Writer serving life sentence offers short stories from behind bars
It’s not unusual for a contemporary writer to hold a master of fine arts. But Curtis Dawkins is that rare sort with an M.F.A. and a life sentence without parole for a drugrelated homicide.
His first book, “The Graybar Hotel,” is a collection of 14 stories about jail, prison and post-prison life.
Dawkins, who earned his degree about four years before he committed his crime, says prisoners are the inspiration for these stories. Behind bars, boredom and anger, isolation and unbearable sadness, fear and mental delusion become an ordinary part of life. As one of Dawkins’ characters puts it: “When you’re separated from the people you know and love, every emotion is multiplied. Your mind becomes a very clear prism, into which every feeling enters, then becomes seven or eight different shades.”
Dawkins has arranged the stories so that the first few are set in the county jail. The latter stories take place in prison and culminate with a story about a prisoner’s release.
Can loneliness and boredom cause delusion? In “A Human Number,” an unnamed inmate in the county jail is so bored and lonely that he uses the jail’s automated phone system to make calls to strangers. Not everyone would know someone with this prisoner’s name, but everyone knows a “me,” so he records his name as “Heyitsme.” He discovers that retired men are the most willing to accept the charges and talk; they’re followed by elderly widows and former inmates.
In “Sunshine,” no one in the suicide wing of the county jail has tried to kill himself, but George might. He says his girlfriend, Sunshine, has just found out she has cancer. But the narrator — a fellow inmate — isn’t sure whether the story is true or a play for sympathy.
When you’re locked up, cigarettes are your chief currency, but other things such as drawings and poems that can be sent to family and friends have trading value, too. In “County,” Italian Tom waits in jail to be transferred to prison, where he plans to make a killing selling gay rap songs to the other prisoners. To speed up the transfer, he plans to fake a suicide attempt.
In “The Boy Who Dreamed Too Much,” prisoners from the county jail are on their way to a temporary prison where they will be physically and psychologically assessed for placement in one of the state’s prisons. It’s a scary transition from County to prison where “… one person of authority would be a decent example of humanity and the next would be a raging numbskull.”
Everybody lies on the inside, just like they do on the outside. In the ironic story “Engulfed,” when Steven — whose own affinity for truth-telling is dubious — tries to give his cellmate Robert a lesson about not lying, he finds himself in
trouble with the other inmates and with a correctional officer.
In “Swans,” a prisoner gets high on a toothpick-size joint and watches news about a state agency shooting 50 swans for population control. He recalls his high school days, when he hung out with a partially paralyzed biker named Crash who raised swans because, unlike his wife, they are loyal and “mate for life.” And in “Leche Quemada,” Clyde has gotten out of prison after 12 years and tries to reclaim his life with his family. He recalls the words of a correctional officer, who told him, “Don’t come back. Too many of you do.” But Clyde remembers each day of those 12 years, and he knows he will return every day for the rest of his life.
Dawkins himself won’t be leaving prison, unless he gets a pardon. But he isn’t alone in writing about life in prison. Plenty of prisoners write as a form of therapy, sometimes guided by professional writers in seminars in prison. Dawkins’ stories may well be therapy, but they are more than just the scribbling of a guy who’s trying to acclimate his psyche and his physical self to a lifetime of incarceration. His prison stories are insightful and well written, and they ring true. Dawkins possesses the acquired wisdom of a man who’s been there, done that and, unfortunately, is staying there. Joseph Peschel, a freelance writer and critic in South Dakota, can be reached at joe@josephpeschel.com or through his blog at josephpeschel.
com/HaveWords.