He then read into the record the 1961 testimony of Mike Hogan, chief of detectives for the Lake Charles city police, who said the inside of the jail, including the lobby and corridors, was jammed with people. Julian read the words of Gerald Campbell, a civilian who came to the jail that night when he heard about the arrest; he put the number of men inside the jail lobby between fifty and one hundred. Chief Deputy Sheriff Sam Mazilly estimated there were still sixty-five or seventy-five men outside the jail at midnight.
As Julian continued his direct examination, Boyd said that, to his knowledge, neither he nor any of the other deputies walked across the street to the p.a.w.nshop owned by his friend Robert Waldmeir to see what kind of knife or gun they should search for.
I wondered if anyone on the jury could possibly believe that.
We called to the witness box Louisiana writer Anne Butler, whose 1989 book written with her husband, former warden C. Murray Henderson, Angola: A Century of Rage and Reform Angola: A Century of Rage and Reform, included a chapter on me and contained the verbatim transcript of a long interview I gave her. It offered a more detailed explanation of the anger, resentment, and frustration I felt as a teenager toward white people than the brief comment on Jodie Sinclair"s tape. As soon as Julian asked her whether I"d ever discussed my feelings about race with her, Bryant called for a bench conference, after which Anne was asked to leave the stand without testifying further.
Court adjourned after what felt like a very long day. Once I was back at the jail, alone, questions haunted me. Did it raise red flags with the jury that so many of the character witnesses for me were prevented from saying much? I prayed that having a federal judge, a state appellate judge, two wardens, and a corrections officer vouching for my truthfulness would mean something to those all-important ten women and two men who held my fate in their hands. Did the jury, eight of whom were white, understand what we were trying to explain about the racial climate in 1961 and how it affected the prosecutor"s handling of my case? Four of the jurors had not even been born in 1961. They had no frame of reference for the Jim Crow South. Would they get it? Could the jury ignore the irrefutable proof that there was indeed a mob at the jail that night, despite the parade of witnesses Bryant introduced who said otherwise? Could they ignore all of our proof that contradicted Bryant"s case?
I woke up at 3:00 a.m. and felt my anxiety level rise with the sun. Logic told me that we had already shown the prosecutor"s case to be full of exaggerations and outright lies. We should get a hung jury, at least, and if it hung evenly or in my favor, perhaps Bryant wouldn"t want to press for another trial but would finally settle for a manslaughter conviction. But so much of what had transpired in this case had nothing to do with logic.
I"ve always been his ticket to national attention and to votes from the whites who put him in office, I thought to myself. He"ll never give up this case He"ll never give up this case.
Take a breath, Wilbert. Calm down.
Yes. Okay. Whatever comes at the end of this, I will handle it as I"ve handled every adversity for the past quarter century. I"ll summon the strength that allowed me to transcend the worst days in prison. I"ll survive. If the jury sends me back to prison for the rest of my life, I will find a way to carve out some meaning for the remainder of my days because I just can"t believe that Divine Providence has saved me so many times without some purpose. No, I"ll be fine. But Linda? What would happen to her? She"d stick by me for the rest of my life, or hers. That was her promise, years ago-that she would never leave me while I was still in prison. That was when she thought it would take six months or a year to get me out. Nearly twenty years have pa.s.sed. I can"t let her throw away the rest of her life visiting me twice a month in prison, forever. Her life is as much on the line as my own.
Our last day in court was Martin Luther King, Jr."s birthday, January 15. We needed to further chip away at the credibility of the statement the FBI agent wrote out in longhand five days after the crime for me to sign, which Bryant had always called my "handwritten confession." George called to the stand Ronald b.u.t.ters, a cultural linguistics expert from Duke University, who testified that the FBI statement did not originate from the same source, meaning me, as the one I gave the night of the crime. The sheriff"s confession, he said, used language in a way that would be expected from a young person without a high school education, speaking colloquially under stress. Its structure was chaotic in the way that spoken narratives usually are. The word choice in the FBI doc.u.ment, by contrast, was more educated and methodical, almost characteristic of an essay. He said that the most significant difference between the two doc.u.ments was the emotional connotation given to the events in the FBI doc.u.ment. In conclusion, he said that my confession to the sheriff was likely my confession and the FBI statement was the work of someone else.
