Patience - Ep. 7

Summary

Suave Podcast: "Patience" - Episode 7 Detailed Summary

Hosted by Futuro Media, Episode 7 of the Pulitzer Prize-winning podcast "Suave" titled "Patience" delves deep into the complexities of freedom, trauma, and personal growth seven years after former juvenile lifer Luis "Suave" Gonzalez's release from prison. This episode masterfully intertwines Suave's past memories, present struggles, and future aspirations, offering a poignant exploration of life after incarceration.

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1. Revisiting Orchard Beach: A Sanctuary of Memories

The episode opens with Suave revisiting Orchard Beach in the Bronx, a place laden with childhood memories and the foundation of his concept of freedom.

• Suave reminisces:

  "Orchard beach is where the concept of freedom started for me." (02:13)

• Visual and Emotional Landscape: Julieta Martinelli describes Orchard Beach as "the Puerto Rican Riviera," highlighting its significance as a communal and familial hub for Suave and his family before his incarceration.

Suave reflects on his youth spent helping his mother sell homemade food and engaging in community activities:

"My mom used to always park right here because we used to get here like six o' clock in the morning under this tree." (05:51)

2. Struggles with Relationships and Letting Go

The narrative shifts to Suave's relationship with Maria, his partner, and the emotional toll his past and present have on their bond.

• Maria's Realization:

  "I have to say, you have to let Suave live his life." (15:25)

Maria confronts the strain Suave's past actions have placed on her family, leading to a reevaluation of her emotional investment:

"I cannot lose my family. That is the only boundary." (15:25)

This section underscores the delicate balance between supporting a loved one and maintaining personal boundaries.

3. A Life-Changing Decision: Donating a Kidney

A pivotal moment in the episode is Suave's revelation of his decision to donate a kidney to his sister, Josefina, who has been battling kidney failure.

• Suave announces:

  "So I'm going to give my sister a kidney." (17:52)

This decision represents a significant sacrifice and a step towards healing familial bonds. Despite initial reservations, Maria comes to understand Suave's motivations:

"Suave is getting ready to make the ultimate sacrifice for love, for his sister, for family." (19:57)

4. Confronting Freedom and Mental Health

Suave delves into his ongoing battle with the concept of freedom and the residual trauma from his incarceration.

• Suave on Freedom:

  "Freedom is not a bootcamp of roses... I went from one prison to another prison." (33:35)

He discusses the conditional nature of his freedom, including strict parole conditions and the constant vigilance required to maintain it:

"I can't travel without permission. I can't move from one house to another house without asking permission." (23:41)

5. The Ongoing Impact of Incarceration

The episode poignantly highlights how decades of incarceration continue to influence Suave's present life, affecting his relationships and mental health.

• Suave's Reflection:

  "Sometimes people come home from prison... without understanding that they were out here living fucked up too." (21:53)

An incident at a museum, where a routine walk triggers Suave's suppressed anger, serves as a stark reminder of his fragile state:

"It was having a mental breakdown. That's exactly what it was like." (25:12)

6. Reflections on Freedom and Happiness

In the concluding segments, Suave contemplates the true meaning of freedom and whether happiness is attainable given his past.

• Suave's Insight:

  "I am not happy. I'm glad I'm home. But if you say describe happy, I should be able to describe happy, and I can't." (33:01)

He differentiates between superficial freedom and genuine emotional liberation, emphasizing moments of peace and self-acceptance:

"Freedom to me is what I could honestly just look you in the eyes and say, you know what? I had a great time." (33:35)

7. Conclusion: Defining His Own Freedom

The episode wraps up with Suave finding contentment in living day by day, focusing on personal health and meaningful actions like donating a kidney.

• Suave's Commitment:

  "What's important to me now is to get up in the morning, making sure I do what I said I was going to do, which is give my sister a kidney." (27:20)

Maria and Suave's journey underscores the ongoing struggle to reconcile past traumas with present aspirations, highlighting the nuanced path to true freedom and happiness.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• 02:13 Suave: "Orchard beach is where the concept of freedom started for me."
• 15:25 Maria: "You cannot lose your family."
• 17:52 Suave: "So I'm going to give my sister a kidney."
• 21:53 Suave: "Sometimes people come home from prison... without understanding that they are out here living messed up too."
• 25:12 Suave: "It was having a mental breakdown. That's exactly what it was like."
• 33:35 Suave: "Freedom is not a bootcamp of roses... I went from one prison to another prison."

