James Barham pulls his body out of his wheelchair and onto the green grass in the Quad. He folds his wheelchair, rests his head on it as a makeshift pillow and studies while listening to the calming nature sounds. The soft ground is a comforting change from the concrete floors he's used to. The sun shines down on his smiling face as he thumbs through the pages of his psychology textbook. He squints as the light breaks through the trees to illuminate the bright blue sky.
"Describing the color of this sky is like describing the color of freedom," Barham said. "To me, this is what freedom looks like."
Barham spent more than two decades in eight prisons, but the scene was always the same: a space only large enough to contain two bunk beds, a toilet and a sink. The dull brick walls, thick steel bars and bare concrete floors enclosed Barham, and he lived under the orders of the prison guards.
He was told when to shower, when to eat, when to sleep and when to go outside. Barham was always surrounded by other people at even his most private of times and had no choice but to lie in bed while his roommate used the toilet in the corner of their room. Barham was conditioned to live the life of a caged animal.
The air that filled the prison was heavy with a stale odor. Every breath felt as though it was contaminated by the breath of other inmates and the resonating stench of excrement from surrounding toilets.
The sound of the prison guards' jingling keys was unsettling to Barham. The guards' shoes echoed as they paced up and down the hallways of the cellblocks. Every time he returned to his cell after recreation time or meals, Barham heard the loud slam of the cell doors and the securing locks that trapped him into his cell. The rapping of the nightsticks against the steel bars of the cells jolted the prisoners out of their sleep.
No longer does he hear the screech of whistles or the yelling in the prison. Now, all of those uncomfortable sounds have been replaced. Barham often sits outside on the back porch with his eyes closed. The sound of the night crickets makes him realize that his life is no longer confined to a cell.
It's James Barham's 70th day of freedom, and finally, the world is tangible.
Barham, 49, was locked up for 8,759 days, just seven days short of 24 years. He has returned to the world with a positive mind-set, a concept of God and the determination to obtain a bachelor's degree in psychology from Ball State University. It's a completely new experience for Barham because he had never before set foot on a college campus, and until 70 days ago, he'd never seen a cell phone, surfed the Internet or played a DVD.
"I feel like a butterfly," he said. "I just spent the last 24 years inside a cocoon, but now I am able to spread my wings in this big world."
HISTORY
Barham lived the first 11 years of his life in the small town of Union City, Tenn.
"It's a small hick town where everybody knew everyone," he said.
The community was an extension of his family, and the small town was very family-oriented. Every one of his neighbors contributed to Barham's upbringing.
"If you did something bad in school, everyone knew about it by the time you got home," Barham said. "The grapevine travels faster than Western Union. You'd have three or four punishments for the same incident because everyone had permission to discipline you."
His best memories are the warm nights he spent eating fried green tomatoes or taking long naps in the backyard. He loved watching television, especially "Roy Rogers." Barham was watching one episode with his grandfather that ended up costing the family its television set. The suspense became too great, and Barham's grandfather left the room in a panic. He returned moments later with a shotgun in hand. Barham stared in awe as the old man pulled the trigger at the TV.
"He yelled, 'They was getting ready to get Roy! I couldn't let 'em get Roy!'" Barham said.
Barham describes his family as being close-knit. One of his older brothers tried to teach him how to drive a car, and Barham drove over a tree stump and broke the axle. His sister was the only girl of the six Barham children, so the boys often picked on her. However, Barham was nice to his sister because she stuck up for him when he was teased in kindergarten.
Barham's fondest relationship was with his mother, Louise Barham. She was a role model in his life, and Barham admired her strength. The stubborn, independent woman wasn't afraid to put her son in his place whenever he acted out.
"She was feisty," Barham said. "She was a great woman."
Barham considered his mother to be his best friend because of the important life lessons she taught him.
"She stressed treating other people the way you want to be treated," he said. "During those early stages of my life, I never realized the enormous impact her teachings would have upon my life."
The relationship Barham had with his father differed greatly from the one he shared with his mother. His father drank, came home late and often abused his wife. Louise Barham left her husband when his alcoholism and violent nature took over. His anger frightened her, and she knew leaving was in the best of interest for her children.
NEW HOME
Arriving in their new home in South Bend, Ind., was much different than Barham's old life in Tennessee.
"Everyone all chipped in," Barham said. "In Tennessee it was nothing to get some eggs, a cup of sugar from your neighbor. It wasn't anything to do things like that back then. Today, people live next door for 15 or 20 years, don't know each other's names."
Schools were segregated, and Barham enjoyed learning with his friends but was too young to know the difference as to why he had to use separate facilities.
"I didn't know what it meant when I'd want a drink of water, and they'd open up the hydrant for me," he said. "All the while, the other kids are drinking from the water fountain."
He had a lot of friends growing up, but that isn't to say there wasn't conflict in his life.
"Back then, fighting was different," he said. "We put pieces of sticks on our shoulders and say, 'I dare you to knock that off.' If he knocked it off, we fight, if he didn't knock it off, there'd be no fight. But there was honor and rules to fighting back then."
One fight took place when a boy at school approached Barham. At age 11 Barham was not willing to back down from the fight and drew a line in the dirt.
"I dare you to cross that line," Barham said.
The boys bickered back and forth, calling each other names like "yellow-belly" and "coward" until the other boy hit Barham in the face.
