Dear Lizzie Mae,

They couldn't have mowed the grass more than a couple of days ago. The grave is eloquent in its simplicity. A plain wooden cross about two feet high stands at the head in comfortable symbiosis with a stone embedded at the foot, stating just his name, date of birth, and year of death.

Bored, indifferent expressions immobilized the faces of the media people. The girl standing next to me had two motorized cameras hanging awkwardly at her waist; the words, USA TODAY stenciled in blue plastic on one of them. Word had it that the President was coming by to pay his respects.

The prison at Soledad is an ugly scar in the otherwise lovely landscape of the San Joachin Valley of central California. The breathtaking beach towns of Monterey and Carmel are scarcely fifty miles away. Inside the corridors of the prison black men wearing women's stockings as skullcaps swagger back and forth sweating that "I'm baaad! Don't fuck with me" look on their faces. Mexican Americans with their shocks of straight, black hair held out of their faces by brightly colored headbands swing their self-tattooed biceps back at the blacks. A few scruffy whites glared at us wondering what in the blazes of eternal hell we were doing in that place.

Hundreds of little stones about four inches square with streamlets of green between them formed the decking upon which their feet trod. Beneath the footstone, someone had placed three cushioned, black, kneeling benches. Since I am not Catholic, I did not kneel. Many did and prayed for his soul.

While I believe his soul is in the hands of a just and loving God, I still felt like kneeling. For the life of me, I couldn't clear my throat of the lump. Waves of sadness tried to pull reluctant tears from my eyes. They just wouldn't come.

Painted in stark black letters of gray paint over the heavy steel door were the words, "O-WING." The man dressed in olive-drab pants and khaki shirt with the patches of the California Corrections Department emblazoned on the arms turned the brass key in the lock. The door opened. Inside was another door made of steel bars. Behind them was another corrections officer. He was big, brusque, and had the same "Why are you here?" look in his ice-grey, no-nonsense eyes. Two other male officers were with him and a female officer. He then opened the door which admitted us into a foyer flanked on either side by barred cages. These had doors that opened into a large enclosed area flanked on either side by tiers of cells. About twenty-five men were walking around freely in this open floor area. One stood out in particular.

I had parked the car at 9 am. It took about ten minutes to walk past the rows of tombstones gleaming white against the green, to his grave. There were only a handful of tourists at this hour. Then a class of Junior High kids came and talked about who 'liked' Shirley and who 'liked' Janice while people knelt and prayed. Then they began to come by the dozens.

Tours led by little old ladies with orange parasols trundled by the black kneeling cushions. As I stood by the wall with the photographers and media, the face of America walked by: children from Ohio, elderly women speaking languages I could not understand, orientals who bowed and walked on, a man with a baseball cap that read, "US Marines, Retired," pretty girls with wholesome faces, more tours for the elderly, their bodies bleached from the dark halls of nursing homes and institutions. Farmers came, black people came -- a lot of them -- and a policeman who told us to please not sit on the wall. Then they stopped coming for a few minutes and there was no one there but me and the photographers. I left my place in the shade and came and stood at his feet.

He was wearing a light-blue denim shirt and darker denim pants; standard uniform for the incarcerated in California. He walked about with the others while I struck up a conversation with the corrections officer. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him getting closer, trying to be unobtrusive. We were probably the first "outside" people he and the others had seen in a while. No doubt we were a curiosity. He drew within earshot of our conversation.

After a few moments, I turned and walked the few steps to the memorial fountain. Carved into the granite were words. His words. Words are remarkable tools. Nothing can be more dangerous and wounding, and few things can be more beautiful and powerful. His words were of the latter variety, pregnant with substance:

"It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope. And crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples, build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."

Pregnant, but 1n his lifetime, never to give birth . . .

His interest in me was curious. I turned from my conversation with the officer to face him directly. The black headband sliced a path across his forehead just above the sunglasses he wore all the time. I looked for a moment at the hand which held the gun and thought of the bullet which blasted its way through the head which thought such thoughts as these. My gaze found the outline of Armenian eyes gazing back at me behind the shades. Almost as if he read my thoughts, he turned and slowly shifted away.

Walking back down the thirty-foot-wide paved pathway to the car I was almost overrun by the crowd. It was 10:15 am.

Now they were coming by the thousands. They were coming Lizzie Mae, to see the grave of a man born rich, but whose heart was black and poor and who understood the pain of impoverishment and despair. He knew your soul. He knew your extremity. He saw the greatness of a nation free of oppression and injustice.

I walked back out into the hot sunshine of the California valley and looked back at the dusty stucco buildings and Constantina (razor) wire. I heard the hoots and the curses in the distance behind the barred windows. Spitting in the dust, I swore . . .

Lizzie Mae, I understand the man's heart. I am not him but I believe his heart beats within my breast. St. James writes 1n the New Testament that my life is nothing but a vapor anyway. Human life comes and goes with the whisper of a soft breeze.

Well, If my life is just a "vapor," I want it to be a mule fart! I want it to be a stubborn stench in every unfeeling institutional nostril it can find. I want it to smell up all of these dysfunctional, monolithic institutional human warehouses: the institutional correctional structure, the institutional mental health structure, the institutional educational structure, the institutional veteran, autistic, those mentally challenged, and homes for the elderly structure . . . and most of all because it is the most spurious and endemically evil of all . . . while at the same time addressing the soul of our society, and that is the institutional church structure! I want it to be stubborn enough to cause at least a ripple, or maybe a backwash . . .

In his younger days, he played football with his brothers Jack, Joe, and Ted. All are gone now and the ball is bouncing loose . . .

--PDM