by Mark Salzman
23 / The Man I Was Supposed to Be
I stood outside the chapel with Sister Janet to watch the forty or so graduates process into the building. Six of my students had earned enough academic credits to finish high school: Kevin, Francisco, Benny, Victor, Duc, and Patrick. Francisco’s wish had been granted: his lawyer got his sentencing hearing postponed just long enough for him to attend.
Closely monitored by the staff, the boys and girls formed two lines in the garden of funerary statues and put on their caps and gowns. Then, accompanied by a wrenchingly out-of-tune piano, they marched into the building as their mothers, grandmothers, and younger siblings watched from the pews. I counted only five adult males in the audience.
According to our programs, the ceremony was to begin with a commencement speech delivered by Antonio Villaraigosa, Speaker of the California State Assembly. After several minutes of confusion, the school principal announced that the speaker hadn’t arrived yet so we would move ahead to the graduates’ remarks.
Nearly half of the boys and girls had prepared speeches for the occasion. They repeated themes heard at just about every high school graduation: we are nervous but excited, we are proud of our accomplishment but sad to be saying goodbye to each other, we are eager to show the world what we can do. The bleak future the graduates were stepping into gave these clichés an unexpected poignancy.
There were no in-jokes delivered from the podium, no goofy grins, no ironic remarks. The adults, on the other hand, brought somewhat less dignity to the moment. Several members of the staff talked loudly during the speeches, and not all of the family members of the graduates were up to the task of paying attention, either.
Mr. Villaraigosa arrived as the last of the graduates stepped down from the podium. The son of a Mexican-American secretary and a Mexican immigrant who abandoned the family when Antonio was five, he grew up in the toughest barrios in East L.A. He was expelled from high school in his junior year for leading student protests and joining in the fistfights that frequently ensued, after having earned an abysmally low GPA of 1.4. Nevertheless, he applied to UCLA and was accepted as an affirmative action student—he described himself as the “poster child” for that program—and thrived there. Now, at age forty-six, he held the second most powerful position in the California state government.
He began by talking about the obstacles facing children growing up in neighborhoods infested with crime, drugs, and violence, then turned to the graduates and said, “But what you’ve accomplished here makes us feel hopeful. You defy the statistics. You have realized that it is up to you to choose your destiny, and you’ve taken real steps in that direction.” He was an electrifying speaker who hit all the right notes, and by the end of his talk many of the adults were in tears.
Then the principal called each of the graduates by name up to the podium to receive his or her diploma. I sat right behind two of Kevin Jackson’s aunts, his older brother, and his wheelchair-bound grandmother, all of whom had come that day by bus. When the principal called out Kevin’s name, his relatives whooped, and when he got his diploma his aunts wept freely.
Patrick’s name was called out, but he was not present. Only two days before graduation, he’d been transferred to county jail because someone filing paperwork discovered he was too old to be held at Central any longer.
When Francisco’s turn came, he turned to face the audience, held the diploma high above his head, and yelled for joy.
When all of the diplomas had been handed out, the graduates filed back out to the garden, where visiting with family members was permitted for a brief period. On my way out, I introduced myself to Kevin’s brother, who told me he himself had just been released from prison.
“Kevin was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” was his assessment of his younger brother’s situation. “Same as me.”
He said that Kevin’s trial would begin in two weeks, and asked if I would be willing to speak as a character witness. When I said yes, he wrote down Kevin’s court-appointed lawyer’s name and telephone number for me. “Maybe he’ll call you back, since you’re white,” he said. “We been leavin’ messages on his machine for over a year, tellin’ him about witnesses he oughta talk to, askin’ questions ’bout what he plan to do, but he ain’t never called one of us back.”
GRADUATE’S DAY BY DUC BUI
July 10, 1998. That is the day I’ll never forget in my life, because it was my high school graduate’s day. From the school me and about forty other students took a walk to the chapel, on the way I saw my parents, they were almost crying and waved their hands at me.
When my turn to come up for the speech came I was worried because I know that I have an accent and I was also scared because I had never stood in front of a lot of people to speak, but I was all right. After the speech we went outside and talked to the parents. I talked to my mom, my dad, they almost cried because they’re so proud of me. We got food to eat and took pictures, because my parents sneaked the camera in. The staff and principal didn’t see it, and we kept taking the pictures until the film ended. Finally, time up and my parents had to leave with happiness and proud of me, and I went back inside the chapel, give back the cap and gown, and go back to the unit, continuing the day of an inmate.
GRADUATION BY KEVIN JACKSON
The moment I’ve always been waiting for has passed and now I feel like a whole different person. Every major event of my adolescent life is all happening at once. I feel confused when I think of my near future. It all depends on my upcoming trial. I’m facing a lot of changes in the next few months, and the fact is I’m not sure if I’m ready for so much change all at once. I’ve been used to doing the same thing for almost two years and it will be hard to adjust to a new setting and a new way of living, but I will be able to do it. Graduating from high school taught me a lot about the courage to keep going. I feel I will make it because the look on my aunt’s and my grandma’s face made me feel like the man I was supposed to be.
