Chapter 7 Books of the Saints

During that time, I was heavily involved with all the criminal enterprises on the yard. I had my hand in the gambling rackets, drug and tobacco trade, and the smuggling of cell phones. Solano’s politics were not as rigid as other prisons I had been at, and although there were still racial lines, the tension was nonexistent, and it was all about making money. Asians were considered neutral in prison politics, which gave us a competitive advantage in the hustling game. We could be intermediaries or brokers for most transactions on the yard, whereas the other races could not directly deal with each other. Because of that, I knew all the major players in the underground economy of prison and was connected to an extensive network.

Most of these players had gang ties. This network supported my belief that gang members were at the top of the hierarchy and fueled the shallow part of me that chased recognition. Together, we plotted how to bring contraband into the prison. I told myself I was providing a service for the other prisoners and never once thought about how I was preying on them and their family members on the streets, since it was family who usually paid for these transactions.

This went on for several years. It was like a game of cat and mouse with the prison officials; they knew I was up to something but not sure what. I finally got busted with some cell phones and tobacco in quick succession, and the prison deemed me a program failure. A program failure meant a prisoner could not follow the rules on the mainline and would be sent to solitary confinement. I was sentenced to 270 days in the hole. Since none of my charges were violent, though, they kept me on the yard and took away all my privileges: no recreational yard, no television or CD player, no visits, no phone calls. I was limited to my dorm twenty-three hours a day, allowed just one hour to get some exercise and shower.

Between sleeping and reading, I leaned on the low wall that divided our dorms from each other and watched the routines of the men in the building. In one corner, a group of blacks would be working out at the same time every day. Once they finished, a group of Hispanics would use that time to do their exercise routine. At the dayroom tables, the same group of guys sat at the same tables every day, playing chess, pinochle, or dominoes. I became a silent observer and noticed many different characters.

For example, there was Success, an African American who sat at the same table day in and day out and played chess. He wore the same clothes each day: one gray sweatshirt worn as pajama pants, his legs coming out through the sleeves, and a prison- issued blue chambray shirt, the top three buttons fastened. The blue shirt would always part around his white T-shirt, showing his potbelly underneath. On his head was a beanie made out of another sweatshirt sleeve. He referred to himself in the third person. Every time he won his chess game, he would do a grotesque little dance and mock, “Told you, Success gonna get that ass!” Success had been down over thirty-two years, and as he said it, “Success ain’t ever goin’ home.”

Then there was Fred, who had been in for over twenty years. Everyone knew he killed his stepfather because he would be the first to share it. He claimed that his stepfather had been molesting his sister and abusing his mother. Freddie would always have a constant scowl on his face and wore headphones around his neck. When he became upset, his whole face would become beet red. Lots of guys would go out of their way to get Freddie upset just for the reaction. For some reason, Freddie liked to come down to the low partition wall by my bunk and talk to me. He had this habit, though, as many men do in prison, of not making eye contact when talking with someone. He would lean up one side of the wall with his back to me, and I would be on the other side of it, propped up by my elbows, both of us looking out over the dayroom. Freddie would constantly complain to me about the other men who were in our building.

Todd was one of those guys who could help you get whatever you needed. He would help people get signed up for an upcoming church event and in the same day sell some heroin that he was moving for someone else. To have him tell it, “I’m just tryin’ to help people find what they lookin’ for.” He knew I liked fresh vegetables, and he had a connection to the prison kitchen. At least a couple of times a week, he would stop by my bunk area and sell me an assortment of onions, bell peppers, or a head of cabbage. Todd was in for a kidnap robbery. He told me that had he known the board would keep him over twenty-eight years on a seven-to-life sentence, he would have been better off killing someone.

One day, I noticed Todd sat at a table with his parole hearing transcripts in front of him. He sat across from one of the Real Talk guys. They were a group of old-time lifers, most of them African American, most of them in for over thirty years. For some reason, though, these guys still had not lost hope and had created public speaking events called Real Talk. I remember attending a couple of these talks and admiring their courage to be able to get up and speak. They spoke about the board, the recent court rulings, and how we could actually start going home.

