Jarvis Jay Masters lives on death row in California’s San Quentin Penitentiary. Born in 1962, he was raised for the most part in foster care and institutions, and has spent much of his adulthood behind bars. While on death row he has undergone a startling transformation, which he writes about in a book titled Finding Freedom: Writings from Death Row.
“A Buddhist on Death Row” is an edited excerpt from Jarvis Jay Masters’ Finding Freedom: Writings from Death Row. © 1997 Jarvis Jay Masters. It appears here by permission of Padma Publishing, (916) 623-2714. Portions of this excerpt originally appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, Turning Wheel, and the anthology The Awakened Warrior (Putnam). The excerpt begins with an introduction by Melody Ermachild Chavis, who met Masters while working on his legal defense.
— Ed.
As one of the defense investigators who prepared Jarvis’s trial, I met people who had known him in foster care and institutions, and they told me he had always had a lot of potential. They remembered a smart and articulate youngster with a sense of humor. But too many times he was pushed — and went — in the wrong direction.
At the age of seventeen, a very angry young man, Jarvis was released from the California Youth Authority and went on a crime spree, holding up stores and restaurants until he was captured and sent to San Quentin. He never shot anyone, but the reports I read about his crimes were frightening. As I told him, I’m glad I wasn’t in Taco Bell when he came through.
In 1985, four years after Jarvis arrived in San Quentin, a corrections officer was murdered inside the prison, and Jarvis was accused of sharpening the piece of metal that had allegedly been passed along and used to make the weapon with which the officer had been stabbed. In one of the longest trials in California history, Jarvis and two other inmates — including the man who had done the stabbing — were convicted of their parts in the conspiracy to murder the officer, but only Jarvis was sentenced to death, partly because of his violent history.
Jarvis doesn’t actually live on death row. Because the crime he is convicted of involved a guard, he lives in San Quentin’s security housing unit. Men on death row can make phone calls, listen to tapes, use typewriters. Those in security housing can have only several books and a TV. They stay in their cells for all but a few hours of yard time three days a week. Jarvis cannot choose what or when to eat, when to exercise or shower. He can’t turn the tier lights off or on, regulate the temperature in his cell, or have any control over when he receives visits or how long they last. It seems almost impossible for someone to grow into a mature, responsible human being when he is infantilized this way, and yet I have seen Jarvis do just that.
Jarvis is very different today from the troubled, defensive young man I met in 1986. He even looks different. When I first met him, his face had a sullen, callous expression. But facing death has opened him up. Having arrived at San Quentin with minimal education, he has taught himself to write and meditate. He is now a mature thirty-five-year-old, and he plays a constructive role on death row, helping younger men. Jarvis is usually stoic about his situation. He talks about karma, and the path he himself took, the choices he made. He often asks me to tell the “at-risk” youths I volunteer with, “You guys still have choices!”
Not all officers hold a grudge against Jarvis. Quite a few have told me they respect the changes he has made in himself. Those who know him do not fear him. Many greet Jarvis, smile at him, touch his shoulder.
Though he has done nothing to justify it, a few times Jarvis has been placed on the bottom tier of the security housing unit, where the most problematic prisoners are kept. There, his neighbors yell all day and all night. During those months Jarvis spends on the bottom tier, he is always reluctant to go back to his cell after our visits.
Currently, Jarvis is living under the best meditating and writing conditions he has had at San Quentin. Across from his cell is a broken window. He is glad the glass is broken, because the air, although sometimes cold, is fresh. Best of all, through the window he can see some far-off houses where children play outside, riding tricycles and throwing balls. Jarvis has given the children names and gotten to know them by watching them for hours as they play. At Christmastime, he can see the homes decorated with colored lights.
His writing and his meditation practice are what make life worth living for Jarvis. Studying Buddhism these past few years has helped him to gain remarkable insight. He has no illusions about the fact that he has harmed others, but he has vowed to dedicate his remaining life to compassion and nonviolence — not an easy path in prison.
Jarvis says he hopes that “those who want to try to make sense of it will see, through my writing, a human being who made mistakes. Maybe my writing will at least help them see me as someone who felt, loved, and cared, someone who wanted to know for himself who he was.”
— Melody Ermachild Chavis
May 1997
When the cell doors slammed shut behind me, I found myself inside the first tier of the security housing unit. I didn’t know what to expect. I knew only that I had been relocated to what was considered the “crazy tier” by some, and the worst place in San Quentin by everyone. I was among the worst of the worst.
The cell stank — mostly from a fat dead rat floating in the toilet. It took several flushes to send it spinning down.
“Hey, man,” a voice whispered from the adjacent cell, “what’s your name? Can you spare a smoke?”
“No,” I said, “I don’t have none. My name’s Jarvis. What’s yours?”
“Joe,” the voice said. “I’m in cell sixty, right next to you. You sure you can’t spare a smoke?”
