Since the first day II walked through the gates of San Quentin Prison, I was told that everything takes a lot of time. Getting anything done requires paperwork, background checks, clearances, and more red tape than obtaining a permit to build a pot dispenser five miles from an elementary school. Once again, we’re all in waiting mode.
The coronavirus penetrated San Quentin Prison after 121 people whom officials deemed to be at high risk were transferred from the California Institution for Men in Chino. Before the transfer, San Quentin had zero positive cases but reached almost 1,200 cases in four weeks. As a result, California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, announced initiatives to grant mass releases in order to stop the virus from spreading further.
Volunteers can’t have direct contact with the incarcerated men, but I’ve heard that one of the men that I worked with will have a hearing to determine a resentencing, and I was asked if I’d write a letter of support. Of course, I said I’d be more than happy to write one and also agreed to assist in procuring others.
The incarcerated men and their families know waiting all too well. The ban on phone calls was finally lifted but there is still no visitation. The conditions remain horrendous and every now and then I read a news article or find a post with information about who has the virus and who has passed.
I talk to my Mom about how hard this all is. She turned 96 this year and was doing quite well before she fell and fractured her tailbone in late February. Mom is sharp as a tack and spends (spent) her time teaching, taking classes, going to shows, and writing (she just started her third book of poetry). She’s an avid reader, independent and a force to be reckoned with.
She was sequestered by her injury and now the virus. Her friends can’t stop by to keep her company nor can the family which is dispersed across the country from California to Texas. The tenants in the building she’s lived in for the past 20 years keep an eye on her. When it’s pushing 90 degrees outside, she tells me the doormen will tackle her should she attempt to go out for a stroll to the east side river a block or so from her home. She is cared for.
I think of her sitting on the sofa in her small one-bedroom apartment surrounded by the New York Times, books, and magazines strewn across the coffee table. Sometimes she picks up the remote control to answer the phone, but so do I.
Before the virus when we talked I’d sometimes get the feeling that she was waiting for something. The clock is ticking but for her, it must be getting louder and louder. Sometimes after we speak, I sense a small crack on the surface of her soul that used to be much more accepting. She seems to be more dismissive of things that are of no real importance.
And this brings me to San Quentin.
I am not comparing being old to serving time in prison; I’m wondering what the ultimate face-off feels like, of knowing what you had - where you got it right, where you messed up, and not knowing precisely what the inevitable next step will be.
The waiting game changes every day. Every hour. Right now, I’m hungry and waiting for dinner (actually I’m waiting until it’s 5 o’clock so I can have a glass of wine). I’m waiting for the package for a security camera I bought on Indiegogo in March that I’ve tracked to a FedEx in China. I think about being here now while we’re all looking forward hoping for things to go back to the way they used to be.
Waiting for the quarantine to end, the election; waiting for DoorDash, waiting for Godot.
At one of the last meetings I attended inside San Quentin, I met with the players on the San Quentin Warriors and Kings basketball teams. It was supposed to start at 3 PM but now it was 4:10, and well — I don’t like waiting. I said to one of the players, well what’s up with this? Do meetings always start so late?
I knew about prison time and had already experienced the hoops you had to jump through to get anything accomplished inside, but we’d been sitting in this room for over an hour and it was making me crazy. I am punctual to a fault. (My kids used to beg me to not be the first parent at the party to pick them up every single time. I tried. I literally could not do it.)
On the days I might arrive at prison frustrated and complain that I was stuck in traffic, Brian would say he’d love to be stuck in traffic — sitting in a car, listening to the radio. I think of our meetings and how the season that never began is now over.
The men on death row are waiting and the men who have a chance for parole in the next few months are waiting.
The current conditions have tromped on our psyches, broken-up marriages, canceled plans, and tested our patience. And while I can empathize when I hear complaints about getting a haircut, a manicure, or a meal inside a restaurant; I remind myself that nobody has to endure the time quite like a prisoner when his hearing in a week will determine just how heavy the weight of waiting can be.
Say hi to Rita for me! Your work is so needed.