The Writer, Chapter 3 – by Dennis Danziger
Celeste Fremon

Here’s the newest chapter in the tale of Venice High School teacher, Dennis Danziger, and his student, John Rodriguez, the high school senior whom Danziger flagged as the best writer he had ever had in any of his LAUSD classes in all his years of teaching.
Danziger ought to know the difference. In addition to being a high school instructor, Dennis is a former TV writer, a memoirist, and the author of the very funny new novel, A Short History of a Tall Jew, Plus his wife, Amy Friedman, is a writer.
But as we learned in the last two chapters, now John Rodriguez, the good writer, seemingly good, sensitive kid, has been arrested for attempted murder.
And so, the story continues:
( Read the first two chapters here.)
The Writer: Chapter 3
I remember reading a line, perhaps the opening line in a novel. It went something like this: one gets justice in the afterlife; in this life you get the law. And sadly, you only get the law you can afford.
One would need a lot of money, six figures, a high six figure sum to effectively fight for two brothers who have both been charged with attempted murder. At least I think that’s what they were both charged with. I’m not really sure.
When I think about it, and much of the time I don’t want to think about it, I imagine that everything in John’s life right now seems to be a shade of bad. And grief. And terror.
Here is what I know of his situation. On April 5, 2009 John started the evening saying good-bye to his mom and he calls her six or seven hours later and tells her he won’t be home. For a long time.
As it happens, I know more about lock-up than you’d think. My wife, Amy, was married to a man in prison. In Canada. She had gone inside to write a series of articles about prison; she was a journalist in Kingston, Ontario at the time. Fell in love with an inmate. Doing 13-to-life. For murder. A drug deal gone bad. She encouraged me to stop fretting and to write John.
Which I did.
I asked him what I could do for him.
Write, correspond, let him know I’m there, and send him books. That’s what he wanted and it seemed easy enough. I figured I’d choose a care package of books from my shelf. Then I learned that California prisons and jails only allow books mailed directly from a book store. I was irritated. What if I wanted to order books that my book store didn’t carry? Village Books in the Palisades assured me they would send John any book I wanted. So that’s where I did my jail book shopping.
John wanted Stephen King and John Grisham. I sent him King’s Cujo and Grisham’s The Bleachers. Thick books, good page turner stuff. After they arrived he wrote, “I received your letter and the books. I’ve just finished reading Charm School, the Nelson DeMille novel. It was great. It had so much action and I was turning pages like a mad man. For awhile while I was reading I actually forgot where I was.”
I began sending him a box of paperback volumesvia Village Books every third Sunday. I wanted him to keep his mind active. Focused on writing, reading, something that was mental, positive. Something that would open up his world even while he sat in his cell.
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