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Final Thoughts:

Episode 7 of "Suave," titled "Patience," offers a raw and unfiltered look into the lingering effects of incarceration on personal freedom, relationships, and self-identity. Through intimate conversations and reflective storytelling, Suave navigates his complex emotions and responsibilities, painting a realistic picture of life beyond prison walls. This episode serves as a testament to the ongoing journey of healing and the quest for authentic happiness.

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For those who haven't listened, "Patience" provides a compelling narrative that not only sheds light on Suave's personal struggles but also invites listeners to ponder the broader implications of freedom and rehabilitation in society.

Transcript

[Suave]

Futuro.

[Maria]

Season 2 of Suave was made possible by the Mellon Foundation. Mellon makes grants to support visionaries and communities that unlock the power of the arts and humanities. To help connect us all [e-mail] When I founded Futuro, I imagined a home for journalism with radical transparency. I wanted a newsroom where I wasn't the only Latina behind the mic. Now Futuro is becoming a home for more voices than ever. Help grow this future by joining our new membership program. You'll get exclusive interviews whole season binges behind the scenes chisme shape the future of storytelling. Join Futuro Plus Visit our website FuturoMediaGroup.org joinplus ET Not Eva's.

[Julieta Martinelli]

Swave is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart Choice make another smart choice with Auto Quote Explorer to compare rates from multiple car insurance companies all at once. Try [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy.

[Maria]

Look at this. Oh my gosh. So we are now crossing over a bridge. And there's water everywhere. And look, look.

[Julieta Martinelli]

For the last seven years, we've been following Suave's life on an almost near daily basis. From Greaterford Prison to the streets of the Philadelphia Badlands and all the way to Puerto Rico. We've done and seen a lot of things together, but we haven't yet been to a place that's been in the background for a lot of Suave's story. Orchard Beach.

[Suave]

Orchard beach is no ghetto for me. I may say, you know, this is a little bit. It's a little bit. It's in the hood.

[Maria]

It is like being on the most crowded beach that you can imagine, with people wearing really tiny bathing suits and music going crazy from one little spot to the next little spot. But in other words, joy. It's like it's a beach in the Bronx.

[Julieta Martinelli]

Orchard beach is on the outer edge of the Bronx. And it was this place that was full of possibilities and excitement. For Suave when he was a young.

[Suave]

Boy, Ultra beach was a spot. Section four. That's where my mom used to go sell Bacalaito Pinchos Paterillo's beer. That's where they did all the dance off. That's where the DJs came to do the music. That was like the hustle.

[Julieta Martinelli]

Long before Suave's incarceration, long before he was even called Suave, David Zito or Little David would spend his weekends here with his mom, helping her Sell homemade food so they could get by. It was one of his mom's many hustles. By 16 would be the last time that Suave set foot here. He'd moved to Philly, and shortly after, he would end up in prison with a life sentence and another kid would be dead for him. Orchard beach became part of this childhood memory, a memory that he replayed over and over when he was in his prison cell.

[Suave]

Orchard beach is where the concept of freedom started for me.

[Julieta Martinelli]

And in a way, some might say that Orchard beach is where his journey home really began. And so it's here that we've come to reflect at the end of his journey on what freedom really means. And it's also here that Suave reveals to us a decision that's going to change his life for him and for somebody else. From Futuro Studios, this is Suave. I'm Julieta Martinelli. In 2017, David Luis Suave Gonzalez was released from prison after 31 years, serving a life sentence without parole. He was one of thousands of juvenile lifers granted a second chance at life. This is a story about life after incarceration and the search for the true meaning of freedom. This is season two on this episode, where we go from Here.

[Maria]

So the thing is about Orchard beach is that, I mean, Orchard beach in and of itself is kind of mythical. For all Puerto Ricans in New York, it's like the Puerto Rican Riviera. But in terms of Suave, he brought it up a couple of times when he was in prison, and he would talk about these memories of being there with his mom and the rest of his family, his cousin Tony. And, you know, it was like this was a special place for the whole family. And so I knew I wanted to bring Suave back to Orchard beach, back to this kind of magical place that he had memories of when he was a little kid.

[Julieta Martinelli]

So it looks the same.

