by Bailey West
“The bed to the left is yours. Your cellmate is working now, but he should be back soon.”
I took the entire box of my belongings and shoved it under my bed. I sat down and waited to see who would come in to share this pristinely clean cell with me.
Only a few minutes passed then I heard, “What’s up Lil G?” I looked up to see the inmate from the infirmary walking into the cell. “I see you made it out of the infirmary in one piece,” he said while sitting on a stool by the door and swapping out his sneakers for a pair of shower shoes. “I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t walk around in the cell with your outdoor shoes on. I have this little stool right here for you to change into your shower shoes.”
I looked down at my shoes then back at him.
“Huh?”
“There you go with that hard of hearing stuff again. I said, ‘please remove…’”
“I heard you. It just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. It’s not like it’s carpet, it’s concrete.”
“Yeah but right now, it’s all we have. You have to treat your home with a level of respect and request others to do the same. So, you can keep your shower shoes here,” he pointed to the corner near the stool. “I put a towel down on the ground before I go to bed so when I wake up, I don’t have to put my feet on the cold floor. You are welcome to do the same.” He finished changing into his shower shoes then spoke again. “When you are entering another man’s home for the first time, you should properly introduce yourself. What’s your name?”
One of the unwritten rules in prison is to try to get along with your cellmate. Not getting along with your cellmate can make time unbearable. Plus, even though I’d had limited exposure to my new cellmate, I knew he ran things around here, and he was not to be messed with.
“Samuel.”
“Samuel? Just Samuel like Prince or somebody with just one name?”
“Valentine, Samuel Valentine,” I responded.
“Sam…”
“El,” I corrected.
“Reggie,” he responded. “Reggie Elkanah.” He extended his hand.
I offered mine in return, and we shook.
“I know you can be a hot head, but if you want to stay in this cell with me, you will have to learn how to control yourself.”
“I’m not a hot head. I mind my business. If somebody comes at me, then I have to defend myself.”
“So that whole episode in the yard was all them. You didn’t do anything to provoke them?”
“Man, what are you, undercover or something? Ain’t nothing happen in the yard but a disagreement between me, and people I don’t even remember.”
“Greg and Elson.”
“What?”
“Greg and Elson are the ones you knocked out in front of your cell. They are the ones who put the hit out on you. Teddy is the one who stuck you.”
“I have no idea what you are talking about.”
I continued to play dumb.
“A’ight, a’ight, El, if that’s how you want to play it. They were all transferred anyway.”
“To another part of the prison?”
“No, to three different prisons. You have to be careful how you move around here. You never know who you may offend,” he shrugged.
I decided not to ask any questions. I wasn’t exactly sure what he meant, and I planned on keeping it that way.
“Are there any other room rules I need to know about?”
“No, not for now. What did you do to get here?”
“Ain’t that against the rules or something? You ain’t supposed to ask what I did.”
“If I don’t ask, how will I know?”
“I ain’t do nothing. I got locked up on a bogus charge. I wasn’t nowhere around where the crime was committed but…”
“But what?”
“But, I got tired of seeing my mother and my sister cry. So, I took a plea to put them out of the misery of the court trial.”
“Every man that’s incarcerated in here has declared his innocence.”
“Well, I guess we just a bunch of not guilty motherfuckers serving time for some shit we ain’t do.”
“Profanity is the crutch of the inarticulate. Do you know what that means?”
“Yeah, I know what it means. It means that people that cuss don’t know how to use proper English, so they use profanity instead.”
“So, you’re not dumb, that’s good.”
“No, dumb has never been used to describe me.”
“You didn’t ask me what I did to get in here.”
“I don’t need to ask. I already know.”
“You know who I am?”
“Yeah, I know you are the dude that was protesting civil rights or something like that. A pig got popped, and you ran until they caught you.”
“You saw that on TV?”
“Yep.”
Samuel
Several weeks had passed since I’d moved into the cell with Reggie. We were getting along well. He took on the role of mentor and me his mentee. We held long evening discussions about life, freedom, money, women and the role of the black male in society.
“What are your plans after you get out of here?” Reggie asked me one night after we’d been counted and secured in our cells.
“I don’t know. I want to work somewhere and make enough money to take care of my momma and my sister.”
“Do you know what an entrepreneur is?”
“An entrepreneur is someone who owns a business.”
“Right, a business or a service. Entrepreneurship should be the goal of every black man. We need to own the businesses where our people shop, eat and receive services. It’s nothing wrong with starting out working for someone, but ultimately, you should think about what you could own that would positively impact the community. We should keep our money in our community.”
I’d never thought about owning my own business. My uncle had a small restaurant but other than him, I didn’t know any black people with their own business.
“I don’t know what that could be.”
“You don’t have to know the answer now. I want you to think about it. In the meantime, you should start taking some college courses. Several schools offer classes here. You can start with the basic classes like English and math. Once you figure out what you want to do, then you can declare a major.”