“Sorry, Mark,” Mr. Jenkins said, letting me into the empty dayroom. “We’re on lockdown again. It’s not just us this time, it’s all the units.”
“What happened?”
“A riot at school. Just a few days after that nice graduation, too. Never a dull moment around here.”
I had brought a card for Francisco, which I planned to give him at the end of class. His sentencing hearing was only a few days away, and just in case he disappeared like Patrick, I wanted him to know how much I’d enjoyed knowing him and having him in the class. I asked Mr. Jenkins if he would give the card to Francisco for me, and he said, “Why not have Jackson give it to him? He’s on the other side working. I’ll tell him to come over.”
Kevin appeared a few minutes later with a broom and a garbage bag. “We’re back to normal,” he said. “Normal as in somebody doin’ somethin’ stupid.”
“Were you at school when it happened?”
“Naw, I was here. Hey Mark—don’t nobody ever call you to tell you we on lockdown? To save you the trip?”
“I don’t mind. Kevin, do you think you could do me a favor?”
“Anything for you, Mark.”
I showed him the card for Francisco. “Could you get this to him tonight? If he gets sentenced this week, I might not see him again.”
Kevin took the card and nodded. “It’s taken care of, Mark. Anything else?”
“Tell him to write me. My address is inside.”
“Got it. But don’ worry, those sentencing hearings usually get postponed a bunch of times.” He put the card in his pocket. “When I leave, you gonna give me your address, too?”
“You can have it now, if you want.”
“Better wait. I’d prob’ly just lose it with so much goin’ on.”
“Your brother told me you start trial soon.”
“Yeah. Part of me just wants to get it over with. It’s been almost two years, just waiting.”
“I’ll call your lawyer this week. What’s he like?”
He shrugged. “I haven’t met him yet. He’s real busy.”
“Hasn’t he come here to talk to you about your case?”
“I guess he don’ need to. Maybe that’s a good sign.” Kevin glanced toward the office and said, “I better get back to work. You want me to hook you up with a soda or somethin’? I feel bad, you drivin’ down for nothin’.”
“I’m fine. Tell Francisco . . . you know. That I said good luck.”
“It’s taken care of.”
Kevin passed through the office on his way to the far side of the unit. Mr. Jenkins let me out and stood with me for a while on the concrete steps to get some air.
“I’m a little worried about Kevin,” I said. “His lawyer hasn’t been in contact with him at all, or with his family.”
Mr. Jenkins shook his head. “He won’t see his lawyer till the first day of trial. Same thing for most of these kids. No Dream Team for them, they get the scraps.”
I asked him, with all of his experience working with juvenile offenders, if he felt that trying teenagers like Kevin as adults was the right thing to do. Did it actually deter other children from committing crimes?
He took a deep breath. “Oh boy. All I can tell you, Mark, is that I know a lot of good folks who thank God we were kids twenty years ago and not now. That’s all I can say.”
A pounding noise from one of the windows caught his attention. He leaned around the side of the building to investigate, then smiled and said, “I think somebody wants you to look through his window.” I stepped around and saw Francisco holding my opened card and nodding to indicate that he’d read the message inside. I had thanked him for being one of the original three to give the class a chance, for bringing so much to it, and for helping to make it such a success. I conveyed my hopes that he would never give up on himself and never stop reading or writing, because he had so much to discover and so much to offer. I thanked him for cheering me up when I felt discouraged over my own writing, and for cursing out my editor when she criticized my manuscript. I finished by saying that I’d enjoyed knowing him and considered him a friend, which was the truth.
He clenched his free hand into a fist and thumped it against his heart. When I waved at him he tried to say something to me, but the window material was too thick for me to hear through it. We communicated with hand signals for a while, then he saluted me and dropped out of view.
I left several messages that week on Kevin’s lawyer’s answering machine, explaining who I was, how I knew Kevin, and that I would like to help in any way I could. I mentioned that I had spoken about Kevin to a close friend of mine, a former public defender now in private practice, who’d offered to work on the case for free if the attorney could use an extra hand. None of my calls was returned.
That Saturday, as soon as Mr. Granillo opened the door for me, he asked if I’d heard about Javier.
“Did he get sentenced?”
“Yep. They gave him a million years.”
The boys were able to give me a more accurate figure: twenty-five years to life for each first-degree murder conviction, adding up to fifty-two years to life. The lawyer had asked that they run concurrently, citing the mitigating factor that Francisco had not been the shooter in either incident, but the judge rejected this suggestion. He did, however, allow the sentences for the two attempted murder convictions—adding up to thirty years to life—to run concurrently with the larger figure.
All of the boys were upset by this news, but Jose, who regularly boasted of being unafraid of prison, seemed to take it hardest of all. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in days. He asked me for a pencil and paper, then sat at a far corner of the table by himself and kept silent. He usually liked to sit in the middle of things, with Victor right next to him.
“Homeboy maintained,” Victor said, scratching at the rash on his neck with a Stephen King novel this time. “I heard he didn’t cry or nothin’ until he got to the holding tank. So his family wouldn’t see.”
“Gottabe a man,” Dale said.
Benny disagreed. “If I got stuck like that, I’d cry like a baby.” For once, no one teased him.
