Excerpt from The Buddhist on Death Row by David Sheff, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Yeah," he said. "No big deal. Motherfuckers fighting, stabbing."

She looked alarmed.

"Don't worry about me, little sister," he said. "No one will fuck with me."

Carlette noticed faded tattoos on her brother's temple and wrist, the number 255, and asked about them.

When they were children, they lived on 255th Street in Harbor City.

"What made you get that?" she asked.

"It was something I'd seen on a homeboy lying in a coffin." Carlette was aghast.

When a guard came by with a five-minute warning, Jarvis asked Carlette if she could put money in his trust account so he could buy cigarettes.

She said okay, and she left.


It was an expensive ordeal for Carlette to travel by car from LA, but she returned a month later, this time with her young son, who sat on her lap. Once again, Jarvis regaled her with prison stories. It saddened her that he acted as though prison were a joke, and she was disgusted when he boasted that he was feared and envied as a "warrior" in some revolution.

The third time Carlette came, Jarvis started up again, talking about the race war in San Quentin—in which black inmates were defending themselves against attacks by Mexican and white gangs— about crooked guards selling drugs and guns, and about a stabbing, as if these horrifying events were amusing.

Carlette burst into tears.

Jarvis stared. "What are you crying about?" She blurted out, "What about us?"

He didn't understand.

"You're always telling me about your life like you're a hard gangster, some revolutionary, all that bullshit. You never ask about us. Why should I even come see you? What about me? What about your nephew? You know what he said after last time we saw you? 'Mama, I wanna be just like Uncle Jay.' What am I supposed to tell him?"

She cried harder, but Jarvis just rolled his eyes.

She continued, "You think when your homeboys get out they're going to send you money? You think they're going to write you, send pictures of their children? Do you even think about us? Who are you trying to impress? What is wrong with you?"

Still sobbing, she picked up her son and left.

Jarvis sat fuming. What was wrong with him? What the fuck was wrong with her? She had no idea who he was. She had no idea where he was. His sister was a fool, and he didn't care if she never came back.


In his cell that night, Jarvis tried to put the visit out of his mind, but he kept thinking about something Carlette had said. Many of the men he knew in prison were in for life, but some would get out eventually. Would he hear from them? Would they write? Would they send money or pictures of their children? Would they visit?

Not a chance.

What he been trying to prove? Who was he trying to impress?

Even harder to ignore was her other question: "What is wrong with you?"

He tried to blow it off, but he couldn't. He huddled in a corner of his cell. He felt ... he didn't know what. Something he didn't want to feel.

Jarvis had often contemplated death, having seen it from a very young age. He'd imagined being shot like many of the boys he knew in his neighborhood. Other times, he saw himself going out in a blaze of gunfire like in a movie. Sometimes he even looked forward to death. It would be a relief.

Throughout that long night, he confronted a thought he'd never let himself think before: He wanted to get out of prison, to reconnect with his family, to be his sister's big brother and his nephew's uncle. He wanted to live.

Using the only writing implement he was allowed—the insert of a ballpoint pen (a pen could be a weapon)—he placed a sheet of paper on his bunk, using it as a desk, and wrote to Carlette. He thanked her for her help, her letters, her visits. He wrote that he was proud of the woman she'd become and her beautiful son, and he apologized for never asking about her life; he wanted to know everything about it.