I’m reading from chapter 3 of my book, Earning Freedom: Conquering a 45-Year Prison Term

For more information, visit PrisonProfessors.com

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During my first weeks in the penitentiary, I meet hundreds of men.  Listening to them convinces me that it’s best to keep a low profile, at least until I understand more about my environment. I don’t even talk much with the other men assigned to my cell.

Just as Check told me on my first day, the men mind their own business and don’t show much interest in building new friendships. They work in the prison’s factory, manufacturing or repairing mailbags for the U.S. Postal Service. I catch the vibe–one of apathy rather than hostility. These men have no interest in talking with a young prisoner who shows enthusiasm about being hired to work in the library. Enthusiasm dies long before most men enter the inside of these walls, I suspect.  It might reveal naiveté, which exposes vulnerability.

In the evenings I lie on my rack thinking about how I’m going to make it and realize that I’m at the start of a long journey. I block out the noise that comes in endless waves from outside the cell. More than 600 of the 2,500 prisoners in the penitentiary live in A cellblock, though their activities don’t concern me as much as the thoughts about how I will walk out of prison when I’m released.

But I can’t seem to focus. The papers I’ve received from the administrators confirm that my 45-year sentence brings a possible release in 2013. It’s only 1988 and after one year as a prisoner I still can’t grasp what it means to live another 25 in here. According to the counselor, case manager, and unit managers, a group of administrators collectively known as the “unit team,” 25 more years is the best I can hope for, and that’s contingent on my not receiving any disciplinary infractions that could result in my loss of good time. No amount of effort or accomplishment, the unit team assures me, will advance my release date.

Although I don’t talk about my spiritual beliefs, I read the Bible every night. My resistance to religious services and organized prayer groups irritates the zealots, or “Bible thumpers,” as they’re known. That’s of little consequence in the long run because my relationship with the Bible brings me comfort, guides me, and provides occasional relief from the deep sorrow gripping me. I read it lying on my rack or while sitting on a wooden chair in a corner I’ve claimed for myself between bookshelves in the library.

Sometimes I find parables that seem as if written directly to me. I must prepare–that is the message I receive from my readings. The message comes to me from verses in both the Old and New Testaments. I find the message in the story of Noah and the Ark; I read it in the parables of the wise and foolish virgins, as well as the parables of the talents described in the Book of Matthew. I must prepare.

I learn from my daily Bible readings that everyone has a responsibility to live God’s plan, and that plan requires us to maximize the gifts we receive. I’m not convinced that I must fast, wear certain clothes, use prayer oils, face the sun at specific hours, or publicly claim that I’m saved, to come closer to God. The belief I begin to form is that I need to live as a good man, to develop the gifts God has blessed me with and to work toward the making of a better world.

My belief strengthens my spirit, improves my attitude, and gives me a positive outlook. Instead of looking at my sentence as a burden I begin to see it as a challenge, an opportunity to grow in ways I never would’ve without extreme adversity. To accept that my sentence may have a purpose not yet revealed requires that I have faith that God has a plan, one that will open opportunities, and trusting in God’s plan gives me a sense that I can go on.

I want to convey these thoughts to Lisa, but she’s slipping away. Her sentencing date approaches so I understand her lack of enthusiasm when I express my excitement about beginning correspondence studies at Ohio University. When she mocks my growing faith in God, I realize how the time and space of my sentence separates us.  Despite my love for her, we’re growing apart.

Telephone restrictions preclude me from talking with her more than once every few days. I can only use the telephone on the days that A cellblock is scheduled for access.  On telephone days, a guard leads 15 of us at a time to a room with rotary-dial, wall-mounted phones, and I wait in line to use one of them. When it’s my turn, I’m authorized to make one 10-minute phone call.

To avoid the frustration of the brief phone calls I write long letters to Lisa every day, expressing my love for her and sending promises I don’t know how I’ll keep. Whatever sentence she receives, I assure her that it’s part of God’s plan, one that will bring us closer together. Just before her sentencing date she travels to Atlanta to visit with me.

I’m in my second month in Atlanta and it’s been six months since I’ve seen my wife, more than a year since we’ve held each other or even touched. I’m lonely for her, aching for her. Thoughts of Lisa have, at various times, strengthened and weakened me, inspired and depressed me. Now I’m going to see her, to hold her, to kiss her.

