Sterling Cunio
Issue No. 21 • Spring 2020
January 15,2019
4:30 am
Reaching to turn off the beep-beep-beep of a cheap Casio watch alarm I awake knowing today’s the 25th anniversary of the worst day of my life. Pulling on a homemade shoestring lamp cord my eight by ten foot prison cell floods with florescent light as I lay wondering about what my victims’ lives would’ve been like had I not kidnapped, robbed and shot them.
The familiar guilt constricts my chest and my mind. I begin this day thinking of that night. There were twelve people inside a tiny one-bedroom apartment in Salem, Oregon, rented by a thirty-something woman named Shelly. Eight adults and four teenagers were watching Menace to Society and drinking forty-ounce bottles of malt liquor bought with forged checks. Shelly’s was a hub of criminal activity for drug-selling adults and run away kids who participated in her check cashing schemes in exchange for a place to sleep and party. During a movie scene depicting a carjacking I began lying about having performed similar acts.
“Man shut the fuck up with all that lying,” shouted OB. He was a Blackman in his mid-twenties from Houston, Texas with gold teeth and jewelry. To me he was a giant street life celebrity.
“Your little ass ain’t never did nothing but front. You’re a fake.” He continued as others in the apartment hushed and began paying attention, including Te’ah, the girl I was trying to impress. Caught in a lie but afraid of the ridicule, I persisted.
“Yo, we did that shit all the time back in the windy city.” As part of my thug persona I invented a history of having been raised in Chicago with mafia connections. In truth, until age twelve I was raised by my grandmother in a middle class suburb of Mesquite, Texas. Our home was loving and free of violence or criminality of any kind. After her death I was uprooted and sent to Portland, Oregon, to live with my 21-year old uncle Mark who introduced me to petty theft, sexism, and instructed bravado intended to harden me into a man. On the frequent nights of wild parties he made me leave the house.
With nowhere to go I began roaming the streets of Portland and making friends with other unsupervised kids. We committed acts of delinquency that eventually led to placement in the juvenile system. There I became fascinated with the culture of gangs and street crime, a world in which masculinity was defined by one’s toughness and status was gained through risky acts.
“You probably never been to Chicago and you definitely ain’t did anything close to gangster,” OB continued as I began to feel embarrassed and exposed. Knowing that he was right convinced me that everybody else would know it too if I didn’t do something to end the threat to my perceived identity. Failure to uphold one’s reputation could mean being ostracized from the group. An unimaginable fate for me as a sixteen-year-old boy.
“I’ll do that shit right now,” I blurted with knots in my stomach and no real thought to the declaration. To further bolster the claim I pulled out the .22 caliber pistol OB had sold me a few weeks prior for a hundred bucks.
“Prove yourself then, li’l homie,” he said using an endearing slang that communicated approval of the idea, “and take your homeboy with you,” he said/ he was referring to Wil, an eighteen year old who I ran away with from a foster home the month before and was staying at Shelly’s with.
“I’m down,” said Wil. We put on stocking caps and gloves, tucked our pistols in our pants and headed out the door into that cold January night.
********
Although I would rather stay in bed all day silently reflecting on this somber date, I have responsibilities to attend. Inside the prison I work as a facilitator for the Oregon State Penitentiary’s Restorative Justice Initiative that begun seven years ago with the goal of transforming prison culture and reducing harms. OSP is comparatively safer than other prisons partially due to the institution’s relatively progressive policies that recognize the importance of education, religious services, cultural activities and socializing events with community volunteers.
As part of the Restorative Justice program I trained in conflict mediation through Portland State University in 2014. Since then I spend most my time working on projects intended to de-escalate conflicts or create inclusive opportunities for more vulnerable populations in the prison. Yesterday we conducted a daylong LGBTQ inclusion seminar addressing the violence and alienation experienced by gay and transgender inmates.
Each morning when I get out of bed I give thanks and praise to whatever divine essence that animates life, wash my face, brush my teeth, prepare a cup of instant Folgers coffee with the lukewarm rusty water from the cell sink, and begin writing about life lessons I learn from dying men who I volunteer to take care of in the prison hospice. Writing stories not only helps me keep perspective but has also earned me the honor of being the first prisoner to receive a literary fellowship from Oregon Literary Arts earlier this month. It is through writing that I examine my thought patterns and process unresolved traumas. Every morning I write faithfully. However, this morning is different.
Every year on this particular day I reread the impact statements of the victim’s family and friends. Under Oregon law anybody victimized by a crime is provided the opportunity to testify in court prior to sentencing about the impact the offense had on their lives. Transcripts of the testimony are prepared for court records. As I read about how the family sold their home because they could no longer bear seeing the empty room of my victim, a lump forms in my throat while reading of the fear, depression and pain I introduced to their lives. Each year my regret matures as I become more aware of how finite and precious life and personal relationships are. It’s difficult to annually relive that night but I perform the act as a reminder of the obligations I carry daily to avoid causing further sufferance. I caused enough for a lifetime that night.
