My Young Friend

There’s a young black man in here who goes home on December 31^st. He’s a good kid. That may be an overstatement. See, “good” in here – I realized some time ago – isn’t the same thing as “good” outside the fence. Good means he’s not conning anyone, or bullying or extorting anyone. Good means he avoids trouble, steers clear of the gangs, and the drugs, and the stupid racial animus that grips so much of day to day living in here. It’s not really a high bar that’s set, but somehow he manages.

And I like the kid. I really like him. He was a decent high school athlete – good enough that a couple of Division 1 football programs offered him scholarships. He turned them down, joined the army, and two years later – with his girlfriend pregnant – got busted with drugs and two stolen guns. He found himself out of the army and in prison. I’ve learned these past five years that his story is typical of so many other young black men in prison. Perhaps that’s what’s weighing on me as I see him get close to release. He’s coming back. I hate saying it, but it’s as true as the sun rising in the east. He’s coming back.

How do I know? You can see it in their faces, hear it in their voices. Show me a guy who wants to be liked by the numbskulls, who tells you he’s a “grown ass man” yet insists on following every other guy’s lead, and I can almost guarantee a return trip to corrections. Here’s the thing about so many of the young black guys I meet in here: They crave fitting in. every expression, every mannerism is a repeat of ten other guys. They all want to look the same, act the same, be the same.

I kind of understand it. Prison spends a great deal of time seeking uniformity. What you can wear, what you can buy, even what you can listen to and read is regulated. Grooming policies limit hair length. You act too much like an individual and you end up on the administration’s radar, and that’s usually not a good place to be.

So guys try and lay low.  It’s easier running hustles and ignoring the rules when you’re with a pack. But, you can’t find your way in a group. You can’t face your demons when they’re all around you. And, demons are what bring you back in here.

He’s a good kid, and he loves his little boy. I’ve seen them together in the visitation room.  His son, on his way to five, jumps in his lap when he arrives. The boy never leaves his dad’s side. “You’ll be home soon,” the little boy tells him. I watch them and remember how it was when both my boys were that age, how I’d wrestle with them, and chase them, and I’d let them climb all over me. I watch them and remind myself, the little boy is just a visitor, a visitor in prison.

“I’m going home to be a good dad and never coming back,” he tells me. He sounds sincere. Funny, that’s his name, “Sincere.” See, he runs with the five percenters and they name you after an “attribute.” That’s how guys run around here calling each other “Magnetic,” or “Dominance,” or “Viscous.” Problem is, calling yourself something doesn’t make it so. That’s just one in a series of problems with the philosophical underpinnings of the “5%ers.”

He says he’s going in a different direction, but what he says doesn’t match what he does. He has an overwhelming need to be accepted. “I’m the most popular guy on the east side,” he told me one day. I told him being popular in prison, with guys who see this bid as just a fieldstone on their path of criminal activity, isn’t what you want. See, to get along with the crowd in here requires you to ignore that little voice inside which keeps saying over and over, “I’m going the wrong way.” And, my young friend doesn’t get that.

Male children of incarcerated black adult males are four times as likely to be incarcerated as little black boys whose fathers haven’t been to prison. That is an ugly fact. But, it should tell young black fathers in here how important it is for them to break the cycle. No father wants his son to experience this.

So “Sincere” is sincere when he says “I’m gonna be a good dad. My son won’t go through this.” Yet, there he was last week, getting fresh ink done in his cut. What’s the risk – besides hepatitis or a dozen other diseases? He gets caught and he loses his 30 day adjustment days, plus six more. Thirty-six days. Doesn’t sound like a lot, but everybody in here, every day away from your little boy, is a day you can’t get back.

And then I tell him this. I “knew” the risks behind what I was doing, but I really didn’t. I thought I carefully calculated it all out: no jail time; no divorce; no estrangement from my sons. I rationalized it was all worth the risk; I’d save my marriage; my sons would have everything. I was wrong on all counts. I hadn’t calculated the damage it was doing to me; I completely misread the punishment, and my marriage, and my sons, and how I was solely responsible for the train wreck that became my family, my life.

He doesn’t see it. He’s “Big Man on the Compound.” Prison, I tell him, is no place to want to be successful or liked. Do your time, learn from it, and leave and be the best man you can be. I hope I’m wrong about my young friend. His failure will have repercussions.