I did well in high school, but I wasn’t really checking for college. My mother had encouraged me to look at the local community college, but I hadn’t made it there before I got arrested. With all this free time on my hands, college was not a bad idea.
“Your education is something no one can ever take from you. You need to get as much education as you can. See, people will look at your history of incarceration and try to deny you employment but, if you get an education, they can’t stop you.”
“Did you go to college?”
“I did. I have a master’s degree in Psychology. I am currently working on my doctoral degree in Psychology.”
“You will be a doctor?”
“Yes, but not a medical doctor.”
“That’s a lot of years of college, right?”
“Yes, but anything you do is going to require sacrifice and commitment. That’s why I am always reading and studying. They can take my freedom, but they can’t take my mind. I will continue to grow and learn. You should do the same. An educated black man is an unstoppable force. Nothing on Earth can reconcile the sheer force of a god with knowledge and wisdom.”
I took Reggie’s advice and started taking college classes. The classwork was simple. I thought it would give me a little bit of a challenge, but it didn’t. I hadn’t decided what degree I wanted to pursue, but I didn’t need to know right away.
My mother and my sister came once a month to visit me. I looked forward to the hugs and the snacks from the vending machines in the visiting room. My mother kept money on my books, so I always had snacks in my cell, but the snacks in the vending machines were different.
Both Reggie and I were
notified we had visitors. We walked single file to the visitation room and were allowed to enter the large room and find our loved ones. I followed behind Reggie because he was walking in the direction of my mother and sister. I thought he would pass their table and keep going, but he stopped at my mother’s table and said, “Hi, Vivian.”
I didn’t remember telling him her name. I don’t recall a time where her name would have even slipped out during conversation. I watch my mother as the recognition immediately hit her.
“Reggie?”
She looked at me and then quickly back to him.
“Yeah, it’s pretty obvious isn’t it?” Reggie replied in a lower tone.
I looked from my mother to Reggie and back to my mother. I was waiting for someone to explain.
“Elkanah!” the guard called out. “Move on to your table.”
“Sir, yes, sir,” Reggie responded without breaking eye contact with my mother. He nodded and continued on to the table that held a man and a young boy.
My mother watched him walk away. She continued to watch as he embraced his visitors at the other table.
“Momma,” I stepped in front of her to block her view.
“Huh? Oh…”
She stood up to hug me. Torrey followed behind her with a hug.
I sat down across from them. Torrey immediately passed me some chips and candy she’d purchased from the vending machine.
“So, Momma, how do you know that man?” Torrey asked.
“Um,” Momma looked at us both and then gave a half smile. She rubbed her hands together in front of her and then wiped them down the front of her skirt. “We um…Reggie and I grew up in the same neighborhood.”
“Same neighborhood? Is that it? You seemed a little flustered when he spoke to you. Did he scare you or something? El, how do you know him? He looks familiar, have we met him before?” Torrey fired off multiple questions.
“He has been my cellie for a minute now. He’s the one who told me to take those college courses and stuff. Remember I told you? He didn’t mention he knew you, Momma.”
I was racking my brain trying to figure out if Reggie had mentioned knowing my mother. I knew he hadn’t. Why hadn’t he disclosed that information? I had a lot of questions for him when we got back to the cell.
“What is he in for?” Torrey whispered.
“I’m not about to discuss that man’s business out here in the open with you,” I whispered back.
“Did he murder someone?”
“Torrey!” My mother finally answered. “Yes, El I remember you mentioned that but I guess I didn’t catch his name,” she suddenly became very interested in the bottle of water in front of her.
Torrey looked at me and shrugged her shoulders.
“You didn’t mention you knew my mother.”
I confronted Reggie as soon as we got back to our cell. I knew I hadn’t mentioned my mother’s name to him. He knew her and hadn’t told me the whole time we’d been living together.
“I wasn’t sure if it was her or not. When we walked into the visitor room, and I saw her sitting there, that’s when I was positive I knew her.”
“So, what? Y’all grew up together?”
“We grew up in the same neighborhood, but I am a couple years older than her. I remember when she had your sister. She was a pretty little baby,” he smiled.
“That’s it?” I asked trying hard not to succumb to the anger that was bubbling up.
“No, that’s not it, but you should ask your mother.”
“My mother is not here, but you are!” I yelled while approaching his side of the room.
“Alright, El, calm your ass down before you get put down.”
“Look me in my eyes like a man and tell me how you know my mother!” I wasn’t calming down. If I had learned anything from Reggie in the short time we’d been cellies is that you didn’t back down. You stand firm in your truth. You stand for the truth.
“Alright, you want to do this now?”
“Right now!” I whisper-yelled.
It was one thing to get into an altercation with your cellmate in private, but it was a whole other thing to get into it with them where others could hear. I made sure to whisper but still kept the sternness in my voice.
Reggie moved to pull the door to our cell in some without closing it. He walked back toward me and grabbed my arm to pull me into the corner of the cell. I yanked my arm away as soon as we were in the corner. He looked at me and then scrubbed his hand down his face.
