Saturday, February 25, 2012

2/25/12

   With the exception of a few camps whose architects had artistic freedom, most GA prisons follow the same basic blueprint. There's two "sides", an east and a west, or a north and a south. These are the living units, with 3 buildings with 2 dorms each. Each dorm holds 48 two man cells, so in a perfect world, each dorm houses 96 prisoners. This is rarely the case anymore, as the balloning prison population has caused the DOC to seek new creative ways to cram the maximum ammount of inmates into a static amount of space. This creativity has mostly found expression in the form of the 3 man cell. Some institutions have an entire bottom range of triple bunked rooms, bringing the total amount of inmates to 120 per dorm. They reserve that trick for medium security camps. That many seperate male personalities in a close ecurity prison, housing that unique caliber of prisoner, is apparently still a bad idea, even to an organization of bad ideas.
   At these 2 sided prison, there is a good side and a bad side. The word "good" is definitely relative here, it would be more on point to say the "bad" and the "worse" side. In March of 2005, I got out of the hole and emerged onto the "worse" side of Calhoun, The East Side.
   Getting released back into general population after a stint in admin. seg. is a unique feeling. I'd been locked down a couple of months, and had not been to the eastside yet. Had no clue who I'd find there, what drama awaited me,what kind of reception I could expect. I was very alert.
   The reception I recieved was positive, thanks to a white GD friend of mine named Paul. When I learned what dorm I was going to,he sent word to his partners in H building, that I was a friend. That's all it took.
   I had the utmost respect and trust for Paul. We were workout partners in F2 and had implemented a split schedule for our training. Saturday, Sunday, and Monday were days of rest, when we did cocaine courtesy of Gay Mike, and the rest of the week we worked out hard, waiting for the reup. I guess he took a liking to me and thought of me as a younger brother. We were pretty tight for awhile.
   My cellmate in H2 was a huge black guy named Angelo who was fucking this nurse who looked like Olive Oil and kept thick red lipstick on her face. He was a cool individual, humble and deeply into the Bible after a comment on the basketball court got him stabbed almost to death.
   I fell into a group of whiteboys who were around the same age as me, with similar interests in music and drugs. Two of them had life sentences, Buckwild and Burnout. Q was tenyears into a mandatory 12 year sentence. Scrappy was the only one who wasn't a GD.
   Q was definitely the unofficial leader of the pack. He'd been incarcerated longer than any of us and involved in gangbanging since he was 13.
   I have to clarify my feelings and beliefs about gangs at this point. I'm not from LA or Chicago, and have never seen much gang activity outside of incarceration. It's not really going down like that in Atlanta. Other GA cities seem to have more active gangs, but where I live, it's mostly confined to the hispanics in the Gwinett area. I've never been concerned about what color clothes I wear or which way I tilt my hat. Atlanta is neutral to major gangs.
   Prison is different though. It's in us humans to form groups and classify others into catagories. I think we crave that order, that logic; perhaps it's a survival skill. One of the ways we catagorize in prison is by gang affiliation. Even more apparent is the breakdown by race and city of origin, or what part of town in the city you're from. Religeon too. We seek out associates with common interests and similar characteristics to ourselves.
   Since GA is neutral, there is a perception that gang activity inside our prison system is off-brand or watered down. I don't have a basis of comparison since I have never been in prison in any othe state. I have seen some serious things happen to people over gang shit inside this system, many beatings, many stabbings, kings dethroned, and imposters exposed. From the neutral perspective, it seems legit to me. It gets pretty real sometimes.
   One big point of contention is the inclusion of whiteboys into these majority black gangs. It's one thing to be out in a white country town, terrorizing other little white kids, throwing up signs, fronting to people who don't know shit. That doesn't fly in prison, if a whiteboy claims affiliation, they will be stepped to by members of that gang and better be in tight. If they don't know what they're supposed to know or don't have enough heart, terrible things happen. Public shaming, beatings, rapes. If you're not from the hood, don't go to the hood. If you're not a real gangster, don't say you;re a gangster.
   The whiteboys I was around in there that claimed G were official and recognized by all the Gs on the compound, they were real enough to have that respect.
   Without a doubt, they got mixed reviews from unaffiliated white people. Some felt like a white man hanging around with a black gang was disrespecting their own, going against their skin. It was a delicate balance. My feeling is, that you have to consider each person on a case by case basis. To be sure, some of those whiteboys were in it for protection, catering to a majority, trying to "get in where they fit in". Some just identified more with that style. Like choosing a brand of clothing. They chose Jordans over steel toed workboots or wingtips. To the few I considered solid, choosing their gang over their race, family, and friends was never an issue. Like JFK balancing Catholicism and the presidency.
   I was very observant at this time. I looked for contradictions, seeking out any flawed or wack behavior. There's a margin of error that can be written off as human weakness, but in prison, it's wise to choose friends carefully. You definitely don't want a weak motherfucker in your circle. At the same time I was being observed too, because of Pauls endorsement. I was accepted without question at first. Later on, it had more to do with my own merits. Time reveals a persons real character and this prison was full of suprises and revelations.
   Q was a charismatic individual. It took me a long time to trust him, he was way too nimble, too versed in manipulation and deception. Ordinarily, the kind of person I keep at an arms distance, he ended up being like a brother. You had to watch him though, Q was slick.
   Burnout and Buckwild were like night and day. Besides being big white guys with life sentences, these two represented polar ends of the spectrum. As his name implied, Burnout was a frequent flier when it came to drugs. After an LSD and coke fueled spree left a corpse with its head nearly severed, Burnout entered the prison system with a Zen like acceptance of his fate. I had to respect that he wasn't holding on to any ridiculous hopes of a miraculous courtroom triumph suddenly springing him. It takes a man to admit defeat and homie knew it was over. Nothing is more irritating than listening to a hopless soul present the strengths of their defense to anyone who will lend a sympathetic ear. Let it go.
   Another thing I liked about Burnout , he had interesting taste in music, maybe the only Gangster Disciple on the planet that listened to jam bands(which I cannot stand,but I appreciated the incongruity of a tattoed murderer stomping around the yard with Widespread Panic in their CD player). Encountering anyone in prison who was familiar with drum and bass music was a rare thing and he was up on all that.
