Behind The Wall: A Novella

  I unfolded the sheet of paper that I’d been given, smoothing it out so it stayed flat for me to write on. I’d already sharpened my pencil against the edge of my metal bunkbed so at least I could write with it now. But words wouldn’t come.

  What could I say to a nice, clean woman like her? The best day of my life? I hoped that I hadn’t had it yet, because otherwise that would mean I had a helluva lot of shit still to come.

  Yeah, I’d had some good times, like when the Miro sisters had gotten some quality coke and we’d all gotten high and fucked our brains out. Definitely wasn’t going to be sharing that memory. Plus, I’d ended up with a killer nosebleed from snorting too much of that shit.

  And I couldn’t tell her about the time I managed to hotwire a 1991 Ferrari Testarossa and took her up to 145 mph before the cops caught me. One of a series of car-related stunts that got me landed in here.

  So if I couldn’t tell her about my life, what could I tell her? It would have to be some made-up shit.

  I thought about that for a while. Yeah, I could dream, same as any man in stir. We all dreamed about the day we’d be released. Well, maybe not Hudson—it gave him nightmares. But like I said, he was crazy.

  And I’d been thinking about getting out a lot lately, now that I could be paroled as soon as six or seven months. What was I going to do with my sorry-ass life? I knew that if I went home to the old neighborhood I’d be back in prison within a year; two if I was lucky.

  Breaking the rules in school had turned to breaking the laws when I got older, and sooner or later that shit catches up with you. What seems real funny when you’re twelve is a lot less funny when you’re standing before a judge who wants to send you to juvie for eight months. So you act like the big man and take your licks, but inside you’re dying just a little bit more.

  I was getting old. I’d just spent another birthday in prison—my thirtieth. I didn’t want this to be my life. My dreams had gotten smaller as I’d grown older. Now, I just wanted a nice place to live, nothing fancy, but clean and all mine, with a door I could lock myself and the keys stashed in my pocket; a steady job in an auto shop, maybe buy myself a banged up Shelby and fix it up for a hobby; have a regular woman, someone who wore her skirts a decent length and kept her pussy just for me. You know, small stuff, small dreams.

  But even those seemed impossible with my record. I’d be leaving prison with no home, no job, no woman, and no future. Guys like me don’t get happily ever after. If we’re lucky—which we’re usually not—we get a job that pays minimum wage or by the hour, and drink ourselves to death worrying about paying the rent on a shitty apartment or a shittier trailer. Like my old man.

  But I had to try. I had to, or staring at cell walls would be the next fifty years of my life. And who the fuck wants to live like that?

  So I scooted back on my lumpy mattress, leaning against the bare wall, the concrete feeling cool against my sweaty back, and I picked up my pencil, thinking hard, thinking about what life could be like if I dared to dream.

  Ella

  IT WAS MY third day at Nottoway, and my second session with the GED class.

  Day two had been teaching basic literacy skills to a different group of prisoners, and that had its own challenges. For one thing, adults don’t like admitting they don’t know their alphabet, and recent experience had taught me that showing any sort of weakness in prison, made you a target. So I had to handle the group carefully.

  I’d ended up devising a lot of my own resources, because I couldn’t use materials made for kindergarteners. ‘A’ was not for Apple, but the Ace of Spades. ‘B’ was not for Baby, but Baseball. And so on.

  There was a lot of aggression in that group, but luckily I’d been assigned a different corrections officer, a man named Martinez, and he’d had a calming effect on the prisoners. It really, really helped.

  I’d also had a quiet word with the Warden to see if I could get rid of Reynolds from the other group. He hadn’t been happy about it, but I pointed out that if he wanted his GED group to make the grade, I needed to be helped, not hindered. After that veiled threat, he’d promised to switch the officers around.

  Today, I was going to continue the discussion of Fire and Ice, but maybe try to steer it away from the sexual connotations I’d inadvertently initiated, and get them talking more about love and hate in general terms, as well as the structure and economy of the poem’s words.

