Because

by Jack A. Langedijk

  “Thank you. I’m sorry, what is your name?”

  “Frank DeCosta,” the guard replied with an authoritative nod.

  “Thanks, Frank. Thanks for clearing up the situation.”

  “No prob.” Frank smiled, the cynical kind of smile that told each and every one in the room that he was the top dog—the only one in charge.

  “So if what Frank tells me is true, that you don’t have a choice, then maybe that’s where we should start.” Robert looked around the circle—all he saw were the same distrustful looks an innocent man sees on the faces on a jury that he knows will convict him no matter what the evidence shows.

  “Okay, so what is choice?” Robert asked.

  Silence.

  He tried a different question. “Okay, how about this? Why don’t you feel you have any choice?”

  “Are you some kind of moron? We feel it ‘cause we ain’t got no fucking choice!” said the huge linebacker, sporting what looked like a scorpion tattoo on the side of his shaved head.

  “Yeah, not ‘til we get outta this shithole,” said the guy who was constantly cracking his knuckles.

  “Watch your fucking language!” Decosta snapped.

  “What choice we got when they tell us when to sleep, when to wake up and what to eat?” asked the Asian with the dreadlocks. “Choice is one of your rich guys’ words.”

  Then six-foot-seven stood up again and said, “Yeah, choice is the word guys like you like to use, guys that don’t have to live here.” The inmate turned to Frank DeCosta and continued, “Yeah, choice is not having that freak wailing on you if you’re like twenty seconds late getting to your cell.”

  Robert’s heart skipped a beat! The last thing he wanted was to provoke the inmates to complain about the guards in the room. Frank DeCosta surprised Robert by not appearing angered at all by the inmate’s outburst.

  He turned to six-foot-seven and said, “First of all, that never happens here and if it did, I wouldn’t be working here, would I?...Would I?!!”

  Six-foot-seven looked at the pad writer, who was shaking his head at him in a silent plea for him to be quiet. Six-foot-seven mumbled something in response to DeCosta, but still sat down.

  Robert looked at DeCosta and then turned back to the circle, wondering if anyone else was going to challenge the guard. Other than a couple of garbled words of profanity directed at the floor, no one dared catch DeCosta’s eyes. The guy with the notepad lifted his hand, and everyone immediately became quiet and still. It was obvious that this young man was their leader. They all watched as he wrote something down then lifted his head and spoke directly to Robert.

  “Fucking choice?” he said very calmly. “Do you seriously think anyone one of us here has ‘choice’? Let me ask you a question, RobertO.” He drew the sound of the ‘O’ out a little bit longer, which made some of the inmates laugh. But the pad writer held up his hand and they instantly stopped.

  “You’re here because someone thought you could help us, right?” He repeated it a little louder, “Right?”

  Robert paused and meekly asked, “Am I here because someone thought I could help you, is that your question?”

  “No. I want to know, if you even know, what fucking choice is?” All eyes were now on Robert; even Frank DeCosta smiled one of those mean-spirited smiles. He seemed to love seeing people squirm.

  Robert tried to hide the fear he felt, so he bent over and pretended to scratch the back of his leg. He didn’t have an answer so he focused on the question.

  “Well, that’s a great question! And...well...after hearing everything you guys said, I have to think about it. I mean, because, well, for sure, it is different for you. But, I wasn’t really talking about what my choices are compared to yours because, well, frankly, most of us would be living in a perpetual nightmare if we constantly compared what others have and measured it against what we don’t have. So no, I wasn’t really thinking about it that way.”

  “You talking to yourself? Answer the question! What other fucking way is there?” demanded the pad writer.

  No one else spoke. Everyone was now staring hard at Robert, waiting for his answer. The ominous sound of the knuckle-cracker filled the room. Robert felt like he was in one of those movies where the bad guys had you tied up to a chair, demanding that you better spill your guts or they would do it for you—with some very threatening instrument.

  “I asked you a question. What other fucking way is there?” demanded the pad writer.