   If Burnout was the intelligent philosofer of the group, Buckwild was the concrete worker. He looked like a cro-magnum, with a flat forehead and prominent eye sockets. Bigger than any of us by a good 20 pounds, he had a permanent dazed look. A fan of Mudvayne, Slipknot, and other bands cranking out good soundtracks to hack enemies into little pieces. Buckwild scared people. He was a juggarnaut.
   I'll never know what Scrappy did to get his alias, usually you think of a "scrappy" as being a small, fearless warrior. But the Scrappy of H2 was just small and goofy. Supposedly his dad was Wrestler #2, who had a respectable career as a professional wrestler on tv. Scrappy ran tattoos and had a good basketball game.
   For the next couple of months, these were my daily associates. We got high everyday, went toevry meal together, and posted up in Q and Scrappys cell, smoking Buglers and getting tattoos. I got to know these kids very well. We'd get stoned and tell war stories, always a good way to get to know people.
   Jason Jones, the object of Mikes contempt, was in the dorm for a little while too. He had a very good poker game, but provoked a lot of ill will with his abrasive personality and uncompromising stance. Jason and I always got along well though. He was wild, could be counted on to do almost anything, un predictable at all times.
   At this time I became more of an exploiter and a predator. I'm not sure why. Probably due to the cast of unsavory characters who revolved in my daily orbit and also because of the temporary lapse of incoming mail and other indicators that people still remembered me on the street. We began a campaign of extortion, pimping out two sissies for store goods and 3 way phone calls. I always ended up giving people nicknames, and I christened the sissy #1 and sissy #2. 1 looked like he came from some money, and when there were drugs on the yard, we'd send him out there to get as much as possible on credit. Then we'd roll him a joint to share with 2 and keep the rest for ourselves.
   The era of #1 and #2 only lasted a couple of weeks, our heavy handed approach to running a prostitution ring resulted in both of them "catching out", signing themselves into protective custody.
   It used to possible to get meth into prison easily through the U.S. mail. This is an outdated method now, because someone snitched it out, but all it took was constuction paper.
   A wacked out tweaker in his 40s,"Chrome" had a girlfriend who would take an 8 ball of speed, make a bunch of shots, and spray them onto construction paper. After it dried, she'd draw a childish depiction of a house, mommy, daddy, and baby, with "we love you daddy" written across the top. Nothing to it.
   The use of crystal meth among inmates who are already violent and paranoid always seemed to make things interesting. Good times, lots of near disasters. That little bit of speed, shared among 6-8 men, raised the combat readiness of the whole dorm. Back then, I could still handle my money under the influence of this stimulant(Now, even a small amount is sure to induce temporary schizophrenia). It's availability in GAs prisons is strangely limited compared to cocaine, pills, and weed. This is a suprise when you consider how many people in this state are locked up because of meth. It's dangerous shit.
   Around this time BG moved into the dorm, definitely a there goes the neighborhood moment. There was a child molester named big john who slept in a room downstairs and we started plotting on him. One night as the dorm left for chow call, BG and I stayed back. We went into Johns cell, picked his lock, and emptied his box of all storegoods, as well as his radio. It was an easy lick and a smash getaway, the least we could do for a pedophile scumbag like him. In the days that followed we orchastrated the plundering of another child rapists assets, this time a guy named Champ. I hate thieves, but not as much as I hate pedophiles. Sometimes you gotta do a little bad to do a little good.
   As usual, no good deed goes unpunished, and as usual, somebody told on us. There are always kite writers in every dorm(A "kite" is chaingang slang for a note) who author snitch notes to the staff to get people locked down. Often this is purely a manipulation tactic, with all sorts of falsehoods being reported, sometimes to deceive the staff into wasting time chasing a bogus lead. Or to get an undesirable moved out to a different dorm, an anonymous kite might say that that persons life is in danger. and then protocall requires that inmate be locked down for their own safety.
   In this case, there was a kite that said something about theft, and it had my room number on it. By then I had moved into the cell with Burnout. We both got locked down pending investigation and spent 10 days in the hole.
   The esiest way for me to remember the chronological order of events from my time in prison is to think of the many times I went to the hole. Especially in these days, I always had to be into something. My restless nature led me to take risks, to my bitter misfortune.
   The next big event for me was getting locked down yet again, 4 days after they let me back out. This time, my actions resulted in 30 days in J building, and an Internal Affairs investigation...but thats a story for another time.

2/20/12

   After Boatwright got killed and the GBI decended on the camp, it didn't take long for the official decision to be made. They were closing Alto down. Busloads started leaving every transfer night. Every other prison got a little bit wilder, a little more violent, as they tried to absorb a wave of Alto babies.
   Transfers are on tuesdays and thursdays, early in the A.M. I transfered from Alto to calhoun on my 21st birthday. After 8 months on level 5 pending max, I left an isolation cell and rode 2 buses, stepping out into the sunlight and relative freedom of Calhoun State Prison. This is where I would spend my wildest chaingang days.
   Calhoun was wide open, full of drugs, and full of corrupt COs. That's a very good thing. Maybe now I should give a little scientific breakdown of correctional officers; please remember that I'm painting with a broad brush here, so the level of 'science' is up for debate. This is a generalization based on years of experience.
   In GA, there's a strong contingent of good ol' boys working in the prison system. They have cans of Skoal in their pockets, drink Jim Beam, follow high school football, hunt during hunting season, and bitch about their jobs. They're inclined to identify with convicts who rode with biker gangs. Often they are morbidly obese. Republicans.
   In my opinion, the republicans aren't so bad. They're ignorant and out of shape, but rarely are they the overzealous, crusading GI Hoe type, the ex-serviceman who feels like he is waging a personal war on crime every day he is at work. Republican COs are just doing their jobs, getting through the day, so they can get their hands on a cold Budweiser, and a fist-full of deer jerky(when they get home to their single-wide).