I had been hearing about the In re Lawrence case for several years and over that time saw only a handful of men that got released. Most of them were in their sixties, had done upward of thirty years, and had exemplary prison records. But I started seeing guys from Real Talk go to the parole board and get found suitable. Of course, the governor always reversed the findings, and they still had to fight their cases to the courts, similar to In re Lawrence. These Real Talk guys had a certain confidence and joy in their demeanor. Everyone knew them as the guys to talk to if you wanted to find out anything about the board. They were all willing to help people as long as they were on the straight and narrow, unlike me.

As I watched Todd, I noticed he looked uncomfortable. Freddie was leaned up against the wall next to me.

“That’s Donnie over there sitting with Todd. He works up in the lens lab. He is one of those Real Talk guys that thinks they can help people go home.” Freddie snickered. “Those guys really think they are somebody. I remember him from Folsom. You can’t forget that big head of his anywhere.” He adjusted his headphones around his neck and then continued to talk incessantly about everyone else in the dayroom. I had tuned Freddie out.

A little while later, Todd came by my bunk area with a fresh onion.

“Hey, Todd, what were you and that Real Talk guy doing at the table earlier?” I asked.

“Oh, he helpin’ me get ready for the board. He gonna come each week to sit down wit’ me. They finally lettin’ lifers go home, and I’m gonna go, too. I done way too much time already.” He paused. “Sheeit. There ain’t no reason I should still be in prison after twenty-eight years. I didn’t kill no one.”

I did, though, I thought to myself. 

I began to peel the onion so that I could add it to my Top Ramen noodles. “So do these Real Talk guys only help black folks?” I joked with Todd. “They won’t help no Asian folks go home, would they?”

“Quan, ain’t no way you goin’ home. Look at you. You just got busted. You ain’t done twenty-five years yet. You can’t even leave your bunk area. What make you think you can leave prison?”

We both laughed at the hilarity of it all.

Success jumped in on the conversation. “When Success go home, that when you got action. Success ain’t goin’ home, you ain’t goin’ home. You only been in eleven years. You better stop thinkin’ that and just do your time, Youngster!” He adjusted the sweatshirt around his legs and shuffled back out to the dayroom for another game of chess.

That night, I lay in my bed and thought it all over. I would not go to the parole board for another three years, and I still did not know what I was going to do. There were a handful of guys on the yard, mostly from the Real Talk group, who had been found suitable by the board. They were waiting for the governor to review their cases, which took around 150 days. There was a mandated 120 days for review, plus an additional 30 days for approval from the governor. Of course, finally hearing about guys who were found suitable gave me hope that perhaps one day I, too, might get to go home. There was another part of my mind that I had not touched on yet, though, where all my darkest secrets were. That dark abyss told me I was going to die in prison.

The following week, I was lying in my bunk reading A Game of Thrones when the building officer called my name over the PA system and told me to report to their desk. This was not good, I thought to myself. I walked out of my dorm toward the podium, and Donnie from Real Talk was standing there with the officer.

They both watched me as I approached.

The officer said to me,“Donnie is here to give you an intervention.” He looked at Donnie, shook his head, and said, “Good luck with this one.” He crossed his arms back over his potbelly and began to scan the dayroom. “Let me see how I can fight crime today. I know these guys are up to something.” He got up and began walking, his keys jingling as he walked throughout the building, announcing his presence to everyone that he was on the move.

Donnie and I both looked at each other and laughed. He directed me to one of the tables in the dayroom. He sat down at one of the four seats, and I sat to his right. Donnie shook his head and pointed at the seat across from him. I slid to the seat and put my hands on the cold, metal table. He stared at me and said, “So Todd tells me you think I only want to help black folks go home.” It was not a question.

I laughed hesitantly. “You can help people go home? How?”

“Well, I am not here to help you go home. I am here to see who you are, get a feel for your self-understanding, and see how we can get you on the path to demonstrate that you are no longer a danger to society.” His emphasis had me curious.

