Just a Mexican Living in a Ghetto

BY CARLOS GODINEZ

I Always Thought He Was A Cop.

A Real Cop.

The Polo Shirt. The Patch.

The Handcuffs.

The Squad Car.

He’d Take Me.

 Take Me Often.

Red Lights, He’d Run.

Siren Blaring.

Lights flashing.

I’m Gonna

 Put Your Brothers in Jail

He Said

If You Tell Anyone.

Anyone.

You’re Just a Mexican

Living in a Ghetto

Who’s Gonna Believe YOU?

A Mexican

Living In a Ghetto.

Dark It Was.

He’d Give Me A Ride Home

He Said.

I Was

Playing Football.

At PAL.

The Police Athletic League

He Wasn’t

WASN’T EVER

No Way in Hell

My Pal

His Name Was Uller

Rhymes with Ruler

Eric Uller.

White, Rich

Arrogant.

A Doctor

His Father Was.

He Didn’t Drive Me Home.

No.

He Took Me

To a Cemetery

In His Squad Car

I’m Only

Thirteen.

Thirteen I Am.

It Was Dark. Big Trees.

Why?

Why’d He Take Me.

To A Cemetery?

I’m Scared. Real Scared.

He Starts

Grabbing My Crotch.

Grabbing My Crotch.

Then He

Made Me

Jerk Him Off.

I Was Scared.

Didn’t Know What to Do.

Then He

Jerked Me Off.

Sucked My Cock.

He’s A Cop.

He Sucked My Cock.

Don’ Tell Anyone

He Said.

Who’s Gonna Believe You.

Who’s Gonna Believe YOU?

You’re Just a Mexican

Living in a Ghetto.

A Mexican  

Living In a Ghetto.

Uller

Did A Number on Me.

Really Fucked Me Up.

I Always Thought

He Was A Cop.

A Real Cop.

The German Shepard.

The Unmarked Police Car.

I Come

from A Big Family

We All Lived

in

Two-Bedroom Apartment.

Two Bedrooms.

Santa Monica

The Pico Area

Santa Monica.

It Was So.

So Fucked Up.

I’m wondering

If I’m Gay?

Or Crazy?

I’m Embarrassed.

Scared.

Grossed Out.

Every Fuckin’ Emotion.

I Couldn’t Imagine

Couldn’t Ever Imagine

Anything Like That.

I Was Totally

into Sports.

I Had No

Sexual Experience.

None.

Nothing.

Before Uller

I Didn’t Talk

To Anyone.

About this.

It Made Me

Aggressive.

Fighting.

Always Fighting

I Wasn’t

Like That

Before.

I Never

Went Back

To PAL.

I Was Afraid.

Really Afraid.

What Uller Did to Me.

Fucked with.

Fucked with.

My Marriage.

I Never Told

My Wife.

Before Uller

I Adored Cops.

Even at PAL

Protect and Serve.

Protect and Serve.

I Wanted

Wanted

To Be A Cop.

I Looked Up

To Them.

I Grew Up

In A Ghetto.

My Neighborhood

Was Rough

Very Rough.

Drive Byes.

My Demeanor

Changed.

Changed.

My Whole Perspective on Life

Changed.

It Makes Me Angry

Still Pisses Me Off.

The Windows

Of His Squad Car

Were Tinted.

It Was Getting

Dark

I Was Scared.

So Fuckin’ Scared.

It Took Forever.

Time Stood Still

It Was

So Fucked Up.

I Went

To The Other Side.

Right Away.

Fighting

Angry

At Everyone.

Teachers, Parents.

I Was Really

Fucked Up.

They Kicked

Kicked

Me Out Of High School.

For Fighting.

I Slammed

A Teacher

To the Floor.

I Was Mad.

Mad.

Before Uller.

I Never Did Drugs.

I Was

Just A Kid

Having Fun.

A Cool Kid.

Looking Forward

To Being A Cop

After Uller.

I Was Embarrassed.

Confused.

I Tried Fighting.

Thinking About

Suicide

Didn’t Know Who

To Ask for Help.

It Fucks You Up.

In So Many Ways.

It Was

A Big Brick

A Big Brick

On My Back.

I Can Still

Feel His Vibe.

Even Now.

I Stopped Going

To PAL.

Stopped Going.

Why? My Dad Asked Me

Why?

Are You OK?

I Was Sacred

 To Say Anything.

I Didn’t Want My Father

To Think Less of Me.

I Don’t Wish That

On Anyone.

Not Anyone.

Drugs Became

My Escape.