   The GI Hoes are dangerous, and not because of whatever hand to hand combat training they received in boot camp. These clowns take their job way too serious. They go out of their way to enforce rules that even the administration don't care about. Disdained by their fellow co-workers, you can spot these losers by their ramrod posture, better physical conditioning, and maybe a barbed wire or tribal band tattoo across their bicept. I suspect many of these one man army types visit dominatrix dungeons in their spare time. Although they're universally despised and a constant nuisance, they make the kind of embarassing, please accept me guys kind of comments that say they're just one of the fellas. Yeah right.
   There is alot of cross-pollinating going on between these two camps, and nothing is worse than a militant republican fusion. The place I'm going (whitworth) is like an underworld nightmare of drill sargeant wife beaters. It's ugly.
   Calhoun had exactly zero good ol' boys working there, mostly due to the fact that, of all three shifts, there were only 2 white correctional officers there. That's out of hundreds of possibilities. The catagory of CO at Calhoun during my time there was a mix of ex-military, corrupt nacotics cop, and gold toothed wanksters. These guys were barely dodging felony charges of their own. For the most part, this worked in our favor. They couldn't come down too hard on us since most of them were criminals too. It was a state of functional choas during my time there. It was crunk.
   The caliber of prisoner there was pretty high in my opinion. There was so much gang activity, so many drugs, and so little chance of getting rescued by the guards, that the camp pretty much ran itself. Convict owned and operated. The weak got trampled. Everybody got high. The administration kept it as quiet as possible.
   On day one, I held a cameraphone in my hand for the first time in my life. I was impressed, like someone used to playing duck hunt suddenly coming across a playstation 3. This was 2004, the infancy stage of the prison cellphone explosion, so they were still pretty rare. Now, you'd think you were at a verizon wireless store. We've came a long way, cell phones are the best thing to ever happen to prisoners and their families.
   I saw three stabbings my first week. I also saw a small mountain of cocaine and weed. Lots of the violence that went down was tied to drug debts going unpaid. One morning, the warden himself, told everyone that he didn't mind us doing the drugs, but if we didn't pay our debts and the violence continued, he'd shake down the compound and make life harder for all of us. He was a coll warden, a practical one. Here's 1200 prisoners, lots of them doing life sentences, lots of them violent, and as long as they're getting high, they're calmer, easier. The ignorant, war-on-crime CO doesn't want to understand that.
   At this time, I was in F2, which was being used as an intake dorm. Their was a paricular officer named Morningay who worked our dorm, an obese puerto rican with a feminine manner who always wore his windbreaker, even inside the dorm. We discovered the reason for this was that he had been a "cutter" and he had a patchwork of scars across his inner arms from slicing himself with a razor. I have absolutely no prejudice against anyone with a mental health disorder, but it seemed strange to me that someone who had problems with self-mutilation was able to get a job as a prison guard. It still seems strange.
   One Saturday, at noon headcount, Morningay took it upon himself to try and grab the towel my cellmate and I were using to block the light from pouring into the window in our room. I snatched the towel back and told him to get the fuck on. That earned my cellmate and I a trip to the hole for assault on an officer. At any othe institution, this would mean 2 or 3 weeks of administrative segregation, waiting to go to DR court, and then2-4 weeks of isolation time if found guilty.
   Not at Calhoun. My cellmate was out in 3 days, I was out in 5. Never went to DR court, never heard about it again. Whereas Alto had many, many cells for locking behavior problems in, Calhoun's hole was limited to one side of J building, J1. Only 48 cells. Whenever they had a full house and needed to lock someone else down, they'd "parole" someone out to make room. This meant that you could literally stab the fuck out of an enemy, get caught and go to J-building, then get out within a week or two in most cases.
   They put me back in F2, at that time the cocaine capital of the compound. Money talks, for the right change, you can usually get the right range out of an officer. There were a few females who worked the F-building booth, they alternated bringing in drugs for a white guy we will just call "Gay Mike". That's not his real name of course. I just call him that because, athough he wasn't gay in the technical sense, I thought of him as a punk ass dude, with a gay psychological profile. He did have alot of money though, and to be fair, was very generous with his drugs. Every weekend, me and about 10 other whiteboys got cocained the fuck up, compliments of this sucker. I know that sounds raw, believe me, I'm the last one to hang out with someone because of what they got, very rarely do I indulge someone I dislike just because the drugs or drinks are on them. A little background on this guy, just to let y'all know why I sound so cold.
   Gay Mike and I transfered to Calhoun from Alto on the same day. He was the kind of guy who made things happen with drugs in prison, since he had all that money. He was working on getting a pound of pot dropped off at Alto, someone found out about it and thought he had already got it in, and they ran up in his cell trying to rob him. They laid him down, got his watch and chain, and he ended up on protective custody. He did recover his jewelry, because he told the police who robbed him. A bitch move.
   When you transfer from prison to prison, whatever money you have on your books takes about a week to catch up to your new location(no longer true. They now have a centralized banking system). Then you recieve a money receipt, which gets passed out by an officer during mail call. When Gay Mike's receipt caught up, the female officer took notice. He had like $6000 on his books. Money talks, and that weekend she brought in a quarter pound of mids, a cell phone, and an ounce of cocaine.
   I didn't fully explain my distaste for Gay Mike, for the sake of maintaining chronological order, some of this will come as the story progresses. One thing about this guy, he set off my bullshit alarm. Prison is full of liars, some say the acronym for jail is "just another inmate lying". Even among this hallowed company, Gay Mike stood out in my mind as a liar among liars.
   He was a chameleon. On his arm he had "311" tattoo'd, which usually stands for "Crip Killer"(the 3 is for the third letter of the alphabet,C, and the 11 is for K), or it can stand for the eleventh letter multiplied times 3,KKK. For Mike, it stood for both, whichever matched his company. Around the skinheads, Mike was a Klansman. Around a crowd of (accepting, whiteboy freindly) Bloods, he claimed to be affiliated with Bloods. My honest opinion is he got it to signify KKK, got in some hot water because of it, and jumped on the gangbanger bandwagon, paying his way into some unholy alliance with some Bloods somewhere. He was a countryboy from some backwater field in Georgia, I have a hard time picturing him with a red bandana hanging out of his back pocket.