“I’m your father.”
His revelation nearly knocked the air out of me.
“What?”
“Don’t go deaf now! You heard me! Your mother is Vivian Marie Valentine. Your nana is Gloria Valentine, and your Pops is Cleveland Valentine. Your last name is Valentine because your mother and Charles were never married. Your mother and I grew up in the same neighborhood, so we always knew each other. We started dating secretly after Torrey was born. We didn’t let people know about our relationship because I never wanted a target on her back because of me being so outspoken and radical. Charles was a good friend of mine, and he knew how much I loved your mother, but I had to get ghost after the incident with the cop. I didn’t tell her I was leaving. I thought it was for the best. I couldn’t take her with me. That was a mistake. I went back to Saint Louis after I’d been gone for several years. I found out where Vivian and Charles were living and visited them. I told her I loved her, and she told me she was in love with Charles, so I left them alone. I was arrested shortly after that visit. My son's mother mentioned there was a kid that visited the old neighborhood from time to time. She said that he looked like me. I blew it off because I hadn’t been with any woman other than Vivian, and I knew she would've told me if we had a kid. At least I thought she would've.”
I was stunned into silence. I knew Charles was not my biological father, but he took care of us like he was. Torrey’s father was killed in a motorcycle accident before she was born. My mother never gave many details about my father except he wasn’t ready for the responsibility of fatherhood and he left. She never mentioned his name. I didn’t press the issue because Charles was a good man. I didn’t want to make him feel unappreciated by me constantly inquiring about a man who never wanted me anyway. Charles and my mother were not married. She said they’d planned on getting married, but he died before it could happen.
“How do you know I am your son?”
“Man come on. Have you not noticed how much you look like me? When I saw the picture of your mother, I immediately knew who you were. A man always knows his seed even if he tries to pretend he doesn’t. Then I saw the look in Viv’s eyes when she saw me. It confirmed it for me.”
I backed away from him and sat down on my bed. I did notice that Reggie and I favored. I saw a picture of him when he was younger, and I almost thought I was looking at myself in the photo. I didn’t mention the resemblance. I thought my mind was playing tricks on me. Never in a million years would I figure he was my father.
“I asked for you to be moved to my cell when I figured out who you were.”
“Why didn’t you tell me when we first met?”
“I wanted to wait for the right time to discuss it with you. I didn’t want it to be like this, but when I saw Viv, I felt nostalgia and anger all at the same time. I was mad because she fell in love with someone else and let him raise my first-born son. The nostalgia kicked in when I looked into her eyes and saw the woman that I was deeply in love with. Honestly, I know it was best she and Charles raised you. There is no way I could have been the father you needed me to be, not then anyway.”
“I need to talk to my mother. I can’t believe she kept something like this from me. She had no right to lie to me! I’m in here because I wanted to protect her, and she has lied to me my whole life!”
“El, it was for the best, man. I couldn’t father you from in here or on the run. Viv is an amazing woman, and she raised you right. I’m not saying don’t be mad, but yo
u should cut her some slack. She only did what she thought was best.” He sat down on the bed next to me. “Look, I know you’re mad. I was wrong for holding on to this information for so long. I’ve never been afraid of anything, but I was afraid to tell you who I was. I was afraid that you would reject me. I was afraid you wouldn’t believe me. Your reaction proves the man that you are. You didn’t fight me, but you let me explain my side. I don’t know if you completely understand my reasoning but thank you for listening. I am tremendously proud to be your father.”
“So, you didn’t walk away from me. You didn’t think that fatherhood was too much for you to handle?”
“No, if I would have known about you, El, I would have been there as much as I could have. I would have told Charles thank you for raising you.”
I leaned forward, rested my elbows on my thighs and placed my face in my hands. This was a lot of information all at once.
“You should call your mother and talk to her about this. Meantime, we won’t share this information with anyone. They may try to split us up.”
I called my mother the next day, and she confirmed that Reggie was my father. She cried and asked me to forgive her for not telling me about him. Anger was something I couldn’t afford to hold on to in jail. Reggie told me it was important to forgive people you love quickly because love covers a multitude of wrongs.
Samuel
~2008~
Stevie Wonder’s I wish was pumping loud from the speakers in the kitchen. I could smell fried chicken, macaroni and cheese and collard green aromas mixed with the smoke from the barbecue grill.
My mother and sister were in the kitchen preparing for my welcome home party. I had recently graduated from law school in Chicago and passed my bar exam on the first try.
Reggie and I bonded in secret. We never told anyone he was my father. I thought it would take me a long time to get used to him being my Dad, but in all honesty, I was honored to be his son. Reggie carried himself like a free man. Everyone in the jail esteemed him, not out of fear but out of respect. I met my younger brother, Roc while I was locked up. I’d seen him visit Reggie with a man, but I didn’t know who he was. Reggie introduced us during one of his visits. We started writing each other and formed a tight friendship.