To Forget.

Become Numb.

I had So Much Hatred

So Much Hatred.

Uller

Turned My World

Upside Down.

I’ve Had A Rough Life.

Fights. Arrests.

Homeless.

I’m Still

Upset.

This Could’ve Been

Avoided.

They Should’ve

Known.

Police Should’ve Known.

It Was

Total Bullshit.

Total Bullshit It Was

Every Situation

I’m in Now

The Abuse Is there.  

It’s Always There.

The By-Product

It’s Always There.

Last Time

The last time

I Was Arrested

They Put Me In the Hole.

Only A Week.

But It Seemed

Like Forever.

I Felt Like

Committing Suicide.

Again.

Don’ Tell Anyone

He Said.

Who’s Gonna Believe YOU?

You’re Just a Mexican

Living in a Ghetto.

A Mexican 

In a Ghetto.

Carlos Godinez - “After the Eric Uller catastrophe, I dedicated myself to fighting - to unleash the rage I was feeling, and drugs - to obliterate the memories I had. The fallout was predictable. I went nowhere fast. A few notable jobs came my way; like MTV, for one. But for the most part, there’s been more misery, than not. Playing with words, and finding my voice, has been helpful.”

The City of Santa Monica, California, could face over 100 new payouts for sexual abuse of children under their watch, in what lawyers describe as the biggest compensation for a single predator case in history.

Former Santa Monica Police Department (SMPD) staffer Eric Uller molested scores of kids while volunteering at the Police Activities League (PAL), a non-profit for underprivileged youth, in the 1980s and 1990s.

Excerpt from an article in the Daily Mail

Lady, This is for You

By James Hanna

It usually takes something drastic to upset a person’s life. An earthquake, a fire, or a hurricane could potentially do the job. But my life was foiled by an incident that could hardly be called dramatic. It was derailed by an eighteen-year-old kid who, upon spotting a middle-aged woman walking her dogs in a local park, patted his crotch suggestively and shouted, “Lady, this is for you!” It was the kind of event that more often occurs when women walk past construction sites. If the woman is even remotely attractive, men wearing hard hats and steel-toed boots will typically shout lewd remarks. But cries like “Hey baby, wanna share my bologna?” do not have consequences. Women will dismiss these bon mots with either a laugh or an icy stare.

But a construction site was not the context in which the incident occurred. In this case, the jaunty pappagallo was not a hard-hat laborer. He was a Black kid on a work crew from the Indiana Penal Farm—a medium-security prison where I spent twenty years as an inmate counselor. And the object of his attention was, unfortunately, a White woman. Ironically, she was also the wife of the prison’s investigator, and she told her husband about the matter in a fit of indignation. The kid was removed from the work crew, placed in our lockup unit and scheduled for an institutional hearing on a charge of attempted rape.

When this matter came up for hearing, I was chairing the Conduct Adjustment Board—a three-member tribunal responsible for reviewing rule violations. We were sitting in the hearing room at the hub of the Special Housing Unit—a starfish-shaped building where unruly inmates were kept in solitary confinement. Seated behind a conference table, we gave due process to inmates, letting them tell their sides of the stories before reaching dispositions. Most of the cases involved fights between inmates or inmates possessing weapons or drugs. Never before had we had to rule on a charge of attempted rape.

I had three copies of the write-up, and I handed two of them to my comembers: Bob Brewer, a burly farm foreman with a goatee shaped like a spade, and Sarah Baumgardner, a correctional sergeant with blonde, disheveled hair. The kid had yet to be fetched from his cell because the range officers were serving lunch, so I took a couple of minutes to read the write-up out loud.

Date: June 30, 1998

To: Conduct Adjustment Board

From: Lieutenant Ron Cavanaugh, Facility Investigator

Re: DeShawn Jefferson, DOC 980562

Infraction: Rape (Attempted)

On June 28, 1998, at approximately 1400 hours, Marie Elizabeth Cavanaugh, a resident of Putnamville, was walking her two dogs in the Putnamville City Park. Present in the Park was Labor Line 9 under the supervision of Officer Billy Grimes whose statement is attached. Labor Line 9 was performing its usual duties of picking up trash and animal waste in the park.