   The female muling in drugs for him was a real sweetheart. She was obese but pretty, and had a certain air about herself(I guess now you'd call it "swag"). One day after doing a generous shot of cocaine, I popped my cell door and stepped out, ears still ringing, hardly fit for public consumption, to find her 10 feet away, staring straight at me. She knew I was high, but I pulled it together and winked, she seemed to like that. Later on she asked what nationality I was and said "you've got something in your blood". I definitely did that night.
   My cellmate was a GD(Gangster Disciple.-ed) from Macon called BG. We became good friends and this marked my loose association with GDs in prison. In some ways, running with them was a blessing. It definitely wasn't calculated' I just fell in with the clique. It also got me in trouble over and over again, but I can't blame that on anyone but myself. This was a time when I was simply destined for trouble.
   In most level 5 prisons, inmates get patted down whenever they pass through the gates going from the living units to the central area of the camp, where GED school, church, medical,counseling, and the administration's offices are located. We also get patted down coming back to the dormitory from the store or chow hall. This is to keep us from walking around with weapons.
   These little searches didn't happen at Calhoun. We were always "tooled up" and went everywhere with our knives. It was something that you kinda took for granted.
    One of the older muslims in our dorm started writing letters to the commisioner of Atlanta, the media, and senators, ranting about how out of control Calhoun was, how unsafe it was to be an inmate at this institution. Soon after beginning this campaign, the TACT squad came and searched the entire prison. The TACT squad is compiled of elite, gung-ho, department of corrections super-warriors. They came into the prison in the morning, maybe too strong, marching like the Gestapo, with drug sniffing dogs, metal detectors, and paintball guns with little rubber bullets inside. We were locked in our cells when they showed up and instructed to strip down to our boxers. When our doors are opened we are instructed to walk backwards out of the room with our hands behind our heads. TACT squad members guide us out and place us on either side of the cell, and the dogs are led inside. The animals level of excitement determines how thorough the seach is going to be.
   I heard the dog's nails scratching at the heater on the backside of the room, and his handler soon discovered " a small bag of a green leafy substance, believed to be marijuana". They also found a shank hidden in my mat. I claimed the marijuana, since I had it hidden in a central location and didn't want BG to get jammed up with me.
   As fate would have it, Gay Mike also got locked up that day, for a cell phone charger. We ended up being cellmates in J1, and he went to visitation that weekend and brought back a quarter ounce of coke.
   This guy was someone who gives IV drug use a bad name. A plus sized gentleman, with reclusive ceins, he'd sit there for 30 minutes trying to get a register. Every time I hear The Pixies song "Gouge Away" I think of Gay Mike, digging in his arm with a needle. UGLY.
   Good cocaine is a hell of a drug and this was good cocaine. He gave me a gram and I threw half of it in a spork, the orange kind they use in prison. It broke down as clear as Aquafina, no residue. It took my breath away, I was gasping and couldn't hear anything except the train running through my head. Mike got worried for a minute, thinking I was gonna flop out on the floor but I grabbed my nuts and pulled myself back together.
   We shot cocaine and smoked weed all night. At some point, the conversation turned to his plans for revenge on a whiteboy named Jason Jones, who was on the eastside of the compound. Someone would drop a pistol, a compass, and a change of clothes outside the wall of the prison. Then mike would tell the warden he heard Jason talking about escaping and the location of the drop. For this information, Mike would be given favorable treatment from the administration and jason would be put on max. This is the kind of moves I came to expect from this slimy motherfucker.
   Shit like that happens all the time. There's lots of behind the scenes "power moves" going on every day in prison, snitch wars, people getting framed, some real Machiavelli-style backstabbing. There's always a plot. In this case, Mike never got to put his plan into effect. One of the orderlies, who knew we had drugs, told on us, and around 9am, an officer knock on the door.
   They took us out and put us in the showers. We were woefully unprepaired for a shakedown of anykind, and they found a slew of drugs, contraband, and paraphanellia. They also found a cell phone in Mikes pocket. He was within a year of being eligible for a halfway house and was concerned about how these charges might affect his chances. I knew I was a long way away from being considered for parole, and I offered to claim the cell phone for an 8-ball. I figured he was good for it. We struck an agreement.
   They seperated us and for the next week I kept filling out statements and forms claiming responsibility for the phone. One day, the warden came around and I handed him a statement, launching into a plea about how I didn't want anyone to get stuck with the punishment for something that was mine. He cut me short. According to him, Gay Mike had been in his office earlier in the week, confessed to everything, and told on a couple of officers who had been bringing him in stuff. Mike was about to be transferred. The warden said that I was off to a bad star and that I'd be sitting in the hole for awhile to consider the errors of my ways.
   This was our new warden, not the cool one of the pro-drug speech. This guy was a politician with a used car salesman persona. A republican with some ambitions, I think he was from up north.
   I spent about 70 days back there, an eternity for Calhoun. Gay Mike did in fact transfer and a guard got fired behind him running his mouth.
   I have yet to hear anyone loudly proclaim themselves to be a snitch or a punk. Everyone takes pains to present themselves in the  most favorable light. In prison, everyone is a killer, pimp, and major drug dealer. I never heard anyone say that they told on their co-defendant for a lighter sentence. Very few admitted to being intimidated or afraid when they got to prison. Noone says they're locked up for child molestation. There's just alot of pretenders in prison and it's certainly no different on the streets. Being surrounded by people like Gay Mike, I think I developed a keen eye for bullshit. Dealing with drugs, in and out of jail and prison, you're always around game, lies, posturing, bogus motherfuckers marketing themselves as tough guys or good people, real freinds, whatever role they need to play. It's tiresome to deal with, wondering if your new buddy is trying to fuck your girlfriend or not. Some people get off being chameleons and fake kicking it. I try to avoid these people like the plague. I don't hold myself as the gold standard of realness, but what you see is what you get, if I'm your friend you've never got to doubt that. I wear my heart on my sleeve.
   My ineptitude at playing both sides of the fence has caused me problems. If I dislike someone I don't put myself around them if I can help it. I try to keep a nuetral position most of the time, try to stay disengaged from pointless ideological conflicts in the penitintiary. It's a very political enviroment, very racially charged, and almost every position is based on hate and ignorance. In my view, the only reasonable policy is neutrality,of course, that's only possible to a certain extent. You wind up forming alliances based on who you kick it with, and a problem for a friend is a problem for you, if you're that kind of person.