Julian called our final witness, Paul Carroll, who had retired after thirty-one years with the Chicago police and had auth.o.r.ed or coauth.o.r.ed numerous articles in the field of criminal investigations, most significantly for us, "Crime Scene Investigation: A Guide for Law Enforcement," published by the U.S. Department of Justice. Bryant tried to disqualify him on the grounds that he couldn"t contribute much because of the age of the case. Judge Ritchie certified him.
Carroll thoroughly discredited the sheriff"s investigation of the crime scene and his handling of the case in 1961. As for the two "confessions," he said that generally the one closest in time to the crime itself will be the more accurate. He added that when law enforcement has one confession, taking a second is dangerous because it opens the door for discrepancy and doubt about which one is correct. He said the old 1961 filmed "interview" with Sheriff Reid and me wasn"t a statement but a "press conference," a public relations piece, and I should not have been a part of it.
Carroll came down hard on local law enforcement for not protecting the crime scene. He said if bad weather was expected, the scene should have been covered with a tarp, or it should have been photographed. He concluded that because the crime scene was not preserved and an arrest had already been made, law enforcement had its mind on something other than collecting evidence.
He noted that they did not keep my clothing or examine it for gunpowder, mud, or blood, which would have been an invaluable source of evidence, nor did they examine or keep the clothing of any of the victims. They did not take photos of anyone"s wounds. The victim"s shoe should not have been moved from where it was found and placed next to the body by a deputy before the crime scene was measured, doc.u.mented, and photographed. Evidence, he said, should be preserved until the completion of a defendant"s sentence or until he dies.
On cross-examination, Bryant suggested that the technology and methods used in a big city like Chicago might have been more sophisticated than what was known in a small town like Lake Charles in 1961. Carroll said that the basic techniques used in investigating crimes, preserving evidence, and interrogating suspects were the same everywhere. In response to one of Bryant"s questions, Carroll said that the FBI had jurisdiction only in the bank robbery, not the homicide, so there was no reason for them to question me about Julia Ferguson"s death five days after the crime. He said he"d never seen a case in which the FBI took a statement in a bank robbery case after a confession had already been obtained by police. He said this, too, would be bad procedure.
And with that, we rested our case.
Bryant"s closing argument held no surprises. The same old story, four decades old: I planned the robbery, took the hostages because they could identify me, lined them up, and killed them execution-style. He told the jury that this was a hate crime, that I killed Ferguson because I hated white people.
He said I picked a very convenient time to tell my story since so many witnesses were now dead. Sarcasm rolled off his tongue when he said, "I thought the most interesting part of his story was, "I didn"t murder her, I killed her,"" which he called "a distinction without a distinction."
Frustration leaching into his voice, Bryant told the jury, "Race permeated this trial." Though acknowledging that the social and racial injustices of the early 1960s were reprehensible, he scoffed at the idea that they played any role in the way this interracial crime had been handled. "The only decision you must make in this case," he argued, "is whether Wilbert Rideau murdered Julia Ferguson."
It was Julian"s turn, and now he was fully in his element, like a veteran warhorse coming alive at the smell of gunpowder. Looking every bit the Southern gentleman he is, with his stately bearing and full silver mane, he commanded the rapt attention of every person in the room the moment he rose from the defense table.
Provocation sufficient to deprive a person of his cool reflection was the defining factor in manslaughter under Louisiana law, he told the jurors, and the provocation did not have to be instigated by the victim. He reminded them of the phone call that threw me into a panic and prompted me to take the bank employees out of the bank. He reminded them that if I had wanted to kill the employees, I could have killed them right there and simply walked away. He reminded them that I told Jay Hickman to take his coat because it would be cold walking back to town. He reminded them that I was lost and confused-according to the victims" own testimony-while meandering through white Lake Charles trying to figure out where to drop off the bank employees, and that I myself was terrified, riding around with a car full of whites in a place where I could never explain being after dark in 1961. He reminded them that I panicked when Dora McCain bolted from the car and began running, and that it was in this panic-this loss of cool reflection-that I fired at the employees and killed Ferguson.