Marie Elizabeth Cavanaugh was walking the dogs near the barbeque pits, approximately fifty feet away from where DeShawn Jefferson was picking up trash. At the above-mentioned time, DeShawn Jefferson stroked his crotch in a lewd and suggestive manner. At the above-mentioned time, DeShawn Jefferson stated clearly, “Lady, this is for you.” DeShawn Jefferson directed this remark to Marie Elizabeth Cavanaugh as there were no other females in the park at the time. DeShawn Jefferson clearly made the remark in reference to his penis because his hand continued to stroke his crotch as he made the remark. Officer Grimes immediately put DeShawn Jefferson in restraints to keep him from consummating his threat. Officer Grimes kept DeShawn Jefferson in restraints until he was picked up by our roving patrol and placed in disciplinary segregation.

Marie Elizabeth Cavanaugh was deeply shaken by the assault. Her statement is attached along with that of Officer Grimes.

The two witness statements seemed repetitious, so I did not bother to recite them as well. When I asked my comembers what they thought of the charge, they seemed wholly unimpressed. “Have you ever seen Cavanaugh’s wife?” Brewer snarled. “Hell, she’s gotta weigh two-hundred pounds. A little runt like DeShawn couldn’t handle that much puss.” Sarah remarked that DeShawn deserved only a switch upon his butt cheeks. She also told us that Lieutenant Cavanaugh had once tried to grope her tits.

Minutes later, a range officer herded DeShawn into the hearing room. He was a string bean of a kid serving time for selling meth, and he nervously tugged one of his dreadlocks as he stood in front of us. When I asked him why he grabbed his crotch and made that stupid remark, he said, “My road dogs dared me to do it, sir. They bet me a pack of Camels.” He assured us he was no Mike Tyson, having never raped anyone, and he said he regretted making the bet because his fellow inmates didn’t pay up.

I asked DeShawn to leave the room, so we could review the case. Rape is a Class A rule infraction—a very serious charge; it is punishable by a year in segregation and forfeiture of all good time earned. Convinced that DeShawn had told us the truth, I opened the Conduct Adjustment Board handbook and went down the list of infractions to find a lesser charge. The most minor rule violations were listed as Class D offenses, and there I found a more fitting offense: Making an Obscene Gesture. It was punishable by a loss of ten days of good time and thirty hours of extra duty.

“He did make an obscene gesture,” I conceded. “We could find him guilty of that.”

 Brewer said, “If we don’t find him guilty of rape, it’s you who’s gonna get fucked.” He assured me that Cavanaugh would run to the superintendent, whine like a pampered brat and claim that I had let DeShawn get away with forcing himself upon his wife. As the chairman of the Conduct Adjustment Board, I was sure to be called on the carpet, and my career as a prison staffer would probably take a serious hit.

I considered this possibility and stubbornly shook my head. I had always prided myself on my independence of mind, so I was not unaccustomed to being stigmatized. Besides, I had not received a promotion despite my two college degrees—perhaps because these credentials did not cultivate boundaries. My career now smacked of stagnation—of ambition put on hold—and I often felt like a stranger who had invited himself to a dance.

I insisted we break the charge down to making an obscene gesture. Since my comembers both despised Cavanaugh, I was lecturing to the converted. “It’s still gonna be your ass,” Brewer said as he signed the disposition form.

When the range officer returned DeShawn to the hearing room, I asked him if he had anything else to say. He said, “I wanna apologize for playing the fool in that park. My mama, she done told me I should always respect a lady.”

“Ten days loss of good time,” I said. “Thirty hours of extra duty. That’s for making an obscene gesture. We found you guilty of that.”

“Sheeit,” said DeShawn. He looked stunned and relieved. “Lieutenant Cavanaugh ain’t gonna like you.”

Later, I reconsidered my decision, and I cursed my fastidious soul. Who was I to rescue a reckless kid from such monstrous stupidity? At least, I did not have to wait long for the matter to come to a head. An hour later, I was ordered to report to the superintendent’s office.

Earlier that month, I had attended an execution at the Indiana State Prison. My job was to visit death row, which had been placed under a protective lockdown, and to offer to counsel those residents traumatized by the event. I still recall the cry that rang out as I strolled up and down death row, the eerie call that preceded the miscreant taking his final steps. “Dead man walking!” a guard called out with such finality that my skin prickled as though it were crawling with ants, and my heart almost froze in my chest. It seemed almost a redundancy when the condemned man shuffled by—his face was so vacant and waxy that he already resembled a ghost. As I walked towards the superintendent’s office, I remembered that terminal cry—an intimation that I too had defied mighty norms and was scheduled to meet my maker.

Upon entering the carpeted office, I stood as still as Lady Liberty. The superintendent was sitting behind his desk, reading the write-up report. He was a sixtyish man with a premature stoop and a shock of silvery-white hair. I had spoken to him only a couple of times since he rarely left his office.

