The following essay is part of a series, made possible by the Art for Justice Fund, documenting communities “most harmed by mass incarceration”—especially women and children—“where the promise of change is greatest.” Read the other original essays in this series.
Have you ever taken a bus to a prison? There is bus, Q100, that travels from Queens to Rikers Island; or the bus route 30 in Sacramento that goes to Folsom. Or the Cornerstone Builder’s bus program that offers free monthly rides for families visiting loved ones incarcerated in ten different prisons throughout the state of Louisiana.
Why do I know everything about riding the bus to prison? The brick buildings they pass, the rows of cornfields they fly by, each bus holding a warm hull with a spastic heartbeat, responding to the vibration of the polycotton seats. I have researched random landscapes and sunsets surrounding these vital bus stops. Hell, I wrote a film about it.
My cousin says I got PTSD because eighty-five percent of our family has been locked up. I tell her, “Over two million Americans are detained in prison.1” Then I try not to brood over how our uncles, cousins, and siblings factor into that number. How many affected family members are walking around afraid of cops, landlords, stoplights, guns, ink, tattoos, clocks, toothbrushes, bedsprings, direct eye contact, silence, screams, laughter, silence?
*
I am twenty-three years old when I leave the state that made and raised me, when I settle into a predominantly black neighborhood located in Brooklyn, New York. Some might say I was running from Oakland but I would say it was more important for my two-year-old daughter to see what running toward a dream can look like. I wanted to write for a living but I was haunted by the constant anxiety and struggle that seemed to follow my family’s place of residence. The police often circled around Helen Street, issuing traffic violations for “California stops” with no regard for the fact that they drove the exact same way. Once, my late uncle was pulled over in a minor traffic stop violation and he refused to even grimace over the annoyance. He just pulled the car over and sent one of the kids to my grandmother’s house with instructions of where to put his car until he was out of custody. Because he was a parolee, he was well aware of this day-long process. And by the third or fifth traffic stop, he was more concerned with the treatment of his 1965 drop-top cherry Mustang than he was of his own body.
*
I exit the bus at Stuyvesant and Halsey Streets in Brooklyn, New York. I’ve only lived in Brooklyn for six months now and I have found the bus ride home is the best way to decompress after twelve hours of working as an online hip-hop magazine journalist. I am far away from my family with a growing inquisitive dandelion daughter and the only time I feel like I can breathe is when I’m on the bus. Besides, it’s the closest means of transportation near her daycare and she likes to say hi to the people getting on headed to their next destination. When we climb the stairs to our brownstone, the mail is waiting. Living on my own since the age of eighteen, I’m quite used to receiving bills, even if I’m not always prepared, so I don’t blink twice as I stoop to grab the mail from the floor pile of envelopes. The worn brownstone in Bed-Stuy (an area later known as Stuyvesant Heights courtesy of gentrification) is rickety, still sporting a door slot for incoming mail, but it is what I can afford on my own and it reminds me most of my grandparents’ home in West Oakland. We climb the stairs, my daughter holding each rail to sturdy herself against the uneven wooden steps and upon opening the door, I begin the bedtime ritual. Bath time, night juice, and bed. In between bath time and juice, I thumb through the mail. My hands methodically go through advert leaflets and local Chinese food menus, readying them for the trash, before settling on a thick off-white envelope with a thick penciled lettering. It is addressed to my birth name, and at first glance the return addressee’s name isn’t familiar.
*
I was six or seven when I shared with the group of kids during a fresh-air type of government-sponsored, summer-camp field trip, “My dad is in jail.” I was excited to share this information. Jail sounded like an amusement park for grown-ups. No one told me what happened there—I just knew a lot of dads went there. Wearing my yellow shirt with the camp name splashed across the front, I began to scour the menu above the register when the summer-camp chaperone asked me to repeat myself. More concerned with my choice of chicken nuggets or cheeseburgers than the sudden silence, I repeated the statement over my shoulder, not realizing my friend’s mouth fell open, until the camp counselor said, “I’m so sorry.” When I returned home that evening and asked my mother what was jail. She explained to me where my father actually was and how long he would be gone. Shame crawled its slick body up my arms and found its home for the next thirty years across the stretch of my shoulders.
*
A bus drives by somewhere with a mother and her two kids straddling her lap. Her eyes are closed. This is not a poem. This is any other day where a government will take family away from their family.
*
People of color make up over sixty percent of the prison population. This is no coincidence. This is the result of systematic oppression. All big words when you are talking about bodies and families and the relationships so many lose in the coiled mess that is the mass incarceration system. The letter feels heavy in my hands. There is a cartoon pencil sketch on the front of the envelope. My daughter is asleep when I finally open the pages and realize my hands are shaking. My breath quickens. I am afraid of what lies inside the ruled notebook pages pressed into a neat trifold. The letter is not from a family member but A Dot, a young man I played basketball with at Poplar Park. Back when the concrete was still ruptured and if you knew how to play, you would swivel and use the potholes to your advantage. I hadn’t seen A Dot in years, and now I know why. As I read the letter, I realize one of my six uncles gave him my new address. I finish the letter which asks me to write him back and punch in the family phone number, ready to curse whoever is responsible for the deed. My anger and frustration is dismissed as stuck-up and silly. I’ve never shared this story until now. And I’ve yet to take the bus to prison.
1The Sentencing Project