Christopher Locke​

Corrections

   
​                                                                            “Who understands me when I say this is beautiful?”
​                                                                                                                            --Jimmy Santiago Baca
 
             I’d taught creative writing at all kinds of places, but during my new hire orientation at the federal prison, I was told that I needed to learn how to be a hostage if in fact I became one; I looked at the Lieutenant addressing me and nodded thoughtfully, as if this was just regular new job housekeeping stuff I’d heard a zillion times.
             I sat at a small desk for four hours as different personnel rotated in and out to let me know what I’d gotten myself into. It was clear I was there to listen, and the psychologist, the educational coordinator, the warden, and various COs all had their own take on prison life. Some were funny, many expressed hope. A few sounded like they didn’t particularly like their jobs and I immediately began siding with the prisoners. At the end of the day, I was shown glossy photos of confiscated weapons, including shanks and zip guns.
             “Tell them nothing about your personal life,” the Lieutenant said at one point. “Not where you live. Or if you’re married. Or even if you have kids or not. Nothing.”
             After a tour of the classrooms, the Education Coordinator asked if I had any questions. He had a close-cropped beard and kind eyes.
             “Yeah,” I said. “Can I create a literary magazine with my students?”
 
                                                                                                                  ***
 
             On the first day of class I didn’t know what to expect even though I thought I knew. After I signed in and handed over my keys and license, I was told to go through the metal detector but kept setting it off—first my belt, then my shoes. I was finally brought to the education center and handed a walkie talkie.
             “That’s the emergency button,” the guard said pointing to a bright orange button on top. “Don’t push it unless,” he said.
             “Unless what,” I said.
             “You’ll know.”
              I entered my classroom and waited. I read and re-read the roster; I wanted to make sure I got their names right. My seven students arrived 10 minutes later. We took turns shaking hands and introducing ourselves. I told them my name was Mr. Locke, as I was instructed: Never tell them your first name. And in turn, I was to refer to them only by their last names. Their age range seemed between 20 and 55, and the older guy was carrying a beautiful prayer rug over his shoulder when we shook hands.
              I handed out the syllabus after everyone took their seats. The room had no windows and everything was beige. I said we’d break the class down into two-week units, with the first unit focusing on poetry. I asked if anyone had ever written a poem. No one said a thing. Mr. Cruz kind of shook his head. The air was thick and a fan hummed uselessly in the corner. I started sweating.
             Mr. Cruz spoke up. “I write some free verse. I like blank verse too. But yeah, I really dig meter.”
             “Meter?” asked Mr. Delgado.
             “Yeah, meter. Rhyme. Iambic pentameter. We talked about this,” said Mr. Cruz.
             “Why do they call poems ‘verse’,” asked Mr. Foote. He had thin, short dreads, oval wire rimmed glasses. His eyes were clear.
             “Well, um, sure, poems are sometimes called ‘verse’. But verse actually means ‘turn’,” I said.
             I thought for a second and then had an idea. I opened my textbook.
             “I’d like to read you guys a poem to start things off,” I said. “And after I read, let’s see if we can find a part of the poem that illustrates a turn, or a kind of hinge, swinging us away from the current action and into something new.”
             I read the poem out loud. The name of the poem or who wrote it doesn’t matter. I was so nervous I just hoped I could get through it without them all laughing at me.
             Afterward, I asked that they read it again to themselves and think about my question and then mark the poem at the place, or places, a turn occurs. My students wrote and wrote. There was great seismographic scratching that I found exceptionally pleasing. Finally, one student raised his hand.
             “Yes, Mr. Delgado,” I said.
             “I thought poems were supposed to rhyme,” he said.
             “No, not all poems,” I said.
             He considered my reply carefully. “Will we write poems like this,” he asked.
             “I would like that,” I said.
 
                                                                                                               ***
 
            Over the following week we read out loud poems by Gary Soto, Carolyn Forche, and Brian Turner. We talked about the art of linguistic compression and the importance of energy—how one trims language down to the muscle. And because we read those three poets we also talked about baseball, Mexican immigration, and Caesar Chavez; El Salvador, civil war, and body dumps; the Iraq War, Islam, and when it was appropriate to say Inshallah.
            Then it was time for them to read their villanelles; no one in class had ever written one, let alone read one out loud. And all they had as reference was Thomas’ Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.
            Mr. Delgado went first. He dropped out of school in the eighth grade. All his life he’s known poverty and gangs; white people crowding the sun off his beach back in Puerto Rico. His hands are overrun in tattoos of birds and ornate letters, eyes weeping across knuckles. He read his villanelle. It was tender, nearly sweet.
            “This poem,” he said. “All I could think about as I wrote it was love.”
            “What are you talking about,” joked Mr. Johnson, the youngest of my students. “You mean like...your girlfriend?” A couple of snickers. And all Mr. Delgado had to do was laugh back and he’d be off the hook. Vulnerability thwarted.
            “No. I mean all kinds. Every kind. Just...love.”
 
