Everyone looked at the pad writer and waited for his answer. After a few seconds of silence, Robert could almost feel DeCosta’s readiness to smack the pad writer, so Robert just gestured, “It’s okay,” with his hand and winked at Decosta to give the pad writer time to answer.
“That’s not my notebook, is it?” Robert quietly asked again.
Then, after another five seconds, a small quiet “No,” came out of the pad writer’s mouth.
“Well, whose fuckin’ book is it then?” DeCosta impatiently demanded.
“Frank, will ya just shut up for ten seconds?” asked the other guard.
Robert looked at the plain clock on the wall and said, “Officers, we got thirty minutes left of the session. Is it possible everyone can sit back down and we can finish?”
The two guards standing over the pad writer looked at each other, nodded their heads and then looked at Frank DeCosta.
“No, not until we find out whose book that is.”
“It’s mine, okay, DeCosta. The fucking book’s mine!” the pad writer said. No one moved as they watched the pad writer stand up and sit back down in his chair. Robert sat directly across from him.
The guards then gestured for the other seven to sit back down. DeCosta looked at the clock and loudly broke the silence, saying, “Twenty-eight minutes.” The other two guards looked at him and rolled their eyes.
Robert looked around the circle. Every inmate just looked directly at the pad writer, Nelson Dupree. No one said a word, but their looks screamed out loud. Dupree felt the hard and distrustful looks rain down on him. He was their leader. Nelson Dupree was someone you trusted. Nelson Dupree was a guy you fought for. Nelson Dupree was the man you looked up to. Nelson Dupree was the man you wanted to be. But now, all they all wanted to know was, who the hell was Nelson Dupree? And if he wasn’t Nelson Dupree, why had he deceived them?
Nelson did not look up. He was staring at the piece of torn notebook he held in his hand. He was delicately trying to smooth it out. Robert watched him fiddle with the paper as he remembered that little boy outside his office many years ago, scribbling away. Robert, who knew most of Troy’s notebook by heart, couldn’t help but wonder which piece of paper he had in his hand and what it said. Just as Robert took a breath to speak, Nelson cut him off.
“No, let me speak, if that’s okay.”
Most of the other inmates muttered back, “Yeah, you better, brother,” and, “Damn, better be some truth.”
Nelson lifted his head and spoke as he looked around the room at the other inmates. “Yeah, I know, you’re all pissed, I know. I wouldn’t fucking trust anyone who doesn’t say who they are straight up and maybe I ain’t worth trusting anyway. Yeah, my name is Nelson Fucking Dupree and no one’s called me Troy since I wrote this book.” He held up the one piece of torn notebook in his hand.
“I didn’t change my name, goddamn lawyers and those bitches at ‘services’ did. They said they were trying to protect me, change my directional course of life.” He looked at Robert. “My choices, I guess...but I didn’t deceive ya. Hey, I’m still here, right? Same fucking direction. Name change didn’t do anything...” and then Nelson stopped himself as he thought about what he had just said. He was about to say something, but then turned to Robert. “Goddamn it! You’re the doctor, why don’t you say something?”
“Okay, well first, what do you want us to call you? Nelson or Troy?”
“Nelson. Troy’s fucking dead, man...Yeah, it’s my choice. Right? So it’s Nelson.”
“Then why did ya freak, man? Why’d ya rip up that kid Troy’s book?” The knuckle cracker asked.
“He is Troy, you idiot!” said another. “He ripped up his own book.”
“Okay then, great...Why the fuck ya do that for?” The knuckle cracker wasn’t giving up.
“‘Cause it had to be done! All right? Now shut it!” Nelson slammed his hand on his thigh.
The knuckle cracker shrugged. “I was just wonderin’, bro, just wonderin’...”
Nelson turned to Robert.
“You are right, RobertO. Yeah, you’re right. We do have choices. Maybe I didn’t choose to change to my new name but I did fucking choose to kill the old one.”
Robert couldn’t help but sadly nod. “Okay, so then you want us to call you Nelson?”