When he finished reading the write-up, he looked at me intently. His face did not show disapproval so much as curiosity.

“Cavanaugh overreacted,” I said. “We convicted that kid by the book.”

He rocked back in his chair, and his face relaxed into a grandfatherly smile. “Well, the lieutenant did seem out of sorts,” he said. “Mercy, he looked fit to tie. But what book would that be if you don’t mind my asking?” His voice was thin and nonthreatening, his eyes were limpid and kind, but his lingering stare was enough to suggest that I had crossed an invisible line.

“We were fair to the kid,” I insisted with waning certainty.

He gazed at me, still smiling politely—a smile that did not reach his eyes. “So I see,” he muttered, his voice empty of sentiment. “But were you as fair to our officers, sir, when you compromised our control—when you let the whole inmate body know we were willing to let this thing go?”

I attempted to speak, but he waved his hand as though bothered by a fly. “Forgive me if I sound rather blunt,” he said, “but the inmates outnumber us twenty to one. My goodness, they can take over the prison any time they want.”

If you’re not with us, you’re against us was the message in his eyes—an inference so primal I could offer no reply. His demeanor—that of a purist—afforded me no appeal, and I began to suspect that I had sought fairness on a wholly extrinsic scale.

Still, I insisted stubbornly that I had done the proper thing. “There wasn’t the slightest evidence,” I said, “that the kid was vested in rape.”

“Vested?” the superintendent murmured. “Sir, what do you mean by that? Are you saying the kid had no carnal intent when he accosted Lieutenant Cavanaugh’s wife?”

“I doubt it,” I said.

He folded his arms like a banker refusing a loan. “Do you doubt that criminals fib, sir? And do you think that Mrs. Cavanaugh lied? Might you have better resolved the doubt in favor of an officer’s wife?”

I made one last effort. “He’s just a dumb kid. He even apologized.”

The superintendent rose from his chair. He sat on the edge of his desk, gripping both sides as though he were perched on a towering precipice. “I daresay that poor woman was insulted enough without also being called a liar. If you don’t mind me speaking frankly, I believe you were out of line.”

“The kid meant no harm,” I insisted. “There’s no question of that in my mind.”

“So you say,” he muttered, letting go of the sides of the desk. He eased himself back into his office chair and again looked at me curiously. There was a timelessness to his gaze, deep history to his face. It was as though the shifts of a century had left him completely unfazed.

“I really don’t like to be rude,” he said finally. “My staff is like family to me. But ask yourself one more question, sir. Are you sure you belong in this place?”

As I left the superintendent’s office, my mind began to riot. Was temperance for gentler climates? I wondered. Was that tottery patriarch right? Should I have locked up that kid for a year to keep more dangerous inmates in line? Only then did I fully suspect the ramifications of what I had done. What if more radical inmates—the Muslims and Devil’s Disciples—took my laxness in enforcing the norms as a weakness in our ranks? Were they not political prisoners, so far as their dogma went? Were they not capable of attacking us like a shark that had scented blood?

What book would that be if you don’t mind my asking? These words carried a law of their own. I had no doubt that my sagging career had come to its logical end.

Months later, I better understood what Brewer had warned me about. At that time, I had left the penal farm, having tired of the Hoosier State, and moved to San Francisco to work as a probation officer. A comment from Brewer was all it took to trigger my departure. He said, “Churches and birches—nothing else grows in a town like Putnamville.”

It was by chance that I finally learned the full power of what I had taken on. I was channel surfing one night and discovered a movie called Birth of a Nation. Although made in 1915, the film had incredible cinematic techniques, and I watched it with fascination, never once leaving my chair.

The film tracks Southern Reconstruction following the Civil War and shows sexually-aggressive Blacks plundering a small town. The most pivotal scene is when a White girl leaves her family’s gutted plantation and traipses into the woods to fetch a pail of water. Alone in the woods, she is stalked by a White actor dressed as a Union soldier—an actor whose face had been blackened to make him look like a wild-eyed beast. When this goblin corners the girl at the edge of a towering cliff, she hurls herself to the rocks below to escape her imminent rape.

After watching the movie, I was struck by the depth of my naiveté. This film had not died in some archives—it was living to this day. How blind I had been when I let that kid off, how brazen, how sightlessly brave. How recklessly I had provoked trepidations beyond my power to tame.

No, I had not survived Putnamville, and my coltishness was to blame. It would take a quixotic more artful than me to impress his will on that town. What book would that be? This rhetorical question aggravates me still—yet I take a wicked delight at the thought that I had not kept that kid in a cell.