[Suave]

It look the same. Hambo courts. I know how to get here. Like, I ain't been here that long, but I don't change. Don't change. I can see my mother's table right there. My mom used to always park right here because we used to get here like six o' clock in the morning under this tree right here. This tree is two there. And we used to park there, put everything there because this blocked the sun.

[Julieta Martinelli]

Suave points to an empty concrete path at the entrance to the beach. It's quiet here today. It's noon in the middle of a work week, and we basically have the place all to ourselves.

[Suave]

And My mom used to put a table right here and with her little grill, selling pastelillos, all that stuff. This is it.

[Maria]

Except that usually the music, the salsa would be.

[Suave]

It's right there popping.

[Maria]

And it turns out that a lot of Suave's own childhood development, it happened here at this beach, because this was where he would hang out with his mom on the weekends and help her sell food.

[Julieta Martinelli]

Suave tells us that he would go off and hustle other stalls, customers and bring them back to his mom. And it's also where he first learned to talk to girls, to take them on walks down to the beach. I mean, it was sweet.

[Maria]

And as they got a little bit older, Suave and his cousin Tony, they started coming here to Orchard beach on their own for another kind of work. Basically, they were tasked with bringing the ofrendas, the offerings that were part of his mother's spiritual practice in Santeria.

[Julieta Martinelli]

Then after Suave went to prison, he says his cousin Tony would come with the offerings alone, and his family would pray for Suave's release. So I've never thought much about it.

[Suave]

You know, I never was a believer like the rest of my family, but they. They embody that stuff. To me, it was like, okay, if it works, it works. If it don't, the rest of my family embody that. They live by them codes, you know? And that was like a highlight of a conversation or a prison visit. Oh, se muna frinda. We gotta take a picture. Pase una frienda. So every visit was like a new picture for the offering. I wonder how many of my pictures is in the bottom of this little thing here.

[Julieta Martinelli]

The photos of Suave would be bundled up with fruits, cigars, whatever his mom felt the orishas would appreciate. She would pray over them, asking the deities in exchange not to forget her son in prison. Suave says he always obliged. He smiled. He took the photos. He paid to have them printed so his mom could bring them back and do her offerings. Not because he really believed that the offerings did anything, but because they seemed to give his mom something to believe in. Hope. Do you think that you were afraid to have hope because if you believed in it and then it didn't happen in.

[Suave]

Oh, that's exactly what it is. You get your hopes up, then it don't work. But did I believe in it? No, I really didn't. But the way works, apparently it does.

[Maria]

That's what I'm saying. Swab.

[Suave]

But that's where he make the offerings at. Right there. Right there.

[Maria]

So Suave is Pointing to a little indentation in another one of the little bays of Large Orchard Bay.

[Julieta Martinelli]

We should try and go over there. Yeah. Let's see if we can make our way across. It looks very swampy.

[Suave]

It's swampy. There's a path going this way.

[Julieta Martinelli]

We walk through a wooded trail away from the beach.

[Suave]

I can live in nature. Living in nature is like being in solitary confinement. You hear shit that nobody else heard.

[Maria]

I mean, hearing Suave say that being out in the middle of the woods is like being in solitary confinement because of the silence. Wow, that blew my mind.

[Suave]

Oh, look at a deer. Saw it right there. It just went by.

[Julieta Martinelli]

You have deer in the bogs that.

[Maria]

We just run into two deer walking near us.

[Julieta Martinelli]

After spotting these beautiful deer running around in the Bronx, we continue walking through the woods towards the bay. We climb some rocks. It's really fun. It kind of feels like we're on an adventure.

[Maria]

And when we reach the bay, I climb down the rocks, I take off my shoes, and I step into the water.

[Julieta Martinelli]

But now that we're here, Suave refuses to touch the water.

[Suave]

It's a good spot. I would definitely come back and walk around it. I'm just not prepared to be in this water here. This water contains some of my photos. Bottle of it. I might be stepping on myself.

[Julieta Martinelli]

Maybe. Suave fears making contact with that old version of himself. The Suave in the photos and that old brown prison uniform. The version of him that he spent so much time trying to heal and leave behind. These seven years that Suave's been out of prison have been a slow process of letting go of the person that he was. For Maria, it's also been a time of letting go in terms of her relationship with Suave and the person that he used to be.

[Maria]

I told Swavi, I was like, look, sweetie, I do see you as a full fledged established adult who has made it in the world outside of prison and is responsible for making his own decisions. And this is where I had to say, you have to let Suave live his life.

