won the popular vote were it not for the votes of three million illegals. He still refuses to release his tax returns โ€“ something for which former candidates like Romney and Clinton suffered political consequences but still did out of respect for tradition and the process. Why should any presidential candidate from this point on release their financial information? Trump is setting a dangerous precedent.

His pick to head the EPA has sued the EPA fourteen times. His pick to head the Department of Energy is on record saying he wants to eliminate the Department of Energy. His Labor pick is a fast food exec. He has openly disrespected women, the disabled, war heroes, civil rights icons, hard-working immigrants and peaceful people of faith everywhere. And then thereโ€™s the embarrassing bromance with puppet master Putin and the Russian hacking scandal which he cheerleaded in the run-up to the election. His coziness with the alt-right, his affinity for and reliance on fake news, his refusal to put his businesses in a blind trust, his unknown debt to foreign banks, his disrespect to our allies and friends that form NATO, his disrespect to his predecessor, his disrespect to the intelligence community, his disrespect to the media, his disrespect to the Constitution of the United States of America.

Look, Iโ€™m a prisoner, a convicted felon. Iโ€™m a big fan of the second chance and Iโ€™m conditioned to look on the bright side (without optimism and hope, Iโ€™d be suicidal). So Iโ€™ve tried to focus on the silver linings in the Trump Presidency โ€“ his commitment to bringing back jobs, his stated goal of โ€œbinding the wounds of division.โ€ Iโ€™ve tried. But the honeymoon is over. Just too many warts and red flags to overlook.

The important thing to remember in all of this is that when he became president, Mr. Trump went from employer to employee. He now works for the American people. And the time may come when men and women of all parties, races, and religions must stand up and give his own famous words right back to him: โ€œYouโ€™re fired!โ€

Posted
January 22, 2017
Category
character sketch, Criminal Justice Reform, kindness, life philosophy, My Story
Comments
1 Response

A shining example

white-house-paintingBlame it on George Orwell. He once said that itโ€™s impossible to enjoy the writings of someone with whom you take political issue. For this and other reasons, I decided to steer clear of politics in 2017. I even made it a New Yearโ€™s resolution. I consider my novels to be letters to the world and want these posts to read the same way. I thought this year I would include more humor, more story, more music. But like many Americans, Iโ€™m already backsliding on my resolutions, three weeks in.

For this I blame another George: Stephanopoulos. Last weekend I watched him stroll around the White House with President Obama for a final interview, and as the outgoing Commander-in-Chief answered each question with the same poise and equanimity that have been the hallmarks of his tenure in the Oval Office, I knew I had one more political post to write.

I campaigned for President Obama in prison visitation parks in the Deep South. I spent much of 2008 convincing mothers and fathers of lifers that the Supreme Court justices and lower appellate court judges that he would potentially appoint could one day mean freedom for their sons. Or at least provide hope. He did not disappoint. Eight years later he leaves the job as the biggest criminal justice reformer in the history of the White House.

He was also the most gifted orator. Certainly, of my generation. Over and over I watched him run circles around his opponents in presidential debates (horses and bayonets, anyone?). He did it with humor too. Remember the press dinner in the lingering aftermath of the birther allegations? He had the band strike up โ€œBorn in the USAโ€ and came out pumping his fist like Springsteen. His State of the Union speeches were honest and engaging. His presidential addressesโ€”especially after tragedies such as Sandy Hook, the Boston Marathon bombings, and the Dallas police murdersโ€”conveyed hope and healing to a heartbroken nation.

But it wasnโ€™t just words. It was action too. Despite being hamstrung for three-quarters of his time in office by a partisan Congress that needed him to fail, he still managed to tame a gluttonous Wall Street, rescue American icons Ford and Chevy from the brink of extinction, steer us out of an economic crisis that cost the world 40 percent of its wealth, and commute the disparate sentences of hundreds of war-on-drugs prisoners.

Oh yeah, he also got Osama Bin Laden.

However, his legacy will not and should not be tied solely to this historic hit on Americaโ€™s most notorious enemy. But rather to the kindness, tolerance, and humanity he displayed over the last eight years. Just how kind was he? Well, I wrote him a letter and he wrote me back. Think about that. Amid all the global tension, intelligence briefings, and thousands of voices clamoring to be heard, the leader of the free world took the time to respond to a prisoner.

Critics will point to the ACA as a failure. Maybe. Millions of Americans who are now insured would probably disagree. I have no voice in this debate. As a prisoner, my health care expenses are limited to the five-dollar copay Iโ€™m charged each time I visit the clinic. I do believe that no idea is born fully formed and eventually, some future administration, possibly the new one, will iron out the kinks in Obamacare, repackage it, and present it to the American people as a glowing success.

Critics will also point to race relations as a failure. On this I vehemently disagree. Because of President Obama, the issue of race is no longer the elephant in the room. Itโ€™s a hot button issue. A water cooler issue. And people from all walks of life are expressing their opinions. If there is ever to be a united America, it has to start with an open line of dialogue. His polarizing presence in the White House alone has nudged us into having these uncomfortable conversations.

But the main reason I admire our 44th president has nothing to do with diplomacy or policy or statecraft. During one of the darkest periods of my life, as I tried to claw my way out of the immense hole I had dug for myself, President Obama was a shining example of what leadership looks like, what self-mastery looks like, what manhood looks like.