He explained that we were not using the racial climate of the Jim Crow South to mitigate in any way the crime I committed. Nothing, he said, justified the crime. Race, however, did affect the way both law enforcement and the district attorney handled the case, including holding me in isolation with no access to an attorney and coercing statements from me. The times being what they were, Julian said, the prosecutor could count on having an all-white, all-male jury hear the case against a black teen accused of murdering a white woman. The crime was distorted, witnesses lied, and evidence was inflated to inflame that jury.
"They were never satisfied. They wanted to ratchet this up, ratchet this up," Julian said as he swept an open arm toward me. "They were making it as bad for this man as they could."
Julian approached the jury and looked each person in the face. "This case," he said, "is about a one-inch cut, a tracheotomy," not a decapitation. "For forty-four years," he said, people had been led to believe "that Wilbert Rideau slashed Mrs. Ferguson"s throat from ear to ear." He reminded them that they had seen the autopsy photos themselves.
He turned to look at Rick Bryant and reminded the jury that a prosecutor"s job is to get to the truth, not to convict. "Why did he bring in the ambulance driver to convince us of what really didn"t happen?" Why had the prosecutor insinuated that the mob Jackie Lewis saw outside the jail wasn"t real but merely a story that cropped up in the black community? Why indeed, when the truth, in the sheriff"s own testimony, was right there in the old record?
Why, he asked the jury, had all of the state"s witnesses testified for four decades that it rained, and rained, and rained "cats and dogs" the night of the crime, when the National Weather Service showed otherwise? Because the rain was needed to explain why evidence was destroyed and the crime scene was not preserved, he said.
Again referring to the Jim Crow South, Julian said, "You have to understand that time, and then it comes together. You think they would hesitate to exaggerate the facts of the case to get the result they wanted?"
And that nameplate in the photo, the one Bryant said proved I knew the ladies in the bank by their names? Julian pulled a jeweler"s round magnifying gla.s.s from his pocket. "Our public defender, Ron Ware, blew this photo up last night on his computer," Julian said. Then he bent dramatically over the table in front of the jury box to eyeball the photo. "You want to know what this sign really says?" He turned to the twelve men and women and lowered his voice almost to a whisper. "It says, "Pay Electric Bills Here.""
He faced the jury squarely to admit that my killing Ferguson was "a terrible act, a criminal act, one for which he deserves great punishment, but not one for which he deserves to be locked up for the rest of his life." Waving his arm toward me, he said, "He did a terrible thing, but it wasn"t murder."
Julian paused and in a quiet voice made his final plea: "It"s time to put this case to rest. Not just for Wilbert Rideau but for the whole community. It"s been going on too long. He"s been punished. Bring back a verdict of manslaughter."
Bryant"s reb.u.t.tal was short, his arrogance gone. He told the jury that even if they believed my version of events rather than his, it was still murder.
After the jury left to begin its deliberations at about 5:15 p.m., Bryant crossed the aisle and shook hands with both George and Julian, telling each he was a h.e.l.luva good lawyer. It was the first civil word he had spoken to either of them, and it would be the last.
In the movies, the defendant and his lawyers usually sweat out the jury"s deliberations in a comfortable attorney"s room around a sumptuous, highly polished conference table with a big clock ticking off the tense minutes until a verdict is in.
In my case, defense team members took turns rotating into the small cinder-block holding cell in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the courthouse where I was put to wait. Two wooden benches affixed to the walls and standing room accommodated only three people besides Linda and me. Two deputies sat watch in the corridor outside. We laughed some. Various of us offered a measured dose of optimism about the trial"s outcome-at least a hung jury. We all felt relieved that it was over and that, come what may, we had given it our best shot.
One of the young lawyers had brought in food for our dinner, and I had just taken my first bite when a deputy came to tell us to get back into the courtroom. My chest tightened. Something"s wrong. They haven"t been out long enough Something"s wrong. They haven"t been out long enough. They had been deliberating only about an hour and a half, not enough time to be deadlocked in a hung jury.
We stood behind the defense table as the jurors filed in past us. None of them looked at me. That"s a bad sign. They never look at the defendant when they vote to convict That"s a bad sign. They never look at the defendant when they vote to convict. As we sat down, I asked G.o.d to give me the strength to handle what I thought surely must be the end of all hope.