   My openness about my drug use here is something I feel the need to explain. I'm really just passing time, jotting down my experience of jail and prison. I don't have wild ambitions of going viral or a great many people. This is just a forum for me tell a little about my life, things I've seen and been a part of, and although the specific details are probably news even to my closest friends, the fact I've been doing drugs for years is a secret to noone who knows me. Putting my personal business out on front street in this way may not be the wisest decision, and of course I won't implicate myself or any others that could lead to prosecution.
   I hope my disclosures won't stain my pristine reputation. The truth is that my choices with illegal drugs have wrecked my life in the extreme. I want whoever reads this to know that, not to provide a cautionary tale, simply because it's real. Thanks to God, the rotation of the stars and planets, and the wisdom that comes from growing older, a lot of this is behind me. Eventually, even a true die-ha,rd gets tired of this much self inflicted injury.
   In particular, I'm talking about IV drug use. It's taboo to discuss this, except with other IV users. Maybe I'm comfortable talking about it because, knock on wood, that part of my life is over. I also hold onto a useless and haughty opinion that, atleast hygenically, I wasn't as bad as other people I knew. I never contracted any social diseases, niether from sharing needles or unprotected sex. I haven't lost my teeth, not from a lack of trying. I've been blessed and lucky.
   My feelings on this issue have changed considerably over the years, for a long time I questioned why anyone would ingest a drug in any other way. Aside from occasions where the social setting required politely sharing a pipe, I thought it was wasteful. Regardless of how a drug is used, it always ends up in the bloodstream. That's how the substance gets to the brain and causes the desired effect. The quickest route between two points is a straight line. By ntroducing the chemical directly into the bloodstream, nothing is lost in translation. You go from 0 to 60,like, instantly. The totality of the experience is unbelievable. It's the final frontier of drug use
   For me, it took seeing other peoples suffering, at the hands of this ingestion method, to recognize the dangers involved. It's too much. I have a hard time describing exactly why my opinion has changed, lets just say that I've been made aware. Injecting drugs is another level of commitment. I never want to contribute to someone taking that step again. Life is too short.


   Another fatefull event occured while I was in the hole for that couple months. During this time I had a variety of cellmates. They came and went, I stayed. One of them had a portrait of Osama Bin Laden on his back and was called, predictably, Bin Laden. He only stayed for a couple of days. He was a tall, light skinned dude from Augusta, and despite his bizarre political inclinations, we got along. After he left, I realized all of my CDs had left with him. This was January and for Christmas my family had sent 6 CDs to me. I had them for a month before this thieving bastard caught out and sold them on the westside of the prison. I got to sit and NOT listen to my familys gift for 8 months before I got a chance to straighten my business on that bullshit. I hate thieves, especially when they're stealing from me.
   Sometimes I have to wonder why I got tried like I did. I've concluded that people are idiots and have a hard time projecting their thoughts into the future, to consider what the possible consequences fpr their actions might be. I hate that its got to be like that, I truly dislike being violent and wish that noone ever forced my hand. I guess they think this shit is a joke and that's ok, just don't cross that line. The same thing that will make you laugh will make you cry.
   My hearts desire, in prison and out in the real world, is to be given enough respect so that I can live my life in dignity, without getting tried. I want a peacefull life. I carry myself in a humble enough manner, I'm not the kind of person who's naturally out to be disrespectful or ruffle anyones feathers. There's no chip on my shoulder, I don't worry about the size of my dick in relation to other men, and don't try to prove myself to anyone. Yet somehow, I'm doing something wrong because I still attract controversy. The marketing of myself as a tough guy has not convinced everyone to give me my space, maybe I need more tattoos.HA.
   On the subject of tattoos- I love them. I'm covered in them. Everyone of them I got in prison. I remember being in jail when I first got locked up, seeing these neanderthal looking whiteboys with blue and black ink all over their bodies, sleeved up, with Harley Davidson logos and swastikas. I remember promising myself I would never walk out of prison looking like one of them.
   I don't have any racial tattoos, no gang affiliated artwork, but I'm tattooed the fuck up. I guess I ended up looking a lot like those guys did, at some point I lost my mind and started getting wet up. I was lucky enough to become good friends with some tattoo artist who put me in the game, my upper body is 90% covered and I probably have around $15 invested. The only thing that costs less in prison than outside are tattoos and your motherfucking life. Damn! Admit it, that was pretty raw right there.
   When I was released, I had a complex that people would take one look at me and think "chaingang" but that was mostly in my head. My work is good enough to be freeworld, the only people that associate me with prison, based on my appearance, are other ex cons.
   I think I've got around 10 different artists work on me, but the lions share was done by 2 men in particular, both very gifted, both very close friends of mine. They hooked me up. There's no way I could of afforded this out on the street. I want to take time to talk about them both but for now I'll stick to the story.
 

Sunday, February 12, 2012

2/12/12

   A little update on my situation, it's Februauy 6th and I got another visit from my parole officer, unexpectedly, because I already signed my waiver of rights to a final hearing and that's that, I'd normally be waiting on a ride to prison. She returned and said our last conversation troubled her, she just doesn't feel good about sending me back and would I consent to go back to Whitworth again, instead of the penitentiary?
   For those of y'all who don't know(all of y'all, right?), Whitworth is a parole revocation center where I spent 6 months in 2010. It's a 6 month program, so the advantage in going there is I'll be out sooner. I wouldn't have to go back through diagnostics at Jackson. I won't have to reenter the prison system.
   That sums up the advantages, I know they are considerable and don't want to sound ungrateful, but before I left in 2010 I promised myself a thousand times that I would never again in my lifetime consent to spending 6 months at Whitworth. Let me count the reasons...
   It is actually called the Bobby Jo Whitworth Parole Center, and if that name isn't reason enough to avoid it at all costs, here's some more- never in my life have I been talked to like a dog in the way the staff here speak to all inmates, every day. It's structered like a boot camp kind of, everyone there is a parole violator, and the day you arrive, your 180 days begins. There;s no tolerance for any major DR's, if you get a disciplinary report for drugs,fighting or a weapon you go back to prison and as a resul, there's nothing going on there, no cell phones, no smoking weed, none of the little perks of prison. I also have serious personal issues with some of the administration, I don't even want to go into it here, on the off chance that an employee at the center might see this and cause me more problems. To summarize, my parole officer did me a favor by offering me another chance to go there, but for all these reasons and more, it wasn't a big favor. I am going to take it though. The sooner I get through it, the sooner I get home. Wish me luck in dealing with the uniquely fucked up enviroment of Whitworth. I'm praying for patience.

