By Bridget Sampson

Chatsworth, California, May 12, 2006
“Gotta interview a guy in jail,” my husband says. “Wanna come with me? “
“Jail? Me? I donʼt know, Neal. Well…maybe.”
I reread a few of the articles I give my students. Relevant passages scream at me.
Drug usage equal across races but black men five times more likely to be arrested for a
drug offense.
Half the inmates in jail African American.
One out of every 14 black men in jail.
70% of inmates illiterate. Thousands mentally ill.
Violent crime in the US decreasing, but prison rolls rising.
Almost one third of black and Latino babies born into poverty in the U.S.
Deplorable inner city schools. Race. Racism. Drugs. Drug addiction.
So much talk, I think. Thatʼs me, the detached professor. Itʼs all academic, right?
“Yeah, I wanna go with you to jail. Definitely. When can we go?”
Los Angeles County Menʼs Central Jail, May 19, 2006
Hot, stale, dingy room. The strong smell of perfume and sweat. Babies crying.
I feel conspicuous. Our white faces stand out in a sea of every gorgeous shade of
brown. They have to wait at least two hours for a 15 minute visit. They fill the benches
and line the walls. Hundreds of visitors at 10:00 am on a Friday. Right here, half an
hour from my house. Children, with braids poking out coloring at little plastic blue,
yellow and red picnic tables.
A video box stands tall above the blaring TV: “Animated Series for the New
Testament: Forgive Us Our Debts.” Vending machines filled with Pepsi and Doritos.
Angry signs with bold letters at the top reading “YOU ARE SUBJECT TO ARREST IF…”
decorate the immense room. Women all dressed up. Lipstick, fancy hairdos. High
heels. Cleavage and more cleavage. Tattoos. A beautiful black woman in wire rimmed
glasses and no makeup reads her paperback Da Vinci Code.
I study the space behind the counter. Dirty walls. Fake flowers in a chipped
vase. A few childrenʼs drawings taped to the wall. Neal chats easily with white Sheriffʼs
Deputy Marino. He asks why Neal came to the general visiting area when he could
have met with his inmate in the attorney visitation area. Itʼs my fault. They wonʼt let me
in the other area. I cringe when Neal tells him that Iʼm a writer and I came along for the
experience. Marino seems amused by this. I must be the only person who actually
chose to be here today.
I leaf through pamphlets plastered with the word God and numbers of Bible
verses. A kind looking white man with large glasses and a tie comes up to me. “Please
give him these. Theyʼre free. Weʼre here to help. We want to get them going back in
the right direction. He can meet with a Chaplain of any faith.” He misunderstands the
reason for my visit, but I canʼt quite think of anything to say so I take the materials from
him and nod somberly.
Marino tells us we wonʼt have to wait long. Theyʼll bring our inmate, Clayton
Jones, out right away. I wonder if Clayton is black. Then I feel bad for wondering.
Marino tells us weʼre only supposed to get 15 minutes but heʼll give us more time if we
need it. The women here would give anything for more than 15 minutes, but thereʼs
nothing they can do to extend their visits.
We wait at a counter, apart from the crowd. I try not to make eye contact with
anyone. Deputy Feldonʼs ornate black knit headband draws attention to her high
cheekbones, small nose and bright smile. She could almost pass for white if her skin
were just a shade or two lighter.
“Busy today, huh?” Neal says to her.
“This is nothing. You should see Sundays. Donʼt ever come on a Sunday.”
Sheʼs friendly, but with an edge, like all of them. They do their work quietly and
efficiently but their presence overpowers us all. So thick with their bullet-proof vests and their guns at the ready.
During the car ride, Neal explained to me that they have to work at the jail when
they start out. They see the worst of human nature and it makes them hard.
Sometimes in the beginning they try to be nice to the inmates, but it gets them nowhere.
Some human gaps simply cannot be bridged.
Marino reads the lists of inmates now waiting behind their little glass walls for
their visitors. My heart jumps when I hear the name Clayton Jones. Weʼll be going in
soon. His name stands out among the rest. I struggle to write down some of the names
I hear.
Gomez, Chavez, Gonzales, Flores, Ramirez. Castro, Reyes, Martinez, Munoz, Rocha,
Meza, Sanchez, Morales, Garcia, Hernandez, Corranza, Perez, Quinada and Lopez,
Nealʼs motherʼs maiden name.
Proud names. Names that reach back into history of the very land we stand on
now, so much of which was stolen from them. Proud families. Hard work. Love and
community and honor. Sacrifice and loss of culture for the hope of the American dream.
Leaving behind children and parents and husbands and wives for the dream. Then
trampled and decimated by the reality of America. The American dream. It was
available to me. But it was never really available to them. After all we were born the