I iron my khaki pants and shirt with creases as sharply pressed as a military officer’s uniform and, in order to show how much larger my biceps have grown through exercise, I fold up the short sleeves of my shirt. I’m ready and I’m eager. Today Lisa will fall in love with me again, just as she loved me before.

“Yo, young’un, who’s comin’ to see you?” Other prisoners inquire as they watch me peering through the window to see who’s walking down the prison corridor.

“My wife’s visiting me today.” I’m enthusiastic, refusing to use the standard prison reference of “my ol’ lady.”

“Have a good one.”

Soon after I hear my name paged a guard arrives to escort me from the housing unit. We walk through the wide, quiet, empty corridor on polished marble floors surrounded by high, white walls. The guard doesn’t talk to me. The only sounds along the dreary walk are our footsteps, the sound of swinging handcuffs that hang from the back of the guard’s thick leather belt, and the occasional static blasts from his radio. It’s a long walk.

Instead of entering the visiting room the guard opens the door to an adjacent room, where another guard waits at a desk.

“Inmate Santos for a visit,” the escorting guard informs his colleague before locking me in the closet-sized room.

The guard seated at the desk asks for my ID and begins writing the information in his logbook: my name, registration number, the time I arrived, and my visitor’s name. “What are you waiting for?” he asks as I stand there, watching.

“Oh, can I go in?” I’m dehumanized, conditioned to ask permission for any movement as if I’ve been a prisoner all my life.

“You know the drill.”

“What drill? This is my first visit.”

“Strip!”

The order surprises me but I follow it without question. My main concern is getting to Lisa, though I’m careful to keep my clothes looking crisp and so I take extra time to fold my pants and shirt before I set them on the dingy floor.

“Everything,” the guard says as I stand in my boxers and socks.

I’ve been through hundreds of strip searches but guards sometimes let me stand in underwear while they inspect me. Not this one. He’s a stickler for detail and insists on seeing me naked.  He orders me to lift my privates, bend over and spread. I comply as he directs, giving him the full view he wants, and then I dress. Finally, he authorizes me to enter the visiting room.

I walk down a few steps to a platform where two guards sit at a desk. The room is large, like a high school cafeteria with bright lights. Vending machines line the walls. It’s packed with people engaged in hundreds of simultaneous, loud conversations. I don’t see Lisa. One of the guards asks for my identification.  He then patronizes me with questions on whether I understand the rules. Those rules may be designed for security reasons, but they strip people of dignity and contribute to the loss of community ties. I remember the rules from when I first saw Lisa in the Miami prison more than a year ago. They don’t permit us to embrace during the visit, and limit kissing to the start and finish. The guard tells me where to sit and points me in the direction.

Finally, I see her. She sits in a row of plastic chairs along the wall and watches as I walk toward her from across the brightly lit room. My eyes lock with hers and memories flash of better times. I remember crowds parting as she held my arm while we walked through Las Vegas casinos; I remember drinking champagne and eating chocolate truffles with her at a dessert bar overlooking Central Park; I remember powering through deep blue, rolling waves of the Atlantic on my ocean racer, with her in a sequined string bikini, clinging to me. Those days are gone, never to return. I have repressed thoughts of Lisa’s seductiveness, her magnetic sex appeal, but as I walk closer to her those feelings surge, inflaming all of my senses.

The year has taken its toll on me. With the total absence of a woman’s touch, of affection, of physical warmth and release, an enormous urge rises in me. I’m oblivious to the hundreds of other people visiting in the room. It’s as if I’m seeing Lisa in an airport terminal for the first time after a long trip abroad. Only she’s not here to welcome me home. When she stands I want to devour her. Since we have just this one opportunity, I manage with a deliciously long, marvelous kiss.

“I still love you, Michael,” Lisa says, holding me before we sit.

“And I love you,” I respond while pulling her close. “We’re made to love each other. I’ve told you that from the beginning.  Our love is strong enough to carry us through anything, even imprisonment.” I’m eager to say anything and everything that comes to mind with desperate hopes of holding on to her.

We sit side-by-side, as close as the stationary, hard plastic chairs will allow.  We’re close enough that I feel the soft skin of her arms touching mine, close enough that I can breathe in her perfume. The romantic euphoria of our first hour together doesn’t last, however, as we can’t avoid discussing the ugliness that has become our lives.

“How is it in here, really? Are you safe?”