A loud shrieking alarm sounded, which made Robert jump up from his chair.
DeCosta laughed and said, “That’s it! Session’s over. Line up!”
“Sorry,” the other guard said to Robert. “Don’t know what it is, usually someone’s unaccounted for, but when that thing goes off, we have to get them back into their cells.”
The inmates knew the drill. Within fifteen seconds, they were out of the room and halfway down the hall. As the inmates filed out, Nelson stopped, took Robert’s hand and placed the piece of book he had in his hand in Robert’s.
Only DeCosta and Robert were left in the room.
“Better pick up your bag, Sanchez. I have to escort you out of here. Oh, and listen, I have no choice but to report what that inmate did to your book...It’s my job; I have to report it to the warden.”
“Yeah, you have no choice,” Robert said under his breath. DeCosta must have followed through and probably added some drama to the situation when he reported it to the warden, because the very next day, Robert was notified his workshops at the prison were cancelled.
You remember when I got home from the prison that day? When I dropped all the pieces of that old yellow book on the table? Do you remember what our little girl did? Little Rock...told us the story about her friend Sara, and how they had to all write a poem for class. And the teacher was collecting the poems and was going to read them aloud to the class, but when the teacher was just about to take Sara’s poem, Sara snatched it from the top of her desk and just ripped her poem up. And when the teacher asked Sara why she did that, Sara told the teacher she did it because the poem had some bad words in it. But Jenny had found out that wasn’t the reason. Sara just didn’t want to share her poem with the class...Ah, and how did Jen explain it to us? Oh yeah, she told us Sara had said that the poem was not just from her head, but also from her heart and she said she just wasn’t ready to share her heart with the class. But afterwards, Jen helped Sara tape her poem back together and then she let Jenny read it and it was okay because they were friends and Sara felt safe and that was why she could share her heart with Jenny. You remember that? So when Little Rock, saw the torn up notebook on the table, she told me that maybe Troy just wasn’t ready to share his heart yet. That wee thing couldn’t have been more right...
Two weeks later, as he sat in the small room at the Milestone prison, Nelson Dupree had a visitor. The room was filled with about fifteen rectangular, cafeteria-style tables with a bench on either side that was bolted to the floor.
The moment Nelson walked into the visiting room and saw Robert, he laughed sarcastically. “What the hell you doing here? No wait...don’t tell me, you taped that book together and came here to give it to me?”
Nelson’s laugh stopped abruptly when Robert actually pulled out that yellow notebook, which now looked more like one of those baby jigsaw puzzles all taped up.
“Yeah, actually my wife and daughter helped me.” Robert laughed.
Nelson immediately put his hands up and said, “Are you some kind of fucking freak? Take that fucking thing away from me, man, or I’ll shove it down your throat.”
“Dupree, sit down!” came a voice from the door. Robert looked up and saw a guard, who had looked up from his Sudoku just long enough to yell at Dupree.
“Don’t worry, I’ll put it away.” Robert put the old yellow notebook back into a plastic bag he had sitting beside him on the bench.
“I know we don’t really know each other. Tro...well, Nelson. But it’s been so long and I’ve been wondering...you know, since your brother...”
Nelson’s eyes flared with anger. “Shut it...Do you hear me? Just shut it!”
“Last t
ime. Sit down, Dupree!”
The guard pointed at him to sit. Nelson looked at the guard and then back at Robert a couple of times before deciding to sit. He slithered down sideways with one leg straddling the bench, looking as if he was preparing for a quick getaway.
They both sat in silence. Robert didn’t know what to say next. He didn’t have a plan. He had not really thought how this conversation might go. He just knew he was meant to connect with the young boy that had lived inside of him for all these years. Nelson broke the silence.
“So, what the hell you doin’ here?” Nelson spoke with the impatience of someone who had somewhere more important to be.
