It began with a phone call from Rafael, a parolee that I worked with in San Quentin Prison. I met them inside the prison where I sponsor two basketball teams and serve on the board for the San Quentin Warriors and Kings. He and Tone, another parolee from the board wanted to take me out to dinner.
Nothing doing. I believed a home-cooked meal would be much appreciated, and they agreed to come over. I joked with them about making Top Ramen (a prison staple). I went to the store and picked out some filet mignons which I made with a shallot mushroom sauce. In addition, I made stuffed potatoes, roasted Brussels sprouts, and a salad. We would start the evening with a prawn cocktail, devilled eggs, and champagne.
I was interrupted by my dog barking at my cat, who had brought in a tiny baby goldfinch which I rescued from his mouth. I put him in a basket in my office with plans to set him free after he recouped from the drama so unfairly imposed upon his little bird self.
After doing all my prep for dinner, I put on the five o’clock news. Breaking (but for real this time) was a mass shooting taking place in the town of Half Moon Bay where some of my very best lifelong friends live.
I sat staring at the screen as my body seemed to separate in two. Suddenly, the parolees coming over for dinner seemed like a horrible idea. Murder, criminals, police, jail, it all swirled around my brain as the gladness seeped out my body drained of the original high of spending time with two ex-criminals.
The news went on and on and my eyes were glued to the screen. I called my friends in Half Moon Bay who were okay. The elementary school where their grandchild had gone had been on lockdown. This was scary. A small town known for its annual pumpkin festival would now have a new notoriety. The press swarmed it and the ABCTV station where my husband worked got exclusive video of the shooter being handcuffed.
Why had I invited them over? How was I going to be my old duly noted cheery positive self?
Then the doorbell rang, and I immediately turned off the news to greet them at the door. And just like that, the channel in my mind was switched.
Rafael had a big smile on his face and Tone looked like a different person. Rafael was living in Los Angeles County because the family of the man he killed was in the Bay Area and refuted his living in the same place as where he grew up. He was incarcerated for seven years. Tone, who was incarcerated for 26 years for burglary was living in Merced.
I took them outside to see the lagoon that I lived on. Tone didn’t want to go back inside, and I couldn’t blame him. Normally we would have dined al fresco, but it was fifty-something degrees.
Rafael wasn’t drinking but I popped a bottle of champagne, and we toasted their freedom. And there I was, drinking bubbly with shrimp cocktail and devilled eggs with two parolees from San Quentin when my phone interrupted.
It was my husband calling from the newsroom. Seven people were dead, and he would come home later than he planned. I told him we’d already munched on the appetizers, and I would save him a plate. I was used to these kinds of news-breaking interruptions and while my mother had pleaded that I do not have any parolee over without him there, it didn’t even cross my mind. (After all, I would have set my own daughter up with Rafael except for the fact that she was engaged.)
I didn’t light any candles, that would seem a bit much. But there was a fire and Tone started to relax. Rafael is always relaxed, and I considered him a good friend. Seeing as how I refer to myself as an “acquired taste”, he was one of those people who seemed to get me. He is the model of a prisoner who has taken all the necessary steps of rehabilitation and now uses those skills to be of service to the incarcerated and their families.
I had asked Rafael in an interview I was doing for a video, what struck him as the strangest observation after rejoining the outside world. His answer was space – how being in large spaces like a Target would freak him out because he couldn’t see what was going on everywhere. In prison, you’re always watching your back.
I asked Tone the same question. His reply was how shocked he was by all the homelessness. That took me by surprise, but then I tried to imagine going back to my hometown after over two decades and seeing camps of people imprisoned in their tent cities living in survival mode.
My husband finally showed up and poured a glass of wine. His steak was cold, but I was pretty warmed up by all the champagne and served some brownies and ice cream. He likes rocky road but me and the guys liked Ben and Jerry’s vanilla caramel swirl.
It got late and I’m an early-to-bed kinda gal so we said our goodnights. Rafael had sent me a bunch of links about different prison projects that he was involved in. I would look at them in the morning and see if there was a fit where I could further offer any help.
Then I remembered the little bird in the office. I turned on the light and looked in the basket with the towel, but it was empty. He had flown the coop and I began pushing furniture around to see if he was behind my desk or ottomans in the room. Finally, I went over to the partially closed shuttered window. I opened it, and somehow that sweet precious birdie had gotten through.
He was lying on the edge next to the windowpane, and he was asleep. No, he was dead. I picked him up and petted him. And then I brought him outside and let him free in the bushes next to the lagoon.
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