by Donna Marie McCabe
McKinney writing award, honorable mention, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Barbed wire draped neatly over cement walls, white paint chipping away. Driving by was a bad part. I pulled over to the side of the road, got out of my car and sat on the hood. It was drizzling out. I smoked a cigarette.
Ominous guard towers loomed high above the walls, probably filled with guards with guns.
Guards with guns. Barbed wire. Prison walls. Prison walls. Prison walls.
I can do this. I stomped out my cigarette and got back in my car.
All vehicles beyond this point are subject to search.
I walked through the parking lot, looking at the barbed wire from within. I shivered while smoking. I touched the cold metal door. It was almost too heavy for me to push through. I listened to the door slam behind me. I entered and nothing has been the same since. Inside the prison walls. Inside the prison, where each day is like a year - a year whose days are long.
You know that you won't be able to wear that pin inside?
I had read the sign. I knew I could not wear the pin inside. I could not wear my necklace inside. I could not wear my rings inside. I could not wear my watch inside. I could not bring cigarettes, matches, or paper money inside. I could not wear mini skirts, half shirts, tank tops, denim jackets, ripped clothes or anything with easy access.
But I took my feelings inside. I took my heart inside. I took my life inside.
There's a discrepancy with your address Ma'am. What is your correct address? What is your social security number? Do you have any identification with your current address on it? What is the purpose of your visit? Have you ever been convicted of a felony? Have you ever served time in a penitentiary? Have you locked your car?
Have I really thought about what I'm doing?
All visitors subject to search. Wait for your name to be called.
Sit on a bench. Smoke a cigarette. Wait on a bench. Smoke another cigarette. Go to the bathroom and throw up. Sit on the bench. Smoke anothe. . . John Smith, the guard bellowed out. Well, it was not my name that they finally called. Didn't they tell me to wait for my name to be called? I jumped up, stomped out my cigarette and proceeded further in. Inside the prison walls.
The thick, metal door slid to the side and I was escorted in. All personal belongings locked up outside, asked the lady guard as if she were the directory assistance operator asking, What city please? My thoughts are hidden; she cannot paw through them like my meager possessions laid out on her small table.
Take off your coat and hang it on the hook. Take off your shoes and put them in the bucket. Leave your visit slip in the bucket with all loose change and key to locker. Take off your belt. Walk behind curtain. Stand six inches from wall. Lift your arms up parallel to floor. Spread legs. Open mouth, lift tongue. Close mouth.
Don't ask questions. Don't make a sound. Get felt up. Get a hand jammed up your crotch. Get close inspection between tits. Turn around. Lift up hair. Get hand run over ass. Have collar checked. Turn around. Turn pockets out.
Walk through metal detector. Metal detector goes off. Take off hair clip. Walk through metal detector. Metal detector goes off. Get searched again. Walk through metal detector. Pass metal detector test.
Sit on bench, wait for shoes. Watch guard search coat and play with shoes. Put on shoes. Put on coat. Get infrared stamp on inside right wrist. Put loose change back in pockets. Pick up visit slip. Wait for door to slide open.
Waiting. Waiting inside sounds like clinking and clanking. Clinking and clanking of chains on the floor, and then through the door came three young men, dressed all in blue. Cuffs on their hands, cuffs on their feet, and all chained to each other. I was pushed aside as the new inmates trudged in. Life to be spent inside these prison walls. Where each day is like a year - a year whose days are long.
Waiting. Can't she read my impatience to be done with her? Or is it exactly that she can. Only a few tortures later I proceed through the doors. Inside the prison. I walked into the visiting room which was lined with chairs and had the drone of people talking and crying. It smelled like people smoking.
Hand in your slip and look for your inmate. Look for your inmate and hold back your tears. Hold back your tears and collect all your fears. Collect all your fears and look for your inmate. Find your inmate and hold back your tears. Inside the prison you'll find your inmate and fight off the tears for how many years?
I walked in and felt disorganized, stupid, drunk, and confused. I wanted a cigarette. I handed my slip to the guard at the desk watching surveillance TV, and I immediately looked for the cameras. On a quick glance around I caught John getting up to greet me and thought back to our days in court.
Court - from the side of the defense. The side of the defense who is 19 and full of life. The side of the defense whose mother sobs quietly in the row in front of me. The side of the defense who sits less than 20 feet away, uncuffed, clean shaven, and convicted of murder, twice over.
