The Untold Story

Terrence Willis

I knew this day was coming. In my mind I had been counting down in anticipation, eager for it to arrive. I'd rehearsed what I would say in my defense hundreds of time in the days leading up, editing what appeared to work, changing my tone and inflection to match the poise I hoped my mannerisms displayed despite my nerves. Still, for all my efforts to prepare, when the day arrived I couldn't escape the looming feeling that my words would not be enough to accurately state the why of it all. 

There was, after all, a story behind how I had gotten to this point. For all intents and purposes, I was speaking for my life. Giving voice to an experience that was simultaneously unique to myself and shared by so many others in silence meant attributing narrative value to the steps I've taken along the roads I've traveled. Baby steps, circular steps, regressing steps. The last hundred or so of these indecisive paces—back and forth in the hallway leading into the building—effectively amounted to retracing steps, each footfall transporting me back to the moments of clarity I wished I'd had along the journey that led me here. 

Clarity allowed me recognize that several of the decisions I'd made throughout the course of my life to rebel, to fight, to be whoever I thought I needed to be in order to gain the acceptance of my peers, were a series of minor decisions to change the extremes I had to adopt to embody that vision of masculinity. To see that my dismissals of class in high school to smoke weed were dismissals of my prospects of a future beyond what was already at my disposal. To understand that the declaration of one of my cohorts to take a deep breath, you got this as I stood there, nose to nose with my moment, was a declaration that I was getting exactly what I deserved.

In many ways, the scene brought to mind the same anxiety and uneasiness I felt as I paced the floor of the bullpen when I was first brought to Cook County Jail. Each step across the sticky, urine permeated floor was like a time machine, allowing me a moment of clarity that I wished I’d had all along the journey that led me to that holding cell. Waiting for my opportunity to speak for my life at a trial after months of listening to the prosecutor speak for me, left me wondering if my words would be sufficient to state the why of it all.

Hearing my name announced aloud, I swallowed thickly as I stepped into the venue, my eyes trained forward to avoid meeting anyone else's as they angled their necks to see me, my face already flushed under the magnified intensity of their combined stares. There were six of us, each dressed in state-issued blues, each with our own narrative of how we'd gotten here that we hoped would touch the people presiding over these proceedings as they leaned in and whispered among themselves. We were lined up in alphabetical order and called upon to speak one by one. 

As I ascended the two steps to take my place at the microphone, it felt surreal to be the center of attention, to have them hanging onto my words, some of which tumbled clumsily from my lips in their haste to get out and be heard. I spoke thoughtfully, truthfully, not to justify my actions but to share what I've learned from my shortcomings. Then, when there were no more words after the thank you I offered in appreciation for giving me an audience, they rendered their decision with a round of applause, which I returned with a relieved smile of my own. I turned to a gauntlet of outstretched hands of faculty, nodding their acknowledgment that I was now one of them, learned, as they handed me my degree. Graduate of Eastern Illinois University it read, for anyone interested in knowing my story.