“How do I...demonstrate it?” I asked.

Donnie looked at me and said, “Tell me about yourself.”

I did not know how to answer, so began fumbling through my words. “Well, I’ve been down for eleven years, in for second- degree murder. It was gang related.” I always had to make sure everyone knew my case was gang related. Definitely did not want anyone to think I had killed a girlfriend or loved one. I rambled on, “They put me on C-status for 270 days because of cell phones and tobacco. I started my time at Pelican Bay and then from there transferred to—”

“Hold up.” He held up his hands, and I noticed they were rather large, almost like catcher’s mitts. “I had asked you to tell me about yourself. I did not ask you to tell me how long you have been in, for what, or even why you are on C-status.” He breathed in, then said, “Tell me about yourself, Quan.”

I looked down at the metal table and noticed the old graffiti marks that men had scratched into the table over the years. My eyes scanned the dayroom. I wanted to look everywhere but at Donnie. Is this why Freddie never looks at anyone in the eyes? I had not felt so self-conscious in years and was at a loss for words.

Donnie then started, “My name is Donnie. I grew up in...” As he continued talking, I found myself in awe of how he described himself. I do not remember the exact words, but I got the image of a man who was OK with all his faults and his failures and how he had overcome them all. He was content and happy and was not giving up, despite doing over twenty-five years on a seven-to-life sentence. He finished and looked at me. There was a knowing look of amusement on his face. “Don’t worry, Quan. We’ll get you there one day.” He slid over a piece of paper and drew a line across the bottom. “OK, let’s say this is your life timeline. I want you to label out significant events in your life.”

I looked down at the line and drew one vertical hash. “This is where my father died.” I drew several more. “Here is my first arrest. Here is where I was found guilty at trial and given my life sentence. This is where I was sent to Pelican Bay. This is when I went to Donovan. Here is where I was transferred to Soledad.

And now, I am here at Solano.”

“Quan, I notice that you only described the bad events that happened to you. Tell me, what do you like about yourself?”

Like about myself? I thought. I was scrambling to figure out how to answer; I was not sure what I liked about myself. Donnie continued to look at me. I was uncomfortable, so I lashed back out at him. “What is the point of all this anyway? How does any of this help me at the board? I got a life sentence because I was snitched on by my homeboy. Those dudes had it coming anyway. I am here on C-status because some snitches in here told on me!” After the words left my mouth, I knew they sounded off, but I was not sure why.

“Quan, I had asked you what you liked about yourself, and you went off justifying to me why you are in prison for murder. You do realize the board would have bashed you over the head talking like that, right? You would be in the same boat as all these other lifers on this yard—never going home.” He slid a book over to me. Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child by John Bradshaw. “Start reading this, and I will be back next week.” He sighed. “We have quite a bit of work to do.”

I was quite discouraged after my talk with Donnie. I was horrified that I had been unable to name anything I liked about myself. I went and lay down in my bed and opened up the book he had given me. In it, I learned about what the author called the wounded inner child, also known as the unresolved issues from childhood and adolescence. These still very much affected me. I learned that this wounded inner child needed to be reclaimed and that I needed to champion him if I was to continue growing as a responsible, balanced, and healthy adult. These were terms that I was unfamiliar with, yet suddenly I had a glimmer of hope in my life. Until I opened the book, I didn’t realize how much self-loathing and self-hatred I had developed over the years.

Donnie continued to come every week, and I began to ravenously read at least two books a week that drew my attention. I found books that were recommended from other prisoners or in discarded piles in the dayroom. Books with titles such as Self- Esteem, Change Your Thinking Change Your Life, The Prophet, Road Less Traveled, and Emotional Intelligence. Hidden treasures that were there for me to read all these years and I never saw them! I was excited to try and draw lessons from each book and apply them to my life.

My first bunky at Pelican Bay had given me a blue spiral-bound notebook that I never used, yet held on to throughout the years. Some of the pages were tattered and coming loose around the spine, but I now had a use for it. I jotted down quotes that resonated with me, and my blue notebook was soon filled up with scrawls and notes about particular areas of my life I wanted to refine, influenced from each of the books I read. Many evenings while restricted to my dorm, I read at the low wall, and scribbled quotes in my blue notebook.

