Chapter 10: Prison

THREE YEARS.

I got a three-year sentence. A misdemeanor, not a felony. Sex with someone who could not consent because she was intoxicated. On the plus side, we were the same age so that didn’t come into play. I should have spent it in the county jail but they were overbooked. San Quentin had room so off I went.

I was assigned to the medium-security wing right off the bat. That meant better visiting privileges as well as access to courses and the library and other small comforts. Mom and Dad and Nicole came almost every Sunday.

Not a word from Ellie or Mateo. That was not a surprise, but it was depressing. I wrote to her and to Mateo a couple of times, no reply at first. I knew in my heart that Ellie and Mateo knew I couldn’t have done what I was accused of. Maybe I should say, I hoped they knew I couldn’t have done it. At the beginning it looked pretty bad.

In the good old summer time, hm hm hm...

I could not get this phrase out of my mind. Where it came from I have no idea, but I associated it with the blind stupor I was in that night. Worse yet, I could not be sure what I did or didn’t do. It came up during an early visit. I was talking with my dad while Mom and Nicole checked out the snack machine.

“Dad, I’m not sure. I’m not,” I said.

“What?”

“I mean, I don’t think so. Why would I do that? I love Ellie. We’re on the same page about how far to go.” Here I stopped. I mean, I’m not talking to a buddy, I’m talking to my father. “There’s another reason, Dad.”

“Keep going.”

“It’s embarrassing and I don’t know how to say this politely, but Ellie and I have been experimenting. I mean, really experimenting. We don’t go all the way, but we help each other. That night, before I went black, I’d come all over her.”

I looked away.

“What I mean is, I don’t think I could have gotten hard enough again to do what was done to her. I mean, I don’t know how long we were out, but it wasn’t really long enough for me, if the times are right.”

Dad looked pensive. To my surprise, he smiled briefly. He shook his head.

“Sorry, Christopher, I’m not laughing at you. Your mother and I know about you and Ellie, we’ve seen you, and Nicole, in fact.” He smiled again. “We know you love each other. “Do this. Write down every single thing you can think of, Christopher.”

“Is there any chance you or Mom or Nicole could talk to Ellie or Mateo or Mr. or Mrs. Rodriguez, Dad?”

“Right now they are too angry and too sad to want to really talk about it. Besides, Christopher, Ellie doesn’t want to talk to you. We’ve had some very careful conversations with her parents. You know we’ve been friends for a very long time. This is awkward, it’s worse than awkward, but we did have a short conversation with them a couple of days ago. Ellie is really really upset.”

“Does she think I did it?”

Dad sighed. “She doesn’t know what to think, Christopher. She knows what she felt, she knows someone penetrated her, she knows it’s something she’d never agreed to, that you and she had agreed would not happen yet, and that’s all she knows.”

Mom touched Dad’s forearm. “Christopher, she’s in terrible pain. I think she desperately doesn’t want to believe you did it, but the evidence is pretty overwhelming. Plus, her brother is furious. It’s probably good that you’re being held here.”

This didn’t surprise me, it shocked me. We’d been buddies almost for as long as Ellie and I had been friends. Longer, in fact, because we’d become friendly before I started with Ellie. Maybe I shouldn’t have been shocked.

“They don’t know what to think, Christopher, that’s what it boils down to.” Dad looked as sad as I’d ever seen him.

I wrote to Ellie a month or so later. I told her what I could remember of that night. I told her I loved her and would never hurt her. I asked her if she would be willing at least to talk to me. Not even at the prison, but when I got out. Mateo, too. I wanted him to understand.

For weeks, no reply. Then through my parents I heard Ellie was reconsidering. She’d been in therapy. She’d also talked for hours, it seemed like, with their priest. She was at college, struggling, and it was a year almost to the day since I’d entered San Quentin when she wrote.

How does anyone stay safe in prison? I was lucky, I was put in the medium-security wing to start, although from the first day Mr. Robinson argued for my transfer to them minimum-security/good behavior section. I kept my head down, first of all. I didn’t challenge anyone, didn’t make any enemies. I didn’t gamble or borrow money from anyone. At first I wrapped magazines and newspapers around my middle for a little extra protection.

I’m not a fighter. I mean, I’ve done some boxing and some wrestling, but I had no desire to get mixed up in anything. I was tested, early on, and I got lucky, only a few lumps, never mind the details. I showed respect from the get-go. I kept my eyes and ears open, and I stayed away from anything that looked like it was going south. I worked to improve my boxing.

Luck.

I will admit it, it was luck, first and last. A lot of luck. I didn’t spend too much time in the medium-security pod. I got transferred after a month or so to the good behavior unit.

Something else happened, it was also total luck. I don’t remember exactly how, but with the guy who challenged me one morning, somehow we got to talking after he’d pushed me around enough. He said something about his appeal, how his lawyer wanted him to write something. His lawyer told him he’d have to do it. The lawyer, a public defender, wasn’t going to do it for him. I don’t know a thing about the law, but I’m a pretty good writer.