“Yeah, I’m sure,” I said. “I wish I had one right about now. I guess they let you guys smoke down here, huh?”
“Well . . . not really. But sometimes someone will keister a good issue of tobacco before they come down here. Man, I need a fuckin’ cigarette! How about a butt, huh?”
“I wish I could help you, Joe, but I really don’t have none,” I said. It was hard to believe inmates actually “keistered” tobacco here. In all my years in San Quentin, I’d never heard of anyone smuggling tobacco in his rectum.
“Hey, Joe,” hollered another voice from down the tier, “save me shorts on that cigarette!”
“Who’s that?” asked Joe.
“Man,” the voice said, “this is ol’ Cal and his dog, Spot! Send us shorts on that cigarette.”
“Say, dude,” Joe yelled down the tier, “you heard my neighbor just say he didn’t have any. So get up off me, motherfucker!”
“Now, Joe,” said Cal, “my dog don’t care for all that profanity. Go get ’em, boy! . . . Sic ’em! . . . Kill, dog, kill!” Cal barked at the top of his lungs. It sounded real.
“Punk,” Joe shouted, “I’ll kill you and that damn dog!”
“Shut up!” another voice interrupted. “Lay your fruitcake asses down.”
“Ah, Angry Bear,” said Joe, “you best shut up, too. You ain’t kickin’ up no dust! Man, I’m the hog wit’ the big nut sack around here.”
“Man, all you doin’ is frontin’,” said Bear, “trying to act like you somethin’, all because you got a new neighbor and you cravin’ yo’ punk ass off for a smoke. That’s all.”
“Man,” Joe yelled, “let me tell yo’ punk ass somethin’! . . .”
The yelling went back and forth until it seemed the whole tier had gone berserk. So while I was cleaning out my cell, I learned about some of the people around me. I heard each of their names at least once. I found out what they accused each other of being in prison for, what psych medications they were on, and which of them were racists. Where did all these crazy people come from? I wondered. At first it seemed as though everyone was hollering, but as I listened I realized that only six or seven of the seventeen inmates on the tier were yelling.
The small, square windows high on the walls were open about a foot: their full extent. They were there more for ventilation than for light, and certainly not for scenery. Only by standing on the concrete slab that was my bed could I see whether it was day or night. The metal mesh that covered the windows made the tiny view unpleasant, as though bars had been placed on the sky.
I soon saw an old man roaming around on the tier, as if he were lost. His light blue suit and red hat and sneakers puzzled me. For sure, he was not a guard. All the correctional officers wore green jumpsuits. Who in God’s name is he? I wondered. And how on earth can he be lost in the middle of the most secure cellblock in San Quentin?
The old man inched up to my cell bars. “Hi, cell fifty-nine,” he said. “Please forgive me, but I forgot my specs this morning, and I’m having problems locating the cell numbers. How are you today? I have some new stuff for you. I got your note about the side effects, so I want you to try these —”
“Hold on a minute!” I interrupted. “Man, are you sure you’re talking about me? Who are you, anyway? I don’t think you have the right cell.”
“I’m one of the prison psychiatrists,” he said. “This is cell fifty-nine, isn’t it?” Taking a step back and squinting at the number above, he smiled. “Yeah, yeah!” he said. “I got your note about Thorazine and the side effects. Not too many people like them. Here, I want you to try these.”
The psychiatrist reached into his inside coat pocket and pulled out several multicolored syringes. I was speechless.
“These will definitely make you feel real good up the road, but they aren’t for now. What do I have for you?” he mumbled. “Let’s see. . . . They must be in one of my other pockets.”
This time the psychiatrist reached into his pants pocket. Was this how the state distributed legal drugs?
“Ah, here we go!” he said finally, staring down at a handful of pills. “Wow! All these delicious treats! Of course, you can’t have ’em all — we don’t want that, do we? But this baby here, I’m sure, is the one for you.”
“Hold on, Doc!” I said. “I’m not on any medication. . . . I don’t think. Man, are you sure you have the right person?”
“Well . . . just how long have you been in this cell?” he asked.
“Hours, Doc! Only a few hours!”
“What’s your last name and number?”
“Masters, C-35169,” I answered quickly.
“Oh, well, then!” he said, checking a list retrieved from yet another pocket. “Hmm, my man must have transferred,” he concluded, scratching his butt. “How are you, though? The noise here must be disturbing. If you like, I can give you something while I’m here, so you can get through the night.”
“No, no!” I said. “I’m doing fine, sir!”
“Well, let’s see. . . ,” he said, reaching into one of his pants pockets. “How about this tiny blue one? This is Mellaril. But I also have . . . let’s see, Prolixin and Cogentin. But these here,” he admitted with a frown, “I’m not so sure of. Most folks prefer these blue Mellaril to the Sinequan,” he said, almost as if talking to himself. “I totally agree! So . . . let’s start you off with these, and you can let me know how you feel. I’m usually down here twice a week. Do you have a cup?” he asked. “Because I have to see you take the medication.”
