LWOP
“Who’s playing right now?” Mark asked on the cliff hugging curves parallel to the pacific
I was too preoccupied by the power of the saxophone lifting the sun to answer
Silence and stillness are sometimes the best response
Just like John Coltrane is necessary for 5 am drives to a prison too far from anything
We parked in front of the Parolee Pickup sign
Three COs chatting away as if they weren’t gatekeepers of torture
These are moments for small talk piercing the cheek drawing blood with the canine
The female CO with the reputation asked where we were dropping him off
Mark told her Oakland
“I’ll never go to Oakland, what a shit show” the CO said waving her hands in a gesture like the
mechanics of a guillotine
That’s the problem with these people they use the word never in every sentence
We use to take the old chew spit from a CO and dry it out
Rolling it in old bible paper
Using toilet paper to catch fire from the hotpot and carrying it to the bathroom
I thought of that CO waiting for the pickup and wondered what he was doing now
It’s funny what one remembers when in the presence of guard towers and gun holsters
Mark’s eyes watered like a child solving his first riddle
Eric’s eyes watered like a child tasting ice cream for the first time
For 28 years Eric was denied the privilege of anything sweet
Today I saw the face of a man given back that freedom
Mark asked “how does it feel to be out?”
Eric counted the hawks he only saw from the otherside of the fence
He hugged a redwood tree and stroked the soft fibrous bark
Before today this sort of act could get him sent to the hole
The prison defines compassion as contraband
Eric looked for the words like a search party out at sea
A Native of American Soil Enemy of the White State
His tribe is the only one not to sign a treaty with the American government. This is what he tells me during an unforgettably hot July summer in between two rivers. The two water sources are the San
Joaquin Delta and Mokelumne River but we never see them. We are stuck at Cosumnes River beneath gunner towers and chew spitting army vest wearing racist assholes wielding guns in which they can’t
even spell the names of. Don’t let me fool you the river is nowhere to be seen but names the correctional facility we reside at. His tribe was forced to live on a reservation in the midwest. A minuscule
measurement compared to what they once called home. What they once knew as freedom. Taken from savage anglo hands that define others as such. He is technically an enemy of the state and reminded of
this growing up punk renegades in the eyes of the white skin tailored in navy blue suits and shiny badge shields. A bandwagon of mad max apocalyptic desert survivors in the plains adorned not with feathers and
tomahawks but gang affiliated tattoos street battle scars and automatic machine gun heavy artillery
They attacked us first he tells me Genocide. He has been in prison since the age of 18. Years added to a
sentence from a crime committed with fiery passion and resentment towards his status as enemy.To a state of a union in which stole his land and gave him a minimum of 10 years. For not selling out. The
judiciary system placed him level 5, most violent, locked up with cold blooded killers and those deemed by society as never to be rehabilitated, solitary confinement for having the name of his people and
believing mother earth is creator. He holds a degree in dentistry and an AA in social sciences. Wearing poindexter glasses his arms are larger than my thighs. We met in the A dorm of the low valley open land
prison. A place where people attempt suicide or cold clock guards to be sent up State. This place has no happy endings, except for the volleyball tournament we won in the blistering summer of ’14 but that’s for
another time. He was awaiting trial like many of us. Kept to himself mostly. There weren’t many Natives in this place and to be safe one stays with their own. We meditated and spoke of the freedom outside. I
once took photos of a powwow he was apart of 3 years prior and my mother mailed in the photos to us. Me on one end of the camera and he on the other. Never meeting until incarcerated. Life is funny that
way. He was from Oklahoma and I lived there for a spell. He coached me on prison politics and old westerns. I told him Japanese folktales. We collected Hawk feathers out on the yard. I tried to work out
with him once but gave up after one day. 2 months out after his first sentence he defended a young woman from his tribe. Like warriors are meant to do and he displayed that title humbly. The government
made it their point to haul him away from the reservation and back into a white controlled cage. Clipping his wings and attempting to steal his heart. But it was too big to contain and remained beating with hope.
With a name like his you can soar anywhere. Long periods of silence out living the calendar carved into concrete slabbed walls. Today he still sits quietly listening to the wind and taking advantage of school
opportunity prison sometimes offers. Reading, sitting, and giving advice to kids like me. Life in prison pending. But the tattoo stretched across his back still shines in the sun confined between the barbed wire
encasing of the yard. I’m not sure where he is now. But I’m sure he still collects feathers
About the author: T.William Wallin-sato is a Japanese-American who works with formerly and currently incarcerated individuals in higher education. He is also a freelance journalist covering the criminal justice system through the lens of his own incarcerated experience as well as an MFA student at CSULB. He can either be found near water or back alleys skipping along to harmonica notes. He studies Zen Buddhism in Northern California and has been published in Cold River Press, The Adelaide, The Adelaide Anthology, and Susurrus. He was the winner of the Jody Stultz Award for Poetry in the 2020 edition of Toyon Literary Magazine and has a book of poems coming out this year through Cold River Press.
Learn more about his work at Project Rebound.