These spiritual giants helped transform the way I thought and how I saw the world. Many books felt like they were written to help me through my own struggle with darkness, and I noticed there was a recurring theme of not dealing with failure in my life. When my father died and I believed I was somehow responsible, I became resentful, rejected God, and never properly processed his death. When I failed my SATs in high school, I tried to escape by signing up for the reserves. When Gallup did not promote me, it was easier to find someone to take it out on instead of facing why I was not a fit.

In my dorm, I examined why I felt so averse to anything that might cast me in a bad light and how that influenced me to lie to myself and make my choices. I found many quotes that resonated with me, shedding light on how I began my journey into darkness:

“Failure wounds our pride, and it is the wounded animal who is vicious. In the healthy organism failure will be a stimulus to self-examination. But since the evil individual cannot tolerate self-criticism, it is in time of failure that he or she will inevitably lash out one way or another.”

—M. Scott Peck, The People of the Lie

“The longer we continue to make the wrong decisions, the more our heart hardens; the more often we make the right decision, the more our heart softens.”

—Erich Fromm, The Heart of Man

“A series of little lies can eventually blur one’s capacity to see moral distinctions about big things.”

—Charles Colson, Born Again

“Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature.”

—C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

I suspected there was something wrong with my life, my sense of identity, and with me as a person. I was afraid to admit that my sense of self was all fake, and spiraled into a deep depression. In my reasoning, any sense of identity, no matter how ugly, was much better than no sense of identity. The books I read gave me encouragement to find my way. One evening when Donnie came by, I mustered up the courage to share my thoughts with him.

“I feel disgusted with myself, Donnie, and realize I have no true substance as a person. Everything about my image, reputation, and identity have been built to cast myself in a good light to others.” He sat quietly and let me continue. “On the yard, I wanted to be known as a hustler. In the gang, my reputation was built on violence and loyalty. With my family and college professors, I wanted to be recognized as smart and capable. I’m a total fake, and I don’t even know who the hell I am.” I felt so lost.

Donnie, to his credit, gave me space to continue talking and did not interrupt or try to give advice. At the end of our session, a small spark of excitement settled over me. In talking things out loud, I realized I had a blank slate to resurrect a new identity if I wanted to.

One day, I sat in the dayroom with headphones on, my blue notebook open. I was in my own world, undisturbed. At a nearby table were a pile of discarded books. I looked them over, and the titles looked uninteresting. In the small stack was a Bible, and for some reason I felt moved to open it. Inside, I found words that gave me solace, inspiration, and most importantly, hope. There was a theme of casting off old selves in order to embrace the new. Over the years in prison, I randomly showed up in church here and there, but it always felt empty. That Sunday, I attended Mass and felt the power of the words for the first time in my life.

A whole new world opened up for me inside prison. Eventually in my search for knowledge, I became fascinated with books on the saints. They were all flawed in one way or another and yet were able to build something of their lives and leave lasting legacies. One of my favorites was Saint Francis of Assisi, born into a rich family of merchants. Despite his wealth, he was described as a rogue and a hedonist and was eventually imprisoned. One day, he encountered a man on the side of the road who had parts of his face and hands eaten away by leprosy, yet uncharacteristically embraced him with love and kindness. That is where his process of conversion began, as he walked away from riches and what the world saw as valuable. Saint Francis went on to found the Franciscan order.

I wished I could meet these spiritual heroes and pick their minds. At least I could glimpse their intimate thoughts by reading their writings, I reasoned. At that point, I wanted to salvage something of my life, despite my failures as a human being. This kindled the first spark of how I wanted to resurrect myself, even if I were to die in prison. Like Saint Francis, I could treat lepers around me with love and kindness. On the prison yard, we had our own lepers—men who were mentally challenged, socially outcast, or discarded as people not even worth talking to.

In a way, I felt like a leper myself and only wanted to be embraced. 

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