“No, Doc!” I said. “I mean, which part of no do you not understand? That stuff you have is for crazy people, and I don’t want any.”
“Nonsense!” he said. “Of course you do. Here, take two.”
“No, no!” I insisted. “Why don’t you take your pockets full of syringes and funny pills some damn place else!”
“Well, sir,” he said, “you don’t have to get smart!”
“Yes, I do, because you, sir, are not listening.”
“Well, then,” he said, “I’m sorry I couldn’t be of any help to you today. But I’ll be back on the tier later in the week — so if you happen to need any help sleeping or whatever, just let me know. By the way, fellow, do you have a television?”
“Why?” I snapped.
“Used to be a time,” he explained, “before the inmates had televisions in their cells, when they all requested to see me. Today, it’s different. And that’s too bad. Too, too bad.” And he walked away down the tier.
The electric cell door came open, and the guards rushed inside. The whole tier heard the beating and Walter’s screams. I could smell his flesh burning from the Taser.
Not long after I’d been relocated, the evening chow cart came rolling down the tier, starting with the end cell and moving toward the front. The guards unlocked each cell’s food port and gave the prisoner whatever portion of food he wanted from the cart. Today was Mexican food, my favorite.
When the cart was just a few cells away from mine, I saw a hand lunge out of an open port and fling a cup of urine and feces into the faces of the two guards serving the food. The guards stood there, faces dripping, their serving spatulas still in their hands. Then a maniacal laugh broke the silence.
“Eat my shit! I saved that from yesterday when you punks didn’t give me no shit-wipe. Now both of you can just eat it!”
“You’ll pay for this,” one of the guards said calmly, and the two of them hurried off the tier with the food cart.
“You did it now!” said Joe. “They’ll be back to beat the Rodney King shit out of you, Walter!”
“Who cares? I need an ass-kicking anyways.” Walter started laughing. “Did you guys see that? Those two punks was smacking on my shit. I did that for you guys, too,” he added.
“You did that on your own!” Joe yelled. “We didn’t ask for no toilet paper yesterday, so don’t try to pull us into it. It’s bad enough you fucked off all the damn food!”
“Hey, Joe, you mean we don’t get to eat tonight?” I asked.
“Yeah, you’ll eat,” he said, “if you want to eat off a cart with Walter’s shit all over it.”
“You ain’t serious, are you?”
“Listen, man, we’re just a bunch of fruitcakes down here. We don’t have nothin’ comin’ tonight! That’s the bottom line — not unless you want to eat Walter’s shit!”
“Ah, man,” said Walter. “None of what I threw hitted the food cart. It hitted the cops.”
“Man!’’ shouted Joe, “you’s a damn lie! That fuckin’ shit hitted everything — I hope they kick yo’ teeth in, punk.”
About an hour later I heard what sounded like an army of guards preparing to enter the tier: there were lots of keys jingling and shields clanking and the emergency gurney rattling as it was taken off the wall.
A dozen guards marched past my cell dressed in full riot gear, with helmets and batons, and shields held tightly to their chests. The unit sergeant had a Taser (a stun gun), and several other guards carried block guns, which shoot a high-velocity wooden block that can severely disable a person.
They gathered in front of Walter’s cell. When I stood close to my cell bars, I could just see down the tier to where they were. The unit sergeant opened the food port and shouted for Walter to step to his cell door immediately to be handcuffed.
“Are you going to cuff up?” the sergeant demanded.
Walter’s response was quick. “Yes, sir! I don’t want any problems. I am fully cooperating. I’m not resisting.”
“That’s not fast enough,” said the sergeant. He stepped aside to give the gunmen a clear shot into the food port. The blasts sounded like shotguns: Pow! Pow! Then the electric cell door came open, and the guards rushed inside. The whole tier heard the beating and Walter’s screams. I could smell his flesh burning from the Taser.
They went on beating Walter until the screams stopped, and there were just the thuds of their kicks and punches, as if they were hitting a corpse.
“Throw his ass on the gurney,” the sergeant ordered. The guards dragged Walter out of his cell. There was blood everywhere. The guards’ adrenalin rush seemed to have passed. They used only their booted feet to get him onto the gurney; they were probably worried about HIV, though many of them already had blood on their clothing.
As they started down the tier with the gurney, a guard called, “Wait a minute!” and picked something up from the floor. “Here’s some of the bastard’s teeth,” he said, and threw them onto the gurney. I will never forget the sound they made, like craps being thrown.
There were no witnesses other than us “fruitcakes.” As far as I could tell, none of the others gave any thought to it. Later, guards mopped up the blood and everyone went back to hollering back and forth. There was no mention of dinner.