  Although in all honesty, the most useful part for them would be when I got to the section of the curriculum where I taught them life skills. After all, what interest would a forty year old man have in interpreting a poem by Robert Frost when he was serving out the last two years of a dozen he’d gotten for armed robbery? Okay, I didn’t know what the men were in for, but the core of my point was valid. This was part of the GED, but so was teaching them how to balance a check book, pay taxes, or talk them through obtaining a business license so they could actually set up their lawn-cutting service or handyman business, and make a success of their lives when they left.

  I was relieved when I was escorted to my classroom by a taciturn corrections officer named Wilson. He wasn’t interested in talking to me, but he didn’t seem like the bullying type either. I hoped.

  I stood by the classroom door, welcoming every student, using names where I could remember them. But when Garrett sauntered in without looking at me, I felt my skin prickle and overheat.

  Damn the man! He hadn’t even looked at me—and I was trying to set a pleasant tone for the lesson. I wasn’t going to let him undermine me.

  “Welcome, everyone! Thank you for coming back.”

  I grinned at them, letting them know that I was in on the joke. There were a few limp smiles, but it was a start.

  “First, I’ll ask Mr. Benson to collect your essays from Monday. Please make sure that you’ve written your name at the top. I hope you all had a chance to write something, even if it was just a few lines . . .”

  “Now you tell us!” groaned the man sitting next to Garrett. “If I’d known you only wanted a few lines, I wouldn’t have busted my ass, pardon my French.”

  I laughed lightly.

  “The more you wrote, the better grip I’ll get on where you’re at academically, Mr. . . . Hudson.”

  I ignored the loud whisper from the back with someone saying they wouldn’t mind me getting a grip on them.

  Officer Wilson cleared his throat, but he didn’t pull out his baton or otherwise interrupt the lesson.

  But I felt a little jumpy when I saw Garrett’s eyes narrowed in my direction.

  The essays were placed on my desk and the man named Hudson winked at me as he walked past. But as he went to sit down, Garrett yanked out the chair so Hudson fell to the floor.

  “What the fuck, man?” snarled Hudson, leaping to his feet and clenching his fists.

  Garrett stared at him coolly, not even moving an inch.

  “Settle down, Hudson,” said my bodyguard calmly. “Garrett, anymore of that shit and you and me will be having words.”

  Garrett leaned back in his chair, a smirk on his handsome face.

  I was seething at his behavior, but carried on regardless, refusing to look in his direction for the rest of the lesson. I’d never let a student get to me like this before. The asshole had one more chance, and then I was kicking him out of my class. And I suspected that his last chance would be the essay . . . if he’d even attempted it.

  I sailed through the rest of the lesson on a cloud of self-justification, but managed to engage a good number of my students, as well. I wondered if it was too early to get them writing their own poetry. Probably. I’d assess what their literacy skills were before I decided about that.

  I needed to pick a classic piece of literature to study with them first; I’d hedge my bets by choosing something that had been turned into a movie, as well.

  The classroom was far too hot again, and the students’ responses were muted by the heavy humidity, rank with body odor that permeated the a
ir. I watched Garrett out of the corner of my eye as he pushed his shaggy hair out of his face, sweat beading on his forehead.

  At least this time I’d dressed more appropriately to hide my own sweaty state. I was wearing a navy blue golf t-shirt and pale gray wide-legged pants.

  I usually wore medium heels when I was teaching, to give me a bit of height, but I couldn’t do that in a prison: too feminine, and a spike heel could be used as a weapon.

  It was a learning curve for me as well as my students.

  At the end of the lesson, I was pleased and relieved when a few of the men mumbled their thanks, and Mr. Benson even stopped to ask me a question.

  “Miss, this Robert Frost dude—he a dead white man, yeah?”

  “Well, yes. He died in 1963.”

  “Figures.”

  “Ah, which part?” I asked, puzzled.

  “Waal, in school the poets they taught were always both of them things.”

