Jayber

Deion Sanders.

I’m going to tell you about a wonderful man in white*. In this post, I am going to name him “Jayber’. For those of you who have read Wendell Berry, you already love him.

Jayber has been incarcerated for a long time but is still young. He is quiet, composed and has a calming spirit. Could he have learned this from being a barber? 

One time he asked me whether I remembered Deion Sanders’ dance in the end zone. Stretching my commitment to always tell the truth, I said yes.  Well, he said, when he was a young boy, he tripped on the sidewalk while imitating Deion Sanders and fell into the yard, landing on broken bottles.

A year or so ago, the warden asked Jayber whether he would be willing to move into the most troublesome, dangerous dormitory in the prison, a dormitory severely in need of culture change. Jayber agreed and provides an island of peace and calm. He teaches Bible classes and has started a library in the darkest place of the prison, a place overrun with violence.

Jayber told me that when he is released, his plan is to do what he can for youth. He doesn’t want them to fall on broken bottles.

*In Texas prisons, all inmates wear white.