same. Perfectly divine babies full of potential.
Finally, we go in. I realize some places do look just like they do on TV. But
these are real people. I feel sick. Afraid. Itʼs cramped, dark, surreal. We pass rows
and rows, each with 20 tiny little sections of thick glass separated by metal dividers
painted green. But there is no privacy here. You can see through the glass of all the
rows like a kaleidoscope. Old green rotary phones with no numbers on them line the
dividers of each little stall. Inmates sit behind the glass watching us pass by. Caged
puppies at the vet waiting with big expectant eyes for their ownersʼ familiar faces to
appear.
Babies and children are crying and yelling and running around. Neal finds his
spot, F17. Thereʼs no inmate in F18 so I take that visitor stool. Two Latino women with
three small children take the spot on the other side of Neal. The tiny rows are packed
with women and children. There is so little space. A baby boy sleeping in his stroller is
parked right in front of my feet.
The phones havenʼt been turned on yet. A stabbing pain in my chest as I hear
“Daddy! Daddy!” echoing with excitement from every row. Babies are held up in front of
the glass as their mothers and grandmothers move their hands up and down to wave to
their fathers. Toddlers stand on the scratched up wood counter saying, “I miss you
Daddy. When you come home Daddy?” But their fathers still canʼt hear them. It takes
forever for the phones to be turned on. While we all wait, children stand with their
hands pressed to the glass and their fathersʼ hands meet them on the other side. The
pain in my heart is almost unbearable. I start to worry about when it will unleash itself.
I lean over to study our inmate through the glass. Clayton Jones. He is white
and handsome. I am attracted to him and afraid of him. He has spiky brown hair and a
ski slope nose. He has sexy eyes and a confident smile. He smiles at me and waves.
He seems friendly. Easy going. The phones are finally turned on and Neal introduces
himself. They both laugh. Later I learn itʼs because Clayton thinks Neal looks just like
Eric from That 70s Show. Everyone says that. Neal starts to ask him the questions he
needs to ask about a car accident and I turn my attention to a black woman and her
daughter in the row across from me.
“Baby, Baby,” the woman says. “Baby, I promised myself I ainʼt gonna come
down here and cry this time.” Her daughter, a precocious little girl of about four with
perfect cornrows, demands loudly, “I want to talk to Daddy! I want to talk to Daddy!”
She is ignored. Her mother is doing this rapid-fire update thing that I realize other
women there are doing as well. “I had a little car accident, but everythingʼs okay. And I
went to the fertility doctor yesterday and he says we need to check your sperm count
and… ” “I want to talk to Daddy. Mama! Let me talk to Daddy now!” Still she is
ignored. I smile at her. She looks at me with suspicion. Finally she picks up the phone
in the stall next to her mother. No one is on the other end but she speaks into it
anyway. “I love you daddy. I looooooove you.” She kisses the phone.
Her mother goes on.
“She wanna go to Chuck E Cheese. But we canʼt do much with you in here. You
gotta get your ass outta here.” Every sentence is punctuated with profanity and the
word “nigga.” But I only hear whatʼs in between. They love each other. I am astounded
by the power of love all around me in this godforsaken place. And commitment. Maybe
this is true commitment. So many women and men gazing into each otherʼs eyes. Itʼs
like nothing Iʼve ever seen, even in the most romantic restaurant. I can see through the
layers of glass to the rows on the other side of our inmate. A beautiful woman with the
darkest skin Iʼve ever seen, straightened hair with red and blond streaks listens intently
to her man. She smiles and nods with enthusiasm and her eyes sparkle as he talks.
Finally the little girl across the row from me gets her fatherʼs attention. She
points to the phone on her ear and he reaches over to pick up the phone from the stall
next to his. Now he has a phone on each ear, listening to both his women at the same
time. He is very good looking. He has cornrows just like his daughter and his goatee
emphasizes his angular jaw. His hard eyes soften when he looks at his daughter. Heʼs
not wearing the light green uniform that our inmate is wearing. This husband and father is wearing the bright blue that signifies what Iʼve learned is called a “high power” inmate. His daughter revels in gaining his brief attention. She saunters back and forth as far as her phone will reach.
“Daddy, whatcha gonna do today?” He responds. I canʼt hear what he has said,
but I can see his wife become angry and animated. “No you ainʼt. You ainʼt gonna beat
nobodyʼs ass today. You gonna be good so you can get outta here.”
