Sydney Marc Friday's battle against the odds - Still wishing for wings

No one ever expected them to succeed. Many people were sure they would end up back behind bars.

Sunday Newsday tracks the progress of eight men who won their cases or got out on bail. Their lives outside prison are featured in a series on inmates from Debbie Jacob’s CXC English classes and debate teams.

Why did these men make it when so many others failed?

Read their stories of redemption, rehabilitation and reinvention in the Sunday Newsday.

Part IV

Sydney Marc Friday sat in a church in Laventille where retired businessman Noble Philip held a special screening of Kim Johnson’s documentary film Wishing for Wings.

Students in Philip’s homework supervision class and their parents appeared riveted to the story about Friday and my CXC English language class in the Youth Training Centre (YTC).

Watching the documentary doesn’t get easier for Friday. Each time he sees it, he faces the death of his classmate Jahmai Donaldson, who had his life on track, but was shot dead while helping a neighbour clear a piece of land.

“Police believed the neighbour was the gunman’s target, because he recently had an altercation with someone in a fete, and he took the most bullets from the automatic rifle,” said Friday.

That doesn’t mitigate Friday’s grief.

Friday, 32, originally from Vance River, Point Fortin, walked out of YTC in February 2012, after serving a three-year sentence for armed robbery.

Knowing the challenges of living in the place where his life had taken a wrong turn, he eventually moved to Tobago in 2017. He returned to Trinidad in 2020, seeking more job opportunities, and since then has lived with various relatives around the country.

His mother lives in England and wants him to migrate, but Friday wants to prove himself in this country.

“It was easier to live in Tobago, in the sense that not many people knew me. It was a chance to do something new without the stereotype of coming from YTC.

"On the flip side, it was harder for me, not knowing anyone there. I had to adjust and always wonder, what will happen when they do find out about me?

“Even after all this time, there's still a stigma about coming out of YTC. I never made any big jail, but as soon as people hear YTC, they think jail."

Friday earns a meagre living by doing agriculture, construction and electrical work, which he learned in YTC.

“I just survive with little jobs. Currently, I have a little stall in Point Fortin where I sell vegetables, water, sweet drinks and snacks.”

He lives for his creative writing and music. In YTC, Friday filled notebooks with stories of close-knit, poor neighbourhoods. In one story, an elderly woman is the pillar of hope and strength of the village.

He won a calypso contest in YTC with Nah Born a Criminal, which he sings in the documentary.

“I put my energy and time into writing music and singing. I always told myself, ‘This is the way to finally have some kind of recognition.’ I can’t stop writing.”

He is torn between what he wants to say and what many youths want to hear in reggae and dancehall music.

“It’s hard. Everything is about image and the image out there is gangster. I don’t want to portray that image.

"I know young men living in ten-by-ten board shacks. They struggle. They aren’t in any crime. I want people to know that side of life.”

Friday has also been working on a Christmas novel.

“A young man goes into the bush and bounces up the douens and other mischievous folk characters. It’s a story of how Papa Bois came into being.”

Friday’s creative writing earned him a place in Child I, a global mental-health project that provided the opportunity to immerse himself totally in a writing retreat. Trinidad-born drama teacher Naima Thompson organised Friday’s place.

He recently participated in a self-esteem programme with accounting firm Ernst and Young.

He enjoys motivational speaking, and moves the audience with stories that include the terror of being chased by the police.

“Sometimes, honestly, I felt like giving up out here. The life before YTC was easier: less trouble for money.

"But there’s always the reminder that freedom is sweet.”

Often his resolve comes from remembering friends he has lost and strangers who have supported him.

“I can’t disappoint the people who helped me and motivated me through the years. When you have people reminding you how good you are, you tend to start to believe it.

"But others are waiting for me to do a stupidness, because they believe that is me.”

Friday finds making friends difficult.

“If I could have friends who aren’t going to die and cause me unexpected pain, I would like that.”

He views Donaldson’s death as a major setback in his life.

“The way we chose to live was bad, but we came out of that life of crime. I know Jahmai wasn’t in anything he deserved to die for. Jahmai’s death happened not long after my brother got shot to death – same circumstances, only he was visiting his girlfriend.”

He misses having someone to share his plans with, and recalled conversations he and Donaldson had about the future.

“Even today, if someone congratulates me for being in the book and the documentary Wishing for Wings, I feel guilty. It’s supposed to be me and Jahmai getting praise. His death will affect me for life.”

He often recalls his time in YTC with Donaldson.

“We started off unsure of each other. Our only bond was being from South. Mr (Sterling) Stewart (former superintendent of YTC) and other people there helped us get good. We had our own minds and leadership qualities.

"I never thought of death. I never watched Jahmai or my friend Dorian Weekes in YTC and thought, ‘I don’t think we will last.’”

But he did feel Weekes would return to a life of crime.

“That’s the culture where Dorian is from. It’s not like you wake up in the morning and decide, ‘I’m going back to crime.’ You have to be rough in those places.

Weekes, 22, lived at Nelson Street, Port of Spain and was lured to a yard at Dan Kelly, in Laventille, where he was shot dead in 2013 by rival gang members.

"Dorian could have only survived by moving somewhere else, and that is hard.

"Jahmai and Dorian are two reasons why I can’t sing about violence.”

But when he gets discouraged and depressed, Friday always falls back on his music and writing.

“This helps me cope and allows me to say how I really feel.

"I have changed. I think more. I’m a little more outspoken.”

Currently, he’s doing CXC art and hopes to get three more CXC subjects so he can attend UTT and major in drama. He would work in schools to help struggling teenagers. He also considers journalism, because he could cover areas no one else could.

“Sometimes I go to the (Brian Lara) promenade and stare at the Express House. That comes like Madison Square Gardens to me. If there was a place to sit by the Guardian and Newsday, I would do that too.”

He carries pencils and paper to the stand he runs in Point Fortin so he can write and do his homework when there are no customers.

November marked the tenth anniversary of Wishing for Wings, the book that gave Friday unexpected notoriety in a faction of society far beyond his world.

“The book and the movie are both important, because they allow people to see our lives in YTC – our trouble and our temptations – without really experiencing it.

“People are always shocked that teenagers in YTC or inmates in prison can be so articulate. They never thought jail people had that level of feeling or intelligence.”

Eleven years after my CXC English class, where he risked being stereotyped as a nerd with his love for reading books by Maya Angelou and James Baldwin, Friday thinks about teenagers now committing crime.

“If you do crime and die, the people at your wake are going to feel pain because you’re not there any more. If you still want to go on with your bad ways, then I guess you’re kind of selfish.”

At some point, Friday believes, you have to start thinking about others.