True Notebooks

by Mark Salzman

  Makes three.

  The student who wrote the poem about her beautiful baby was a senior, one semester away from her goal of becoming a public school teacher. I asked if, in her next draft, she could perhaps tell us more about her baby. Describe the baby, tell us how the baby is beautiful, make us see the baby—avoid generalizations, be specific. She shrugged and said, “I don’t have a baby.”

  REASONS NOT TO VISIT ANY WRITING CLASS

  exposure to student writing

  exposure to students

  There was one more reason I did not want to visit Duane’s class, but it was too depressing to face, even in the privacy of my notebook. What if Duane’s students asked if I believed writing was worth the effort? If they were as cunning as their reputations suggested, they might sense how lost I felt as a writer and realize that I had nothing to offer them. Then, I imagined, they would beat me up.

  My notebook for that season ends with a solution:

  —Remove juvenile delinquent character from novel.

  3 / Gentlemen

  Sometimes I heed the advice I give myself in my notebooks, sometimes I don’t. The ratio works out to about 50 percent— the kind of result one gets flipping a coin. This is one reason I suspect that free will is an illusion, but it is an illusion I can’t seem to live without. So I keep filling notebooks.

  Central Juvenile Hall was easy to find. I exited the freeway in East L.A., drove toward County Hospital, and then followed the razor wire. I pulled up to a flimsy-looking guardhouse at the entrance, where a sign announced that identification was required to pass but no guard was anywhere to be seen. I drove through and parked in the lot next to a sedan with tinted windows and a bumper sticker that read My Kid Beat Up Your Honor Roll Student.

  As I waited for Duane to meet me at the entrance, a police cruiser pulled up beside me and stopped in front of a pair of eighteen-foot-high metal doors set into a concrete wall. A bored-looking teenager was sitting in the backseat with his hands cuffed behind him. A red light on top of the doors flashed and an alarm went off, then the metal panels screeched open like a giant mouth. The cruiser passed inside and the doors slid shut.

  Duane showed up on time and crossed the parking lot with a knapsack slung over his shoulder. As we shook hands the alarm went off over the metal doors again. The concrete monster opened its mouth and spat the police cruiser out. The boy was gone; he, I presumed, needed to be digested for a while before being shit into the adult prison system or puked back out onto the streets.

  “Some place, huh?” Duane asked.

  He led me to an aluminum-sided trailer where someone gave him a key in exchange for his driver’s license. We used that key to pass through a battered metal door into an alley. “This is just a temporary entrance,” Duane explained. “The regular entrance was damaged in the earthquake, but it hasn’t been repaired yet.” The earthquake he was referring to had occurred more than three years earlier.

  We followed the alley between a smog-blackened wall and an abandoned building. I peeked inside one of the broken windows and saw iron bed frames lying helter-skelter, covered along with everything else in a thick layer of dust. The alley ended at the entrance to a weedy yard, several acres in size, bordered by a series of concrete bunkers. Detention facilities are not meant to be cheery places, but this looked like something out of a Dickens novel. My impression was confirmed not long after that visit, when a Los Angeles County grand jury—called upon to investigate the medical, mental health, and educational programs and the living conditions in the county’s juvenile detention facilities—concluded that Central “can best be described as falling apart.”

  The place felt deserted, but I noticed a shadowy movement all around us. I tracked one of these shadows and saw that it was a feral cat. These miserable-looking animals seemed to be everywhere, slinking around with their tails lowered and their half-chewed ears tilted back.

  We passed by a guard station in the center of the yard, where a spectacularly obese man snored. His chin rested on his chest, and the front of his T-shirt was moist with drool. As we passed by him, Duane explained that each building represented a separate “unit,” allowing the facility to keep minors of different ages, genders, and criminal sophistication isolated from each other. He taught his writing class in a unit reserved for HROs, or high-risk offenders—they were, as one law enforcement official put it, “the cream of the crud.” Most of the HROs at Central were charged with murder, rape, or armed robbery, and were declared unfit to be tried as juveniles, meaning that their cases had been shifted to adult court. No Youth Authority camps or guaranteed release at age twenty-five for members of this group; if convicted, they received adult-length sentences and went straight to prison.