[Julieta Martinelli]

It seems like Maria is trying to say that when it comes to Suave, she just can't be in so deep anymore.

[Maria]

Whenever I think of this, I always hear the screaming.

[Julieta Martinelli]

Maria hears talking about the incident in season one when Suave suddenly goes back to prison after being accused of domestic violence. When Maria heard the news, she just started screaming, fuck, fuck, fuck.

[Maria]

F that shit that fucking broke me. And. And I can't. I just. I can't. I don't want to. I don't Want to be in that place again.

[Julieta Martinelli]

Swabe's healing and his setbacks and her reaction to them, well, they've actually led to some real tension in her personal life.

[Maria]

Herman saw me have another one of these profoundly emotional reactions to something that was happening with Suave.

[Julieta Martinelli]

Herman is Maria's husband. He was there the day that she met Suave and has always supported her communication with him over the years.

[Maria]

Until recently, he was kind of like, this is not cool. Like, Suave cannot be coming into our family.

[Julieta Martinelli]

That's because for so long, Maria seems to have convinced herself that it was somehow her duty to be there for Suave when any issues came up, like parole or the car situation or when he got sick. Even when Suave didn't ask her to. She will walk out at dinner with her family. She will step out to take a phone call during a celebration. Maria says that she always felt that her family was used to it. You know, this is just part of her being a journalist and being really intense about her work. That is, until her son called her out on it recently.

[Maria]

I remember when Raul said, oh, yeah, mom, there were times when you were talking to me. I was having a conversation with you about something important as an adolescent. And Suave would call and you'd go, take the call, and you'd stop talking to your son. Oh, that. That cut deep. That definitely cut deep for me. Those are the kinds of things that you don't forget.

[Julieta Martinelli]

It's led her to reevaluate just how emotionally invested she's been in somebody else's life.

[Maria]

I just had to say, siago le pasa Suave. You'll be there for him. You're going to be there for him. Like, you're not walking out on his life, but you're. You cannot lose your life.

[Julieta Martinelli]

Maria has realized that she was so caught up in whatever was going on with Suave that she may have at times disengaged from the needs of her own family. She needs boundaries.

[Maria]

You cannot lose your family. That is the. I suppose that is the only boundary, right? That I can't lose my husband, my son, or my daughter. For Suave, that's how deep it is. Like, that's how close it comes.

[Julieta Martinelli]

Boundaries are actually something that Suave himself had been trying to set with Maria. Finally, they were starting to hear each other. We talk about this a bit in Orchard Beach. Huddling around an old picnic table under a shaded tree. I ask about where they are in their friendship right now. Where are you?

[Suave]

Yeah, that's where I see it.

[Maria]

But look at me when you say that.

[Suave]

Get tested. You get tested. You get tested. Can you pass the test?

[Maria]

Both Suave and I are going to have to make the effort, right, to be in it, to see what happens next. That means I'm gonna have to call and he's gonna have to answer. That means he's gonna have to call me and I have to answer.

[Julieta Martinelli]

What happens with you guys once we turn this microphone off?

[Suave]

Still friends. We just not officially recording for a project. Still friends. I'm pretty sure Maria still got that little recorder she carrying her wallet, you know that. Hold on, let me put the recorder on. It's just not the pressure of, we got a deadline. We gotta do this. It's not that. It's just, let's record. It's almost like at the beginning, he's just recording. We had no idea what it was gonna be like, just recording.

[Julieta Martinelli]

And there's something else, something big that Suave has been keeping quiet. As we're getting up to leave, Suave works up the courage to share it with Maria.

[Suave]

Maria asked me this morning, why am I. What's up with the diet? I don't know if you noticed, my clothes is going down. I've been doing this for the last month. Now.

[Julieta Martinelli]

Suave is losing weight because he recently made a huge decision.

[Suave]

So I'm going to give my sister a kidney.

[Maria]

Hey, I'm Jorge Andres Olivares, and I'm hosting a new show, Hyphenacion. Unlike many other hyphenated Latinos in the US Our cultures and our communities inform our choices. Like, with money, we had that pressure to be the breadwinner, religion.

[Julieta Martinelli]

I just think Jesus was what we.

[Maria]

Would now define as queer and family.

[Suave]

We're not physically close, and we're not like that emotionally close either.