  Robert knew what he said next was the key to getting the respect of each of those inmates. He dared himself to look right into the eyes of the pad writer. Then, he kind of arched his head skyward and closed his eyes. He took one long intake of air, exhaling equally as long, then opened his eyes and looked right back at the pad writer.

  “Man, you know what? That’s an amazing question. So, what other way is there? Okay, okay, don’t worry, I’m answering it! Alright, well...most of our choices are dictated by our circumstances right?”

  “Quit asking me...just answer the fucking question...You’re supposed to be helping us here, right, RobertO?!”

  “Alright, alright...Okay. Each one of us...by ‘us’, I mean all human beings, regardless of our circumstances—well, I think...I mean, it’s just a thought of mine and I may be wrong...”

  “Will you just fucking say it!” Pad writer pleaded.

  “Okay...well, I think each of us always has choices, no matter what the circumstances!”

  “What?” The Pad writer threw his arms up in rebellion. “You’re gonna come here every week for three fucking months to tell us that we all got choices, no matter where we are?”

  Robert just looked straight at the pad writer and said, “Okay...” He said it like he had just discovered something. “Okay...What is one thing...one thing that is so precious to you, and I mean, a thing that means so much to you, so much that you don’t want anyone to ever...even make a joke about it?”

  “What?” the pad writer responded. “That’s your answer?”

  “Yeah...yeah, you want to know what other way there is, right? So please, just answer my question and then you’ll find out.”

  The room got even quieter. Decosta leaned in. Even he knew it was downright dangerous to ever challenge the pad writer.

  But the pad writer surprised everyone by actually answering Robert’s question.

  “What is way too precious to me? So precious that no one can ever make a joke about it?” Robert nervously nodded his head.

  “Well...no one ever...ever jokes about my brother.”

  For a second, the room went dead quiet. But as soon as the pad writer looked around the circle, all the other inmates started speaking, vigorously shaking their heads, saying things like, “no way, absolutely not.” They promised that they would never, never, never joke about his brother.

  The pad writer turned to the knuckle cracker. “Yo, what ‘bout you?”

  “Me? Yeah, of course man...you know, no way I’d joke about your bro.”

  “No, not that, you idiot!” The pad writer sighed in disgust. “What’s too precious for you to joke about?”

  “Oh, me? Well, my...ah...um...my...ah...mother? Yeah, my mother!”

  And then like a teacher in a classroom, the pad writer pointed to each inmate for their answer. Slowly going around the circle, each of these hard looking prisoners spoke about one of the things that they never wanted anyone to joke about: my lady, Jesus, respecting my name, my dream...But when it got to six-foot-seven, he had nothing to say. He just slumped his shoulders, shaking his head back and forth.

  “Come on, JJ, think! What’s one of yours?” the pad writer asked.

  JJ put his hand to his face and looked as if he was thinking hard and then blurted out, “being retarded.”

  The room burst into laughter. JJ violently swung both arms out, almost knocking the two on either side of him to the floor as he screamed, “Shut the fuck up!”

  Frank DeCosta and the other two guards qui
ckly moved towards the group to stop what looked like the beginnings of an all-out brawl. But as six-foot-seven stood up, the room became instantly calm. He took a step toward Robert and spoke in a soft boyish, earnest voice.

  “My little sister was born with brain problems. I hate when anyone makes a joke about that. They said she always goin’ to be like a four-year-old kid her whole life.”

  The room quickly filled with apologies. “Sorry, man...” “Damn JJ...I didn’t know...” “Damn...Sorry, bro...my bad.”

  “How old is she now?” Robert asked gently.

  “She’s sixteen.” Six-foot-seven sat down. “But man, I mean she’s sixteen and she still carries one of those little stuffed things with her all the time. The thing is all smelly and dirty and she won’t ever let anyone wash it. Always has to be with her. It’s that little green thing from that TV show...”

  “Kermit?” asked dreadlocks.

  “No, that’s Ernie,” another voice insisted.

  “No, it’s that thing in the garbage can...Griefer, I think.”

