What’s Going On in “The Jail and the Storm”

In the story’s first paragraph, with the principal’s needing to “set a few things straight when it comes to kids like Luis,” the story alerts us that race and racism lie at the core of what’s going on in The Jail and the Storm.

A father and his son find themselves held in a windowless room, awaiting the arrival of the principal. Apparently, this is not the first time the son, Luis, has been in trouble, and the father, Fernando, doesn’t seem quick to blame or fault his son.

As if to pass the time, Fernando suggests that Luis draw a picture, but he soon finds that the drawing gives him access to how his son is feeling.

Children often work through metaphor, and Luis’ drawing of a jail being repeatedly struck by lightning echoes their current circumstances.

Fernando watches and asks a few questions to understand what’s going on in the picture. He doesn’t direct or influence Luis’ developing the storyline; he’s only curious. At one point, while he wants to correct Luis’ misinformation about jails, he lets the idea go so as to stay emotionally present for his son.

Fernando is patient, as if trusting that his son will let out the story and direct him towards the stuff that Luis needs to say. This has always been my experience as a therapist, that my clients will tell me what it is they need to express, and they’ll do it in their own time when they are ready.

When Fernando asks why, according to Luis, the people in the jail can’t be let out, Luis only answers, “ ‘Cause.” Fernando doesn’t know what this means, but he doesn’t press his son to tell him more about the people in jail. This is a good call because the people are essentially a stand-in for Luis himself, and Luis isn’t ready to talk about this.

As Fernando watches and inquires in a calm and thoughtful way, he’s letting his son know that whatever Luis draws is acceptable. He’s telling Luis that all of his feelings are okay to express, and perhaps this helps create a sense of safety so that Luis can open up further. A little later, when Fernando asks why the people were put in jail, Luis reveals that the people got mad.

“And they can’t never be let out,” Luis adds.

Fernando senses he has an opening. The timing seems right, and he presses, “Or what?”

“They [will] get mad all over again,” his son tells him. This is Luis’ nugget of truth, the feelings he’s projecting onto the prisoners: their anger landed them in jail and they can’t be let out because they’ll get mad again.

Now Fernando can put some of the puzzle pieces together, realizing that for his son, the jail serves not only to lock away people but their anger, too. This is Luis’ struggle: is he allowed to be angry or must he lock it away? Is his anger acceptable and valid? Or does his anger make him bad and criminal?

While Luis is still too young to understand the nuances of what is happening around him, Fernando recognizes it’s all about race and racism, just as he knows that later at night, he and his son’s other father will need to have another talk about racism, anger, and self-preservation. He will have to teach his son how to survive—to literally stay alive—in a white world with “the lightning blossoming in his chest.”