[Maria]

So join me and some amigas as we have easy conversations about hard things. Catch hyphenation from KQED Studios, wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube.

[Suave]

So I'm going to give my sister a kidney. Oh, my God.

[Julieta Martinelli]

We've actually known for a while that Suave's sister Josefina has been in dialysis for years. But he says her kidneys are completely failing now. Just a few months ago, Suave told us that she was hospitalized again. At that time, he said it would be too difficult for him to be in good enough health to even work. Want to find out if he could be a donor.

[Suave]

But now, for the last month, you know, I've been reluctant to, like, tell Maria, like, yo, I'm. I'm going through this. I already went through the process. Dr. All that shit.

[Julieta Martinelli]

Suave tells us that he's on a strict health regimen. He's on a doctor monitored diet and taking a bunch of vitamins. He's got more than 50 pounds to lose in just a few months, but he's been approved as a match.

[Maria]

I was shocked when Suave told me and frankly, not really thrilled about all of this. But the more that Suave and I talked about it, the more I understood that Suave is getting ready to make the ultimate sacrifice for love, for his sister, for family. But it's also because he really wants to do something, like, really good, you know, in a spiritual way. And it's also why he agreed to do this podcast in the first place and to open up his life for others, even if it's uncomfortable.

[Suave]

I think this is what we set out to do. The gift of life. And, you know, in this long overdue. So it's going down.

[Maria]

I'll be. I'm always honest with you, Swabe. You should be losing that weight because of your love for yourself. Like, the weight that you want to lose shouldn't be because of your sister. It should be because you love yourself and you want to take care of yourself. On the other hand, I think that after the experience in Puerto Rico and connecting back with your family that has always loved you, your family in Santurce never stopped loving you. And I would say that your sister, even though she didn't have the capacity to manifest her love for you, still loves you too.

[Julieta Martinelli]

Soave admits that he felt some resentment when he was in prison at not having more contact. Then he got out and understood just how difficult life can be on the outside, too. Now he understands what she was going through differently.

[Suave]

Sometimes people come home from prison. We got resentment because we wasn't living up to the status quo in the prison system. We didn't have the big bag of commissary. We didn't have the color tv. And because our families didn't send us the money. So we resent that, right? Without understanding that they was out here living fucked up too. You know, I don't come from a rich family. They was out here struggling, still struggling. I wouldn't want nobody coming home saying, you didn't send me a dollar. I hate you for it. You know, like, bro, I forgot. I forgot your number. Or I had a family, I gotta take care of the family first. Like, we don't want to hear that because in prison we live in a bubble, right? And that bubble don't consist of me knowing that if that person got a job, if that person is sick, if that person have $10 to send me, or for the $10 that that person is sending me, what bill is not getting paid, right?

[Julieta Martinelli]

Shedding the anger that he once felt for his sister is only part of a bigger shift within Suave. It's almost like he's feeling more inspired to live.

[Suave]

You grow. You grow. You learn how to let that resentment go.

[Julieta Martinelli]

Over the course of this season, we've witnessed how the long shadow of prison continues to shape Suave's experiences on the outside. How the effects of decades of incarceration didn't just suddenly stop the day that he reentered society.

[Maria]

He had to learn to balance life under the strict confines of parole.

[Suave]

I can't travel without permission. I can't move from one house to another house without asking permission.

[Maria]

And how to form lasting relationships when love and commitment trigger his fear of being deprived of freedom and agency.

[Suave]

Being in a relationship, is giving up part of your freedom? Am I willing to give my freedom up again because I'm searching for love, man. Fuck love if it comes to that.

[Julieta Martinelli]

The push and pull of both guilt and desire to move on from his life behind bars, but also not wanting to leave his friends behind.

[Suave]

I feel guilty that I left a lot of good men and women behind that deserve the same opportunities that I'm getting. And sometimes I feel like, dang, why can't it just be all of us?

[Maria]

And then there was the anger and mental health crisis unleashed by the theft of his car.

[Suave]

What make you think you could try me? And I'm not gonna react because if I get triggered, somebody's going to get hurt. Not fake hurt, real hurt. At this point, I don't give a fuck who going to kill or not.

[Maria]

The incident was a reality check for Suave. You know, he thought he was rehabilitated, and then he starts spiraling and thinking about committing violence. And that's when he finally realizes, like, he needs help. Before, what he'd worked so hard to build was destroyed.