  “That’s Grover, you ass wipe...and no, it’s Kermit.”

  “Kermit...yeah, that’s it, I think it’s Kermit,” JJ said.

  Robert couldn’t help but smile a little, watching these threatening looking young men converse about which Sesame Street character was the green one. The playful mood was quickly broken when the pad writer spoke.

  “Okay, RobertO,” still stressing the O again, “what do these things we don’t joke about have to do with choices?”

  “Well, look at what just happened. Everybody had a different thing they want to protect. And protecting that thing...that’s a choice, isn’t it? You see, most of our choices are completely unique from everyone else’s’. Do you know what the definition of choice is? Well, it’s the act of choosing something from all the alternatives.”

  The room froze with a collective blank questioning stare.

  “Alternatives mean...all the choices we have. So, we are like...like these judges, choosing from all the choices we have. And most of the choices we make come from what we value or what we believe in. Someone said respect or their lady, Jesus, their mother...and JJ here, not making fun of his sister who was born with something that stops her from developing like you and me. It is your choice to honour those things you value, right?”

  “Yeah, I do value my sister,” JJ said.

  “And I believe in Jesus,” Dreadlocks jumped in.

  “See,” Robert continued. “It might not be my choice or even anyone else’s but no one, nobody, can stop you from making the choice of fighting to protect what’s precious to you. Like whether you laugh at something or get angry at something, that choice makes you who you are and says a lot about how you will live your life...and safeguarding what you value is probably going to guide what other choices you make.”

  Robert felt relieved that most of the eight were scratching their heads or looking thoughtful, trying to understand what he had just said, but his relief was short-lived, because the pad writer spoke up.

  “What about you? You can eat when you want and go home when you want. We can’t do that. Because we don’t have that choice.”

  The others swiftly joined in. “Yeah, what about that?”

  “Well, that’s a different kind of choice. That’s like your situation choice. You’re here because you got in trouble with the law, right? Well, first you made a choice to do the thing that put you in this situation and so now you’re finding that your situation ends up making a lot of your choices for you.”

  “I got here tryin’ to sell the car I stole,” JJ blurted out.

  “You see, that’s a choice, and how did that work out for you?” asked Robert.

  “Not fucking good. I’m here, ain’t I?” JJ sighed.

  “Would you change that choice if you had the chance?”

  “Damn right I would.”

  “So coming here wasn’t your choice?”

  “My choice would be to be free like you!”

  “Our freedom? Well, how much freedom we have to make choices depends on what kind of situation you’re in or willing to go in! Sure, I get to go home, but I still have to eat what my wife cooks...”

  “Yeah, well, why don’t you ask her to cook what you want?” JJ interrupted.

  Robert laughed a little. “I do sometimes, but in my situation I choose to let her decide.”

  “Otherwise she won’t choose to be married to ya anymore,” JJ said, and the room broke into a laugh.

  “See that? You all choose to laugh,” Robert jumped in.

  “Yeah, ‘cause it was funny.”

  “But maybe it wasn’t for me. Maybe saying that might hurt or scare me. Did you even consider that before you chose to laugh?” Robert asked.

  “Wait,” the pad writer said. “You mean, we gotta think about whether something might hurt...” and suddenly he stopped himself from saying the obvious.

  “Yes,” Robert said, “and the tough thing is, you can’t always know something is going to scare or hurt someone...but see, we all got this thing called choice. We always have a choice and doesn’t matter how you look at it; we are responsible for every choice we make. And, in the end, you’re accountable for every choice you make. Oh, you can blame someone else—say it was his idea, he hit me first, he brought the gun—but you always have the choice of how to react.”

  Robert leaned over and pulled his small backpack on his lap. “I want to show you something this kid who lived on the street wrote. And let me say, he wrote this when he was only nine or ten. It has to do with his situation and what he thought his choices were.”

  Robert pulled Troy’s old yellow notebook out. He opened it up and turned the pages and when he got to the page he wanted, he held the book up to read.