For the Commonwealth stands the police, the system, the powerhouses, and the distributors of the wealth. For the defense stands a public defender, young friends, and a room full of doubt. No such thing as innocent until proven guilty.
A son who was also arrested for this hideous crime, thought the blame would look good on his friend. John is my friend, is what he will say. John is my friend so I'll give him my crime.
One friend arrested for a crime done by a son. One friend arrested with no motive for this deed. A system that thrives on the most number dead. A system that thrives on the most number locked away, never to bother the cops again. A system that goes out of its way to do what it thinks is its job. A system that's lost all sense of its job.
A small town not prepared for a crime of this kind. They sent in their team and called in their best yet no one believed. A son who was arrested for a hideous crime of shooting his parents with some guns he received as a gift from his dad. Guns from a father as a gift to a son. A son who cared more for bullshit and lies than for his parents or friend. A son who felt pressured and could take no more took the lives of his parents. He took the lives of his parents for bullshit and greed. Lies and money.
No one will ever know what happened in that small town on a warm May night in 1989. No one except John and his young friend; his young liar. It does not matter how it happened, or why it happened, just that it happened. It happened in a split second, but it took two lives. Two lives of his friend's parents. Two parents taken from their two children. One son arrested. One friend arrested. So much blood poured from two bodies. Blood from parents pooled on the floor, splattered on walls, leaking through cracks to the rooms below. Blood everywhere. Holes in the headboard, holes in the walls, holes in their heads. Almost too much blood to seem real. But no tears. No tears from their son on the night that his parents are killed.
Back and forth I went, inside the courtroom, outside the courtroom, gathering witnesses and calming folks down. That's my job. Its only my job, and my job is what I do. This is only my job.
A mother who is young for having a son of 19. She is crying while watching a jury, a judge, a lawyer, and reporters make her son seem a liar, a plotter, a planner, and killer. How does a mother who is young for having a son of 19 watch her son die before her? How does this mother's father who is young for having a grandson of 19 sit and watch his life be ripped out from under him? How does his friend who is young for having a friend of 19 wait outside the courtroom in anticipation of being called as a witness? How does his ex-girlfriend lie, plan, and plot to kill her old lover?
A son who is young for being on trial for murder. He is holding back tears while watching a jury, a judge, a lawyer, and reporters make him seem a liar, a plotter, a planner, and killer. How does he smile to his mother while being escorted into the holding cell? How do his eyes twinkle with innocence and youth during a trial for murder? How does he wait for so many months and years for a trial and still have a soul? Waiting. When each day is like a year - a year whose days are long.
My job is to sit in the back of the courtroom to see what is happening. I go out on breaks and talk to the witnesses, talk to the friends, talk to my boss. My job is to listen to people's lies and lie right back to them. I tell them it's going to be okay and console their tears. I hold back my tears and wait. I wait for the trial to begin again. Wait just one more torture - then court will begin.
They've got nothing on him except for . . .
The deceaseds' son who is young for having been convicted of murder. In his cell at night he plans and he plots how his friend at the time came and murdered his parents that night. The door was locked. We did not enter the room. The door was unlocked. Got blood on my foot when I walked in the room. Stairs that don't creak caused my parents to wake. Lights that work fine don't work at all.
Deals are struck between a murderer and the system to lock up the most number of people for the most number of years. Deals work well for this state. He'll take the deal - that deal John won't take - and it gets him off. It gets him off with murder two and 15 years from a crime he admits. Parole for the story that puts John away. Parole in exchange for testimony against John. Parole for a story against John, not for a testimony of facts. Part of his deal makes him a liar, a plotter, a planner, and killer. He agrees to the case that John is the killer and spends time in his cell planning and plotting so that is his truth. He kills his young friend for the deal of his life.
An ex-girlfriend who is young for having a son of her own. She plans and she plots and she kills her old love. The love that had ended with names; names that would kill. Slut. Slam-pig. Whore. Names that would kill her old love for having ever spoken them. If he had only kept his mouth shut. Here and again later he should speak no words, for words harm more than seven shots fired at close range into the heads and necks and bodies of two sleeping parents. Words that destroy whatever love they shared and whatever compassion she had once known.