[Suave]

It was having a mental breakdown. That's exactly what it was like. I was triggered to that point where it's like, man, I'm fucking you up. I'm gonna go to jail, but I'm fucking you up.

[Julieta Martinelli]

But he's had time to think about how he got there.

[Suave]

We all got demons, Maria. Like, we all got demons. And them demons is what kept me alive in prison. But I'll tell you, this is like, I try not to Bring that person out. Suppress. Person is suppressed. Where I gotta harm somebody to protect myself, that person is still there. For years, we say, oh, you rehabilitated. Still the same people. We just make better decisions today.

[Maria]

And finally reuniting with his family and coping with the reality that he is not as close to his family as he'd like to be, that the decades he spent in prison stole connections he'll never be able to get back.

[Suave]

It's my first time here, like, in 45 years. When I came here, I was a little kid.

[Maria]

So when you feel.

[Suave]

When I came. When I came here, I was like, seven.

[Julieta Martinelli]

All of these challenges led us here today in 2019. I vividly remember the day that I asked you, where do you see yourself in a year? And I asked you if there was anything else on your bucket list that was still there. So five years later, same question. Is there things that are pending on your bucket list right now?

[Suave]

No. No, no.

[Julieta Martinelli]

There's nothing you want right now.

[Suave]

Nope. I'm living day by day. That's it. Just to stay alive. I'm not putting that pressure on me. No more like writing and looking at a list, like, I gotta do this, because if I don't do this, I'm gonna feel like I failed. I'm not doing that. Nope. I'm at peace with myself. If I'm at peace with myself, everybody around me is safe. I know it's hard for people to get it. Like, what's important to me now is to get up in the morning, making sure I do what I said I was going to do, which is give my sister a kidney. So that requires me to leave all that other shit behind and focus on one thing, which is getting up and staying healthy, staying alive.

[Julieta Martinelli]

You see, Suave, giving a kidney to his sister is different than Suave's other advocacy work. Yes, he still wants to change the law. He's still fighting for better rights inside the prison. He's still mentoring dozens of students in his reentry program. He's still advocating for Frank, hoping that the system will have compassion for him. And yet there's only so much that he can really do with these bigger systemic problems. But the kidney, that's in his hands. If he can change his eating habits, if he can take his vitamins, if he can do his daily walks, if he can lose weight, he can save someone's life.

[Maria]

What happens if after you give her your kidney, your sister's like, cool, bro, thank you. Talk to you in a year.

[Suave]

Fulfill my duties. I ain't Got nothing to do with me. That's all right. Cool. Peace. That's it. Peace?

[Maria]

Because you're.

[Suave]

I'm not doing this to. You gotta come back and love me then. I'm not doing that shit for that.

[Julieta Martinelli]

In the evening, after our day at the beach, we say goodbye outside of the Futuro office. Suave is taking the subway to Penn Station, where he will board a train home to Philly.

[Suave]

If I take the train here, where do I get off?

[Maria]

34Th Street. Where are you going? Are you going to Penn station? Penn Station, 34th Street. You know what? I'm going to take the train with him.

[Julieta Martinelli]

Yeah.

[Maria]

I'm going to take the. I'm going to get him down to be able to take.

[Julieta Martinelli]

Then I'll cancel your. Maria and Suave walk down the subway steps on the corner of 125th street in Harlem.

[Maria]

He's got a box of White Castle, 20 White Castle burgers that he's taking to his love. And he really looks like I'm a tourist. And we're walking, walking into 125th Street Station right now.

[Julieta Martinelli]

If Maria had something to say to Suave in that moment, she doesn't really get to. They barely make it to the platform when Suave's train headed to Penn Station shows up.

[Maria]

That might be it. Yeah. Hold that train, baby.

[Suave]

Yeah.

[Maria]

Bye, bye. Bye, bye. Oh, my God. Literally, the doors were closing on his back, and off he goes on the A train. Off he goes.

[Julieta Martinelli]

A few days later, Maria gets a call.

[Maria]

How are you doing? Oh, man.

[Suave]

Had a rough day. Come that the other day, coming back from New York.

[Maria]

What happened?

[Suave]

I forgot that I had my brain in my backpack.

[Julieta Martinelli]

Suave tells Maria on his way back to Philly, he had a small box cutter in his book bag, the kind that you would find at any office to open mail. He carries it in his book bag. It's been there forever. Suave says that as he's walking by, a metal detector goes off.

