Most of you knew him as the Old Dude. Don’t look so surprised, he knew what you called him, how you laughed at him sometimes, pitied him at others. There wasn’t much he didn’t know, but he refused to humiliate others by revealing their secrets or having more knowledge than they did. That’s the way he was. And here’s one of the secrets he kept from you: not a single one of you would be here today were it not for him.
Oh, you might exist without him, but you wouldn’t be here, in this place, safe and healthy and even on occasion happy. He never wanted credit for what he did, but now he’s gone I’m going to do what he asked me never to do: tell the story of the man you are burying today, the story of Jude Elihu Lazarus.
That wasn’t his real name. Not even he knew his real name; for as long as he could remember he only had a number. It was 108329877. The reason, as you’ve guessed, was that he grew up in the great American prison system. I have only been able to piece together bits of his early life and can’t even tell you his parents’ names; he never knew them himself. From the age of four he was in “The System,” which some of you might have experienced yourselves: the social workers, teachers, guardians, warders, cops, juvenile officers, judges, psychologists, foster parents, and clergy who with such terrible kindness and authority tear a child’s soul apart and attempt to mold it into some image of their own.
Some children, as you all know, resist this castration of their souls. That’s a strong word, and I choose it deliberately, because that’s what it is: whether boy or girl child, it’s involuntary surgical removal of individuality. Child number 108329877 was one who resisted. Never with violence, he was clever enough to see that violence was what they expected of him, and he learned early always to do the opposite of what the System expected of him. He also learned early on something that served him well his entire prison life, which was to conceal at all costs his knowledge and intelligence from both his fellow inmates and from the wardens, guards, and judges who had total power over him.