a pleasant unpleasant visit

today i visited a former student of mine who is currently incarcerated in a california state penitentiary. the prison is located in a beautiful setting at the foot of rolling hills in a former orange grove - not that the inmates can enjoy much of the view from the recreation "yard" or through the narrow windows in their cells.

i once heard angela davis talk about how we often push prisons, and the people within them, to the periphery of our collective minds - that once people are convicted and sent away, we in the mainstream don't have to really think about them anymore. that's one of the reasons that i want to keep in touch with this student, whom i'll call nick. he fell into trouble as a teenager and was arrested and convicted to serve 12 years. if he completes his entire prison term (without being released early for good behavior), he will have spent all of his 20's surrounded by barbed wire. nick is an intelligent young man with a good heart, i believe. the fact that he's now incarcerated sticks in my craw like a fish bone, making me ask what else could i/we have done to prevent this waste of young talent? why are there so many smart young men of color - black men in particular - behind bars?

before going to the facility, i brushed up on some of the requirements for entry: only one key, no wallet, up to $30 in single dollar bills only, no blue jeans or khaki shirts, and no gum or outside food. after passing the required id check and walking shoeless through the metal detector, i was buzzed in through a series of gates called sallyports into the holding area. i found it ironic that all of the guards i encountered were much more courteous than the average (surly) transportation or (indifferent) fast food workers that i interact with almost daily. perhaps they can afford to be nice, most of them smiling, joking with each other and calling me sir, as members of a very powerful union.

one of the guards summoned nick from the bunks while i waited in a small lounge with a few other visitors waiting to see their husbands/sons/brothers/dads/uncles/friends. when nick came to the gate, i almost didn't recognize him - five years have passed since i last visited, during which he has shed his gangly awkwardness and looked almost...slick (in a good way).

visiting a prison requires a certain suspension of mundane everyday movement. i was hyper-aware of everything that i did - how i spoke, how i gestured, how i looked around. nick and i sat and chatted for an hour about various things, ate vending machine food, and did the man-shake/hug goodbye once visiting hours ended. i tried to avoid looking at numerous couples getting in their "eight to fifteen second embrace" before leaving. i waited in line with wives/daughters/girlfriends/mothers - i was one of the only male visitors in the last group to leave - to get my id back before boarding the shuttle to the parking lot.

some of the visitors come every week. that would certainly take some getting used to - the strict regimen of visiting requirements, the barbed wire and sallyports, being watched, being surrounded by hundreds of men who live in tension every day for years. it was too much for me. unsurprisingly, it made me thankful to have had the opportunities that i have on the other side of the fence, and i hope that nick will have opportunities of his own once he is free. but i makes me wonder: once he's freed, will prison be freed from him?