[Maria]

Oh, my God.

[Suave]

So these motherfuckers, they made a big thing out of it, and they tried to detain me. They called me off, a real agent.

[Maria]

Oh, my God, Swami.

[Suave]

They took me to this back room. So the guy said, you on for real? You think you got a weapon? I said, that's not a weapon.

[Maria]

Holy shit. Suave.

[Julieta Martinelli]

In the end, Suave says his parole officer tells him to go home once they reach Philly, to be more careful, not to let it happen again. Next time, they're gonna have to take him in. A reminder that his freedom is always Conditional. Something that's been eating at Suave since the beginning of the season. In episode one, Suave revealed that he wasn't happy, that he didn't feel free despite no longer being in prison.

[Suave]

I am not happy. I'm glad I'm home. But if you say describe happy, I should be able to describe happy, and I can't. I can't describe it because I'm not.

[Julieta Martinelli]

Now, after all he's been through since then. Nearing his eighth anniversary of life beyond prison, I ask him how he feels about his freedom today. What have you learned about freedom?

[Suave]

It's not. It's not a bootcamp of roses. It's not. A lot of people think that freedom is. You get out and you free. You shouldn't complain about nothingness. I went from one prison to another prison. What I learned from freedom is that comes with a big price tag. You know, there's been time when I was like, shit, I wish I was back in prison because I didn't have to deal with none of this shit. Prison. I was free. It's locked up. But I was mentally, I was free because I was like. I had to with. Deal, deal with this, this, that, that, that, that, that. At one time, I define freedom as I could go here, I could travel there. I could buy this and I could buy that. That's not freedom. That's just you going out and spending your money and that don't matter. That's what that is. Freedom to me is what. I could honestly just look you in the eyes and say, you know what? I had a great time. Like, I ain't had to hit gunshots. I ain't had to hit none of that shit. Right? I saw a deer. That's. I was free for that moment.

[Julieta Martinelli]

Sometimes freedom is as simple as going on a walk on the beach with your friends and seeing some deer. Having choices, even when it's complicated. So, happiness. Is it possible for Suave? Does he deserve to be happy and move on from the past when that past caused harm to someone else? And what does it even mean to be free when you finally have what you always wanted and you don't feel the way that you thought you would? Those were the questions that we set out to answer this season. Those were the questions that haunted Suave. Maybe happiness is a tall order for any of us. In prison, Suave lived by a strict set of guidelines laid out by others. When he got out, he tried to do what he thought society expected of him, to prove to the world that he was worthy of a second chance. I think that these days Suave is beginning to set his own guidelines and defining for himself what his freedom means to him.

[Suave]

I'm content with where I'm at in life. I think I got a good life.

[Julieta Martinelli]

I think you do too.

[Maria]

Sam.

[Julieta Martinelli]

Suave is a production of Futuro Studios to binge every episode of Suave Season 2 right now plus exclusive bonus episodes. Subscribe to Futuro plus the Senior Producer, Reporter and host is me, Julieta Martinelli. Our associate producer is Liliana Ruiz. We're edited by Marlon Bishop. Our production managers are Jessica Ellis and Nancy Trujillo. Our post production producer is Dan Riveros. Scoring and sound design by Stephanie Lebeau. Mixing by Stephanie Lebeau, Julie Caruso and JJ Karuubin. Our fact checker is Amy Tardif. Production help from Joaquin Kotler, Juan Diego Ramirez, Nicole Rothwell, Joey Del Valle, Evelyn Fajardo Alvarez, Glori Marquez and Tasha Sandoval. Our executive producers are Marieno Rosa, Luis Suave Gonzalez, Marlon Bishop and Maria Garcia. Futura Media was founded by marienojosa. Special thanks to Maggie Freeling, Audrey Quinn, Antonia Seregido, Fernandez Chabarri, Neil Rossini, Students of the I Am More program at the Community College of Philadelphia, the Abolitionist Law Center, Community Legal Services of Philadelphia and the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth. Season two of Suave was made possible by the Mellon Foundation. Mellon makes grants to support divisionaries and community communities that unlock the power of the arts and humanities to help connect us all. [e-mail] Season 2 of Suave was made possible in part by Public Welfare foundation catalyzing transformative approaches to justice that are community led, restorative and racially. Just.

[Maria]

From PRX.