                                                                                                                 ***
 
            Class started late, as transfers were running behind. We would be without Mr. Johnson; he was caught up in a large fight and remanded to solitary confinement. I looked at his desk several times during class. It vibrated with his absence.
            The students began reading their revised poems. They were originally scaffolded from a Bob Hicok poem, but we had dropped the scaffolding and they’d evolved into pieces more closely resembling their own voices. Mr. Cruz read his. Normally eager to speak and engage, Mr. Cruz read his poem merely louder than a breath. His poem recounted his years growing up in North Carolina. As he read, I could pick up the faintest hint of a southern accent, not something I had heard before.
             “Damn, Charlie Brown, (Mr. Cruz’s nickname) that was all quiet and shit,” Said Mr. Leeds. “What happened to you?”                        
             “I’m not proud,” Mr. Cruz said.
             “What,” said Mr. Foote.
             “Where I’m from,” Said Mr. Cruz. “I’m not proud.”
             Mr. Delgado got worked up. “Are you kidding me? I’m from Puerto Rico and I embrace that shit. You’re a Mexican from the south and you feel…embarrassed?”        
             “Yeah. I guess so.”
             “You and me, Charlie Brown, we’re having a talk, after class. You and me,” said Mr. Delgado. He was pointing back and forth and his voice was enlarged. I knew he considered Mr. Cruz a brother.
             After class, two other teachers and I were buzzed out of the education wing, walked alongside the fence with its tuft of razor wire, buzzed back inside, and then returned our walkie-talkies through a slot like the kind found at drive-thru pharmacies. We put our right hands under the blacklight so the officer could see the stamp we received that morning, and then we flipped the three red chits on a board back over to white, meaning we had left the prison. Then it was more waiting behind heavy doors, another buzzing, stepping inside a small room, our escort closing the door behind us, and waiting for the next door to be buzzed open. You moved like this in orchestrated segments: start, shuffle, stop, as if slowly making your way through a train's multiple cars.
Back outside in the parking lot, the sun was ruthless, piercing. We all complained. Unlocking the door to his Chevette, the business teacher told us he was just doing this gig for fun and that he used to make $200,000 on Wall Street.
Uh-huh, I thought. Sure you did.
 
                                                                                                                ***
 
            Class was about to start, and Mr. Hamilton was steaming.
            “You’re steaming, Mr. Hamilton. What’s up,” I asked.
            “You know, these clowns don’t know shit,” he said. He stared right into me, his eyes gray and still as two dimes underwater. “I filled out my goddamn form requesting extra postage so I can mail out my letter and 10 days later my counselor still hasn’t approved it. It should take three fucking days. They’re all lucky I don’t have a gun with bullets,” he said.
            “Oh yeah? Maybe we’re all lucky,” I offered.
            “I didn’t say I’d kill him, just let him know the extent of my anger. Shoot off his goddamn big toe, throw him off balance so he has to limp around the rest of his life.”
            I looked down at the table and then back up, laughing. Mr. Hamilton laughed too, a big, booming laugh that said no matter how steep these walls, I can dream higher.
            “No one has gone to hell just for shootin’ someone in the ass,” he said.
            “Or toe,” I reminded.
            We laughed again.
 
                                                                                                                ***
 
            After class, I waited with the students and other prisoners in a smallish day room—it resembled an elementary school cafeteria. I grabbed a seat at a table where three guys I didn’t know were talking passionately, but just under the volume of normal conversation. They all nodded and said what’s up.
            “Hey,” I said. I placed my books neatly in front of me, detached my walkie-talkie from my belt and laid it sideways on top of my pile.
            “You teach that creative writing class, right,” one guy said. He had a round, open face and a perfectly symmetrical afro.
            “Yeah.”
            “I heard that’s hard.”
            I shrugged. “Eh, it’s all perspective.”
            He tipped his head at me, returned to his conversation about his own college classes and which professors were good, which were assholes. I thankfully didn’t hear my name.
            I looked around while trying to look like I wasn’t looking around. There were about forty guys in olive green jumpsuits milling about, waiting for the intercom and its charged voice granting permission for everyone to transfer back up the hill to their cells. White guys hung out with white guys, black guys with black, Hispanic with Hispanic. As the only white dude at the table, I wondered if my sitting there broke some kind of unspoken rule, or if I got a free pass because I was a teacher.
            I began thinking about my past, stupid shit I did that could have landed me in a place like this: buying drugs, selling drugs. But mostly buying. A lot. There were times in college I had enough cocaine in my possession that, if busted, would have carried a mandatory minimum. The only difference between me and many of the men here is that I was lucky not to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Jesus Christ, I thought. Am I just prancing around like some clueless dickhead, giving off classic white savior vibes?
            After about 20 minutes, I realized I was the only non-prisoner in the room. I began feeling a little anxious for being alone this long, which was quickly followed by shame for feeling anxious. Everyone else was oblivious—talking, standing with their backs against the concrete walls, or sitting at tables. No one, rightfully, gave two shits I was there. Their voices blended into a kind of indiscernible hum, as if everything and nothing was at stake and great truths needed to be ferried through narrow passages.
            I saw my escort—a guard name Susan—enter the room, keys bouncing at her hip. I stood up.
            “Sit tight,” she said. “You’ll need to get comfortable for a while.”  I sat back down. She unlocked a door to an office and got on the phone. I watched her behind a large square of glass talk and nod her head affirmative. She came back out, closed and relocked the door. “We’re going to be here a while,” she said.
            She moved past me in another jangle of keys and just like that was gone. I looked down at my roster sheet and pretended I was engaged in something very important. 15 more minutes went by. The guys maintained their conversation, used to these types of delays.
            I stood up and stretched, imagined what would happen if I was required to stay all night, some urgent kind of lockdown out of my control. Where would I sleep, I thought.
            “Hey,” said the guy who asked me earlier if I taught creative writing.
            “Yeah?”
            “What do you suggest I use if I want a guide or whatever to help me with my writing?”
            “You want this book,” I said, and slid over my textbook.
            “Does it have short stories,” he asked.
            “We just read one in class today by a guy named Michael Cunningham, “White Angel”. It’s an incredible story,” I said. “Beautiful, actually.”
            “Oh yeah?”
            “Yeah,” I said.
            And he found the story in the table of contents, turned to the page, and started to read.
 