                                                                            $
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   In my adult life, if you include jails, I have done time in 13 institutions. I'm not superstitious, but I got locked up on friday the 13th last month. Maybe someone put a hex on me.
   Prisons are like neighborhoods or colleges, they have their own character and energy. I had the misfortune to go to prisons with lots of "character", so to speak. Prisons with noteriety.
   Jackson is the main diagnostic chaingang in GA. When I came into the system in 2003, they also processed diagnostic inmates at Coastal and Baldwin, but since then, Baldwin has been shut down. The most noteworthy thing about jackson is that GAs deathrow inmates are housed there, I can remember seeing a condemned man shuffling down the hall with a police escort and thinking how pale he looked. I don't know who he was or if he's alive today, but as you might expect, buddy looked like a dead man walking. Like a wierdo.
   They did execute one man during my brief stay there, on his final day, the warden and other administration were pretty uptight during inspection. I guess it's a big day for them too. Everything has to go smoothly, there are higher ups present, so there is a chance of coming under scrutiny . Nothing puts a prison administration on edge like a regional inspection or other occasion when a wardens bosses come through. It's when you see how sniveling they can be. One of our terms of endearment for corrections officers, administration, and other prison staff is "shiteater". I'm not 100% sure where this term originated, but when they are being reprimanded or condescended to by their superiors, they seem more than happy to "eat shit".
    On the night of that particular execution, the lights in the cellhouse flickered. This happened from time to time, but since it was someones last night to live, this flickering was attributed to the power surge that happens when the executioner "flips the switch". This couldn't have been the case, because GA uses lethal injection and in the era of the electric chair, a generator supplied the deadly voltage. However the flickering lights did give that fatal evening some added drama.
   A couple other things that stand out about my time there,mostly related to the penitentiary ambiance. Jackson is an old prison, aside from the newly constructed wings, it's feninately grimy. It's the only prison in GA that still segregates prisoners by skin color. Whites with whites, blacks with blacks. It's a throwback kinda place, the paint is peeling inside the cells,the toilets are from a different era, before the prison industry chromed everything out. Jackson is an eerie place like shawshank redemption, or the setting of a Stephen King novel. One night there was a storm, and I was up writing a letter, looking through the bars of my cell at the lightning bolts and rain, and the Metallica song "ride the lightning" came on the radio...spooky shit.
   I also remember a lighter moment one afternoon, when the Driving and crying song "I'm going straight to hell" caused an eruption in the cellhouse as what seemed like a hundred country boys rattled their cell doors and sang the chorus.
   The night before I transfered, I stayed up late talking to the guy in the adjacent cell. The topic was various prisons, and he was fixated on telling me his experience of  Alto. For hours he relayed stories of the violence and sexual degradation that occured there daily. He asked if I had ever seen the movie Roots, based on the novel by Alex Hailey, a story of the horrors of slavery. In this mans description, Alto State Prison was like that, except the slaves were all white. It didn't sound like a cozy enviroment at all, I remmember thinking that surely he was exaggerating a little.
   Early in the morning, before breakfast, an officer told me to pack my shit, I was transferring to Lee Arrendale State Prison. I'd never heard of it before, and niether had the guys I sat down to eat with. When I returned to my cell, my next door neighbor had noticed that my belongings were packed and asked where i was going. When I said Arrendale he almost fainted, sometime in the nineties, the name of Alto was changed to Arrendale. Whether it was done to try and shake its fucked up reputation or simply  to pay tribute to the great Lee Arrendale, I don't know. I thought about that Driving and crying song and wondered how much truth there was to that guys grim stories.
   Thinking back on it now, I don't know if Alto lived up to the hype or not. It was a fucked up place for sure though.
   Initially, Alto was a prison for violent offenders in the 25 and younger range. Of course this made the prison into a warzone, all these kids trying to make a name for themselves, indoctrinated in violence. By the time I got there, they had mixed in prisoners of all ages, but it still housed the states juvenile offenders who had been tried as adults for violent crimes. They stayed in their own section of the prison until they turned 17 or 18, then joined general population. In this way, they were thrown to the wolves.
   During the 90s the GA legislature introduced some new game-changing policies. One of which was mandatory minimun sentencing for acts of extreme violence, "the seven deadly sins". This took the discretion out of the hands of judges and the parole board. After january 1st 1995, anyone convicted of these crimes was sentenced to a minimum of 10 years in prison, to be served in its entirety. No parole. The one exception is rape, which carries a minimum of only a year. What the fuck is that about? Essentially, for commiting a violent crime like armed robbery, you will get atleast a ten year sentence if convicted, even if no real physical violence occurs. But if you violently rape a woman, you may be able to get off in a year. That's tough Georgia justice right there.
   Another piece of legislation, introduced in the Bill Clinton era, was senate Bill440, Which allows juvenile offenders to be tried as adults for violent crimes in Georgia. These two senate bills worked together to fill the GA prison system with violent, parole ineligable teenagers, serving sentences of 10 years or better.
   As I understand it, both of these laws are still in effect. The passing of SB440 was made possible by a sensationalist media campaign, which coined the term "superpredator", used to describe children who commit heinous crimes. I ended up knowing quite a few of these superpredators while I was at Arrendale. In my opinion these kids were more like supervictims or super mentally ill. I'm not rushing to defend anyones monsterous acts, but there's something wrong about giving a 13 year old boy a life sentence.
   I remember one pathetic story of this young kid who attempted to rob a foursome on a country club golf course. He was quickly disarmed, then the golfers beat his ass and detained him until the police arrived. Punishment for this 15 year old villan? A 15 year sentence and sexual subjugation by older inmates.