He speaks again. “Show me!” the woman yells. I canʼt help but look over. He
shakes his head. “I donʼt care. I like you fat.” she says. He stands and pulls up his
shirt to reveal what appears to be a small injury on his stomach.
I want to look for longer but Iʼm afraid Iʼll be caught. I keep my eyes mostly on
the floor. “That aint nothinʼ. Thereʼs nothinʼ there. You better not do nothinʼʼ.”
A large bang terrifies me. For a second I think itʼs a gun. Itʼs a woman pounding
on the glass a few rows down. My heart rate takes some time to return to normal.
Suddenly the phones die. The fifteen minutes is over. Women cry. Children yell
“Daddy, Daddy.” Hands touch hands through glass again. We are herded back out to
the waiting room to wait for our second fifteen minutes with Clayton. New rows and
rows of people are waiting.
I pump Neal for information about our inmate. “Heʼs a nice guy, very well
spoken,” he says. “He had a good union job designing sets for movies. But he got into
drugs. Heʼs got one commercial burglary.”
“What does that mean?”
“He just broke into a business. No one was there. He didnʼt hurt anyone.
Seems like a good guy. He graduated from high school the year after I did. He works in
the high power area. Told me he serves dinner to Leif Garret.”
I think about people like Rush Limbagh and Charlie Sheen. What penalty do they
pay for their addictions? Would they steal too if they didnʼt have millions to pay for a fix?
A new list of names is called. Our Clayton is not one of them. Itʼll be at least
another half hour. An old man with deep lines on his face asks us something in
Spanish. I turn to Neal, who points and says “allá.” The man heads toward the door
under the sign reading Rows G through K. Maybe it was me he expected to answer
him. How could it be Neal with his fair skin and sky blue eyes?
A fiftyish white couple with sad, tired faces shuffles past us and through the Rows
A-F door. Her blond hair meets the collar of her Tommy Hilfigger denim jacket. He has
a neatly trimmed salt and pepper beard. “Did you see them?” Neal asks.
“Yeah.”
“Parents” he says. I nod. The sweet faces of our little boys swirl in my head.
I get restless and walk around. A Sheriffʼs Deputy escorts a handcuffed young
black girl in a pretty brown and white striped blouse through a door. I head back to
Neal.
“Did you see that?” he asks.
“Yeah, what happened?”
“She had to show her ID to visit. Must not have realized there was a warrant out
for her.”
We go back in to see Clayton. A whole new group of women and children fill the
stalls. I twirl my gum with my finger and try to keep my eyes on the floor again.
A thin young black girl with hair pulled into a tight ponytail kneels on her stool so she is
visible from the knees up. He looks at her with such longing and such love. For a
second, I wonder what it would be like to have a lover in jail. The anticipation must
make everything so much more intense.
We were at the LA County Menʼs Central Correctional Facility from 10 am to 1:30
pm. My tears didnʼt arrive until 9:00 pm. Right in front of the fresh steaming hot rice,
veggies, and falafel at our favorite Greek restaurant. Neal was good. He listened. He
comforted. I love him for not being embarrassed by my streaming tears and sobs.
“Why?” I asked over and over. All those children. And the women and the parents.
They all love these men. They need them at home. They only get to see them for 15
minutes. And the men. How can our country just throw them away like this? This
doesnʼt happen in other developed countries. What did these men come from? What
did they have? What were they given? Nothing. They didnʼt grow up the way we did.
If it had been me, I would be just like them. No money, no prospects, no education, no
role models, abused, abandoned. I would do whatever I had to do to survive, to be part
of a community. And what right do they have to call it a correctional facility? There is
no correction going on. There is no help. No hope. No respect. Nothing. Isnʼt there
some other way? And it is no coincidence that there are so few white faces there.
There are only two possible explanations for that. Either people with certain shades of
skin are inherently flawed or our society is.

______________________________

Bridget Sampson completed her M.A. in Speech Communication at California State University, Northridge (CSUN) in 1993.  Bridget has been a faculty member at CSUN ever since, teaching intercultural communication, business communication, interpersonal communication, and advanced public speaking.

In 1996, Bridget founded Sampson Communication Consulting (SCC).  SCC develops and facilitates cutting edge professional development programs for corporations and universities.  Clients include Google, WellPoint, and Mattel.

Bridget and her husband, Neal Thornhill, have been happily married for almost 20 years and have two sons: Jake, who is almost 15, and Joey, who is 11. Bridget loves to read, write, and run.