Upstate by Kalisha Buckhanon Page B

tell you, but at first I thought you was wrong. I thought there was something you coulda done to change it, and I was mad at you for going away and leaving me. Then I said, well dawg, would Antonio do something to me if I make him mad? But maybe after going there and seeing you every day and hearing what everybody had to say about you, I don’t blame you. I don’t think you did nothing wrong. I promise I don’t. I think you did all you could do. I think you are a wonderful, smart, beautiful, and brave person. I think you are a hero. Please, don’t plead guilty to anything. Don’t do this baby. Don’t forget that you a hero. Write me back as soon as you get this.
    Love,
    Natasha

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    May 5, 1990
Dear Natasha,
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    Well baby, that’s it. It’s done. I told my lawyer that I didn’t want to take the chance. That I wanted to cop a plea. I’m scared Natasha. I know that you don’t think I get scared, that I put on this front for you and my boys. But I get scared too. I get nervous and everything too sometimes. And I’m telling you, baby, I ain’t never been scared about anything in my whole life as I am about this. I’m gonna go ahead and take the plea. Involuntary manslaughter. 10 years. Upstate. It’s done.
    Yours truly, A

PART TWO

    May 19, 1990
Baby Girl,
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    I’m cold. I’m so cold I can feel my bones inside of me, holding my body together. I want to pull them out one by one and rub them together like they taught us to do sticks in day camp at the PAL, make a fire inside of me to keep my body warm. I feel alone, like I’m on the outside of the world looking in. Like I’m in a rocket ship going to the moon, staring out of the cockpit window at the earth all pretty and blue and alive below me. I’m gonna die in here. I’m so alone, I’m gonna die.
    The first day I got here, they shaved my hair. They cut it all off. You know how long me and my moms been trying to grow my hair? It was almost down to the middle of my back, and they cut it all off. I ain’t had my hair cut, other than the ends, since I was in the fifth grade or something like that. They took everything else from me—my clothes, the pictures I had put up, my box of letters, my belt so now my pants sag, my shoelaces so I’m walking around tripping all over myself. They say they gonna give it back to me, but I don’t believe em. They had to take a man’s hair too? I felt like Samson in the Bible, you know the strongest man who had ever lived? His woman tricked him into cutting all his hair so his enemies could capture him and break him down.
See, and you thought I didn’t know nothing about church. But that’s what they did to me baby. They broke me down when they did that, robbed me, took my manhood. I didn’t mind them making me squat and sticking their fingers up my ass as much as I minded them taking my hair. I remember cats coming from the clinic talking about the doctor doing that to them all the time. My turn just came up. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I just blocked it out and it was over in a few seconds. But my hair, I can’t never get that back. Ever. Well, at least not for a long time. When it gets to be more than a few inches, I gotta start braiding it. No fros or long ponytails in here. They worried about you hiding weapons or contraband in your hair, so you gotta show some scalp all the time. I can’t call up Laniece the way I used to though to braid it. But I don’t know if I’m gonna want nobody touching me in here, not even the barber they make you go to.
    I miss MGD and Mookie. I miss them brothers a lot. They kind of looked out for me, like I was their little bro or something. I liked that, being the youngest one for a change. All my life, I felt like it was kind of my responsibility to look out for Tyler and Trevon. I was their big bro, the one they looked up to, the role