   The day I got to Alto they took me to the special management unit, or SMU. It was a 3 story building with 252 one man cells, the standard old school version with bars across the front. They put me in an open cell on D range until a bed became available in population. At that time,D range usually housed level 5, red flag, and maximum security prisoners. I remember a couple of the dudes on my range were on max for raping other inmates.
   While I waited to get to general population I read a book call Coming Of Age in Mississippi about a young black girl dealing with poverty andracial prejudice in the early 1900s. Books like this were always in circulation in prison. they were interesting and informative, but I think they fed the fire of racial tension. Everywhere I went in the pen, there was lots of hate on both sides.
   In the SMU, inmate workers called runabouts passed out trays for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I remember watching a couple of them, small white guys, kind of sizing them up. They seemed much softer than me from all outward appearances. If they were making it in Alto then I would be ok.
   When I got out of the hole I ended up being in the dorm with one of them and quickly learned that he was a punk, having sex for protection. Same for the other little white orderly from the SMU. Damn...
  
   I could write a hundred pages about Alto, I'll come back to it soon, the story of how it was shut down and turned into a womens prison is crazy. Right now it;s tuesday night, I;m in jail, still have 6 months and some change left before I can go home and I wish I was about to lie down next to a beautiful girl. This shit is so fucking lame...Goodnight.

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   The first time I smoked weed in prison, I smoked a stick with a whiteboy named jeremy. It was a normal $3 joint rolled inside 2 bugler papers. I didn't think there was anything in it, we both got maybe a lungfull and dude, I was completely STONED. Paranoid high, I took a shower to try and shake it off but it was useless.
   I smoked alot of weed while I was in prison. It's a good drug to do time on. It makes the mundane bullshit easier to cope with, helps to kill the hours. I was high all the time, every chance I got.
   One day I was on the yard, I'd been at Alto for a few weeks and someone gestured for me to look at an inmate standing by the basketball court.  When I saw him I recoiled, it was like a viceral reaction, because he was the ugliest human I'd ever seen. He looked like the missing link, his head and jaw were deformed and he had the vacant stare of a mentally retarded person. "That's Playa Playa, they just raped him in F cell last week." I was shook. Anyone capable of having an erection in the near vicinity of Playa Playa had to be a monster. Alto had more predatory homosexual activity than any other prison in GA. It was known for being the turnout capital, and violent rape did happen but most of the time just the threat of violence was enough, and even that wasn't always necessary, dudes got turned out on the finesse tip. Literally talked out of their ass.
   For years and years, for decades, it was known Alto was dispropotionately violent. Victimization was a daily thing. In the 80s and 90s it was worse, but even as of late as 2003(the year I got there), Arrendale was the 2nd most violent penitentiary in GA. Rapes,Stabbing,and beatings and the staff just let it continue. The correctional officers, counselors, and wardens who worked are all complicit in human rights violations in my humble opinion. It's almost like they had a secret set of instructions; let these convicts suffer. If that sounds paranoid, all I can say is that I was there and I witnessed some unbelievable shit. Empathy and compassion aren't prerequisites for employment as a prison guard of course,and every prison has a few good people working there, but the majority of the staff working at Alto were unfeeling and callous at best. They got away with too much and when the hammer finally fell on their renegade institution it was a hollow victory. Too little, too late.
    What brought about the end of Lee Arrendale as a mens prison was a combination rape/homicide. Definately not the first in its long, proud history. If the victims family hadn't had clout and financial means(his mother is a lawyer), I doubt if anything would have changed. His story and my own overlap, but let me rewind a little bit first. I was in Alto for 3 or 4 months, without incident, some vets schooled, brought me up to speed on chaingang politics, and I hit the ground running. I had a clique of homies, get tattoos, wrote letters, got high, and time passed. This early in my sentence, I had lots of support in the form of money and mail, everything was gravy. The most you could spend on the commisary back then was $50, and I hit for $50 each week. Alto had the best stor of anywhere I'd been, at that time a pack of roll ups cost 89 cents, ramen noodle soups were 20 cents, coffee was $4 a jar, I was well taken care of for sure.
   Occasionally I wo.uld lend someone a couple of bucks and I never charged any interest. In prison money lenders are called storemen, and the rate is fifty cents interest on the dollar. I didn't make a habit of lending money cause that leads to trouble, but every now and then I made an exception.
   This particular exception was a young black dude named Gizmo and he owed me 2 honey buns. On store day I asked if he had any moneyand he said he did, just chill. Store day is when all the gambling cranks up and all day I watched Gizmo shooting dice. Clearly, he had enough money to gamble and I guess he felt like he could pay me back at his liesure, but I got angrier and angrier. When it was time for lights out at 11pm, I listened to a song on the radio, tied a masterlock on a sock, and ran up on Gizmo, swinging for his head. Somehow I only grazed him and police put me in the hole.
   A month passed and I was released back into general population. The administration elected to put me back in the same dorm, with Gizmo and all his buddies. I could've refused to go in but that would've been a bitch move, so in I went. Gizmo and I squared off and started fighting, he had a considerable size advantage but I was getting the best of him when I felt my feet get pulled out from underneath me. The beating commenced, state boots danced on my head and face, but it wasn't that bad. My buddies in the dorm stood back and watched. Later on their excuse was that I was beating Gizmos ass and it didn't look like I needed their help.
   The officer in the chow hall noticed I was beat up and they put me on involuntary PC(protective custody). I was locked down for a few days and moved to a different dorm. At this point I suffered from an insane dillusion that just because I'd displayed my willingness to fight, I had nothing to worry about anymore. In my sick brain I figured I'd "made my bones" and would be universally respected from then on. Dreams,Dreams. One thing about prison,there is no such thing as universal respect, people will try to assasinate your character in any way they can. It's a non-stop propaghanda war. At that time I was still too green, still too young to be granted respect and left alone. I had no history, just a couple of quick scuffles.
   That weekend I went to visitation for several hours. When I got back to the dorm I sat down, got my tape player out of the box, and hit play. Nothing happened. I soon discovered that someone had switched the headphone wire out, so now I was stuck with a busted pair of useless headphones. 2 packs of cigarettes were missing from my locker as well.