I found this quote from Michelle Obama scrawled in the journal I used while writing my second novel, With Arms Unbound. Itโ€™s from the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte. โ€œEven in the toughest moments, when weโ€™re all sweating it, when all hope seems lost, Barack never lets himself get distracted by the chatter and the noise. He just keeps getting up and moving forwardย .ย .ย . with patience and wisdom and courage and grace.โ€

I hope that one day, when I leave the world of prison behind, my future wife will hold me in similar regard.

I know this election season has been vitriolic and divisive. Despite our new presidentโ€™s numerous faux pas, head-scratcher cabinet appointments, and thin-skinned cringe-worthy tweets, I do not wish him failure. To wish him failure is to wish America failure. At minimum, Iโ€™m hoping jobs continue to grow under his stewardship. His entrepreneurial chops could well prove to be a huge asset for the country. But no matter how prolific Donald Trumpโ€™s triumphs, Barack Obama will be a hard act to follow.

Since this has to end somewhere, Iโ€™m thinking a good place would be where the journey began: on a Tuesday night in November 2008, Grant Park, Chicago. After an historic landslide victory over John McCain, a younger, less gray president-elect put the following question regarding change to the spirited crowd of thousands: โ€œWhen are we going to realize that WE are the ones weโ€™ve been waiting for?โ€

Eight years, three novels, and a couple of miracles later, I can point to that speech as a major turning point in my own journey. Thanks for the inspiration, Mr.ย President. I canโ€™t speak for the rest of the nation, but in my little corner of captivity, you will be missed.

Posted
July 10, 2016
Category
character sketch, kindness, On My Block
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0 Responses

Paradox and reluctant compassion

Every writer loves a good paradox. Our brains are trained to sniff out life’s Catch 22’s and spin them into plot points:

A doctor must decide between saving a pregnant  mother or her unborn child. A cop with a drug dealer son must choose between loyalty to the job and loyalty to his family. A general has to decide between bombing a village or letting an international terrorist slip away…

These agonizing decisions are the beating heart of good fiction. They keep the pages turning and the reader engaged. But in real life, such dilemmas are a lot less fun. Consider the most recent in my world…

You’ve probably heard me talk about the blind man. He’s been in prison since 1986. I met him a couple of months ago when I moved into my current dormitory. He challenged me to a game of knock gin with his Braille playing cards and we’ve been cool ever since. I walk with him to the chow hall for meals, and most evenings we listen to Braves games together.

For the record, I am not friendly and I don’t require camaraderie. I think of myself as fully self-contained. I could do years on this bunk without speaking to a soul and be perfectly fine. I really prefer the conversation in my head to the conversations around me, and get cranky whenever someone interrupts. But I was intrigued by the blind man. Although my latest novel, On the Shoulders of Giants, touches on a form of blindness called retinopathy, I’ve never actually hung out with a blind person and I was curious to learn how accurate my assumptions were. Plus, this dude has a sunny disposition in spite of his handicap and I admired his self-sufficiency.

The more I got to know him, the more I liked him. He told me stories about riding bicycles while flanked tightly by his two brothers who kept his course true, about the one time he drove a car (!), about his proficiency at the sport of wrestling as a kid in the 50s. When I asked him about the school for the blind where he lived from ages 5 to 18, his usual smile faded. “There were some nice people there, but some were just plain evil.”

I shouldn’t have looked him up. I usually don’t. Nobody is in prison for going to church, and I’d rather not know the sordid details of people’s criminal histories. But there are a couple of exceptions: 1) if we’re cellmates; and 2) if we’re friends. Then I need to know.

In hindsight, it was pretty obvious. What else could he be in prison for? Racketeering? Arson? A blind armed robber? I think I just assumed it was murder. I mean, he does have a life sentence. Turns out, it was something much uglier. Sexual battery. The worst kind. On a child younger than 12. Enter the paradox.

I know what you’re thinking: What paradox? He’s a diaper sniper. Case closed. I feel you. In the hierarchy of prison, child molesters are at the very bottom of the food chain, just below punks and snitches. During my quarter-century in the joint, I’ve witnessed them get turned out, pimped out, and traded like baseball cards until they eventually either commit suicide or check into protective custody. Those who manage to escape that fate are still robbed, extorted, or at the very least, slapped around and relentlessly ridiculed. Although I don’t participate in the abuse, I don’t have any sympathy either. I see it as karmic law in action.

I’m sure there are parents out there who take small solace in the fact that these men are being tormented in here. I know if one of my nieces or nephews were victimized, I would transfer to every prison in the state until I found the predator and punished him for his actions.

But this blind man… I can’t make myself hate him, or even be cold to him, in spite of whatever he did thirty years ago. This is a big-time conflict of interest. No self-respecting convict would ever treat a cho-mo like a human being. I keep rationalizing, maybe he’s innocent. It seems like the only thing worse than being a child molester is being an innocent man wrongly convicted of those charges.

And then there’s the evil he alluded to at the school for the blind. They say most predators were once victims. The idea of a little blind kid, hundreds of miles from home, being abused by some twisted staff member is as sickening as it is heartbreaking. I couldn’t hate that kid, even though he is now pushing 70. The best that I can do is this reluctant compassion.

But see what I mean? Paradox.

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