"He sucker punched me!" Barham said. "He cheated. There are rules to fighting, and he didn't follow those rules."
After the first hit, another boy snuck up behind Barham and smashed his head with a bottle. Barham, realizing he was outnumbered, ran the short distance home with blood dripping down the back of his head. His mother approached to see what all the commotion was about. She sensed he was in trouble.
The boys from school had chased him home. They stood in his yard yelling at him and squawking like chickens.
It didn't take long for Barham's mother to realize he was backing down from a fight. "If you don't go out there and whip that boy, I'm whipping you," she said.
Barham fought the boy, and after an exchange of broken noses, the fight was over.
"I guess he won," Barham said. "But we ended up becoming good friends, though."
LOSING HIS MOTHER
On Oct. 4, 1968, 12-year-old Barham witnessed the most traumatic experience of his life.
He was in his room, enjoying an afternoon at home when an acquaintance of his mother's entered their first floor apartment. It is unknown why he entered; it was likely he was attempting to steal. His mother, angry because of the intrusion, confronted the man. Barham sensed there was something wrong when he heard their angry voices and rushed into the front room. The conflict ended when the man pulled the trigger of the gun he'd brought into the home.
An article printed in the South Bend Tribune on Oct. 4, 1968 identified Orlando Thompson Jr., a man who lived on the same block as Barham, as the suspect.
Mrs. Barham was pronounced dead on arrival due to hemorrhaging caused by gunshot wounds. The coroner's report indicates the wound on the left side of her chest was fatal, and she also suffered wounds on her abdomen and left upper arm. Officers reported she was on her living room couch at the time of the shooting, and a stray 38-caliber bullet was located in the couch after the slaying.
Barham watched his mom collapse to the floor, and he watched the life escape from her wounded body. He ran out the back door and to a neighbor's house and informed the police of the emergency.
Thompson ran to an uncle's house where he later surrendered to the police. According to the South Bend Tribune report on the murder, Thompson told police he threw the gun into a nearby field, but it was not confirmed because police were unable to locate the murder weapon.
He was taken to jail and charged with murder. A warrant for Thompson's arrest was on record because of probation violation. According to the South Bend Tribune, Thompson was on probation after he was convicted of being unable to provide for his wife and children.
The image of his mother's murder is one that will forever be remembered by Barham. He lost his best friend that day.
"It was October 4, 1968 at 5:45 p.m.," Barham said. "How do you forget something like that?"
After his mother's murder, he was sent to live with distant cousins who later became his legal guardians. They cared about him, but Barham couldn't help but feel unwanted because he knew no one could ever love him the way his mother did.
"When my mom got killed, I swore up and down that no one would ever hurt me like that again. I'd never cry like that again," Barham said. "I kept people at a distance, never loved anyone as much as I loved her. I knew what it was like to be hurt, was determined to never be hurt again."
His friends from his old school weren't allowed to come over to the higher-class neighborhood where his relatives lived. Barham had a hard time understanding why his friends were unwelcome, especially since his mother used to invite all of them over for dinner.
"She'd call us to dinner," Barham said. "My friends would be polite, but she would still order them to get their butts in there to the table."
His guardians gave him love, opportunity and even three Shetland ponies. Unfortunately, a part of his life, and a big part of his heart, remained empty. He missed his mother, and he had no direction.
Barham built walls around himself and didn't let people get close to him. He knew what it was like to love, and he never wanted to feel that hurt of losing someone again.
"I've never been in love," Barham said.
All of his sorrow turned into hostility, and teenage Barham began rebelling. He experimented early with alcohol, and his guardians let him drink tea spiked with liquor. He acquired a taste for alcohol, and soon it consumed his life.
"I was the epitome of my father," Barham said about his alcoholism.
He dropped out of high school only a few weeks into his first year.
He was surrounded by regret, and he hated himself. Those years of Barham's life were emotionally taxing because he had no direction and no hope for a future. He lived for the minute, always looking forward to his next drug score. Poor decisions had left Barham feeling trapped and surrounded by the lifestyle he had chosen. He bought and sold drugs and became completely dependent on illegal substances. He had no real friends, only people who he considered to be drinking buddies or bar acquaintances.
"There was a time in my life where I couldn't see from one high to the next; one drink to the next," Barham said.
He was too blinded by his bad choices and couldn't see that he was living a life of drugs, alcohol and promiscuity.
"With the way I was living my life, it was easy to wake up in the morning and call myself a jerk."
CRIME
1981 marked a pivotal year for 25-year-old Barham. The party scene was familiar to him, and he spent every weekend drinking and getting high with his friends. However, according to Barham, with the kind of social gatherings he was having at his house, something was bound to go wrong. The night of August 17, a 13-year-old girl who attended Barham's party was sexually assaulted. Court documents state that she was forced into sexual acts in an upstairs bedroom of Barham's residence.
Court documents stated that the girl was intoxicated at the time of the assault. She was not able to identify her attacker but gave a physical description that resembled Barham.
Kim Eileen Sisko, a chemist with the Indiana State Police, testified that she was unable to determine whether Barham was present at the time of the victim's assault. She tested semen samples present in the rape kit of the victim, the remnants on the bedspread and the Marlboro cigarettes left at the crime scene against samples of hair and fluid she collected from Barham. Her results were inconclusive.
Although Barham maintained that he was innocent, he was found guilty and sentenced to 45 years in prison on charges of child-molestation, criminal confinement and battery.
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