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

Patuxent’s administrators resist implementing Judge Serrette’s sentence reduction for Wilson. The administrators change rules to prevent Wilson from getting work release. Mr. Mee, no doubt on the administration’s orders, refuses to give Wilson the necessary evaluation for a hearing that could lead to work release. A new associate warden revokes privileges such as extra study time. Inmates are angry. Administrators pull Wilson aside and threaten him with punishment unless he stops causing “inmate unrest” (238). Wilson appeals to his lawyer, but Showstack, no longer with Harry Trainor’s firm, asks for $1,000, which of course Wilson does not have. Wilson then learns that Darico is not his biological son and that Mr. Mee had known as much and chose not to tell Wilson because he didn’t want Wilson to abandon the boy—a decision that Wilson takes as presumptuous and condescending.

As a result of the changes at Patuxent, Wilson has his first cellmate: Steve. Steve’s parents have lawyers working on a medical appeal; Steve, they say, suffered brain trauma when he was attacked at 14 years old. Facing a long sentence and deprived of privileges such as his computer, Steve experiences depression and nightmares. Wilson remembers Steve’s long-ago advice to do all the good he can do while in prison. Ignoring the hostile forces at Patuxent, Wilson gets back to work. He starts a self-improvement reading club, successfully lobbies for a University of Maryland-sponsored foreign language program, and creates a Master Plan workshop at the career center.

Wilson threatens a lawsuit to force Patuxent to count mandatory credits for good behavior, reducing his sentence from 24 to 16 years. With the credits, Wilson is now scheduled for release in 2012. He receives a transfer to a halfway house. Wilson reflects on the difficulty in saying goodbye to Tooky and especially Steve, who was hearing encouraging news from his attorneys on the medical research front but who nonetheless remains behind when Wilson leaves.

Erick Wright purchases a new suit as a gift for Wilson. Dressed in his new suit, Wilson enjoys a cheesesteak at Lexington Market in Downtown Baltimore. Wilson is ready to pursue his dream, but his caseworker tells Wilson that he will never be successful in business because he’s a “convict” and thus “can get a job at a gas station. Maybe. If you’re lucky” (255).

Wilson meets with Kathy Anderson, dean of student affairs at the University of Baltimore. He intends to pursue degrees in community studies and civic engagement and already has been admitted to the school but, he says, he “wanted Dean Anderson to know me” (257). The caseworker cuts Wilson’s allotment of out-of-house hours from six to four, which prevents him from attending evening study sessions. He succeeds in school, but conditions in the halfway house, where every authority figure wants to see him fail, are becoming unbearable. Wilson reaches out to Mr. Mee, who agrees to work with him again, but the caseworker who doubles as Wilson’s therapist is angered by the request and denies it.

Several months later, Wilson receives an overnight pass to visit Erick Wright. Erick arranged a phone call for Wilson to his mother, who was now living in Georgia with her youngest son Korey. She is disoriented. She asks Wilson if he escaped from prison. Wilson reminds her that he had his sentence reduced and was now in a halfway house. Mom says, “I love you” (261). He says that he loves Mom but feels too hurt to say it back. Instead, he promises to talk to her soon. That night, Mom kills herself by taking an overdose of medications.

The caseworker tells Wilson that his mother’s death was his fault—that she died from shame over having a son like him. Wilson says he knows that the caseworker “was trying to break me” (263). On the day of the funeral, the caseworker grants Wilson a short-term pass, which only allows him enough time to attend the viewing. Wilson comes unraveled after seeing his mother in the casket. Leslie reads from Mom’s “journal,” which only the immediate family knows is a suicide note (264). In his grief, Wilson blames Leslie for allowing Mom to die.

Back at the halfway house, the caseworker tries to get Wilson to talk, but he insists on talking only to Mr. Mee. Wilson experiences nightmares and cannot concentrate in school. He says, “It was the darkest time in my life. I was half free and fully alone” (266). Wilson explains things to Dean Anderson and his professors, who assure him that they know he can do the work. On the caseworker’s recommendation, Wilson is sent back to Patuxent.

Wilson enters the mental-health ward at Patuxent, which he calls the “place for lost souls” (268). Through friendly COs, Steve manages to get Wilson coffee, paper, and the readings from the civil rights course he had been taking at the University of Baltimore: Taylor Branch’s Parting the Waters and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham City Jail. Wilson focuses on work. The caseworker visits, seeming “pleased with how things had turned out” (270). Wilson promises to take his revenge by getting out and being more successful than she is.

Wilson spends the final 13 months of his sentence at Maryland’s maximum-security Eastern Correctional Institution, which, he says, features “no school, therapy, or vocational training,” only “[r]ape, violence, and murder” (271). He describes this experience in little more than a page. On May 11, 2012, Wilson is released in downtown Baltimore. He has nowhere to go, so he walks in the rain to the University of Baltimore, where Dean Anderson greets him with open arms.