Judge Ritchie announced that the jury had him sent a note. They wanted to see the old "interview" in which Sheriff Reid asked me leading questions for the TV cameras the day after the crime. They asked for the magnifying gla.s.ses. (We had bought twelve magnifying gla.s.ses for them to examine photos with.) And they wanted a copy of the murder and manslaughter statutes to take into the jury room. The judge said they couldn"t have in the deliberation room any of the things they asked for, but he read the statutes to them again. They filed out, stony-faced, looking neither at me nor at Bryant.
Back in the holding cell we speculated as to what their requests might mean. The magnifying gla.s.ses were definitely a good sign for us because the jurors wanted to see for themselves that Bryant had lied. The 1961 "interview" wasn"t bad because it showed that I told the same story forty-four years before as I did on the stand. Inquiring about the statutes indicated that the jurors were at least considering manslaughter. Still, we were all less jovial now. As the hours pa.s.sed, speech gave way to silence. At about 9:45, we were again called to the courtroom. The jury filed in once more, still stony-faced, looking straight ahead. Judge Ritchie announced that the jury wanted to have the murder and manslaughter statutes read to them again. Afterward, only Linda came back into the holding cell with me.
I asked her what she thought.
She leaned forward, reaching across the small s.p.a.ce that separated us, and placed her hand over mine. "The way I see it," she said, "if they believed Rick Bryant"s version of the crime, manslaughter wouldn"t even be a possibility. Think about it. This is the second time they"ve asked for clarification between murder and manslaughter. To me, that means they"ve rejected the DA and his witnesses." She leaned back against the wall. "The good thing is, they believe you. The question now is whether they decide the crime was manslaughter or murder."
I leaned toward her and took hold of her hand, even though I knew it would look wrong if a deputy entered the cell. "There"s just one thing I want to say, and I hope they don"t have this f.u.c.king place bugged. But whatever happens, Junior, I just want you to know that I"ll be okay. I mean, I have survived the worst they could throw at me for four decades, and I will survive whatever else they have in store for me." I looked her straight in the eye. "I need you to promise me right now that you will put your own best interest first if things don"t go our way."
She gently extracted her hand from mine and smiled. "There"ll be plenty of time to make these decisions if they are necessary. For now, let"s keep a good thought."
It seemed as though only moments had pa.s.sed, but it had been more than twenty minutes when George stepped into the cell and said, "The jury has reached a verdict."
Linda took my upper arm and guided me out the door. Smiling, she whispered, "It"s gonna be okay. Let"s go."
We took our places in the courtroom. Despite the late hour-10:10-it was packed with spectators, blacks on one side, whites on the other. We waited for the jury to make its entrance. When we had waited ten minutes, I turned to Julian for an explanation. He had none. It seemed to be getting very warm in the normally cold courtroom. I began sweating. My palms were wet. I reached for the bottle of water in front of me. Now it was 10:30, and the jury still had not returned. The tension in the room was electric, and the wait, for me, nearly unbearable.
The judge entered the courtroom and told everyone that, whatever the verdict was, no outbursts of any kind would be tolerated and that deputies would remove anyone who violated his order of silence. At 10:37 we rose as the jurors filed past us, looking neither to the right nor to the left. They all took their seats and stared straight at the judge-except for one woman who glanced at me fleetingly, with just the hint of a smile playing at the corner of her mouth.
My heart was pounding in my ears as George, Julian, and Ron rose with me to hear the jury"s verdict. The bailiff took the written ballot from the foreman and gave it to the judge, who looked at it and handed it to the chief deputy clerk, who, with her voice breaking, announced that the jury had reached a unanimous decision. They had found me guilty. Of manslaughter.
My knees went weak and I was afraid I would fall. I turned to the jury and bowed my head in thanks and grat.i.tude, but it was as if I were in a dream. The whole scene seemed unreal, as if it were happening to someone else. Julian, smiling, took my arm and gave it a victory squeeze. George was smiling. The jury filed out, and we took our seats-just in time, as I was light-headed, blood pounding in my ears.
The judge gave me the maximum sentence for manslaughter: twenty-one years. Because I had served more than double that, I was freed on the spot. Court was dismissed. Two deputies escorted me out the back door of the courtroom and put handcuffs on me for the ride back to the jail, where I"d be processed out.
