Every day, Frank pushes Jamie in her wheelchair around Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego. First, he takes her to pill call. Then, the pair spin a few laps on the outdoor track. While together, Frank listens to Jamie talk about whatever’s on her mind.
Jamie is an elderly transgender woman with advanced multiple sclerosis. She shakes uncontrollably and has a hard time getting around on her own. Most people here at Donovan don’t talk to Jamie. Others treat her with cruelty rather than indifference.
Frank is nearly 70 years old. He’s been incarcerated since 1995, serving life without the possibility of parole for murder. He wears a permanently stoic look, a prison poker face from years of hiding emotion.
When he first came to prison, Frank said he was “big, mean as hell and absolutely ruthless.” Frank is an alumnus of the “old school” prison world, where matters of disrespect often became life-or-death situations. He once stabbed someone because they broke his CD player and refused to replace it.
But now things are different. A decade into his sentence, Frank was spending time in “the hole” of solitary confinement, considering the physical and emotional damage he was doing to the people around him, primarily his children.
“My children were the ones that made me want to change,” Frank said.
He became a Christian and swore off prison yard politics, which dictate that all problems be solved with violence. He’s still big, but now he’s nice as hell. He says his walks with Jamie have helped him understand empathy.
“Jamie can’t write her own name or hold a cup. Nobody pays attention to her,” he said. “I take her for a couple of laps on the yard and talk to her, something I would have never done before.”
I first met Frank three years ago, when I was working a booth for Criminals and Gangmembers Anonymous, a 12-step program that was designed by a notorious gang leader who turned his life around. Frank and I have also taken college classes together. Both of us have been working toward sociology degrees. He has completed all of the 12-step groups available and several other cognitive behavioral therapy groups.
“Frank’s always going out of his way to be of assistance, whether facilitating CGA, Bible study, cleaning the dayroom, helping the elderly or giving words of support while waiting at the microwave,” said friend and fellow CGA member Kyle Larrabee.
If we were rock climbers, Frank would be the guy who would reach down and catch me with one arm before I fell and say, “You’re OK. Hold on.” Which he metaphorically does on a near-daily basis.
Now that he’s been spending time with Jamie for almost a year, Frank has noticed that more people acknowledge her. They say hello and finally treat Jamie as a person.
“Now our conversations are helping her to get ready for a parole hearing, to understand her crime and the impact,” Frank said.
A lot of people in prison talk about changing the way they live, but it’s rare to find someone who both talks about it and lives it. That’s Frank.