  “Actually, I think you’ll find that’s not quite right on several levels.”

  “How you figure, Miss?”

  “First, Robert Frost had a pretty tough life. His father died when he was eleven, leaving the whole family in poverty. Then his mother died of cancer; his younger sister died in a mental hospital, and both his wife and daughter also suffered from mental illness. And second, there have been many well-known Black poets. Off the top of my head, Maya Angelou, Phyllis Wheatley, Frank Marshal Davis, but one of my favorite poets is Black, living, and British: Benjamin Zephaniah.”

  “That so?”

  “Yes,” I said, pleased so many names had come to mind.

  “Then how come we never studied them in school?”

  My smile fell.

  “I really don’t know, Mr. Benson. There are a lot of things that I wish were studied in school.”

  He nodded slowly, then turned to leave.

  “Appreciate that, Miss.”

  The door closed and I was left in silence. I glanced up at Officer Wilson, and saw the tiniest smile on his face.

  “Think I learned something, too,” he said, as he escorted me from the room.

  I felt like I’d run a marathon and won a boxing match. I was exhausted but happy.

  I can do this!

  But when I got home, my happy, positive vibe vanished like morning mist as I read through the men’s essays.

  The level of literacy was lower than I’d been led to believe, but worse than that, half of the essays were pornographic, and it felt as if they’d been written to put me in my place. Some were so unpleasant, I couldn’t bring myself to finish reading them.

  I sighed, and tossed aside another so-called essay. It had been my own fault for giving them such vague guidelines. I should have known better—and I would for the future.

  I cringed when I picked up Garrett’s essay, or ‘Prisoner 97813’ as he’d written at the top of the sheet in large, ungainly block letters.

  But as I read, my eyes opened wide.

  I don’t know what a best day is. Maybe its an ordinary day where at the end of it you fall asleep with a clear conshunse. Maybe I’ve had my best day but I hope not becuz that would be a crying shame. So Im going to imajin my best day like you said.

  Today is the best day of my life becuz its the day I walk out these prison doors and never look back. I dont look back at the high fences or the thick concreet walls. I dont look back at the guards or the other prisoners. I walk out a free man.

  The sun is shining but theres a breeze. Not to hot. Not to cold. The air smells real good. Fresh and clean. I never smelled such good clean air. I close my eyes and I can feel the sun on my face like its washing away all the dirt and bad stuff I seen.

  But best of all is the silence. Its so quite out here. So still. If I lissen real hard I think Ill here birds singing like I never hered them befor.

  I think of all the things Im going to do now Im a freeman. Ill have money in my pocket becuz this is my dream. Enough to buy a beer or three. Not to get blasted just to get a nice buz. And Ill have a nice place to go home to. Ive got a car but Im going to walk just becuz I can. Ill walk like Im free. Strolling, not looking over my shoulder. Not rushing or nothing. Just easy.

  And maybe when I look up she will be waiting for me. Shell smile at me. A big smile just for me. And I no shes a good woman and so dam butiful. And my heart beats faster becuz its been so long. So long since I held a woman in my arms. And not just any woman but this woman. And im going to take her home and love her the way she deserves but right now all I want to do is hold her and feel her softness against my hardness. Feel her curves against me and look down into her soft brown eyes and say your my woman.

  That would be the best day of my life. But I no it wont be like that becuz dreams arent real but I think it would be nice if they were.

  I laid down the piece of paper, shocked to my core. It was not at all what I’d expected. His writing moved me in ways I couldn’t explain. There was hope and hopelessness, desire and despair. So much raw emotion.

  But I knew one thing: I’d completely misunderstood Prisoner 97813. I’d treated him like the stereotype that I was supposed to abhor. I’d assumed he wasn’t interested in bettering himself, that he wasn’t listening to my lessons. But I’d been so very wrong. His air of indifference wasn’t the real man. It was a mask he used to hide behind.

