Free Fanon by John Edgar Wideman Page A

visit, leaning back, legs shot out straight from his seat, speaking quietly with his head bowed, eyes front, addressing the emptiness the benches address, he said,
You know something, man,
he said,
I just about made up my mind last week to call Mom and tell her to tell everybody to stop coming here. Believe me,
he said,
I understand how hard it is for anybody to visit this goddamn place, especially Mom now she's old and crippled up and I hate to think about all the trouble I'm still causing all youall. Tell the truth though, man, it ain't about youall. It's about me. I made up my mind to stop visits for me, for my benefit. To save me, bro. Great to see Mom and you when you're in town and everybody else who goes through the hell of getting here. Ain't no words for the good feelings when I see my people. And looking forward to visits, hey, almost good as the real thing. But see, that's the problem. Cause visits and looking for-
ward to visits ain't the real thing. The real thing's the time I got to do. And I got to do it alone. Nobody, nothing I can depend on besides myself. In here you got to fight every minute of every day to survive. I ain't just talking about watching your back with all these fools and the games and the evil guards round here. You got to stay strong inside yourself. And the truth is nobody can help. You got to stay strong inside. Fight every minute of every day. Awake and asleep cause your dreams fuck with you too. What I'm trying to tell you,
he went on to tell me,
visits make me weak.
And suddenly he was the elder brother and the deep lines in his face made me think, Damn, mine must be deeper than his.
    Everybody leaves,
he said,
then I got to start all over again, working myself up to deal with being alone. The stopping and starting's too hard. Better to let visits go. Keep it real or I'll lose my grip and die in here. And I don't want to die in here. No. No. No. I ain't gon let them kill me in here. If visits break me down, then visits got to go. That's what I decided laying in my cell, tossing and turning instead of sleeping one night last week. Give up visits, just like I gave up jailhouse hooch and reefer in here. I love everybody as much as ever, more than ever, believe me, man, but surviving comes first. Then, maybe, maybe I can do my time and git back in the world and git with my people,
my brother said to me and meant it, though he didn't phone our mother because here we are. He meant what he said that day no more or less than he means it when he says he couldn't survive without visits.
    A rectangular space, maybe thirty feet by twenty feet, serves as a waiting area or bullpen at the front end of the SCIP visiting room. It's bound by cinderblock walls on three sides, its other side a waist-high iron fence open at one corner so there's a small entrance into the main area. Visitors are supposed to remain inside this enclosure until the inmate they've come to see emerges from a door adjacent to the guard's platform and is cleared for a visit. Sometimes a visitor spends a long time in this bullpen. Maybe the guards can't locate your inmate or maybe they don't choose to look. Maybe he's hiding.
Or dead. If you're unlucky and your arrival coincides with a botched inmate count, you can cool your heels an hour or more. Even on the best days it can seem forever before a familiar face appears in the slot at the top of the door beside the guard station. Another eternity some days before a guard glances up at the slot and decides to punch the button that permits an inmate entry into the visiting area.
    A few visits ago I'd been stuck in the bullpen over forty minutes, no word of explanation from the guards, enough time for low-grade paranoia to kick in—had I been duped—am I a prisoner too. I knew better than to show up at count time, so a misfired count not the problem. I also knew better than to ask questions. Just sit tight and keep your goddamned mouth shut. Be grateful you're granted those