A Dry-Eyed Stare

Why does he come to my mind this morning? Like I’m with him again. I sit at my desk. He stands at the corner window. Like he does every day, just before lunch. No one calls his name. No one approaches. We all know to leave him be.

His hands are stuffed in his pockets, fisted hands. And his eyes cross the field, yearning eyes. Like a cat staring, as though an unwavering gaze will open a door. When the lunch bell rings, his head drops, just for a moment. Then he turns, and swaggers with the rest of them toward the cafeteria.

The classroom empties, and I walk to the corner window. Across the field is a double fence line topped with coils of razor wire. Ground-level coils fill the land between the fences. And mingled throughout are shaker sensors and cameras.

I’ve been where Matt’s eyes go—across the field and over the fences, inside the complex in the prison school. That’s where I taught inmates how to read and how to pass the GED and history.

Then there was child development, the class where I saw inmates swallow hard and cry, big burly inmates. And sometimes get mad.

Once a man with tattoos marching up his arms stood and slammed a fist on his desk.

“Why didn’t nobody ever tell me this stuff?” he shouted.

He sat down and dropped his head into his hands.

“Just wish I’d known,” he said, his voice subdued, almost too quiet to hear.

It’s something to teach on both sides of the fence. To see a grown inmate cry. And to see a young boy with a dry-eyed stare yearn for his dad.

And it’s something to wonder—where is Matt now?