"Hey," I said, balking at the cuffs. "Didn"t you hear the verdict?"
"Just go with it, Wilbert," said Ron Ware. "I"m right behind you."
As Martin Luther King, Jr., day came to a close, I walked out of the Calcasieu Parish Correctional Center at midnight a free man. A crowd of mostly black citizens had gathered to celebrate my release and cheered wildly when they saw me. Surrounded by my legal team, I stopped briefly for the television cameras and print reporters.
"First of all I"d like to thank the jury from Monroe who gave me my freedom," I said, "and I"d also like to express my heartfelt apologies to the victims in this affair-their families, their relatives, and all of the lives in this community that my actions caused some suffering or misery or adversity. I know words are inadequate, but..." I choked up. Escorted through the crowd by deputies, my whole legal team moved in unison around me as we walked to two cars waiting in the parking lot, to the hooting and hollering of well-wishers. Moments later we were in a room at the Holiday Inn with my family. Someone brought in a couple of bottles of champagne so we could toast our victory. The unfamiliar brew was tart and sour on my tongue, not at all like the sweet taste of freedom.
After a couple of hours, I was alone with Linda. This too seemed unreal. Too drained even to shower, I lay down on the bed and pulled the covers over me.
"You"re going to sleep fully dressed?"
I nodded. How could I explain that I was afraid to take off my lucky trial clothes, afraid that if I did I might wake up to find the verdict was just a dream? As it was, the cloud-soft mattress and cozy, warm comforter transported me far away from the steel bunk and thin waffle blanket that had been cold reality for most of my life. With Linda holding my hand, I exhaled and just let go.
14.
Heaven 2005.
I wake up in heaven every day.
I watch the sun rise on the face of the woman I have loved for twenty years, as she lies sleeping at my side. Curled into the hollow of Linda"s bosom is one of our cats, Rodeo Joe, and on the pillow at my head is his brother Willie B, formerly the patriarch around here, who has yielded to me his job of watching over the household. When I rise, Willie B follows me to the back door to be let out and waits patiently with Ladybug, our third cat, for food to be put in their bowl. They now rely on me for their morning kibble, and I take it as a sign that I have become part of the clan. For reasons I can"t quite articulate, their acceptance thrills me. It amazes me that cats can give me such pleasure and teach me so much about unconditional love and connections.
I rise early because I don"t want to miss a thing. I know that in my mid-sixties, I"m on a short calendar.
Having so long dwelled in a h.e.l.lish place, I recognize paradise when I see it. No, the streets are not paved with gold. They"re common asphalt over which very little traffic flows. It"s peaceful here. Chirping birds of all varieties nest in the old live oaks and make this place feel more like a park than a subdivision. I come from a world denuded of trees because they can be used to hide behind and obstruct the view of guards in the watchtowers on the lookout for signs of trouble. I love this green world-the fragrant, freshly mown gra.s.s, the flowering bushes that frame the property, the leafy boughs that canopy the house, the yard, the streets that carry normal people to and fro.
I brew coffee and listen to the cardinals sing and the woodp.e.c.k.e.rs tap as they rout out insects in the folds of the bark. I"m mesmerized by the aerial artistry of the hummingbirds as they hover at the feeder outside the picture window overlooking the backyard, then zoom off like cartoon UFOs. Who would believe this? Who would believe this? I ask myself, for the umpteenth time. I stare in disbelief at my legs, bare from the knees down, leading to my sandaled feet, and feel the excitement of liberty. In prison I had to remain fully covered at all times, except when wearing flip-flops in the shower and shorts in the gym. I wiggle my unshod toes just for the fun of it, like a child playing with a new toy, and smile. I ask myself, for the umpteenth time. I stare in disbelief at my legs, bare from the knees down, leading to my sandaled feet, and feel the excitement of liberty. In prison I had to remain fully covered at all times, except when wearing flip-flops in the shower and shorts in the gym. I wiggle my unshod toes just for the fun of it, like a child playing with a new toy, and smile. Who would believe that I am really here? Who would believe that I am really here?
