My friend's killer

Commonweal, March 12, 1999 by Mark Redmond

I am away on vacation in upstate New York. I decide I should visit an old acquaintance, because he is so nearby. I didn't pick the Finger Lake region as my vacation spot for this reason. It just works out that way. It is only when I get upstate that I have this vague feeling that the prison where Santos is doing time is somewhere close.

And it is. I take out my address book and discover that Santos is incarcerated in a minimum-security facility in a town I've actually been to. It is, in fact, the same town where I take my son for ice cream each night. Dairy Queen and the Cayuga Correctional Facility. Quite a combination.

I haven't seen Santos in nine years. That was when I visited him at Rikers Island, the first jail those arrested in New York City are likely to face, particularly if awaiting trial. Santos had been arrested for murder, the murder of one of my co-workers. She was a nun, in her late sixties, who volunteered at a shelter for homeless teen-agers in the South Bronx. I was the program director. I knew her well.

Santos, at that time, was a nineteen-year-old crack addict. But I can tell you with all sincerity that he was not a bad kid. When he wasn't doing drugs he was an absolute gentleman. I never heard him speak disrespectfully to our staff. He got up on time, he made his bed, he did all the right things. But he was hooked on crack. It was obvious to us, and we pleaded with him to get help, but he refused. We finally had to ask him to leave. The next evening he returned to the house, the sister was murdered, a search for Santos ensued, and he was eventually convicted and sentenced to twenty-five years. I asked him in Rikers if he did it. He told me he was so high that night he honestly could not remember what he did or didn't do. I believed him. Once he was convicted, he was shipped upstate. I began writing to him and a correspondence developed. I never again asked him about the crime. He never brought it up either.

So I decide to visit him. Why? Certainly Jesus' statement, "And when I was in prison you visited me," comes to mind, but so does a scene from Oscar Hijuelos's novel, Mr. Ives' Christmas. In the novel, Mr. Ives visits the man who mindlessly murdered his son some twenty years earlier. He does not do so to accuse the man or unleash upon him the agony he has felt because of the loss of his son. It is an effort at reconciliation. By this act Mr. Ives achieves a kind of peace.

I sign in at the prison entrance, emptying all my pockets and going through the jail-house rituals I know so well, having worked with troubled kids for seventeen years. I wait while they summon Santos. When he arrives he is surprised to see me. He tells me I am the first person to visit him since he left Rikers. His family is in Puerto Rico. There are a few relatives living in New York City, but none has come to see him. I am, of course, surprised by how much older he looks. He's no longer a teen-ager. He's almost thirty, an adult. And he is going prematurely bald. Genetics, or a result of ten years of prison life?

I'm not sure what to talk about, and neither is he. I bring up the names of the various staff members from the shelter. We trade stories about them and about the kids who were there. Most of the stories are funny, and I discover Santos hasn't lost his sense of humor. He then brings up the issue of parole. His first chance at parole will be in the year 2003, and he talks about 2003 the way you and I talk about April when it's March. I wonder how someone can hold onto hope for that long, especially knowing it is a dim hope. Chances are a person convicted of killing a nun will not be paroled at the first opportunity. So how does Santos get up each day and go about his prison life? What motivates him? What keeps him from plunging into a deep, dark depression? I'm tempted to ask, but I don't. He is functioning in that prison, and I don't want to set off the mental dominoes that will take him off that course.

The corrections officer in charge of the visiting area tells us our hour is up. I'm half-relieved. My ten-year-old son is waiting for me back at our cabin, probably eager to go fishing. I have felt awkward seeing Santos. Correspondence is easier than being face to face. We hug each other good-bye, and I encourage him to hang in there.

Afterwards, I am glad I went. It was something I wanted to do and in some ways needed to do. A little like Mr. Ives, I guess. And I am certain that if she were alive, my murdered friend and colleague would have done the same.

Mark Redmond is associate director of the Domus Foundation, a residence for homeless teen-agers in Stamford, Connecticut.