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

Group therapy produces stories from inmates who have experienced traumatic events that shock Wilson. As part of a Victim Impact program, an elderly black woman appears before the group and shows the inmates a picture of her 16-year-old granddaughter. The woman then describes how a group of men raped, murdered, and dismembered her granddaughter. Wilson is shaken and horrified by the grandmother’s account, but the bammas in the group joke about it. Wilson never liked the Victim Impact program because he failed to see its relevance to him or to the other inmates who had not committed those particular crimes, but now he understands it differently. Thinking about the bammas who joked about the horrific crime, Wilson says, “if that hardness was in them, then maybe a piece of it was inside me, too” (202). This incident prompts Wilson to research the man he killed, leading to feelings of true remorse for the first time.

A fight between two inmates results in severe injuries for both. One of the two injured men, named Reggie, takes out his anger on a third inmate, Jimmy. Wilson sees Reggie’s attack coming but does not get involved. His therapist chastises him for standing aloof, but Wilson explains how he had tried to prevent the attack and why, once it began, he could not intervene.

Mr. Mee, the prison therapist, notices that Wilson once again appears depressed and angry. Wilson does not fully trust Mr. Mee, a white man employed by the prison, but he credits him as the “only person at Patuxent” who “cared about inmates more than the rules” (196). Mr. Mee gives Wilson and his closest confidants a separate therapy group, away from the bammas. Showstack visits again and predicts that, if he receives a hearing, Wilson could get his sentence reduced to 30 years. Wilson wants 20.

Wilson researches the man he killed. He comes up empty, which allows him to fill in the details of the man’s life by inference and imagination: traumatized, abandoned, forgotten–everything Wilson knew from his own experience. Wilson reaches powerful conclusions: He does not see himself as a monster, so maybe the same was true of the man he killed. The image of that man, “scared and bleeding, probably crying for his mom,” gives Wilson his first feeling of remorse, which he defines as an acknowledgment of sin accompanied by an irresistible urge to atone for it (204).

The administration grants Wilson and Steve their own tier, along with new privileges and the freedom to choose the inmates who would join them. The group includes Brian Carter from Wilson’s Spanish study group; Juan, a fellow weightlifter; Bingo, a Cambodian whom Steve had tutored; Tooky and his friend Geronimo; seven white men from carpentry who “had skills”; and a gregarious young man named Scar (208). Wilson passes math class and earns his Associate’s degree. At the urging of a friend from El Salvador, with whom Wilson converses in Spanish, Wilson begins to pray for a “sign that what I was doing mattered” (212). Six weeks later, Showstack reappears with news. Judge Serrette has granted Wilson a sentence-reduction hearing.

Wilson attends a hearing to determine custody of his son Darico, now 11 years old. The state wants to keep Darico away from his grandmother, Wilson’s mother, who has drug addictions. When Wilson first sees her in court, he says, she appears to have “aged so much her face was different” (215). Darico runs to Wilson and hugs him. Wilson decides to put Darico in foster care, away from his grandmother and the rest of his family. Meanwhile, the state agrees to allow Wilson bi-weekly visits with his son. Father and son talk and play chess.

Wilson enters Judge Serrette’s courtroom for his hearing. Showstack recounts Wilson’s story to the judge. In the middle of his account, Showstack pauses, wipes away tears, and tells the judge that he could have brought every Patuxent Corrections Officer into the courtroom because every time he visits the prison they tell him that Wilson does not belong there, and they beg the lawyer to help. Wilson looks over his shoulder and notices that observers in the courtroom are sitting up and paying attention. Mr. Mee testifies to Wilson’s rehabilitation. Wilson then speaks on his own behalf. Judge Serrette modifies Wilson’s life sentence to 24 years. Back at Patuxent, Corrections Officers and inmates celebrate Wilson’s victory. Tooky is somber.

Wilson awakens from a dream in which he is sitting on a boat, dangling his feet in the ocean, and “everyone I had ever known was standing behind me,” shouting “Over here, Wilson,” like they “were bringing me home” (225-26). Now that Judge Serrette has shortened his sentence, he knows the dream is true.

This brief chapter features only a scanned image of Wilson’s detailed Master Plan—typed with bullet points and dates of completion ranging from 1998 to 2010.