******
Wil and I left Shelly’s apartment walking up the road when we came across Ian and Bridget saying goodnight outside her car. He was a 21-year-old who had moved to Oregon from Lake Tahoe and she was an 18-year-old born and raised here. From the impact statements I know that they had met working together at Pietro’s Pizza, began dating, fell in love, got engaged and began dreaming of raising a family together. Ian had told his aunt, “he had met the one.” In the words of her mother, Bridget was, “a beautiful fragrant rose just beginning to bloom”.
At gunpoint we forced the couple into the car. Their tears made me reluctant to proceed, yet I felt there was no other choice if I wanted to protect my group status. The thought of gaining street credibility made adrenaline course through my body. With conflicting emotions, I drove them to a secluded road outside of Albany, placed them on the ground and robbed them of twenty-three dollars and a gold necklace. Bridget asked if we could get her schoolbooks out of the car. She had planned to be a Christian counselor for at risk youth.
******
Later today I will devote hours to school work to complete a bachelor’s degree through the University of Oregon. As a child in Texas I did well in school but once I moved to Oregon I dropped out in the seventh grade. Bullies found my southern accent, brownish afro, freckles, raggedy clothes and mixed ethnicity an easy target for physical and verbal assaults. I wouldn’t rediscover a value for learning until I was locked in long-term solitary confinement during my mid-twenties and reading anything I could get my hands on. Reading expanded the scope of my thoughts and gave me insights into my dysfunction. Understanding education’s pivotal role in my own growth and the support of caring teachers along the way adds additional weight to my burden. I know that Bridget’s mom was a school teacher who lost her enthusiasm to teach as a result of the trauma I inflicted.
Leaving the cell I go to the cafeteria for breakfast and quickly notice tension in the air. The “chow hall” is approximately 100 by 100 foot with narrow rows of closely spaced steel tables and four sitting stools. There is little room between strangers and foes. This is a place where violence is most likely to erupt. This morning I learn that rival gangs are fighting when I sit down with a twenty-two year old prisoner who I have been encouraging to step away from a criminal lifestyle for the sake of his baby daughter.
“You might wanna sit somewhere else,” he says as I sit down with him. “It might get crazy over here when those cowards show up”
“Why y’all don’t squash that beef or resolve it another way,” I ask after sitting down.
“Can’t man, these cats jumped on the homie so you know we have to retaliate.”
“Says who?”
“You know the game,” he says. The code of the streets requires violent retribution in response to affronts, insults or conflict.
“What about your daughter, your family, your future?”
“Man you know how it goes, I ain’t got no choice.”
Any other day I would spend more time trying to be a voice of non-violence. I might have even spoken with the older members of both rival groups about finding a way to resolve the conflict without fighting. But not today. It’s all I can do to keep myself from bursting into tears thinking about how I too once felt there was no choice except resorting to violence when I pulled the trigger and killed Ian. Right before Wil shot Bridget.
Immediately after pulling the trigger noxiousness overwhelmed me. A ping of regret rocked me. But it was short lived. Quickly after I became filled with a sense of validation for having proven myself. The day of my crime I bragged about my actions to peers. Today, feelings of shame consume me with self-disgust.
***********
I head to work in the chapel office thinking about how much my life has changed, but how no amount of time erases those memories, the guilt, the blood from my hands. Entering the office I wonder how the victim’s family has dealt with their loss over the years, I’ve spent years in therapy groups but I know nothing about the help they received.
All day I wonder about the life Ian and Bridget might have had: The family they might have had, where they could have traveled, the good her counseling could have done
The day finally ends. I fall asleep thinking about how unfair it is that at age 41, I’ve been able to create a meaningful life even while imprisoned. Because of me, Ian and Bridget never had that chance.
Sterling Cunio is a spoken word poet who transforms adversity into the substance of stanza. Sterling is a 2019-2020 PEN America Writing For Justice Fellow, a 2019 Oregon Literary Arts Fellow and a two-time PEN America Prison Writing Award winner for his essay Going Forward with Gus (2018) and co-authored play The Bucket (2018). Published in The Marshall Project, Sterling’s currently a University of Oregon undergrad majoring in crime, law and society. At age 16, Sterling was sentenced to life without parole and has spent twenty-six years in prison where he’s devoted himself to hospice volunteering, mentoring younger prisoners, transforming the culture of street crime and building peace. Sterling is a frequent contributor to community-based efforts to raise awareness around issues of mass incarceration, food scarcity, and Restorative Justice.