“That damn psych really likes to get on my nerves,” said Milton, talking to himself in the next cell. He called over to me, “Hey, Jarvis, did you hear what he was asking me?”
“No, not really,” I answered, lying on my bunk. “I only heard bits and pieces of it. I’m too heavy into this book.”
“Man, don’t you know,” Milton complained, “that old geezer had the nerve to sneak up on me and just stand in front of my cell, not saying a word, just lookin’ at me with those weird eyes of his, like I’m crazy.”
“Who’s that?” I asked, still caught up in the story line of my book.
“Man, that psych!” shouted Milton. “I forget his name, but you done seen him before. He’s always walkin’ around this prison dress’ in a dingy ol’ suit two sizes smaller than him, with a stained pipe that’s never lit stuck in his mouth. He never lights that damn pipe.”
“Yeah, I know the one.” I smiled. “So what does he be asking you?”
“Man, he keeps asking me some really crazy shit. Every week for the past month he comes to my bars, stands out there on the tier, and says, ‘How are you doing? Are they treating you all right? Do you need anything to help you sleep?’ Things like that. I mean, what the hell is his problem?”
“Well, I don’t know, maybe he’s just checking up on you.”
“Nah, it ain’t that. He’s trying to get inside my head!” Milton shouted. “The motherfucker is trying to toy with my goddamn brain. He already thinks I’m thirteen sixty-eight.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“That’s some legal phrase they use in all the courtrooms to mean crazy.”
“Well?” I asked. “What do you think — are you crazy?”
“No . . . not for San Quentin, anyway. Man, to have lived in this prison as long as I have — eleven years, and most of it in isolation — I can’t be no more insane than this prison, or that psych. He’s been here a lot longer than I have. Look at him.”
“The psych goes home each day,” I said. “But what about you? Could you make it out there in society, Milton?”
“Hell, nah!” Milton sounded insulted. “Man, don’t you know that in these past eleven years I have lived like a mad, wounded elephant? I have been shot, hit with clubs, blackjacked, gassed, choked, Tasered, cut, bruised, and stabbed four times!”
“Damn, is that right?” I set my book aside. “Is that right?”
“Man, ‘right’ nothin’! Listen, that ain’t the half of it. I have been jumped on, tromped on, spit on, had some of my teeth kicked out, and a few ribs broken. I’ve had piss and shit thrown in my face. I’ve been matchbombed, firebombed, electrocuted, and blow-darted more times than I care to remember — even been poisoned once. Then beaten, thrown, dragged, and slammed in and out of these isolation holes so many times that it felt like I seen the whole fuckin’ world come to an end.”
“Well, what happened when you seen the world end?” I asked.
“Man, shit! That’s when I knew this had to be hell, and you know something?” Milton laughed in rage. “I was right. This is hell. This is hell if I ever seen it.”
“So why don’t you want to leave?” I asked. “It doesn’t make much sense staying in hell, does it?”
“Oh, I want to leave, all right,” said Milton. “Man, I can’t wait to leave. Yes, sir, all they have to do is spring me loose, and, boy oh boy, when they do . . . I made only one promise to myself — not to do anything that nobody hasn’t done to me. You know what I’m sayin’? Hey, check: fair exchange can’t be called a robbery. Yep, it sure can’t.” Milton slammed his first into his hand.
“I was askin’ that psych a while ago,” he went on, “why everybody is so afraid of me getting released.”
“And what did he say?”
“They’re afraid because I’m going to be discharged so soon — next month.”
“Man,” I said, “you mean to tell me that you get out next month?”
“Oh, yeah!” Milton chuckled, slamming his fist harder into his hand. “Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah,” he went on, repeating the phrase to the rhythm of his slamming fist.
When I think about the fact that a nation has sentenced me to death, all I can do is turn inside myself, to the place in my heart that wants so desperately to feel human, still connected to this world, as if I have a purpose.
My three sisters and I shared the same bedroom. My mother used to go out at night, come back early in the morning, and sleep all day. We’d brush her hair and comfort her while she slept. We took care of ourselves while she was away.
One night when I was four, my mother came rushing in, telling my sisters and me to pack our things — she was in a world of trouble. We spent five minutes packing. Carlette, the baby was crying. It was very chaotic. My mother grabbed me, looked me in the eye, and shook me, saying, “If anything happens to me, you take care of your sisters.”
The next thing I knew, the door banged open, and I heard a man say, “Where are you, bitch? I’m gonna kill you and your kids!”
My mother pushed us all under the bed in a particular order, with me last, on the outside.
“Where are those kids?” he yelled.
My mother was panicked. I’d never seen her so afraid. Sweat was dripping from her face. She ran into the next room, and they started fighting. I could hear him pounding her flesh. Every time she got hit, my sisters and I jerked, as if we were being hit ourselves. The table was knocked over, chairs fell, pictures came off the walls — the whole house was being torn apart. My mother stopped crying, but we could still hear her being hit.
