Free Upstate by Kalisha Buckhanon Page B

being a scientist. Just cause I had told you that before and I thought it sounded good. I mean going to see Ms. Harris is a privilege, not a right. You can’t have no points against you, and you have to be serious cause the first thing she told me when I met her was: Hi, I’m Ms. Harris, I’m here to help you and if you don’t want my help leave now and don’t waste my time. She thought that was real cool Natasha that I wanted to be a scientist, cause she was real interested and she wasn’t being fake about it. She
asked me what kind of scientist I wanted to be. I didn’t know it was different types, so I just said a regular scientist. You know all scientists make STUPID dough, I told her. She said, I mean do you want to focus more on physics or chemistry or biology or agriculture or astronomy? I thought about some of the things we had did in Mrs. Jensen’s class, like putting plastic tight over a jar of peanut butter and watching it swell up with air pressure and all that. Ms. Harris said, That sounds a little like chemistry and physics you’re interested in the secrets of the universe how things react to one another and how different forms of life interact and coexist. Now I didn’t know what the hell she was trying to say. I guess I do, I mean I am interested in that type of shit but not in a scientific way. Like I’m interested in how the hell anybody could expect for me and my family to coexist with somebody like my daddy was, or how white people think they can live in the world and never interact with us unless we doing something for them. But I didn’t say that. I just told her she was right. So then she was like, Antonio I think that’s great and I think you can definitely accomplish at least some of that goal while you’re in here but the first step for you is to get your GED. I told her that I didn’t want no damn GED cause a GED was for stupid people. Then I caught myself cause I remember that she was a nice lady, somebody who I can’t disrespect. She was like, Antonio, GED stands for general equivalency diploma and it is a perfectly legitimate way for people whose circumstances have prevented them from finishing high school to obtain their diploma. Far from being a sign
that you’re stupid it is a sign of empowerment because it shows that you want to take control of your life and your future. I told her that I was going to go back to high school because the judge who sentenced me was going to have a change of heart and let me out. She said, Antonio, it says in your file that you pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in order to get a reduced sentence and that means you have no appeals, which means your only hope of getting out of here will come when your sentence is up in about ten years. I told her she was wrong and that I was gonna get out. She picked up my file again and said, But look here Antonio, your file says … Then I said, Fuck the file, and I snatched it from her hands and threw it across the room and then I threw my chair across the little tiny office we was in and then I knocked all the stuff off the desk with one hand.
    The last thing I saw before three of them big guards came and wrestled me down on the ground and put their knees in my back was Dream face, it was all twisted and scared and I think she was about to cry. I fucked up Natasha and I don’t think she’ll want to see me again. I had to meet with the warden, and he told me that already I hadn’t been there but a month and I was fucking up and he thought I was different from the rest of the trash they get and now he was gonna have his eye on me. I had to spend three days in solitary. It really wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t like you see on TV with somebody stuck down in a little hole with nothing but bread and water. I was just in a tiny room with no bars, just a little slit in the door where
they passed my food and stuff. You couldn’t talk to