That Bird Has My Wings: The Autobiography of an Innocent Man on Death Row

Jarvis Jay Masters grew up in the late 1960s in Long Beach, California, where his mother, Cynthia, and stepfather, Otis, both used and dealt heroin extensively. Jarvis and his three sisters, Charlene, Birdy, and Carlette, were left alone for days at a time, surviving on food an elderly white neighbor left on the back porch. The siblings found refuge in the attic, watching the outside world through a small window. Jarvis's biological father, whose name he never learned, broke into the house, beat Cynthia savagely, and threatened to kill the children. After the assault, their mother dragged herself to the bedroom and reached for Jarvis's hand, a memory that stayed with him permanently.

Someone reported the neglect, and social workers removed the children, separating them into three foster homes. Jarvis was placed with Dennis and Mamie Procks, an elderly Black couple who provided unconditional love and stability. Mamie bathed him nightly and read to him; Dennis answered his questions with patience. Jarvis attended elementary school, where he excelled at sports. For about four years he thrived, until the system determined the Prockses were too old and ill to keep him.

He was then placed with Earl and Florence Dupont, a Black Creole couple who presented a loving facade but ran an abusive household. On his first night, Earl brutally beat another foster child at the dinner table. Arnie, the oldest foster child, whose parents were both dead, became Jarvis's closest ally. After discovering Jarvis had secretly called Mamie to report the abuse, Florence tried to force his hand into the garbage disposal. She had told the social worker and Mamie that Jarvis had "temper tantrums," so no one believed him. When Mamie died, the Duponts refused to let Jarvis attend the funeral. At age ten, he ran away to Los Angeles. After four nights at the Greyhound bus station, he turned himself in without giving his real name, ensuring he would be sent to McLaren Hall, a facility for wards of the state, rather than returned to the Duponts.

At McLaren Hall, Jarvis thrived among children who shared his history of abuse. He excelled at sports and drama, and he refused every foster home his social worker, Mr. Higgins, offered, choosing the institution each time. At his own request, he was moved to Boys Town of the Desert, a secluded facility near Beaumont, California. Its merit-ladder system rewarded good behavior with early release, but Jarvis, with no family waiting, sabotaged himself whenever his name reached the top of the list. He began sniffing glue and drinking homemade liquor. He and his friend Pablo eventually ran away, and in Los Angeles they found Pablo's mother incapacitated by heroin, a scene that mirrored Jarvis's earliest memories and extinguished his desire to search for his own mother.

Expelled from Boys Town, Jarvis rode Greyhound buses up and down the state, cycling through institutions and foster homes. He was placed at the Valley Boys Academy, a former military school where staff organized fights among boys for entertainment. A counselor named Mr. Buck, an ex-Marine, selected Jarvis for combat training, deliberately feeding his capacity for violence. A fellow academy resident named Josh slashed his wrists after repeated abuse; the head counselor ordered Jarvis to clean up the blood. After Jarvis attacked the head counselor, authorities investigated and the academy closed.

Mr. Higgins then introduced Jarvis to two older brothers he had never known, Tommy and Robbie, and arranged for him to live with extended family in Harbor City. He reconnected with aunts, uncles, and cousins, especially his uncle Dewitt, Cynthia's irreverent oldest brother. Tommy and Robbie introduced Jarvis to marijuana, and the household was chaotic but loving. His mother visited occasionally, fierce and funny. When Cynthia was gang-raped, shot seven times, and left for dead, Jarvis hitchhiked to the hospital. She lifted her hand and interlaced her fingers with his, communicating without words.

Jarvis's brothers exploited his fighting skills from the academy, making him a prizefighter in back-alley bouts, and pulled him into a gang. He accumulated offenses until, at fifteen, he was sentenced to the California Youth Authority (CYA), the state's juvenile correctional system. At O. H. Close, a CYA facility in northern California, a counselor named Hershey became a father figure, helping Jarvis earn a high school diploma. Released on parole to a group home in Stockton, Jarvis worked two jobs, but his mother's constant calls begging him to reunite the family pulled him back. His brother Robbie tried to recruit him into their drug operation, showing him a room full of weapons and PCP. Jarvis refused but eventually abandoned Stockton, selling his diploma to fund the trip south.

Back in Harbor City, Jarvis partnered with his childhood friend Marcus, nicknamed Madboy, to stage armed robberies. After his arrest and return to the CYA, he escaped with a fellow inmate named Phil, and their time on the run descended into gun violence. Their bullets once entered a house where children slept. Jarvis eventually served as bodyguard for his brother Tommy's heroin operation before a string of robberies led to his final arrest. Convicted of armed robbery, he entered San Quentin State Prison in 1981 at age nineteen.

In 1985, a prison guard was killed. Though Jarvis maintained his innocence, he was charged with conspiracy to murder and sentenced to death by lethal injection. In 1988, his mother died of heart failure; he had not seen her in years. During the trial, a private investigator working on his case sent him books on meditation. He began corresponding with Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche, a Tibetan Buddhist lama, who eventually visited him at San Quentin. Jarvis took bodhisattva vows through the visiting-room glass, committing to nonviolence and the benefit of all beings. He kept his practice secret and gradually discovered that love required less energy than hatred.

His vows were tested repeatedly. On the exercise yard, Jarvis once punched an unstable inmate unconscious to prevent other prisoners from killing him, forcing a reckoning between nonviolence and survival on death row. He learned that Bork, a neighbor with whom he played chess, was a convicted serial child rapist and killer. Weeks of rage consumed him until a visiting Buddhist teacher offered an insight: The rage Jarvis felt toward Bork was the same rage society directed at everyone on death row. Each June, guards harassed Jarvis to mark the anniversary of the guard's death, moving him into filthy cells and isolating him.

One June morning, after more than 22 years inside San Quentin, Jarvis was driven to Marin General Hospital for a hearing examination. He absorbed every detail of a transformed world and felt deep regret for his crimes. When the cell door closed behind him upon his return, he heard his own heartbeat telling him he did not belong in prison.

The memoir closes on the exercise yard one summer morning. Jarvis gazed at Mount Tamalpais across the bay and murmured about wishing he could fly. His friend Freddie teased him about his Buddhist habits. A young inmate named Hoop ran up aiming to kill a seagull pecking at the asphalt. Jarvis stopped him, saying the bird carried his wings, his freedom. The three men watched in silence as the gull spread its feathers and flew over the razor-wire fence toward the bay.