“I told you, you don’t have to worry about me. As long as we’re together, I’m okay. My dad sent the money to the university, so I should receive my books and lesson plans soon. I’ve got a great job in the library. I’m exercising every day. I’ve got plenty of books to read. You’re going to see how I turn this mess around. I’m going to leave here so much better than I am now, stronger and wiser.  I’m going to make you proud.”

“But what about me? What do you think is going to happen at my sentencing–and after? I can’t live in a place like this!”

“Honey, nothing’s going to happen.” I comb my fingers through her blonde hair. “You didn’t do anything that bad. You told a little lie about money. What’s the big deal? The judge isn’t going to put you in prison for that. People lie all the time. Every time someone gets pulled over for speeding, he lies about driving the speed limit. They don’t put people in prison for that.”

“But what if they do? What’s going to happen then?” She grips her fingers into my hands. “I don’t want to live in a place like this.”

“It’s not going to happen,” I soothe. “Why don’t you pray with me? When I pray, God gives me strength.”

“Come on, don’t start with that! What are you doing? Becoming a priest in here? Prayer isn’t going to help me!” Lisa abruptly lets go of me and folds her arms across her chest in frustration.

“Yes it will, it helps me through every day.”

“You got 45 years! Did prayers help with that?”

“Baby, don’t talk like that. You have to trust in me, trust in God. It’s going to get better.”

“Sometimes I don’t think I know you anymore. All you talk about is school, God, about how it’s going to be better when you get out. Don’t you get it? We’re going to be old by then!”

“It’s not going to be that long.” I sit back in my chair, swallowing the harshness of her assessment.

“What about me? How am I supposed to live? Our money is running out.”

“Why don’t you get a job?”

“Doing what? What can I do? You want me to wait tables or something?”

“Don’t worry, Baby. Let’s get through your sentencing next week and put this mess behind us. I’ll think of something.”

Our visit may have begun with passion, but it ends with the cold reality that we don’t have enough of anything to sustain us. We don’t have enough money, enough maturity, or enough commitment.  When visiting hours end she stands and we hold each other, but I know she’s not coming back. Our parting kiss tastes like good-bye. As she walks away I’m more alone than I’ve ever been.

The following week Lisa is sentenced. After the scheduled time of her hearing I call my father, who accompanied her to lend support. He tells me that the judge sentenced her to serve five years on probation for her felony conviction of lying to a federal officer. I’m relieved. Thinking of Lisa enduring the handcuffs, the chains, the regular strip searches, orders, and daily indignities of confinement would have crushed me. I can handle prison, but I wasn’t sure she could have, and if she were put inside my level of stress would’ve risen exponentially.  At least I have that complication behind me.  Now it’s on to new challenges and complications that I expect to flow over the next 10,000 days.

*******

Since the library is an open space where all prisoners can congregate freely, it serves as a kind of marketplace for hustlers and prisoners use it for more than checking out books or typing. They exploit it to hide weapons, drugs, and other contraband that they conceal in the drop ceiling or inside books they hollow out. Guards seize contraband they find, but since the library is a common area they can’t punish an individual without further information, like a tip from a snitch.

I’ll never become a source of such information, as I won’t try to make my life easier at the expense of making someone else’s life harder. Blood spills inside these walls. I’ll survive by making decisions that ensure I don’t have to hide from anybody and that no one has to hide from me. I want to live invisibly, to be “in” the penitentiary, but not “of” the penitentiary. I focus intensely on steps I can take that will lead me closer to home, that will prepare me for a productive life outside.

My own research and the inquiries I make of other prisoners convince me that only two mechanisms exist through which I can earn my way out. One is to ask my judge to reconsider my sentence using the formal legal proceeding known as the Rule 35 motion, but the strict time parameters of that rule limit me. Once the appeals court affirms my conviction and sentence–as I’m sure it will–the 120-day clock starts ticking. After that time elapses, my sentence becomes etched in stone. The only other mechanism, barring future legislative reform, is asking the president to grant relief through executive clemency.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will affirm my conviction and sentence within a year. What can I possibly accomplish in another year of imprisonment to persuade my sentencing judge that I’m a worthy candidate for relief, that I’ve earned freedom? It’s not enough time and yet I’ve got to make something happen. Every minute that passes without my having a plan or making progress means that I’m losing ground. I feel like I’m a cartoon character, lying on a table with a swinging, spinning saw blade gradually dropping from the ceiling toward my exposed and extended neck.