“Everybody cries,” Victor said. “But knowin’ when to cry, that’s what makes the man.”
“When is the right time to cry?” I asked.
“In the holding tank, just like Javier did it. That way, his family don’t gotta go home with a picture in their heads that’ll rip their hearts out. Instead they go home with a picture they can live with. An’ that’s key, ’cause they gonna live with it.”
“So Mark—what’s in your bag?” Kevin asked, changing the subject. On my way into the facility that morning, Sister Janet had given me a gift. Knowing that I was still struggling with my novel about the cloistered nun, she gave me a large, handsome book of photographs taken inside the Trappist monastery of Gethsemane, where the monk and writer Thomas Merton spent most of his life.
The boys huddled around to have a look. The photos were all in black and white, showing the monks at work, praying in the chapel, reading in their cells, having dinner in the refectory. As we leafed through the pages together, it struck me how many of the scenes in the monastery resembled scenes from a detention facility. The monks all wore the same outfit; they had the same close-cropped haircuts; they lived in a walled compound and were forbidden to leave; they spoke only during approved periods of recreation; they lived in cells; intimate relationships were forbidden; personal possessions were limited to books and toiletries; and they observed strict rules of obedience to authority. I pointed these similarities out to the boys, then asked if anyone had a theory to explain it. Monastics describe their life as a journey toward freedom; why, then, would they choose to live like prisoners?
The boys all seemed intrigued by the question, but no one seemed willing to venture an answer. Finally Dale asked for a closer look at the pictures. After gazing for several minutes at a photo of the monks walking single file across the grounds, he asked, “Who’sincharge adisplace?”
“Who’s in charge? I guess that would be the abbot.”
“Herunsit? Hetheboss?”
“That’s right.”
Dale ran his fingers over the stubble on his chin, then half smiled. “Hm—deebot airy leperspray?”
Victor winced. “Jones, man, you gotta talk slower, you don’t make no sense.”
Dale sighed. “Does . . . the abbot . . . carry . . . pepper-spray?”
We all had a good laugh over that. For having illustrated the difference between monks and prisoners so succinctly, Dale was given the honor of stuffing the book of photographs back into my bag.
Taking advantage of the moment, I suggested we begin our writing period. I realized that, having just been released from a week of lockdown, most of them would find it impossible to sit still and concentrate, but I had to try. Jose and Dale were the surprise exceptions to the rule; the two boys from my class who had not graduated from high school were the only ones able to write that morning. After trying to shush the others for fifteen minutes, I gave up and declared it a snow day, explaining that on the East Coast we were allowed a few days each year of school cancellations due to inclement weather. Instead of writing, they talked about which female pop stars they would most like to have sex with.
Before our time was up, I asked Dale and Jose if they wanted to read what they’d written. Jose declined, but Dale seemed willing. “S’a poem,” he said, mumbling his way through an account of how the idea had come to him. He had been on the sheriff’s department bus on his way to a court appearance when he found himself trying to remember what it felt like driving a car, rather than being a passenger in one.
I came to a fork in the road
I took the one that looked right
It led me left
on the wrong path to overcome a journey to a destiny
that I wasn’t ready for
Livin’ the life I chose
The only way I know
Seems to be my downfall on this road
I’ve ran into and seen so many things that I never would’ve
thought I would
I lost like everything that was so close to me
But I guess it’s too late now
I can’t go right ’cause I done already went left
Damn. What can I do, a high-risk offender
In this pumpkin suit.
Help me, Lord.
“Renteria, you gotta read now. You hardly never read, fool.”
“Naw, it’s like a diary.”
“Lemme see it,” Victor said. Jose handed the page over to his friend, who read it silently, then began reading it aloud without asking. Jose made a halfhearted attempt to grab the page out of Victor’s hand, but when this failed, he redirected his anger by flicking eraser shavings at Benny Wong.
I once did something that at first made me happy. It felt like I was doing something good for myself. But three weeks later I couldn’t even sleep at night. I felt like something was hunting me at night. I would wake up at night in a full sweat, I would even have dreams about it. One thing that would trip me out about is wondering why did I do it? Why did I have to cause other people pain?
Now I pray for the people I hurt. I thank God for helping me realize that all that stuff we do on the outs ain’t even worth it. Well, I know from now on that I’m going to do better.
When Victor tried to hand the page back, Jose said he didn’t want it. “Fuck it,” he said. “Where we goin’, we better off bein’ the craziest, meanest, ugliest motherfucker on the tier, then at least you don’t get punked.”
Dale’s jaw clenched up. “Anyfool trytopunk me, oneofusdie. Mymindmadeup.”
“That scare me most of all,” Duc said. “I small, I can’t beat everybody’s ass. What if somebody try to take my cheeks?”
Benny had to explain the expression to me. “Take somebody’s cheeks—it’s slang for being raped. That’s why nobody wants to go to the pen.”
“That’s why it’s so hard to stay out of the gangs,” Victor said. “You jus’ wanna be left alone, but you gotta have protection, especially if you the youngest guy there. In return for that, you gotta put in work for the gang, even if you don’t wanna be in it no more.”
