He said, “Well, we should get a stripper for you.”
I said, “I don’t know about you Rodriguez but it doesn’t look to me like you have much access to women in here. I don’t know what I’d end up with.”
He just laughed and said, “Oh hell McClanahan, you just close your eyes and pretend and it’s all the same. I swear to you it’s better than on the outside because it all happens between the ears. It all happens in the mind.”
One night, the day before the last class, I sat in my living room and I told my wife, “I feel like I need to say something to this guy. I know it sounds stupid, but I feel like I need to say something.”
I felt like I needed to encourage him somehow, so that when he got out in a couple of years — he really could do this. I needed to tell him when he got out I would help him in any way I could, write to anyone he needed. I thought about all of the stupid shit I’ve done in my life. Things I’ve never been punished for, even now.
I went back on the final night of our class and I gave back the essays. I told them it seemed like just a couple of days ago, but three months had already passed. The summer session was over. I shook all of their hands and told them good luck, and they shook my hand and told me good luck. And just as they were leaving, I stopped Rodriguez and I told him how great his essays were, and how he could do this.
I told him how much his stories had meant to me.
I told him he really could find his mother if he wanted.
Five years.
I told him not to let these guys kick the human being out of him.
It was only five years.
And Rodriguez just looked at me like he couldn’t believe what I was saying.
He looked at me like I was messing with him.
Then he said, “Oh, I’m not getting out of here McClanahan. I’m a fucking lifer — murder one. I just made all of that shit up for you to have something to talk about in this stupid fucking class.”
I didn’t know what to say. Was he joking? I couldn’t tell with guys in here.
He went out into the yard and started talking to a couple of guys and they started laughing too.
It was stupid, wasn’t it? Thesis statements, transitional phrases, topic sentences, 119046, 117843.
I looked at Rodriguez’s face and I didn’t want it to be true. It was like no matter how long he tried he was never going to be able to teach me anything.
So I thought about his mother — gone.
I thought about his murdered father — gone.
I thought about his hope and his stories — all gone.
And so later that night, waiting for Kincaid to walk me out, Kincaid looked out of the barred glass of education and pointed to Rodriguez who was standing beneath a flickering light, all alone, smoking a cigarette.
Kincaid, the prison guard, said, “You see that guy there. That guy is smarter than shit — probably the smartest fucking guy in here. He goes around like a fucking gang banger, but the truth is, he’s just a spoiled ass rich kid from the suburbs what I hear. Look, doesn’t even have any tats on him. Look at his face. His face is smooth. From what I hear he ended up killing somebody.”
I stood looking at Rodriguez and I thought about waiting and loving mothers and crossing far away rivers.
I heard Kincaid say, “You can’t trust any of these guys. Everybody has a choice in this life. You remember what I told you the first day we met?”
It was like Kincaid wasn’t even talking to me anymore, but was repeating a mantra of some kind, a mantra known only to him.
I looked at Rodriguez and wondered who he killed, a girlfriend, a dealer?
His mother?
So that night after lockdown Kincaid gathered up his radio and his prison keys and we made small talk. Then he took out a picture of this little girl and showed it to me. It was a picture of Kincaid’s little girl who was about two years old with blonde hair, and she was wearing a hat that had a little cartoon kitten on it.
“She’s a beauty isn’t she?”
“Yeah she’s a cute kid.”
“Oh God I love her so much,” Kincaid said.
And so Kincaid put it back into his pocket and his face shined so full of love.
I went home that night feeling like I was going to be sick.
I listened in my head as Kincaid’s words twirled about how proud he was and how he loved the little girl.
I thought about her face.
Maybe he was right. We all make choices in this world and that was the scary part. Kincaid’s little girl was so far away from this place. Kincaid’s little girl was so far away from the talk of lockdowns, TB outbreaks, prison riots, drug convictions, and lying men.
So I was surprised a year or two later, after I stopped teaching a class at the federal prison because it was just too much. I awoke one morning and there was snow on the ground. I turned on the television and saw a picture of a little girl on the local television newscast. There was something about the picture of this little girl that looked familiar. She was two years old in the picture and she had blonde hair and she was wearing this hat with a Hello Kitty on it. I felt like I knew this girl. I saw a man being escorted into court wearing an orange jumpsuit and he looked familiar. I saw who it was. I saw who it was before the reporter even said his name, “Kincaid…a prison guard for the past ten years at the federal prison in Beckley.”
Then the reporter said Kincaid was being arraigned that morning for the murder of his three-year-old daughter who was found beaten to death the day before.
Now I saw one last thing.
It was the little girl in the picture — gone.
I sat watching the television and I saw Kincaid’s sad and shocked face. I thought back to the class and I heard Rodriguez quoting, “Nothing human is alien to me.”
I whispered to myself, “Nothing human is alien to me. Nothing human is alien to me.”
That was the scary part.
And so I sat and wondered if this is the way the world works. I knew you couldn’t trust anyone in this life, not even yourself. I wondered what murder was waiting inside of me to commit. I wondered what murder was waiting inside of the person who was reading this.
And so now I lay me down to sleep and sometimes I dream this strange dream. I dream that we’re all back at the federal prison except we’re outside the prison walls now. We’re all there, all the people I’ve ever known and all the people in the world are there. And you’re there too. We’re all cold and scared and shivering and Kincaid and Rodriguez are there as well. They’re arguing over this life and what our actions are guided by. No one can figure it out. No one can figure out who the prisoners are and who the prison guards are, and who even the guilty are. And so we’re all standing outside the prison walls and we’re all arguing over this. It’s night. And there’s lightning — a black and white night.
And we’re all fighting.
We’re all fighting to get back inside.
SUICIDE NOTES
It had been a rough year already and I needed someone to talk to.
One morning I was just hanging out in my office and I clicked on an e-mail.
It was from my boss, and it said, I’m sorry to inform everyone about the passing of our colleague, Nicole Owings, this morning at CAMC in Charleston. More details and funeral arrangements to follow.
I sat at my desk and felt like somebody had kicked the shit out of me.
Nicole Owings.
She couldn’t have been 50.
I guessed it was a heart attack or something.
Then Mr. Davis stuck his head through my door and said, “Did you get the e-mail?” I shook my head yes.
He said, “Isn’t that horrible? I guess it must have been a heart attack or something.”