I"ve been transported from a drab and colorless realm: a world almost totally devoid of love or beauty; a world in which our basic impulse to trust-that virtue by which we know ourselves and connect to others-makes treachery nearly inevitable; a world where decades-long friendships are betrayed overnight for an imagined chance at freedom or for the faintest hope of bettering one"s conditions of confinement; a world where chaos and depravity are the norm and normalcy is the rarest feature of daily life; a world where softness has all but vanished in the hardscrabble struggle to survive; a world where brightness atrophies year by year as friends and family either die or just get on with their own lives, leaving you increasingly alone. To suffer deprivation on such a scale is a terrible punishment; to see its effects reflected in the lifeless or ferocious eyes of so many around you is worse, terrifyingly worse. I understand that prison is where society sends offenders to be punished for their crimes, but does any civilization really intend to create infernos that stamp out the humanity of those it sends there? I will never believe that about the ordinary men and women in whose name this is done.
Some people never recover from the deadening or coa.r.s.ening effect of long-term deprivation. I was one of the lucky ones who had support and lifelines to the outside and an abiding belief that some unforeseen event or circ.u.mstance would eventually free me, and for me deprivation had an upside. Now that I"m free, I take extraordinary pleasure in life in all its diversity of forms, colors, and textures in a way I suspect few ordinary Americans can. Of course, I don"t have the basic problems of sheer survival that confront many other long-termers upon their release: I have a roof over my head in a safe neighborhood, food to eat, and a partner with whom to build a new life. This is what I have longed for as long as I can remember. To me, this is heaven.
Life is so good I even love the Department of Motor Vehicles. One day I went there because I needed a photo ID. Even though I don"t know how to drive, I still have to go to the DMV to get an official, state-issued identification card. As I enter the building, a white officer walks by, shakes my hand, and pats me on the back in congratulation. The place is packed and I take a number, like in the bakery I recall from childhood, and wait to be served. Several more people recognize me and wish me well. When my number is called, a pleasant, white, middle-aged woman instructs me to follow her to her workstation, where she asks what she can do for me.
"I need a photo ID," I tell her.
"Birth certificate?" she requests, all business.
I explain that I don"t have one, that I"ve just gotten out of prison.
"Discharge papers?"
"No. I wasn"t released through the normal process."
"How do you plan to get an ID without identification?" she asks.
I nervously offer her the only evidence of my ident.i.ty I have, placing on her desk the New Orleans Times-Picayune Times-Picayune front-page story on my release and pointing to the photo: "See? That"s me. I"m even wearing the same clothes as in the picture." I hand over the front page of the Lake Charles front-page story on my release and pointing to the photo: "See? That"s me. I"m even wearing the same clothes as in the picture." I hand over the front page of the Lake Charles American Press American Press, which also has a photo of me, along with the Baton Rouge Advocate Advocate, and make my plea: "I was hoping you"d accept these as identification."
Suddenly her eyes light up and she smiles mischievously. "Oh, we know who you are. We heard you were in Baton Rouge and wondered when you were gonna show up." Stepping around her station to face the other women workers, she holds the newspapers up: "Get a load of this! These are his identification doc.u.ments! Would you believe it?"
She has to get approval from her supervisor to accept them and is soon walking me through the other departments. Another white woman tells me to stand against a wall so she can take my picture. Neither of the women is happy with the result.
"You have to smile," says the photographer. "You have a beautiful smile." I flash my teeth at the camera. Both women approve the result. I ask the cost and reach for my wallet.
"Don"t worry about this," one of the women says. Her eyes take in the roomful of women workers. She adds, "We"ll take care of it. Keep your money. You"ll need it. And good luck!"
Back home, Linda returns to find me in my study.
"I need to get a padlock to use at the Y," she informs me, dropping onto the sofa under the window.
"Look, I have the lock I used on my footlocker at the Calcasieu jail. You can have that if you want," I say, pleased to be able to offer something material to the household. I fish it out of the net sack holding the meager belongings I brought from the jail and explain to her how to use it. I tell her the combination.
She stares at me intently. "Do you realize that the numbers that open that lock-1, 15, 5-are the same as the date the jury freed you, January 15, 2005?"
I stare back at her. The one thing someone in jail always wonders is when he or she will get out. For nearly four years, while I was awaiting trial in Calcasieu Parish, I had the answer in the palm of my hand.
