No one ever tells you how long the burning lasts after you’ve been pepper sprayed.  I found out on my own my first night in the hole.  The spray I thought I had showered off was still clinging to my face, my arms, and the lone blanket I had to settle in with.  Every time I cried, I could feel the bite of the spray in my eyes, though it paled in comparison to the realization of the mess I’d made of my life.  Though I lost it all that night, it was also the day I learned I could be truly found.  

That morning started off normal enough, feeling frazzled and drained all at once.  I was a Field Minister, which felt somewhere between seminary graduate who specialized in counseling and unofficial prison mascot.  I was responsible to big bosses, given access to walk almost anywhere at any time within the prison, and beloved by the people I worked for.  Having been incarcerated when I was 20, this was my first ever professional position, and I felt like I was owning it.  That Sunday was supposed to be an off-day, but rather than sleep in, I felt like helping a friend explore his struggle with addiction.  I didn’t realize I was drowning, keeping myself too busy to believe I could ever stop swimming.  Pepper spray changed that.  

Like many days at that time, I was functional.  I was just out of the counseling session and in another dorm with some friends playing cards.  One of the guy’s daughters had been missing since last August, and I prayed with the dude often.  Within this circle of friends, fellow nerds, I felt genuine trust.  I didn’t have to be religious or showy or anything more than a guy happy to know about the newest Rick and Morty episode or that Iron Man was going to be Dr. Doom in the next Marvel movie.  I could be me.  I was packing it in and prepping to go back to my block when an official walked in and immediately made it known I was being reprimanded.  The reason?  The card game and my participation in it.  At that moment the weight of the expectations from my family, the job, the prison sentence, the six-year-relationship with the girl I didn’t believe could love me, the work-life balance I thought I needed to survive, felt as if it was pulling me under and I was no longer swimming.  Naturally, I did what I always do in rough situations – I blew it all up. 

To a man, the witnesses that day describe the scene as shocking.  One second I was holding up a schedule showing where I could and couldn’t be and waving it like a matador’s cape.  The next, I was inundated by orange and standing in shock.  The cuffs, the walk through the yard, the blurry faces all shouting, “What did you do?” – those are the memories that stick with me the most.  I wasn’t feeling the pain yet, mostly because my giant glasses took a majority of the damage.  The real pain came later when I was in bed, wondering if I had a future after losing the job I had worked four years for and whether I’d suffer my first demerit (I would), or if I’d lose my job (that also!), or if I’d live in the hole forever (thank God, no!). 

Praying desperately, words met me in the darkness.  Words spoken by the girl who had been telling me for a while that I was losing myself in the identity of being a Field Minister, in being everything to everyone.  It was after I shared with her how I had talked a dude down from believing his life was a waste and helped him see he could genuinely change.  I expected praise and affirmation, but I got a question.  “If you lost your job, José, who would you be?”  I had an answer for her, spoken quickly to remove the discomfort of the question and move on to other subjects, but the question didn’t go away.  It found me that night. 

I’m a believer in Jesus, in that everything we go through is for a purpose.  As sleep evaded me for the next two days and tears made the spray burn, I wrestled with that question and begged God to give me what I had sold down the river of life for a job and status:  Himself.  Somewhere between the third season of The Chosen and walking the yard in chains, I saw the truth in everything my friends, coworkers, and yes, my girlfriend had been telling me about the need to slow down and quit working so hard to make up for failing in life.  They were telling me the truth that I had been swimming so hard to avoid.  I was more than a Field Minister or a prisoner or a workaholic.  I was someone more.  I had worth and didn’t have to earn anyone’s approval.  I found light during those dark days, a light that never goes out.  As it turns out, the light got really bright. 

My first sign that things had changed outside of the hole were the chants.  Specifically, the Free José! chants.  That first week out of the hole was like nothing I’d ever known before, like being John Wick on a bad day.  Everybody and their mom either wanted to know the story, somehow knew the story, or thought that I needed to take punitive action in connection to the story.  I was the most well-known man at a camp begging for a martyr.  For me though, I only had one label – José; local man trying to find his groove in life.  To that end, helping a 21-year-old kid I met in the hole unpack the trauma of abusive family members, learning Japanese, and assisting the local Latino church translate their message to the American crowd became my world.  When the questions of “Will you get your job back?” (at least twice a day for 137 days) or “Will you fight the reprimand?” (accepted it honestly) came, I found my peace in being truly me for the first time in a while.  The job didn’t matter.  My legal situation wasn’t important.  The way back meant finding myself.  

Not long after my time in the hole, the talent show was posted.  “Do comedy,” my friend Malik said.  I looked at him like he had sprouted hairs on his bald dome. 

“Comedy?”

“Comedy.”

“Madness!”

He believed my corny dad jokes in AA would work with a prison audience.  I thought he should ascribe to NA for what he was telling me, but the idea wouldn’t die.  My friends told me everything from I’ve never heard you tell a joke in my life to That sounds awesome!  So, I embraced all the urbanness of the block, learned who Pooh Sheisty was, and went up there before the crowd.  The one thing I didn’t expect?  My old boss laughing at me!

“How many of you, by show of hands, have been in prison five years?”  A slew of hands went up, boss included.

“That’s awful!” 

Miraculous laughter started bubbling up to me.

“Ten years?”  Most of the hands from earlier stayed up, my boss’s included.

“I’m so sorry.” 

The audience broke!  After the show, the line that got quoted to me the most was, “If you have to tell me how much you’re really like that…  You’re not really like that.”  That and the jokes about being sprayed! 

Owning the spray, owning the good and the bad of my journey, I found me in others.  There were people who backed me for being myself and being true to my Christian identity in the midst of hard circumstances. I found my place in a place that pushes people into the darkness of life. Light came in people I had never met before, from the most hardened criminal to the nerdy survivor, they came with the same message: “You’re you, and that’s why we like you.” I was finally enough. 

Then, after two weeks of waiting, my boss came for me.  Her message?

“You’re cleared for Monday.”

“…whut?”

“Yup.  Mess up again and it’s a wrap!”

“Ma’am, yes ma’am.”

I kept my composure for two seconds before leaping into the air and doing an uncoordinated fist pump that was something between a drunk Mario and Tiger Woods on a terrible putt. 

I did my first walk into my old dorm a week ago.  The welcome was cathartic.  I got everything from a standing ovation from the line of dudes waiting for a hair-cut to Welcome back! from people whose names I don’t actually know and am scared to talk to.  In all those moments, I remembered the way I was saved from drowning, and the way I found myself back to real redemption.  I remembered that no matter what job I have, what I do, or where I find myself – I’ll always be found. 

ABOUT THE WRITER. José Rodriguez-Basquez has been a contributor to the WITS newsletter, and with this essay José won 3rd prize in the most recent writing contest. It is always a pleasure to share this writer’s work, which exhibits a natural, unforced sincerity. José can be contacted at:

José Rodriguez-Basquez, #1486720
Nash Correctional Institution
P.O. Box 247
Phoenix, MD 21131