I will never return to Putnamville—I have no stake in that town—but I sometimes reflect on the vacuum my departure must have left behind. Who else will challenge that question? Who will stand up in my place? And who will wipe the blackness from that feral, leering face?

James Hanna is a retired probation officer and a former fiction editor. His work has appeared in over thirty journals, including Sixfold, Crack the Spine, and The Literary Review. His books, most of which have won awards, are available on Amazon.

View From Mount Rushmore

By Christian Skoorsmith

It is quivering how far into the sacred hills the white man pushed

to carve his likeness into stone, a graven image if ever there was one,

unblinking eyes never wrinkled by joy, fear, hope.

Impossible for them to turn around and look

behind themselves. How forceful a monument can speak.

How true, when tongues are stilled.

The fireworks and fanfare weak drums to waken

the old men of the mountain. We sing their songs but we do not believe them.

Sing louder. At their throats thirteen million uncounted stone tears. No rain can reach them,

seedlings lost to rocky soil, no soft home for roots, perish in the sun.

A story told by another long-nosed wise man who wandered all over

still could not find the entrance to Jackson’s heart.

The Old Indian-Fighter brought back elephant skulls to molder

in museums alongside stolen bones, hides, hair

heaped in piles and burned in school yards.

Some hands on display – shriveled, under glass, pinned with inventory numbers.

The graves of children unmarked rest easier now, finally

free to listen to the wind in unmown grass above them, to sing their spirit songs.

Hair keeps growing after death. For a while, until

it finds rest somewhere blown back over the sea.

At Little Bighorn they still remember every warrior’s name. They have to

for every uncounted fingernail at Wounded Knee, black

with dark earth from desperate clawing at Why. All of it

at the heart of our nation, carved in stone (lest we forget)

facing us. What we cannot see

stacked in bleachers, drenched in flags; what they see

over our heads: a horizon where the sun sets on America.

Christian Skoorsmith is a writer, teacher, and award-winning hypnotherapist in Seattle, Washington. In recent years, poetry for him has been a source of inspiration and therapeutic integration, particularly in the turn of midlife and a closer examination of his own conscious and unconscious biases. For Christian, struggling with the exactitude of the written word and leaning into the playful creativity of poetry engages both sides of the brain, so that 'integration' can itself be a generative act. Widely published in books and magazines in his young adulthood, Christian released his first book of poetry only last year: "Trust Only the Trembling, and other poems exploring manhood." In January, a second book, "Out of Nowhere: poems of place and being," was released - both books available in stores and online. A new chapbook, "Scars of Evolution and other poems," is available only on the self-publishing platform Lulu.com.

1976 Just Play

By Kim Vaughn

“Guess who?” you had asked, again, hands over my eyes

a moment of joy, you felt, as I feigned surprise

it mattered to you, sage one, to be seen inside

an innocent game, you played, to nurture your pride

I wish you had known, my friend, that I loved your smile

the kids who teased you, sweet girl, were stupid and vile

you’re my first lesson, of grit, in this course called hate

I didn’t get it, oh no, I couldn’t relate

You must have learned first, pure heart, the world is unkind

your skin was noticed, bright girl, instead of your mind

they turned you away, and still, you stayed by my side

we were the outcasts, oh yeah, but you couldn’t hide

At recess we stood, good friend, our backs to the wall

you gathered courage, brave soul, to approach them all

while I harbored fear, and shrank, you became more bold

you strove to be seen, in vain, for they grew more cold

I was the odd one, we knew, but you shared your space

you gave me value, you see, I grew from your grace

in time you were gone, sweet soul, I still wonder why

when I reminisce, these days, I feel I might cry

What happened to you, in life, when time raced ahead?

I hope you receive, two-fold, the joy that you spread

may you know success, fierce one, and let it portray

the life you deserve, dear friend, where you can just play!

“I wrote this poem about what racism looked like to me as a white kid in 1976. I had a mixed-race friend in the second grade who was treated differently. I was stumped at the time, but by High School I understood. The concentric theme is compassion because while our peers showed little compassion for her struggle, she sweetly accepted my awkward, weird eight-year-old self. I will always remember her bubbly disposition and, oddly, the scent of her lotion-soft hands over my eyes.”

Kim Vaughn is a trained pastry chef who continues to work in the culinary field. She now has replaced cake decorating and recipe development with painting and writing poetry. She earned her degree in general academics and culinary arts at South Seattle College in 1995. Poetry, for Kim, is a hybrid of language, musicality and math.