Then the door to our room flew open and I saw these shoes. They were the scariest thing I’d ever seen in my life. I rolled my eyes up to try to see who it was. (To this day, whenever I get scared my eyes still go up into my head like that.)
“Where you motherfuckin’ kids at?” he yelled. “I’m gonna kill you, too!”
He took three steps into the bedroom, and as soon as he put his foot down that third time, here came my mother. She jumped on his back and started pounding away at him, screaming, “You ain’t gonna kill my kids!”
They fell back into the next room. The kitchen dishes went flying. I could hear him kicking her, stomping on her. I could hear her yelling, “Help! Please, no!”
She fell silent again, and he was still pounding her. We were all frozen with fear. My sister Bertie had some kind of seizure. The pounding went on and on and on.
When it finally stopped, I remember thinking, Momma told me to stay here and not move. But it was hard for me to stay there under the bed. My mother always said I was the man of the house. I didn’t know whether I should protect my sisters or her.
Finally, I fell into a nervous sleep. When I woke up, I saw what looked like a monster crawling into the room. Her lip was hanging way down. I couldn’t even see her eyes. Blood was pouring out of her face.
My mother crawled until she was just a few feet away from us. Using all the strength she had left, she picked her head up as high as she could and reached for us with her hand. Then she fell hard, hitting her head on the floor.
Charlene, who was six, and I crawled out from under the bed. I sat on the floor, holding my mother’s head in my lap. With my tiny hands, I tried to wipe the blood away from her face, but it kept pouring out.
Charlene went and got a towel, but it became soaked with blood immediately. We just couldn’t stop it. We started to panic. Charlene and I looked at each other and just started screaming. That woke my mother up; her eyes opened a little. She gripped my hand real, real tight, and then she smiled as if to say we were all right and still together.
Charlene just fell on her, hugging her. I kept screaming until some white woman, a neighbor, came in and called the ambulance.
The day was just getting started when I went out to the exercise yard. I was one of the last prisoners to be let out, so I wouldn’t have a chance to play basketball. The teams had already been picked, and they would go on playing each other until the tower buzzer indicated that our three hours of exercise time was up.
It was exhilarating to be outside after three hot summer days cooped up in my single-man cell. I wandered about, talking to my fellow prisoners. Other men were lifting weights and gambling around the game table. It was an excellent day just to hang out and take in some sun. So I took off my T-shirt and leaned against the fence at the corner of the yard, watching the cheaters, like Ace and Slick on the basketball court, and Billy and Sonny on the handball court. Many years of playing together had fine-tuned their skills. I watched them win game after game under the burning sun.
I was the first to see the prison chaplain approach the fence. The yard suddenly fell silent. I held my breath, hoping he wasn’t headed my way. Most of us never saw the prison chaplain unless it was Christmas or someone was about to receive some very bad news.
The chaplain walked along the fence, staring through his wire-frame glasses, like the messenger of death. He pressed his hands against the fence, searching intently for someone in the yard. I wanted to turn away and pretend I hadn’t seen him. This very priest had informed me of the sudden deaths of my mother, brother, and sister.
First relief, then sadness came over me when I saw the chaplain trying to get Freddie’s attention. “Hey, Freddie,” he said. “Buddy, I have a bit of bad news for you. I need to speak to you — just for a minute, OK?”
But Freddie was on the basketball court and only played harder, fear pinching his eyes as he struggled to concentrate. The other players upped the pace of the game. It was their way of supporting their friend, helping him deny the chaplain’s presence.
I had known Freddie for many years in San Quentin. He was serving a fifty-years-to-life sentence, and we were often on the same basketball team. He was thirty-two, like me, but taller and stronger. He could easily bench-press 450 pounds. No one else on the yard could lift as much.
The chaplain remained poised at the fence, waiting patiently. I pondered the many phone calls he had received over the years from the outside world, informing him whose mother, son, or daughter had died. Freddie played aggressively, like a stranger to his teammates. But soon even they began to acknowledge what he had to do, and finally so did Freddie.
He walked over to the fence, and he and the chaplain stood together for a minute or two. Then Freddie stepped back, a slight smile on his face, and the basketball game resumed. I was shocked. The Freddie I knew couldn’t possibly take this so well. The noise level on the yard picked up again.
Several minutes later, Freddie glanced up at the two guards in the gun tower. I didn’t make much of it, until I saw that his eyes were filled with tears. He was fighting hard to stay strong, to keep the pain from showing, to keep from crying in front of us. And Freddie didn’t let himself cry. Instead, rage began rolling through him. His fists tightened and his body shook violently, like a thundercloud about to burst. Damn, I thought, he’s going to explode!
