The Wrong Man

"Now I was no longer Elias Fishburne. I was no longer even Jarvis Tucker. I was cell number whatever. And I didn't have a voice."

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'So Many Young Kids'

Jail was the most segregated society Fishburne had ever known. "P.G. County Jail has so many young kids. They're supposed to be in high school, and they're sitting in jail. Most of the guys in there are 18 to 24. When I was there, there were about 200 inmates. Four Hispanics, three white guys, one Asian and the rest black." He reduced them to swift stereotypes: "Chinese guy, I look at him and think computer fraud. The white guys: hicks, probably caught with too much beer in their system, drunk driving. Hispanic: gang-related. The black guys were from every walk of life, married, divorced, murder to bad checks. The young ones were mostly there for crack." At mealtime, Fishburne noticed that the Muslims sat together, the Hispanics had their table, the whites and the Asian clustered with the old black men.

Since Jarvis Tucker was a fugitive, bail was not an option for the innocent man whose life had been upended. GeorgeAnna Milligan said she learned that the supposedly prepaid legal service would require a $2,500 retainer before a lawyer would even meet with Elias in jail, and then another lawyer would have to be hired in Atlanta to fight the charges there. Milligan says she kept calling Maryland authorities, insisting they had the wrong man; Elias's friends did the same, both on the phone and when they visited him. "He'll have his day in court, was the response we were getting," recalls Jerome Wilcox.

Silent and wary at first, Fishburne said he hadn't wanted to engage the men surrounding him, the young brothers who held informal seminars over chow about how to cut cocaine, how to ditch a drug stash when police gave chase, how to jack a car with an alarm on it, how to make a shank out of chicken bones, how to deodorize the toilet in your cell with soap shavings and an illicit lighter.

"I'm not supposed to be here," Fishburne would tell fellow inmates. "I wore it like a badge," he says now. "The inmates were the only ones who listened." When he sensed any tension rising in the crowded cellblocks, Fishburne retreated to the bathroom to brush his teeth. "It was the only place to get some peace," he remembers. Once, he approached the guards' desk to say he couldn't find his toothbrush. The response was quick and pitiless.

"You need to step away from the desk," he remembers being ordered. The guard was black. Fishburne tried to explain he just wanted a toothbrush. The order was bellowed again. A white guard quietly told Fishburne he'd see what he could do, Fishburne recalled, and later brought a toothbrush to his cell.

"I hate to say it, but I was treated more kindly by the two Caucasian guards than by any of the black guards," Fishburne says. Their disdain was palpable, as if being black were somehow more shameful. "It was like I was a disgrace," Fishburne says.

One evening, Fishburne was watching basketball on TV in the day room. The inmate sitting next to him admired the braids one of the players was sporting. "Man, I wish I could have braids like that," Fishburne remembers the inmate saying wistfully. "Used to be a cat in here could braid, but he got out."

"I can braid," Fishburne offered.

He did the inmate's hair in exchange for three envelopes of Oodles of Noodles -- the soup sold in the commissary was the most popular form of jailhouse currency. Soon other inmates were admiring Fishburne's work and making appointments, too. Fishburne set up shop in the doorless bathroom off the common area, careful to position himself so the guards at the desk would have a clear view of him. He felt safer that way.

Braiding hair earned Fishburne enough Oodles of Noodles to trade for warmer clothes. But his skills also reaped something even more valuable in jailhouse society: respect. The constant stream of inmates wanting Fishburne to do their hair filled the empty hours and took his mind off his own troubles as he listened to the young brothers pour out theirs. He was surprised to find himself slipping so easily into the familiar role he had played with his clients on the outside, the stylist-cum-confidante, except now he was consoling drug dealers instead of divorcees.