  “Now, remember this kid is only ten. Okay, here it is: ‘My bro has gun, it’s never fun, always on the run, home is the night, don’t wanna fight so I choose to write...’”

  Robert put the notebook on his lap and looked around the circle. A wonderful serene thoughtfulness filled the room as everyone looked at Robert, just taking in the words.

  Then the knuckle cracker asked, “Can ya read it again?”

  Robert picked up the notebook and started reading, “My bro has gun, it’s never fun, always on the run, home is the night, don’t wanna fight so I...”

  “Where the hell did you get that?” the pad writer asked as he leapt from his chair. “Gimme that!”

  He yanked the book from Robert’s hands. The voice that came out of him sounded like a wounded grizzly bear. “Where the hell did you get this?”

  He then started violently tearing the old yellow notebook into pieces. Two of the guards jumped into the middle of the circle and wrapped their arms around the pad writer and took him to the floor in one quick movement. Still the pad writer continued frantically ripping the pages.

  Frank DeCosta yelled, “All right, the rest of you against the wall.” They apparently didn’t move fast enough for Frank DeCosta, so he screamed his order in such a loud angry shriek that it made Robert shrink down in his chair.

  In a split second, DeCosta gave Robert a painful reminder of how limited these young men’s choices were. He now sat alone in the circle of empty chairs. To his left, seven young men stood with their faces pressed against the wall. In the middle of the circle laid the pad writer, panting heavily with his face down on the floor and a foot on his back holding him down. The pad writer turned his head to the side to observe the destruction of the yellow notebook, which was now scattered in pieces, inches from his head.

  “All right, Mr. Sanchez,” said Frank DeCosta, who was standing behind the seven inmates. “Session’s up, you better get outta here first.”

  Robert sat there paralysed, just staring at the pad writer. “Sanchez, I said you gotta go now,” Frank DeCosta growled.

  Robert stood up and took a step towards the door. Then, he turned back and knelt down on one knee as if he was about to pick up the shredd
ed notebook, but instead he bent down to the pad writer and quietly probed, “Troy?”

  “I said, get the hell outta here, Sanchez,” DeCosta almost screamed.

  Robert didn’t leave. He stood up to face DeCosta.

  “Thanks for doing your job, Frank, but please let me do mine. Come on, look around. What happened here? He ripped up an old notebook, I mean the thing was already about to fall apart.”

  “That’s not the point, he was threatening you and he violated your property,” DeCosta said very matter-of-factly. Then he smiled and added, “and it was his choice, Mr. Sanchez, and he chose to...react wrong.”

  “It’s true, Mr. Sanchez,” said the guard who had seemed interested in the session. “They all know the rules and with Nelson taking your book from you and destroying it like that, well, we’ve got no choice; it’s our job. We have to protect you.”

  “See, that’s the thing. It’s not my book,” Robert said, but then stopped himself. “Wait a second, his name is Nelson?”

  “Yeah, this is Nelson Dupree,” the other guard answered as he took his foot off the pad writer’s back.

  Robert walked back towards the pad writer who, even though the foot was off his back, still lay prone on the floor. Robert knelt down again and picked up the pieces of the yellow notebook as he spoke.

  “So, Nelson, then I guess I have to ask you why you would choose to rip up Troy Williams’ notebook, a little ten-year-old kid’s book. Why?” Robert held out the pieces of the book to the pad writer.

  “That kid took a lot of time to write all the stuff he did in this book and it’s great stuff. I mean this kid—”

  “—That kid didn’t know the fuck about life,” the pad writer said in a soft voice.

  “Please let him sit up?” Robert asked the guards. The guards took a very tentative step away from the pad writer, preparing themselves in case he exploded again, but the pad writer just slowly turned to his side and picked up a piece of the notebook Robert had missed.

  The seven at the wall turned their heads to watch as the pad writer sat up on the floor in the middle of the empty circle of chairs.

  “That’s not my notebook, is it?” Robert asked with a quiet smile playing on his lips.