  I could make out human figures standing in the windows of some of the cells. The glass was tinted so I couldn’t see any faces, only the outlines of heads and torsos. I heard thumping noises and realized the inmates were pounding on the windows to get our attention.

  When we reached the farthest building, Duane led me into a dark stairway. I felt slightly claustrophobic when he locked the steel door behind us. At the top of the stairs, he fumbled in the darkness with yet another lock, then used his hip to shove open the final door leading to the unit.

  After our dramatic journey across the yard and through the steel doors, my first view of the inside of juvenile hall proved anticlimactic. There were no bars anywhere, and the two dozen or so inmates sat in molded plastic chairs watching television. They wore identical orange uniforms, and were almost all either Latino or black. A few of them turned their heads to look at us, but most seemed engrossed in the movie, a crime drama. They sat quietly, in neat rows with their arms folded across their laps. A guard wearing combat fatigues, a black T-shirt, and paramilitary boots stood nearby to keep watch over them, while two other guards chatted in a control room separated from the prisoners by thick glass windows. None of the staff carried weapons, which surprised me, given the large number of inmates and the fact that most of them were accused of violent crimes.

  Duane approached the guard dressed in fatigues, who was white, and introduced me as a visiting author come to speak to the writing class. The guard made no sign of having heard. He kept his eyes on the inmates and did not acknowledge us with even a nod. When enough time had passed that the message was unambiguous—our presence was not appreciated— he barked out a command to the inmates: “Writing class. Get your things and take it down to the kitchen, gentlemen.”

  Four young men stood up, clasped their hands behind their backs, and shuffled out of the room. They kept their eyes lowered and their faces blank. When they returned, they carried brown accordion-style folders with them. Duane and I followed them to a windowless room with a sink and some shelves in it. As soon as the door to the kitchen closed behind us and the guard was out of sight, the inmates’ zombielike expressions relaxed. They talked quietly as they pulled up chairs and opened their folders, like students settling into any classroom, but I felt like a ghost—even though there were six of us in a room the size of a large closet, they managed to seem completely unaware of my presence. This was done so skillfully, however, that I didn’t feel unwelcome so much as invisible.

  I also felt nervous. Duane had mentioned that all of the members of his class had been charged with murder, and while they were all under eighteen years of age, they were physically mature—all but one of them stood taller than me. I remembered hearing somewhere that violent criminals (or was it dogs?) don’t like it if you look them in the eye, they take it as a challenge. I didn’t want to challenge anyone, so I struggled to keep my gaze from meeting any of theirs. But where to look? It was like trying to find a neutral spot to look while standing in a crowded elevator. Eventually my eyes settled on the inmates’ hands.

  Two of the young men were Latino, one black, and the fourth white. The white guy scared me the most. A tall, broad-shouldered skinhead with tattoos on his arms and hands, I imagined he was seething with hatred for his d
arker-skinned classmates and would start a brawl at any moment.

  Duane opened his knapsack and handed out yellow legal pads and pencils (inmates aren’t allowed to keep pencils in their cells, Duane had told me, because they can be used as weapons), then introduced me. “This is Mark. He’s a friend of mine, and a professional writer. The book he’s working on now has a character in it from juvenile hall, but he’s having trouble making the character seem real. I thought maybe you guys could help him out.” The movie showing in the adjacent dayroom seemed to be reaching its climax. The sounds of gunfire and explosions bounced around the concrete walls and smeared into an irritating roar. Duane’s students seemed oblivious to it.

  “Since we only have an hour,” Duane suggested, “why don’t we start with some reading. I’d like for Mark to see the kind of work you’re doing.”