Rattler, Ace, and Slick, standing on the court with Freddie, realized he was losing it. They had overheard the chaplain tell him that his grandmother, his only family, had died from a heart attack. Now they approached him, like courageous swimmers venturing into deep water to save a drowning comrade who had begun to panic. Rattler reached a hand out to Freddie, who answered with blows to Rattler’s head. The tower guards fired two warning shots in the air. “Freeze!” they ordered, but Freddie kept swinging violently. As his friends tried to back off, Freddie lunged at them, pulling them down hard onto the asphalt. The guards yelled another warning before aiming their rifles and firing into the yard. Pow! Pow! . . . Pow! Pow! . . . Pow! The bullets punched deep holes into the asphalt, only inches from the scuffling men.
“Don’t shoot!” hollered Rattler. “Man, don’t shoot! Can’t you see there’s something wrong with him?”
“Back away from him! Get off him!” a guard barked from the gun tower. The rifles were still pointed down; their next shots would not miss.
“Hell, no!” shouted Rattler. They’d finally pinned Freddie to the ground and were struggling to keep him there.
“Man, can’t you see something’s wrong with him?” Rattler screamed, tears pouring down his face. “Can’t you see he needs help? . . . Hell, just shoot us, kill us all!”
Ace and Slick began to sob, too, as they held Freddie. They were suddenly holding each other, not as hardened prisoners, but simply as human beings.
It’s become so hard for me to live in this prison culture now that I no longer feel a part of it. I see clearly why most prisoners are afraid to give up their rage and hatred — because if they did, the prison environment would become unbearable. It seems as though the more I shed the part of me that once saw prison as an extension of my inner life, the more I go back to my old habit of chain-smoking and staring through my cell bars late at night, trying to hold myself together.
I don’t fear death most of the time, but I do fear, all the time, how I’m going to die. It has been decreed that I will be put in a chamber and gassed while people watch, take notes, and sketch me strapped in a chair, fighting for my last breath. Society will state that something inhuman has been executed. When I think about the fact that a nation has sentenced me to death, all I can do is turn inside myself, to the place in my heart that wants so desperately to feel human, still connected to this world, as if I have a purpose. Then a prisoner will ask me to write a letter for him because he doesn’t know how to write, and I’ll say sure, grateful to him for giving me another reason to be at peace.
Sometimes I feel so confused, worried, and troubled, I just want to hate things. For most of my life, I pretended to know how to hate — I certainly used the word a lot — but I never felt the hate that could be justified by all the bullshit I’ve suffered.
My stepfather tried to teach me how to hate. He said it was for my own protection. He used to lock me between his legs and slap me on the head and face. “Get mad!” he’d say. “Fight, son, fight!” And I would. Once, I contemplated stabbing him with a kitchen knife while he slept, but I couldn’t do it.
In the same way, I can’t hate the people who sentenced me to death or the judge who said I should never have been born.
Sometimes I can’t escape the pressure tightening around my brain. I get so that I can’t keep the nasty prison food in my stomach. I have to run to my TV or radio to drown out my thoughts, to divert my attention from everything around me: this prison, death row, the cold feeling of being trapped.
Such periods of silence, of breathing softly into a state of relaxation, have been the most rare and wonderful moments in all my years of incarceration. I felt calm as I sat cross-legged, facing the front of my cell, and began to quiet my mind.
I was walking out on the exercise yard last week, staring up at the beautiful clear sky, when something frightening happened: someone got stabbed on the adjacent yard. In the gun tower, the guards were loading rounds into their rifles and shouting at the two guys who were fighting. I knew immediately that someone was going to die. Either the guards or one of these two prisoners would be responsible for taking a human life.
The tower gunmen ordered everyone to lie face down on the ground as they swung their rifles around the three adjacent yards. Since I didn’t hear any gunshots, I figured the two guys must have stopped fighting. At least the gunmen had been saved from taking someone’s life. But what about the prisoner who had been stabbed? Was he dead? What had I been thinking about before all this happened? Why was I lying here like this? Shit! How long could I go on trying to be a Buddhist in this prison culture that had me lying face down? Who was I kidding?
Just as I thought my head would explode from so many flashing thoughts, I locked on to a single idea: some people in this world have only five seconds to mentally put their entire lives in order before they die — in a car crash or in some other sudden way. I realized that what really matters isn’t where we are or what’s going on around us, but what’s in our hearts while it’s happening.
I used to feel I could hide inside my practice, that I could simply sit seeking inner peace through compassionate prayers. But now I believe love and compassion must be extended to others. It’s a dangerous adventure to share them in a place like San Quentin, yet I see now that we become better people if we can touch a hardened soul, bring joy into someone’s life, or just be an example for others, instead of hiding behind silence.
I’ve learned to accept responsibility for the harm I’ve caused by never letting myself forget the things I did, and by using those experiences to help others understand where such actions lead. The key is to use what we know. This calls for lots of practice. There is a vast space in life to do just that, both as a meditator and as someone who walks around the same prison yard as everyone else.
