Prison Town: Part One

It felt like visiting the other side of the moon, but he’d gotten used to it. His son, Robert Jr. , had been an inmate at the medium security prison in Newberry going on three years. Newberry and Detroit were in the same state – Michigan – but it sure didn’t feel that way. Detroit was the Black heart of the state – home to the state’s Black leadership, arts, talent. Motown was faded now but still in everybody’s blood. Those songs, the times, the beat of the city had hung on hard through years of white people leaving and taking all their money with them.

            Robert, Sr.’s trips to Newberry took him up through northern Michigan, across the Mackinac Bridge, Big Mac to every Michigander, and into the middle of the western Upper Peninsula, a place advertised for being the best for seeing moose in the wild. And the U.P. – all of it, not just Newberry – was possibly the whitest place on earth.

            Robert, Sr. came to see Jr. once a month. That’s all he could manage, it being an eight-hour drive door to door. He’d been good, though, consistent, showing up every month on the fourth Friday for three years. He’d take the day off from his job, leave at five in the morning, and get to the prison just in time to catch the last hour of visitation, stay over at the Newberry Motor Lodge, catch another visit on Saturday, and then head home early Sunday morning. He’d gotten so he liked the trip, getting out of Detroit, away from his job with the city’s Building Inspection Department. Seniority meant he could take the time off. He worked extra some weeks, mentored the new hires. That meant the higher-ups cut him some slack, like being okay with the fourth Fridays.

            Robert, Sr. wasn’t ashamed of Jr. but he’d spent a long time being disgusted with him. That a son of his could hang with thugs spending their time carjacking old ladies loading their groceries had been unbelievable until he’d sat in court and listened to the testimony. His boy didn’t hold the gun but he jumped in and drove away the stolen cars. Jr. got three to five years for being the driver. The gunman got twenty. It was a time when the City of Detroit had gotten fed up with carjacking and reckless driving. That an old white lady was the last victim and that she’d gotten shot in the foot drilled it home for the judge. It didn’t matter how many high school teachers and family friends showed up at the trial. Jr. was going to jail.

            Robert, Sr. had to admit Jr. looked good today. Sharp, even. Hair trimmed up, clean uniform, nice and fit. It was clear he’d been working out. But more than that, Jr. was getting to a place of understanding what he’d done, the harm he’d caused. The prison had offered a restorative justice workshop and, to Robert, Sr.’s surprise, Jr. took part. After a few sessions, he even did a video chat with the woman who got shot. Apologized. So, that’s growth. Change. Plus Jr. was taking every class offered – computers, career exploration, understanding the legal system, Black history, you name it, Jr. signed up and sat in the front row. So, Robert, Sr. wasn’t so disgusted anymore. Stuff happens for a reason, maybe it was God’s plan to send Jr. up here to get his head screwed on straight. Who knows.

            Tomorrow, Robert, Sr. thought, tomorrow would be the right time to start talking to Jr. about what comes after, what’s he going to do when he gets out. Sure, the prison people were talking about that with him, but Robert, Sr. knew that bringing Jr. back to Detroit would be hard. His mom, even though she was divorced from Robert, Sr. and hadn’t been making trips up north to visit, well, maybe a couple of times a year, she, for sure, would want Jr. moving back into his old bedroom at her house. The relatives, all the cousins, well, they were ready to pounce, he just knew it, and Jr.’s old street buddies, probably chomping at the bit to get at it again.

            It made him tired to think about, so Robert, Sr. decided to do some exploring. Sometimes, he did this, looked around at the stores in what folks here considered ‘downtown’ and took a walk, but he drew a lot of stares so he mostly stayed in his room after his first visit, minded his own business, nodded at the one or two other Black folks at the motel, visiting their own sons. They didn’t say so, he just guessed.

            It was mid-October when all the trees are at their peak fall colors. If the U.P. was known for anything, it was its endless forests, the trees bursting with red and orange, the two-lane roads up and down hills so that whole vistas of color rose up like carpets. People drove for hours to be wowed. It would be a crime to sit in his motel room watching ancient episodes of Magnum, P.I., Robert , Sr. thought, so he asked the desk clerk where he could find the nearest, oldest cemetery.

            “You want to go to a cemetery?” The desk clerk looked at Robert, Sr. sideways. “Like any cemetery? Are you looking for somebody that’s buried up here?” She didn’t have to say more, the question marks practically danced around her head.

            “No. Not looking for anybody in particular. I just like cemeteries. Old ones. A lot of history in cemeteries.” He skipped over how he’d been to twelve cemeteries in the Deep South, white cemeteries and Black, because they were still separate in most places, and a bunch more in Lower Michigan, especially around Detroit and on the west side of the state near Niles and other towns that had been stops on the Underground Railroad. He studied the headstones hard, and, if the day was right and it was very still and his mind was in a good place, he felt things. He never told anyone this, that he could feel the dead people. Nobody needed to know. There was nothing wrong with it.

(To be continued.)

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Photo by Aron Lesin on Unsplash