                                                                                                                ***
 
            “When I Was Sixteen, I Knew It Was A Lie That…”
            That was the essay prompt. I told them nothing else except this: ‘Be brave.’
            Mr. Leeds, who generally writes in an earnest pastiche of clichés, wrote that When I Was Sixteen I knew It Was A Lie that Santa Claus came down our chimneys because there weren’t any chimneys in the ‘hood. Some white man bringing us presents? Please. We’d rob HIM if given the chance. The only white men we saw were cops, and the kind of presents they brought were the ones we didn’t want.
            Mr. Cruz wrote that When I Was Sixteen I Knew It Was A Lie that everything would be all right. The night his mom was to leave the hospital he slept in her bed because the way her pillow smelled like the strawberry shampoo she loved so much lulled him to sleep. When the banging door woke him up all he could think was how mad he was that sleep was ruined until his neighbor met him at the door to tell him that his mother had died before she could be released.
            And then it was Mr. Delgado’s turn to read.
            “It’s, it’s no big deal. Just my thoughts,” he said.
            “No,” said Mr. Foote. “It’s your truth.”
            Mr. Delgado smiled and then looked down at his paper. It did not shake or move.
            “When I Was Sixteen I Knew It Was A Lie that I could be loved.” And then bravely, just as I had asked, he continued.
 
                                                                                                                 ***
 
            On the final day of class Mr. Cruz lingered so we could talk. I’d already informed the men that we wouldn’t be able to create a magazine due to lack of funding. And the poetry reading we had planned to hold for the other prisoners was canceled for reasons no one understood, least of all me.
            “Mr. Cruz, when do you get out,” I asked. By this point, we all knew a lot about each other’s personal lives, dire warnings notwithstanding. Only thing I didn’t know was what they were in for, and how long they had left.
            “14 months,” he said.
            “And you’ll have your bachelor’s, right?”
            “Yeah.”
            “You ever think about getting an MFA?”
            He smiled. “You think so?”
            “Yes, I do. You’re a good writer, Mr. Cruz. And you’ll only get better.”
            Mr. Cruz was light years ahead of any student I’d had in my classes I taught at the college. He was a voracious reader. Sensitive. And smart. When the class read the poem ‘Telemachus’ by Ocean Voung, he said “Telemachus was Odysseus’ son, right?” I said I had no idea. And he knew more about meter and rhyme than any teacher I had ever known, sometimes correcting me when I got things wrong.
            When I had read a poem by former prisoner/poet Jimmy Santiago Baca, Mr. Cruz shook his head firmly and said “That’s dope. That poem right there. That’s dope.” He held the poem in his hands as they trembled, and I imagined he hoped his life going in the same direction: rebirth and reclamation.
            “I’ll write a letter of recommendation,” I said. “Just ask me when you’re ready.”
            I stood up and we shook hands. The intercom said it was time for a move up the hill.
            “I would like that, Mr. Locke,” he said.
            “Chris,” I said. “My name… is Chris."
​

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Christopher Locke’s writing has appeared in The North American Review, Poets & Writers, The Rumpus, Another Chicago Magazine, Poetry East, SmokeLong Quarterly, Verse Daily, Southwest Review, Whiskey Island, Rhino, The Sun, West Branch, Rattle, 32 Poems, and The Adirondack Review, among others. He won the 2018 Black River Chapbook Award (Black Lawrence Press) for his collection of short stories 25 TRUMBULLS ROAD and his latest book of poems is MUSIC FOR GHOSTS (NYQ Books—2022). Locke has received the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Award, state grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, and Poetry Fellowships from Fundacion Valparaiso, (Spain) and PARMA (Mexico). He teaches creative writing at both North Country Community College and Ray Brook Federal Prison in the Adirondacks.