I awoke at 4 A.M., earlier than usual, to begin my practice of meditation. Trying not to disturb the men sleeping in the adjacent cells, I tiptoed around in my shorts, washing up and collecting myself.
Taking a blanket off my bunk, I folded it into a small mat. At this quiet hour, San Quentin felt like a cemetery. I peered out the window opposite my cell in wonder: the prison — so violent in daylight — now seemed placidly beautiful under the heavy, watchful beams of the gun towers, the hard streams of light adrift in the air.
I placed the folded blanket on the floor. Such period of silence, of breathing softly into a state of relaxation, have been the most rare and wonderful moments in all my years of incarceration. I felt calm as I sat cross-legged, facing the front of my cell, and began to quiet my mind.
I had been sitting there for probably forty-five minutes, and was just starting to feel all the tension in my muscles begin to flow outward, when the silence was shattered by a loud shout from a cell not far from mine: “Feed me or come fuck me up! . . . You motherfuckers better come feed me or fuck me up, you hear me?”
“Hey, man,” another inmate yelled, “why don’t you shut the fuck up? Can’t you see people are trying to sleep around here? They’ll feed us when it’s time to eat.”
“Hey, why don’t the both of you motherfuckers kill that goddamn noise?” a third voice said.
“Ah, you go fuck yourself,” replied the first voice. “You aren’t calling the shots around here, punk.”
“Who you callin’ a punk, punk?”
“You, you motherfucker. You don’t tell me what to do. I do what the hell I want around this camp.”
“So why don’t you shut the fuck up, then?”
“Why don’t all you motherfuckers shut up?” a new voice interjected angrily. “All you stupid, silly motherfuckers need to shut up and let folks sleep.”
“Now, who the fuck is you?” the first voice asked.
“Well, who the fuck is you, doing all that goddamn yelling? You better just chill out with that ‘feed me’ shit and rest your goddamn neck. You ain’t crazy, so quit acting like you are.”
“No, I’m your daddy, punk! That’s who I am!” shouted the first voice. “And you don’t tell your daddy what to do, you dig? I do what the fuck I want to do, just like I told the last motherfucker.”
“If you are my daddy,” came the reply, “then why don’t you suck my daddy’s dick?”
“Sissy, at least I have one. What you have is a cunt between your legs.”
“If you see a cunt, then suck on it, bitch!”
“Your mama’s a bitch, punk! She’s the bitch!”
“Punk, who did you say was a bitch?”
“Whooo? Dude, you ain’t no owl! Your foot don’t fit no limb! I said you mama’s a bitch — your mother, that’s who. You heard me the first time.”
“OK. We’ll just see who’s a bitch, punk! When they rack these gates and all the cells come flying open, we’ll just see who’s the real bitch, me or you, punk.”
“We’ll let the gates be the bell, ’cause, dude, I don’t give a mad fuck. You just come out slingin’ and swingin’ wit’ what you know best.”
“Oh, I’m comin’, punk,” the voice said coldly. “You can bank on it.”
San Quentin had come awake before I could find a meditative state. As I watched the morning light appear at the window, all I could think about was how to avoid being mistakenly stabbed when the cells came open.
Understanding impermanence, that things are here today and gone tomorrow, really helps. No matter how bad something is — the police jump on you, the light goes out, there’s a roach in your soup — you can remind yourself, “This won’t last long.” Then, when it doesn’t last, you can laugh and say, “I knew it!”
My only real hope is to stay in my center, not fearing something bad, or wishing for something good — because if good things happen and you get attached to them, you’ll suffer when the bad inevitably comes. You have to learn to accept both.
Through meditation, I’ve learned how not to dive deeper into this hellhole. I’ve learned what I don’t want to do: curse other prisoners or guards; argue for two hours about whether or not the lunch meat is spoiled. I don’t want to become angry over things like that.
Every night before I go to sleep, I lay my thin mattress on the floor. I’ve been sleeping there for more than ten years because I use the bunk portion of my cell as my office space. I keep all my books, my radio, my TV, and everything else on the steel slab and just sleep on the floor, because I’m usually “at the office” fourteen to sixteen hours a day, and I sleep only a few hours.
When I woke up a while ago, there were ants crawling all over me. I watched them for a few minutes, until it became obvious I had to do something. I got up, placed a few sugar cubes in a cup of water, and made a trail for the ants to follow out of my cell. So far, it’s working pretty well. Tomorrow, though, when the guards see them, they’ll spray and kill the poor creatures. But I’ve done too much practice these past days to destroy that well-earned karma now by killing ants. No way!
We had been out on the exercise yard for an hour when I noticed a new prisoner approaching the gate, looking like a woman. I couldn’t believe it. No San Quentin exercise yard hated homosexuals more than this one. Gays came in second only to informants as targets for stabbings and killings. I knew this man’s sudden presence was some kind of mistake — or a dirty ploy by the prison administration to get someone killed. Wondering which it could be, I glanced up at the tower gunmen.