  The young men opened their folders and pulled out examples of their writing, but then everything in the room seemed to stop. It was like seeing a group of people in bathing suits run up to a swimming pool on a hot day, then halt right at the edge and look everywhere but at the water; no one wanted to be the first to jump in. I thought Duane would call on someone, but he showed no sign of being in a hurry. He sat quietly and let them sort it out on their own. Eventually one of the Latino inmates shifted in his chair and asked, “So who’s gonna start?”

  “Go ahead, Barreda.”

  “Yeah, kick it.”

  “Aw, come on, somebody else go for a change.”

  “Naw, you go, homeboy.”

  He clicked his tongue and frowned. “OK, then, I will.” He held one of his essays out in front of him, then turned toward Duane. “The ending’s weak.”

  Duane brushed his hair behind one of his ears thoughtfully but did not say anything. The boy sighed, straightened up in his chair, and held the sheet higher in front of him. “My name’s Ruben Barreda,” he said, then he cleared his throat. He leaned back in the chair, tossed his left ankle over his right knee, and propped the essay on his thigh.

  With my gaze lowered prudently, I could not help noticing that the squirming and throat-clearing were mere diversionary tactics. The real battle was taking place in Ruben’s hands: they trembled so badly from stage fright he could barely hold on to the page. When he began reading, his voice sounded the way his hands looked. But he forced himself through it nevertheless.

  CLOUDS

  Clouds, this is just a word. Where did this word come from? Who was the one to say that those white shapes that float in the blue skies are clouds? I never put serious thought into this subject, maybe because it was irrelevant to the life I lived. I never took the time to look up at a cloud and just stare at it. I was too busy with my everyday routine. The things I looked forward to were tagging on the walls, kicking back with the homies. I was so focused on these insignificant things that I didn’t take time to look around at the beauty the environment had to offer. I didn’t appreciate anything. Hey, if I didn’t care about myself or others, how could I have possibly cared for a cloud?

  As I think of these things, I realize how much I’ve changed. I look out this window, which is covered with gang engravings, and I see a nice puffy white cloud just slowly floating by, and I think to myself, “Where will this cloud go? Where does it come from? Why is it that it floats so perfectly like a boat on the water, yet there is nothing to support or hold up this cloud? Whose will or power lets this cloud continue to cross this beautiful blue sky?”

  I will never know where this cloud is headed. Does it have a particular destination to reach? I wonder if someone I know will set eyes on this exact same cloud. It’s not like I can ask anyone, “You didn’t happen to see a puffy, white cloud floating in the air around 5:00 did you?” They might say yes, but I know deep inside it wasn’t the same one. There’s just too many beautiful clouds out in the sky to be able to pinpoint the one I’m talking about.

  Like a boy stares into a pet shop for his new puppy, I stare out my window and from a distance I see a few clouds beginning to emerge. I stop and look at the engravings on the window which keep me from clearly seeing the process of nature unfold: Flaco, King Kobras R13V, Sotel, Smiley Highland Park, Big Top Locos. All these gangs are carved into this window. I stop and think back. A year ago, I wouldn’t have seen beyond the graffiti, and putting “Malo Avenues” would have been my first reaction. I put some thought into how I would have reacted, and I realize that for the five years of being a gang member I have missed out on so much. I didn’t appreciate the beauty life and nature gives us on a daily basis. My gang had me so hypnotized that if I had tried to look out into the sky, my eyes wouldn’t have seen past the gang writing that scars the window.

  As I think about this it fills me with disappointment because I know some of my peers will enter this room that I now sit in. They will look out this window and be so focused on the gang engravings that they will never be able to see the beauty of a cloud. At least I have come to a point where I can really look and stare at a cloud with gratitude and not be distracted by stupidity or nonsense.

  4 / Trip to the Museum

  Ruben’s essay took me by surprise; I was still reeling from it when Duane and I left the building that night. As we made our way across the yard, he pointed out a woman with close-cropped white hair and wire-rimmed glasses standing nearby, talking to a group of Catholic volunteers.