Robert smiled slightly, remembering the first day he had met him and his brother Tyrell in that closet sized probation office. Tyrell had come in with that same impatient badass attitude that Nelson now exhibited. Yet, Nelson had something his brother didn’t have. Tyrell’s posturing and talk came off as an act, a toughness he needed to show. But Nelson didn’t seem to be acting; his calm self-reassured stance exhibited the same body language one would see in a movie star or a president settling in to be interviewed.
And again, Robert found himself asking Nelson the same question he asked his dead brother nine years ago. “Can you help me, please?”
“Help?” Nelson questioned with a sneering raised eyebrow. “What kind of help could you ever need from me?”
“I’m not a probation officer anymore. I’ve been working in schools, trying to help kids. Trying to help these kids, you know, to make better choices.”
“And why the fuck would you think that interests me?”
Robert fidgeted. He had imagined this moment many times. That if he and Troy were to ever meet again, it would be a joyous occasion. He truly believed the little boy who wrote all those profound thoughts in that notebook would have left the streets, found the home he so longed for, went to university and become a success. In all of Robert’s fantasies of this reunion, never once did it take place in a prison visitation room.
“Well, um...do you like it here?” Robert kind of mumbled.
“What? Are you fucking kiddin’ me? You came to see how I like it here?”
“No...no...it’s just...I mean, I’m sure this place is horrible. You see, that’s what I’m trying to do...I mean, that’s why I left the probation office. I’m trying to help some kids from having to be...well...you know, be here, like this.”
“You mean like me?”
“No, well, I mean...Sorry, yeah...that’s kind of what I mean, but not like you, you know...you exactly...I’m just trying to help some kids make choices so they don’t end up in a place like this.”
Nelson looked at Robert for a moment and then back at the guard. The guard didn’t look up from his Sudoku. Nelson didn’t look like he was planning on leaving, so Robert asked him another question.
“How long have you got left?”
“What is it to you?”
Nelson’s attitude and demeanour were so familiar to Robert. He saw it every day in many troubled high school students. But he knew it didn’t always matter how the kids responded, because if they were responding that at least meant they were engaged enough to react. How do you engage someone who comes with so much resistance? Just never tell them what to do, he thought. Just keep asking questions.
“And what’s your plan? You know, after you get out of here?”
“Ha ha...” Nelson snorted. He then leaned into the table and got closer to Robert. His face suddenly became deadly serious.
“Why? You got a job for me, like you did for my brother, RobertO?”
“No, Nelson. I’ve been...”
“And how did that work out?”
“What work out?”
“With my brother. How did that work out?”
“Look, Nelson, that was...”
“I asked you...how the fuck did that work out?”
“I don’t know what you want me to say. I’m sorry your brother...”
Nelson cut Robert off by raising his hand. “Shut it! Now you listen to me. I don’t care what the fuck you are working on or who you’re working with, just get this into your thick skull: you ain’t working on me. What you come here for? What did ya think? Did you think bringing in that little notebook was going to make me cry?”
“No, Nelson, I was just...”
“You think you’re going to change my life? I’m gonna look at those scrawls on a page and suddenly I’m all changed! Oh, my God, look at me; I was once that little motherfucker who wrote stuff in a book that some old white fart thought was meaningful. Oh, if only I could go back to being that ten-year-old little prick, Yes...then my life would be saved!”
Nelson smiled cruelly. He knew exactly how to put someone in their place. And usually after he did that, he was used to people cowering and starting to blubber apologies and forgive me’s but Robert didn’t respond that way. He just maintained his gaze, looking straight into Nelson’s eyes.
“What the hell you staring at? Don’t act like you see something I don’t,”
Robert calmly shrugged, “It doesn’t matter what I see, Nelson. It’s what you...”
“What? What I see? Is that what you were gonna say? What I see? Well, fuck you. You hear me? Fuck you! And I don’t need your sanctimonious psycho crap. I’m not the one choosing to come to this hellhole today. So don’t tell me, I know what I fucking see!”
Robert tried to calm Nelson. “That’s not really what I was going to say...”
“It sure the fuck is! And you know what? You’re dead right! It’s exactly what I see...and right now I see a man who thinks everyone needs saving!”