I’d personally never had anything against homosexuals, but I knew how many of the prisoners felt about them. Some hated them just for hate’s sake. Others were motivated by fear of AIDS. On top of that, prison officials had told us that diseases like tuberculosis were being spread throughout the prison by homosexuals.
This guy isn’t going to last one full hour out here, I thought. I didn’t have to turn around to know that the prisoners behind me were looking on coldly, some pulling prison-made shanks out of their waistbands. I wanted badly to holler to this stupid person, “Man, this isn’t your damn yard! Don’t bring your ass out here!” But I couldn’t say anything: it would have been considered snitching. So I swallowed, kept my mouth shut, and prayed.
Then came a loud clinking and whining as the motorized gate was lifted to let the newcomer onto the yard. When the gate slammed shut, my heart dropped. He had just become a walking dead man.
Everyone in the yard watched in silence as this fragile man with tiny breasts, his hair in a ponytail, vaseline on his lips, dressed in tight state jeans, began swishing along the fence. The gunmen hovering over the exercise yard were already in position, their semiautomatic rifles hanging over the rail, ready to fire down on the north wall. Obviously, they knew what everybody else did.
According to the laws of prison life, none of this was supposed to be any business of mine. But it was. It had to be. For the life of me, I couldn’t look at this gay man, sitting alone against the back wall of the exercise yard, and not see an innocent human being. Yet I couldn’t summon the courage to snitch and risk my own life to warn him. Why me, anyway? I felt crossed up. I had to do something. I began walking along the wall. Damn it, why were things like this happening more often since I’d taken my vows? What would all those people outside the walls who called themselves Buddhists have told me to do? What would they have said in my situation: “Let’s all be Buddhists and just put our knives away and smile”?
I made my way around to where the homosexual was sitting, and passed him several times without stopping, so I could get a good look at him. I wanted to see if he was aware that someone was about to stab him. The fool was not! He sat there like a tiny fish in a shark tank. I needed to think fast, because time was running out.
I spotted Crazy Dan on the opposite side of the exercise yard. He was squatting and surreptitiously cuffing a long shank in the sleeve of his coat. “Damn!” I muttered. My head began to pound as I watched Dan, a good friend of mine, prepare to knife this innocent person, with two ready gunmen watching. I had known Dan for more than eight years in San Quentin, and I didn’t want him to end his own life trying to take someone else’s.
I began walking along the wall on the opposite side of the yard from Dan. As we both turned the corners and faced each other, with the gay man sitting quietly against the back wall between us, I saw the shank slowly slide from Dan’s coat sleeve into his right hand. I quickened my pace to get to the man before he did. I didn’t have time to be scared, or even to think. I just knew I had to get there first.
Quickly, I knelt in front of the gay man and asked if he had a spare cigarette. Dan stopped dead only six feet away, his right hand hidden behind his leg, gripping the long shank. He was stunned. His eyes, like those of a ferocious beast, stared into mine. I’d never seen those eyes before — they were not the eyes of the Dan I knew. For that split second I thought my friend was going to kill me.
Then something happened. Dan blinked hard several times. He must have heard my silent plea. Maybe he remembered the time I’d stood by him when he, too, had been marked for death. He turned and calmly walked away.
“Hey, Daddy, did you want this cigarette, or what?” the homosexual asked in a female voice, holding one out to me.
“No, I don’t smoke.”
He looked at me, confused.
When I realized what I had just done, I almost choked on fear. Why had I put my life on the line for somebody I didn’t know and had never even seen before? Am I crazy, or just plain stupid? I wondered, looking into the face of this man, who was totally unaware of what had just happened.
I stood up and walked away, knowing that I would take a lot of heat later. But I figured I could make the case — which I truly believed — that this had been one big setup, that the prison authorities had been intent on shooting and killing some of us, and that I wasn’t about to let anybody I knew, especially Crazy Dan, get killed by walking into their trap. The truth, which I would leave out, was that I’d done it for the gay man, too. He meant nothing to me — except that he was as human as the rest of us. He never came back to our yard after that day, but the incident left me with many questions:
Am I alone? Am I the only Buddhist out here? Does this mean that I, the Lone Buddhist Ranger, am expected to try to stop this madness by myself? I imagined myself raising a hand and yelling, “Stop! A Buddhist is here!”
I can’t stop it. It isn’t stopping. There are stabbings every day in this place. All I have is my spiritual practice. Every morning and night, I fold my blanket under me and meditate on the floor of my cell.
The author can receive and will try to answer letters mailed to the following address. In accordance with prison regulations, all other materials sent to him are discarded or donated.
Jarvis Masters
P.O. Box C-35169
San Quentin, CA 94974