Improving my situation will require support from people outside. Yet 40-foot walls hinder my ability to connect with society, frustrating me. I stare at library walls wondering how to distinguish myself from every other prisoner who wants a sentence reduction. I can’t simply express sorrow or regret. I am deeply remorseful, though I understand the cynicism of the system. When I file my Rule 35, I’m expecting prosecutors to argue persuasively that I’m not at all remorseful but only want out.

I wrestle with the opposition I expect to face. Why do others think it so wrong that I want to advance my release date? I want out, but I also want to atone, to somehow reconcile with society. I aspire to show others that I’m earning my freedom. As I stare blankly at the books all around me I suddenly see the solution that will help me pierce these walls and connect with society: I’ll write a book!

I may not know what I’m doing but the fact that I’m doing something, making progress, empowers me. For the first time I’m not sitting around waiting for outside forces to dictate my fate. Instead, I have a plan and that brings new energy, motivation, and inspiration. I’ll write about how the romantic, swashbuckling images I had of coke traffickers seduced me into the trade. Reading my story will provide compelling reasons for others to avoid making the same choices. I’ll express remorse openly and perhaps other young people will be dissuaded from breaking the law. The book should assist law enforcement by helping stop crime before it starts.

I’ve never taken a writing course or even written anything more substantial than short letters, but if I begin now and work on it every day, I can finish a book in time to generate support for my Rule 35. This project becomes my Hail Mary effort to begin a record of atonement.

Julie and her fiancé, Tim, are my strongest supporters. I write her and they agree to launch a nonprofit corporation to publish the book, which I title Drugs and Money. That way instead of selling the book we can donate it. A funding arm from the State of Washington offers financial resources for programs designed to improve community safety, and I write a grant proposal to fund our project.  Julie submits the grant proposal through the nonprofit, and then she persuades those on the board of the grant committee to fund production of Drugs and Money with $20,000.  It’s a sufficient amount of funds to produce and distribute 2,000 books to schools, jails, and other organizations for at-risk adolescents. This community-service effort helps me reach beyond the penitentiary, build support, and begin making a contribution to society.

*******

I hear my name being paged over the loudspeaker with an order to report to the Education building.  I sit down at the desk where I write each day, and Mr. Chandler, the Supervisor of Education, approaches.

“Sanchez, why am I getting a package from Ohio University with your name all over it?” He is not happy.

I look up, surprised that he’s upset and wondering what I did wrong. “I enrolled in a correspondence program, sir,” I respond, not wanting to aggravate him further by correcting his mispronunciation of my name. “I wanted to study toward a college degree.”

“Boy, don’t you know I got half a mind to lock you up? Ain’t no courses get ordered ’round here less they go through me. Who authorized you to enroll in college?”

“I didn’t know I needed to have authorization.”

“Don’t you knows you’s in the peniten’try! You better axe somebody! Can’t be havin’ no packages sent in here without auth’rization. Interferes with security of the institution.”

“Sorry, sir. I didn’t know that a package from a university could interfere with security.  But I won’t make that mistake again.”

Mr. Chandler softens some with my contrite response. “What you doin’ in here all day anyway boy?” He spreads the pages of longhand on my desk.

“Writing, sir, just trying to stay out of trouble.”

“Well you ’bout found trouble, and you’re lookin’ at it. Now come on back to my office and get these here books ’fore I send ’em back and lock yo ass in da hole.”

I stand and follow him down the center corridor, giddy as a boy on Christmas morning, ecstatic that my course work has arrived. I don’t know why he was so angry, but it doesn’t really matter now that he’s agreed to allow me to proceed. When we enter his office I see the box from Ohio University open on his desk.

“This ain’t nothin’ but a lot ’a extra work for me.”

“Thanks for helping, sir. I apologize for causing so much trouble.”

He opens each book, inspects the binding, fans through the pages, then he passes the book over to me. I have courses in English, philosophy, algebra, and psychology. I thank Mr. Chandler again and return to the desk where I can begin to work with a new sense of purpose.

In my mind I’m no longer a prisoner. I’m 24 years old, about to endure my second holiday season in confinement, but I’m also on track for making real, measurable progress. I’m now a university student and an aspiring author.  Others will soon have tangible results to gauge my commitment to atone.