  “That’s Sister Janet,” Duane said. “She’s the person who convinced me to start the class. Anything you want to know about this place, she’s the person to talk to.”

  As soon as the nun saw us, she bade the volunteers good night and walked over. “You must be Mark,” she said. “We’re delighted you could visit.”

  Sister Janet Harris was nearly seventy years old but looked two or three decades younger. She had a lovely smile and a pleasing voice—I wanted to like her right away—but the fact that she was a nun and that she worked in a prison made me wary. I couldn’t help thinking of the film Dead Man Walking, which I disliked in spite of not having seen it.

  Even after Susan Sarandon won an Academy Award for her portrayal of Sister Helen Prejean, the real-life nun who ministers to condemned inmates, I avoided seeing the movie. I had a problem with the basic premise: a nun, after dedicating her life to helping the needy, prays for guidance and ends up helping Sean Penn. Or rather, the character Sean Penn plays in the film—an unsavory, cold-blooded killer. This was the neediest person she could find? I rented Unforgiven instead.

  Now there’s a movie! Like Dead Man Walking, it portrays the moral ambiguity of vengeance. By the film’s end, however, when Clint Eastwood gets drunk and hunts down the sadists who lynched Morgan Freeman, we know we’re all rooting for him. If a nun had walked on-screen and talked Clint out of it, citing the judgment-impairing effects of alcohol and the need for due process, audiences would have rioted.

  “What was your impression of the class?” Sister Janet asked, eyeing me steadily.

  I told her it wasn’t like any writing class I had ever attended. I actually enjoyed it.

  She seemed pleased but her gaze held firm, reminding me of a phrase Chinese martial artists use to describe the ideal kind of strength: an iron bar wrapped in velvet.

  “And what did you think of their writing?”

  I tried not to gush. These were delinquents, I reminded myself. Was their writing technically sophisticated? No, and from a quick glance at their handwritten work, I guessed that none of them had ever won a spelling bee. On the other hand, were they writing coherently? Yes. Were they writing about things that meant a great deal to them? Yes. Did they write about those things in a way that would draw a reader in? Yes. Did their writing show that they were actually thinking? Yes. And nobody called anybody’s mother a bitch! I went ahead and gushed; I told Sister Janet that if my college students had made this kind of effort, I might still be teaching.

  “Did you tell the boys that?” Sister Janet asked.

  “I did.”

  Her reserve gave way. “You ca
n’t imagine how much a compliment means in a place like this! You may have changed one of those boys’ lives tonight.”

  As the three of us made our way toward the parking lot, Sister Janet explained that she’d been Catholic chaplain at the hall for years, but the increasingly punitive trend in the juvenile justice system made her feel that ministry was not enough; she stepped away from her role as spiritual adviser in order to dedicate herself full-time to advocacy work and coordinating volunteer activities. The activity closest to her heart, she told me, was a writing program that she and author Karen Hunt had created only a year ago. It was still a fledgling project—when Duane started his class the program doubled in size—but Sister Janet assured me that one day, every unit in the hall would have a writing class in it.

  “The goal of Inside Out Writers is to give these young people a chance to express themselves, and feel that someone is listening. Karen and Duane don’t tell their students what to write, or tell them that gangs and crime and drugs are wrong. They listen. They encourage their students to think for themselves, and then to write those thoughts down. You’ve seen the results. Would you ever have imagined that kids in a place like this could write like that?”

  When we reached our cars, Sister Janet removed the ID badge from her front pocket and dropped it into her purse. “If something’s meant to happen, it will. It has to be your decision, not something you felt pushed into.”

  “What decision?” I asked.

  “But I will say that even if you decided you could come only once or twice a month—whatever your schedule would allow—we could work around that. Don’t feel any pressure.”

  Duane laughed.

  In the days that followed my visit to the writing class, I tried not to feel any pressure. I even started a new notebook:

  REASONS NOT TO GET INVOLVED

  What if a kid with no father gets too attached to me? What if he gets released and shows up at my house asking for help staying off drugs or out of the gang?