In John Blume"s cla.s.s at Cornell Law School, I look out into a sea of bright, young faces. I"ve come to the university to give the keynote address at a habeas corpus symposium, and the trip to his cla.s.sroom is a bonus. I speak to the students about change of venue, and afterward, during the question-and-answer session, one of the students asks me what it"s like to be free after so many years in prison. It"s a question I get a lot.
"I understand why some immigrants fall to their knees and kiss the ground when they arrive in America," I begin. "I understand that gesture in a way you never will, never can." I pause, hoping that silence can add weight to my words. "You"ve lived your entire life in freedom. Like the air you breathe, it"s always been there."
I can"t find the words to adequately convey what I feel. How can I relate the simple joy of watching squirrels play a game of chase up and down the oak trees, the grandeur of a rose-colored camellia tree in full bloom, or the pleasure of looking in my closet and seeing a rainbow of shirts, jackets, trousers, jeans, and sweaters?
"Like refugees from other totalitarian societies," I tell the law students, "I understand that liberty means being able to speak freely, a.s.sociate with whom you want, worship how and if you want, gather together without permission, live where you want, and move freely in the world without carrying identification on pain of being punished."
What I don"t tell them is that, like other refugees, I bring with me to this free society the vestiges of life under the old regime: constant watchfulness, studying the faces around me, routine examination of the motives of newcomers in my life, and a lingering sense that I should have a witness with me at all times. I can"t step out of my ingrained wariness as easily as I shed my prison denims. So despite my newfound liberty, I socialize very little and keep my business to myself. These mind-sets will fade, I hope, but it may take more time than I have.
Besides being a refugee, I am also a tourist here in this English-speaking country that is so different from the America I left behind in 1961. I"m not talking about just e-mail, iPods, cell phones, and the rest of the technology that has made people at once both more accessible and more isolated. Not even two decades of speaking trips outside the prison has prepared me for what I run into every day.
A visit to Walmart-there was nothing like this in 1961 Lake Charles-tells me a lot about my new world and how I might cope with it. I"m in search of a razor. When I finally find the right area, I am confronted with a mind-wrenching display that runs the entire length of one side aisle devoted to every kind of shaving apparatus imaginable. When I entered prison, there was just the metal razor that you screwed open and shut to change the blade. Bic then pioneered the plastic disposable. Here, I count at least twenty-five kinds of disposable razors cross-pollinating in bins below the racks of more upscale and durable devices, some with double, triple, or even quadruple blades or rotating heads to ensure a close, really close, shave. I have no way of knowing which of these instruments will do the job for me. And some of them cost as much as $100. In Walmart! In Walmart! The plethora of choices, the decisions that constantly must be made, are at first difficult for me. In the end, I leave with a pack of the same cheap Bics they sold in prison. The plethora of choices, the decisions that constantly must be made, are at first difficult for me. In the end, I leave with a pack of the same cheap Bics they sold in prison.
In the checkout lane I"m amazed to notice that at least three-quarters of the cashiers are black. I"m still very conscious of race because the outside world I left in 1961 was sharply divided and defined by race, as was the justice system during my long sojourn. In 1961 Lake Charles, I never saw a Negro cashier in any store outside the black neighborhood. Now I see African Americans working with money in stores, restaurants, banks, many of them in managerial positions supervising white employees. I"d heard and read about such things, but to actually see it amazes me.
This is definitely a more advanced society than the openly racist one I left behind, but it"s a mystery to me. On a trip to the mall, I again see excess everywhere. I step into a store devoted entirely to gym shoes-excuse me, "sports shoes"-calibrated to accommodate the foot"s every nuanced need while running, walking, strolling, jumping, biking, and cross-training. I gaze upon the floor-to-ceiling displays as if I"m taking in a cultural artifact like the Eiffel Tower. The old black-and-white high-tops I grew up with are here, too-I think as a fashion statement. They remind me that I"m a dinosaur who"s been dropped into twenty-first-century America and, right now, the idyllic environs of Cornell Law School.