She heard the unspoken and spoke it. She spoke it with plans of killing her old love. She spoke it in anger and hatred, using words that would kill. Planner, plotter, kill the mother, is what she said. She heard the unspoken and rattled it around in her head. She heard him say slut and spoke it as planner. She heard him say slam-pig and spoke it as plotter. She heard him say whore and called him a killer, made him a convict and sent him to jail.
A jury that cares less about what he said than what they thought he meant, less about his actions than what they thought were his intentions. They cared for neither this detail nor that detail so much as for the whole fantastic story. They know not what he is now nor what he was at the time of his crime, but what they had always seen him to be. A jury that lives by the stories they create. A jury that hears what it wants to hear. A jury that's tired of a two week trial and want's to go home. A jury that - no matter what - is sure to be right.
Guilty. Guilty, they said with tears in their eyes. Guilt twice over, the jury planned and plotted inside. We'll find him guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt. We'll find him guilty for he admits to being there with the deceaseds' son pointing a gun to his head. Oh, a gun to his head? We must have been dozing when he said that. Why didn't he just leave? Why did he stay? Run to the door and we'll rip your whole fucking life away. Was he locked outside at the time of the crime - we don't really care. You sealed your fate with your own testimony. Words that hurt him more than seven shots to the head. You showed no remorse, is what they said. You're being convicted based on the testimony of a killer who alleges you were there. You're being convicted by your friend. YouÍre guilty by association and your face showed no cries. Guilty for not crying in public.
We knew you were crying inside. From inside the prison we heard the news at work. Suicide lock-up - what's that all about? We thought you had cracked, and we investigated why. Why would anyone crack over no chance of parole for a crime they didn't commit? Precaution, says the jail. He's awfully young for a sentence like this, does he understand why? Of course he knows why, but that doesn't help. Get him out now before they kill him inside. Inside the prison.
I felt at the time that John had handled it better than I. I cried as I drove home and saw his face in the windows of newspaper boxes. I cried when I got home and thought about all that was lost. A man who was young for a conviction of murder twice over. A man who was never to drive again, never to go to the movies again, never to eat his mother's food again, never to be free again. No chance of parole. Never to make love to a woman again. Words that hurt more than seven shots to the head. It went on for weeks and I tortured myself. All that I did was think of the things he had lost when he trudged into jail. Life to be spent inside the prison.
I could not believe that I would still try if that were me inside. I wrote one single letter, that was all that it took, and let him know how I cared. He'd not been locked away and forgotten. He mattered to me even if he didn't matter to himself. I wrote one single letter full of hesitation.
Inside the prison was not easy for me. This was no longer part of my job. I thought I would cry but was too nervous for that. I wonder how we'd greet, since I knew in advance, that we'd visit in contact. It was not like the movies and not like the books. It was simply a room full of convicts and crooks. I feared for my life and I feared for my heart when he reached out and hugged me and thanked me for coming. We were inches apart but worlds separated in heartache and misery. I thought I should have just shaken his hand, but that glimmer in his eyes and his outreached hands changed him from the boy in the courtroom to the man in my hands. Mind taking a walk with me, Mr. Smith?
I'm sorry, you're going to have to cool down over here. If you're going to take your coat off, you'll have to hang it on a hook. Both feet must be on the floor at all times. We don't want to have to write you up for that Mr. Smith. Kissing is fine, just keep your hand off her tits. The rules of the system throwing innocent men into jail, the system that does whatever it wants could not keep me from the man that I love. No eavesdropping bastards would tear us apart.
We smoked, talked, smoked, smoked, talked, and hugged good-bye when Visits are over, was called. The guards watching us, then watching the clock. Visits are over Mr. Smith - didn't you hear what I said? And then up went my hand in the fragile gesture which I have come to know so well. A timid sign born of prison parting.
No such thing as innocent until proven guilty. No such thing as reasonable doubt. I left him my heart and love inside the prison. I left my love inside the prison, and hope that someday there will be such a thing as a reasonable doubt. Appeals that take longer to come than we hoped. A sixth amendment right that gets lost in the shuffle. Inside the prison he waits for his trial. Outside the walls I wait for the day when I meet my love in the place we first met. When our eyes catch a glance in the courtroom that day, and the judge reads not guilty. Not guilty, twice over he'll say.