The Master Plan: My Journey from Life in Prison to a Life of Purpose

At 19, having received his high school diploma, Wilson contemplates how he will be remembered and seriously considers why he wants to get out of prison. He decides to make a list of what he wants in life and how to accomplish it. Wilson devotes days to compiling the list. He calls it My Master Plan. He sends one copy to the judge who convicted him and a second copy to Grandma because he knows that Grandma reads her mail and believes that will keep him honest. The third copy goes on the wall of his prison cell. 

This two-page chapter consists of the list Wilson created for himself in December 1997. It begins with “Stop calling home every day,” concludes with “Meet a smart, beautiful woman that’s business savvy,” and includes a total of 34 items, a mixture of goals and changes in behavior (105-106).

The next morning, Wilson runs five laps in the prison yard and lifts weights. He shaves his head, trims his goatee, and for the first time begins to focus on cleanliness and personal hygiene. He does not see changes after one day. But, he says, “it’s not one day that changes your life. It’s every day” (108).

Wilson is promoted to tier two, where he finds Greg and Omar selling drugs. Several female Corrections Officers are known to offer sex for money. A new dream haunts Wilson: He opens a dresser drawer and is bitten by a snake lurking inside. Wilson interprets this dream as a warning against succumbing to temptation. He becomes a voracious reader. Along with fellow weightlifters Sean and David, “two white dudes” who also like to read, Wilson starts a reading club called the Book Crushers (113).

The prison environment tests Wilson’s resilience. Some inmates scoff when they see him reading. A young bamma is promoted to Wilson’s tier and gets on everyone’s nerves. To punish and silence the bamma, two inmates throw sand-filled, scalding-hot baby oil in his face. The sand causes his skin to peel off. Horrified, Wilson recalls reading a book about John McCain and other soldiers tortured in the Hanoi Hilton and draws strength from the hope those prisoners maintained.

Wilson enrolls in carpentry, which, like the GED program, is coed. He is offered sex for money, but he refuses, recalling his dream of the snake and its warning about succumbing to temptation. He meets Tooky, a fellow inmate who becomes a kind of mentor. Tooky is “laid-back,” “talented,” and “good-looking and smart,” which makes him popular with everyone, including the women (122). A “respected old head” at 26 years old, Tooky also has a life sentence.

This two-page chapter identifies Wilson’s updated Master Plan as of January 2000. Among the notable changes, he adds “Complete all the therapeutic models at Patuxent,” and he deletes “Pay my brother back” (125). The latter item signified Wilson’s desire for revenge against Derrick, but now he abandons that desire and focuses only on positive goals, nine of which are already complete.

Promoted to tier three, Wilson reconnects with Steve, his tutor from the GED program. In general, Steve keeps to himself, but he slowly opens up to Wilson. He warns Wilson to avoid drug dealers like Greg. Steve loves computers (though he lacks access to one in prison), is a voracious reader, and has a cell full of books, along with other items that suggest someone on the outside is looking after him. At first, Steve will not share anything, but eventually he begins lending Wilson books and magazines. Wilson uses Steve’s reading materials to learn Italian, brush up on current events, and discover the secrets of successful businessmen. Wilson graduates from woodworking and meets Steve’s parents, who are middle-class professionals.

Steve spent his elementary school years living in a majority-white neighborhood in Washington D.C., attending a school in which Black children were bused in from other parts of the city, dealing with bullying from an older brother, and generally feeling “lost” (134). During a violent incident stemming from an argument involving one of his brother’s friends, 14-year-old Steve was assaulted with a crowbar and beaten repeatedly by a group of grown men. He began carrying guns and killed a man in what he believed was self-defense. He was convicted of murder at the age of 16 (136). He received a life sentence plus 20 years, though people involved in the case believed the sentence was too harsh and that he would be out much earlier. Sent first to “Castle Grayskull” and then to the Annex, two of Maryland’s most notorious maximum-security prisons, Steve watched his hopes for freedom evaporate when Governor Glendening ended parole for lifers. Finally, Steve was transferred to the Patuxent youth program, where he met Wilson.