Ithaca, New York, a small but sophisticated city built around Cornell University, is breathtaking compared with Angola"s eighteen thousand acres of flatlands. I join other faculty and some of the law students for dinner at a fancy French restaurant where I"m treated like a visiting dignitary. The place is fairly dark, which makes me uncomfortable for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that after four decades of eating prison food, I tend toward bright light so I can scrutinize my meal for foreign matter, like hairs or insect parts. This is a habit I can"t shake even at home, where I know the kitchen is clean and the food properly prepared. I sit with my back to the wall-another holdover from prison. The menu comes with subt.i.tles, but even when someone reads it to me in English, it"s like hearing Greek. A lifetime of culinary deprivation has left me unprepared to cope with a place that doesn"t have simple green salads, ordinary vegetables, common dishes. I"m too embarra.s.sed to ask what a pomegranate reduction is. I try to play it safe by ordering a well-done steak with French fries. The waiter"s smile is a little too broad when I request ketchup-and he regrets the restaurant has no hot sauce. I"m definitely outside my comfort zone, but the faculty and students, warm and genuine, make me feel as much at home as I can be in this strange land.
Deprivation on all fronts for so long now makes me want to acquire things. Linda helps me to shop wisely. Interwoven with our trips to large retail stores are visits to the St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Store. Today"s resale stores-filled with Christian Dior, Perry Ellis, and G.o.dchaux castoffs-bear no resemblance to the secondhand stores I recall from my childhood, where the merchandise was worn, in need of mending, or stained. One day shortly after my release, I bought several sport coats and two shirts for The cashier recognized me, pulled $11 out of her own purse, and told me to have a great day.
This kind of compa.s.sionate generosity takes me by surprise every time. Conditioned by the stories I"d heard from ex-cons who returned to Angola, either as part of a ministry or as recidivists, about the difficulties they faced returning to society and how they had to try to hide their prison past or face scorn and abuse, I expected the same. In fact, because of my high profile, I expected worse. But I am greeted cordially by both blacks and whites. In one store, a white saleslady has finished her shift and is leaving for the day when she comes over to shake my hand. "There are some good buys on sweaters on the table around the corner," she says, palming me a $10 bill. Linda points out that $10 is a lot of money for a clerk who probably makes little more than minimum wage. When I"m waiting to pay for my sweater, a black man in line gives me $20 and says, "Man, have lunch on me."
I relied on the compa.s.sion of strangers for decades as I sought my freedom, but on a day-to-day basis, I"ve been self-sufficient for a long time. Moreover, in Angola, I had real power. Whatever was available, if it wasn"t illegal, was mine if I wanted it. Out here, I have no power at all. I don"t control anything, and I have no resources. I lack basic and essential skills such as math and driving. Finding myself dependent on others in so many ways is a huge psychological shift for me. It makes me even more grateful for the smallest kindnesses that come my way.
But life is more than compa.s.sionate encounters. Having been out about a month and a half, I"ve called deputy warden Darrel Vannoy to see about picking up my possessions from Angola. He phones back, informing me that Burl Cain wants to use the occasion to gather inmate leaders from around the prison for me to talk to, to give them hope. He wants me to come on a Monday or Tuesday, when the visiting room is closed. I ask Vannoy if it would be okay to separate the two events so I can pick up my stuff now and return another time to talk to the fellows. He says that"s fine, and I ask if I can visit the Angolite Angolite offices and see my friends Lafayette Ballard, Calvin Duncan, and Sydney Deloch. He agrees. offices and see my friends Lafayette Ballard, Calvin Duncan, and Sydney Deloch. He agrees.
We arrive at the prison by noon. My escort seems uncomfortable, though trying to hide it. It"s probably because a white woman is with me, and he a.s.sumes she"s either my wife or girlfriend. I introduce her as Dr. LaBranche, part of my defense team, and he seems a little more at ease.
Linda has never been into the bowels of Angola, so I"m describing what she"s seeing. As we enter the A-Building, I see the gates, the security cage, the visitors in the visiting room to the left, the inmates on the other side of the gate, and all of the prison atmosphere I had suppressed comes rushing back. I force myself to ignore it because inmates are waving at me, thrusting their hands out to me. I represent their dream, their most pa.s.sionate ambition in life-to be free. I can"t fold here I can"t fold here. We pa.s.s the cellblocks where men are being searched as they line up to go to the fields; they wave and yell h.e.l.lo. At the Main Prison Office complex, black inmates and officers alike come to shake my hand and congratulate me.