  The man who wrote those words felt everything deeply, thought about things deeply. This was a man I wanted to know more. I was surprised by the tiniest prick of jealousy toward the unnamed woman. I wondered who she was, hoping that she’d be someone who could bring out the best in him. And from an academic level, I should be jumping for joy—I could teach a man like this. I could really help him.

  I read through the page of writing again, moved by the simple joy of the things he wanted to experience—things most of us were too busy to notice: the sun on our skin, the breeze in our hair, friendship, companionship. Love. All his longings expressed in simple but moving language.

  But also his sense of loss and defeat that none of this would be in his future. My heart broke a little for Prisoner 97813.

  He had been listening.

  Garrett

  HUDSON GRABBED THE front of my prison uniform and slammed me up against the cell wall, hard.

  I let my hands hang limply by my side because he had a right to be pissed at me.

  “What the fuck was that about, shithead? Why the fuck you send my ass to the floor?”

  “Seemed like the thing to do at the time,” I grinned at him.

  My answer wound him up even more and I felt his hands tightening on my shirt.

  “The fuck you mean?”

  “If you’re gonna hit me, get to it. But if you’re just gonna mess with my clothes, ask me on a date first.”

  He jumped back like he’d been stung, swearing as I laughed my ass off. He collapsed on my bunk, half-annoyed, half-amused.

  “What’s with you, man? You’re acting psycho, and I’m supposed to be the crazy one in this cell.”

  He sat up suddenly, awareness on his face.

  “In fact I’m thinking you’ve been acting weird since we started lessons with little Miss Awesome-ass.” His smile grew as he stared at me. “That’s it! I’m right, aren’t I? You’ve got a boner for teacher!”

  “It’s not like that,” I grumbled, annoyed that I was busted.

  “That’s why you dumped my ass on the floor, ‘cause she was smiling at me and not you. Maybe she thinks I’m prettier than you,” and he let out a loud laugh.

  The guy had a face that looked like it had been kicked by a mule.

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever,” I said, sounding like a whiny little bitch.

  He fixed me with a stare, still smiling.

  “Bro’s before ho’s, man! Guys like us learn that in grade school.”

  “She’s different.”

  “Ah, right. You think she’s gonna educate your ass in private lessons, that it?”

  “No! It’s just . . . you e
ver meet a woman like her before? Decent?”

  He shrugged.

  “Sure. Pussy is pussy, however you dress it up.”

  A rush of anger jetted through me. I should have known better than to try and talk about this shit with Hudson. Guy was whacked.

  But then his tone eased half a degree.

  “I’m just yanking your tail. I get it, I do. She makes you want more than this,” and he waved his arms toward the barred window. “I feel you, man.”

  And that was the trouble. She made me want more than I could ever realistically have. Ever.

  And that was depressing as fuck.

  Ella

  DAY FIVE AT Nottoway Correctional Center. Day three with my GED class. And Garrett.

  I felt like I owed him an apology, but I didn’t want to show weakness either.

  In the end, I decided to play it straight and treat him like everyone else—neither friendlier nor less.

  But when he walked into my classroom, I had to admit that my heart beat just a little faster, even though he didn’t look at me once. But I understood now, so I didn’t let it bother me either.

  “Good morning, everyone,” I began, once they’d all shuffled to their seats and Officer Wilson had closed the door. “This is our third class together, so it’s time to get serious. All but one of you turned in a paper. That person has been spoken to and will not miss assigned homework again without a doctor’s note—or you’ll be out of this class. You know who you are,” and I stared around, meeting as many eyes as would look at me.

  “Only half of you finished the assigned homework to an acceptable standard,” I continued. “I’m sure the ones who didn’t can guess why. This is a classroom, not a pornographic film studio. Anymore of that behavior, you’ll be asked to leave this class and I’ll turn your essays over to Warden Michaels. So, to those people I’ll say you’ve used up your one chance with me. To the half of you who received a passing grade—which is C or above—well done. And to the man who achieved B+, excellent work and I look forward to your continued achievement and future progress.”