“But, Nelson, when I was talking about what I see, I meant...”
“You’re not here ‘cause of me...you’re here ‘cause of you!”
“What?” Robert felt as if he had been kicked in the gut. “Me? What the hell do you mean by that?”
“What the fuck you doin’ here? Yeah, ask yourself that, RobertO, ‘cause it’s not like you fucking know me...It’s all about you, isn’t it? People like you, always saying, oh, they just want to help. Well, look around, I didn’t ask for help. You’re here ‘cause of what? You think you see my future? And now, for some fucking reason, you think I need your help? Well, have you ever asked yourself maybe what you see isn’t real? Maybe we’re not all waiting around for Roberto Sanchez to come and save us?!”
You know, love, right then, in that prison visitation room—suddenly this overwhelmingly anxious feeling took over, making me question every fibre of who I think I am. I couldn’t believe what he had said and how much it had hurt me. It actually hurt me to the core. Of course, I know what I’m doing is right. I really think I am helping, I truly believe it. I have to believe it. I mean, I’ve seen a lot of pain and suffering and I’m just doing my best, trying to, well, trying to make it go away...or lessen it...I mean, look what happened to his own brother. Yet, what he said—is it true? You know, I’ve never asked myself why am I doing what I do? Why do I do these workshops? Why is it so important to me to care about these kids? Or even care about Troy? Am I trying to be some saviour? Even when they tell me they don’t want to be saved? What sort of purpose in life is that—helping people who don’t want your help?
Or is it all about me? Is that how I want to be seen? A saviour? Is that who I am? Is that how I want people to see me? Have I just become so righteous I don’t really know who I’m helping, I just need to save someone to make myself feel good? Is it really all about my own ego?
You know, every day as we journey I think about what I’m going to write in this journal about these three, and I tend to question why I think this is good for them. How does climbing a mountain make anyone a better leader or human being, for that matter? I’m seeing so much on this journey to Everest and today on our three-hour trek to Phakding, Troy and I walked together. Strange thing about the two of us is we never really venture into any conversations we had back in that prison or about his brother. But today,
we were taking a break under this incredible magnolia tree and it was just the most magnificent view, and I asked him, “Well, Troy, is it worth it being here?”
But he didn’t answer me. He just turned to me with that look of his and asked me, “Robert, why do you do this? Is it worth it?” And suddenly my mind was spinning. What the hell does he mean “is it worth it?” How can he ask me that? After all I have done?...And then it hit me. His question—asking me why I came to the prison that day to see him. That question just made me feel so naked, exposed—the same way I feel anytime someone asks me why I climb and if it’s worth it? GOD, that question—I just keep living the answer, but never really find words for it.
Then Troy called Philip over and said this should be one of the day’s interviews, asking me if it’s worth it climbing mountains.
As Philip set up the camera, my mind just kept repeating Troy’s question: ‘is it worth it?’ and all I could think of was you and that time—years ago when Jen was in high school—when you and I were watching her in one of those musicals she was in. The show was called ‘Hair’ and Jenny was singing that song, “Easy to be Hard.” And remember when she got to that part about people who seem to care more about strangers and social injustice...when she came to that question in the song, she fell to her knees in front of her partner on stage and she almost cried the words, asking, ‘If he only cared about the needing crowd?’ Then she stopped singing and spoke the words, ‘What about me, I need a friend?’
I told Troy and Philip how, at that moment when Jenny was singing, you turned to me, looked me directly in my eyes in that dark auditorium and gave me that same look Troy did, that day when we met in prison when he asked me if that was who I was? Someone who cared more for strangers, injustice, bleeding crowds, cared more about mountains than his own family? And was it all worth it?
And, my love, I gave him the only answer I knew—that living life is not easy. Trying to always do what you feel you need to do and want to do and then balancing that with doing what others want or need you to do, who knows? Everybody has different values. Somebody may think it’s worth it to run into danger to save someone. Someone else may think scaling a cliff of ice is worth the risk. I mean, how do you measure worth?
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