   In prison if someone steals from you, there is only one reaction possible-You have to get violent. It's absolutely mandatory. If you don't know who stole your shit you have to pick a likely suspect.in this case, I was convinced it was my bunkmate, a dude named Hood. The night before, he asked if I wanted to sell my speaker wire. I didn't. He seemed like a good one to pick.
    I was mad. one of the vets in our dorm, a friend of mine, counseled me to get a "head-up", a square fight, one on one, rather than useing a weapon or suckerpunching Hood. He told me he wouldn't let anyone jump in and I agreed. I put my boots on and told Hood to put his on too. He didn't want to fight, insisted that he didn't steal my stuff, but I wasn't trying to hear that.
   We fought for a few minutes, I'd say it was a draw, I did a little bit of damage but not much. He said we could keep on fighting if I wanted but that he couldn't return my speaker wire because he didn't steal it and didn't know who did.
   Around that time it was our dorms turn to eat. By the time we got back my buddy Dago,the old school vet who had my back earlier, was convulsing on the floor, unresponsive and foaming at the mouth. He had gone to visitation and swallowed several balloons full of oxycontin. I guess one of them busted in his stomach before he vomit it out. We carried him out of the dorm on a stretcher, on the way out I heard someone say that we'd better bring that stretcher back with us, we were gonna need it again. For me.
   I guess some of Hoods buddies didn't like that I'd fought him, now they wanted to fight and my buddy was ODing in the infirmary, so I was by myself.
   The main antagonist was a dude named Wayne Boatwright Jr. He was who stole my speakers and maybe his conscience was troubling him since it got Hood caught up in the mix. We fought and Boatwright definately got the best of me, his hands were too fast. You can't win them all. Boatwright learned that too when he was raped and strangled to death 2 months later.
   For obvious reasons, I didn't mourn his passing. I didn't think he deserved all that, but Boatwright was a thieving menace who wanted to be down. I feel for his family and applaud their efforts in attacking Alto as an institution. I believe I speak the truth when I say that his mother and the southern center for human rights are directly responsible for Alto being converted to a womens institution. There's no doubt that this has prevented alot of suffering for young people. Two thumbs up for that.
   God bless the dead, what a horrible fate for anyone to endure, even him. I try to keep my mind open too the fact that no matter how ville or unlikeable a person may be, at one point they were an innocent child, somebodies little gift from god. Also we never know what kind of hardship people have undergone, it's good to be conscious of that and try to give them the benefit of the doubt.
    Perhaps Boatwright would've had some kind of life changing event and transformed into a stand up dude. I don't think he had very much time, but I can't remember. He was 18 when he died. At that time, it has to be said, he was no great loss to anyone but his family. He stole from me for no reason aside from the fact I'm white and he felt he could get away with it. Since my mother sent me the money for those headphones, he was stealing from my family as well. And he got his buddy Hood punched in the mouth for nothing. Hood turned out to be a good dude.
   If I could talk to Boatwright now, I wonder if he'd have more humility. Being victimized is a horrible thing, especially if you're minding your own business. I wasn't bothering anyone and niether was Hood. Boatwright made a fucked up situation worse for both of us.
   The 3 men who attacked and killed Boatwright all got sentenced to life with no parole. One of them was a young kid from savannah, we called him Home Alone. Maybe 3 or 4 years later, I ended up being roommates with Home Alone, or "Homie" for short. I can't defend the crime he was convicted of, but in my personal experience he was good peoples. We got along with no issues whatsoever. Kind of ironic that years earlier, Wayne Boatwright took me to be a lame, stole from me, swelled up my eye, and disrespected me for no reason at all. Later on down the line, I shared a room with one of his killers and it was nothing but respect. It's crazy how shit goes sometimes.
   I got in a fair amount of trouble during my stay at Alto, compiled a large amount of DRs, and eventually, my security was raised to level 5-pending max. Aside from one assault, my DRs were for stupid shit, failed drug tests, contraband,insubordination,etc. They had some kind of unique point system at Alto, I think they called it the BMS or behavior management system. Level one was like trustee status. Level 2-3s were normal inmates and level 4 were considered predatory or troublemakers. Housing units were based on these levels, so all the docile, behaved prisoners were housed together and security risks were housed together. Level 5 meant 6-12 months of solitary confinement. I got level 5'd in march 2004 and spent the next 8 months in isolation.
   By the time this happened, I'd already taken a couple trips to the hole, once for assault, once for an incident with an officer, and once for a positive drug screen. I've read that long term solitary confinement is considered a form of torture in some places but it never bothered me much. I enjoy my own company, like to read and write, and for the most part, can hold myself down mentally. I did have a stroke of bad luck in the early days of that 8 month stretch, which caused me some considerable grief. I was on property restriction, which meant that I wasn't allowed any tapes,radio,CDs,photo album, or store goods of any kind. Of course, I had all these things in my cell. Being able to put on my headphones, smoke a cigarette, and look at my pictures made level 5 a pretty mild form of punishment for me. One day, bound by leg irons and waist chains, I was escorted by 2 officers all the way to Atlanta Medical Center to see a specialist about the broad disc bulge in my lower back. I remember this day clearly, it was such a stark contrast, going from a prison cell in north Ga where I had been for a couple of months uninterupted, to the city of Atlanta, my city, on a beautiful blue skied spring morning. I was amped up in the extreme, energized by my surroundings. The young rookie officer got a wee bit agitated by my roaming around the parking lot and actually pulled out his gun,took aim, and said that he'd blow my fucking brains out if I didn't stop moving. It's this kind of overzealous performance by law enforcement officials of all kinds that makes you want to play N.W.A. at full volume.
   When we get back to the prison and I'm being placed back in my cell, the dorm officer asked me to please not wig out, but they had conducted a random search in my absense and confiscated all my earthly possessions. Since I was on property restriction, all my tapes, cds, radios, and pictures were taken from me.
   Of course I wigged out. The loss of music was a back-breaker but I'm pretty sentimental, so taking my pictures was an act of war. In retaliation, I blocked the bottom of my cell door, temporarily stopped up my toilet, and flushed it about a thousand times until the water in my cell was ankle high. I then removed the blanket from under the door and released a flood into the dormitory. This was one of the only ways to lash out at the officers from inside the confines of an isolation room. I got a DR, but they appeared inept at controling the cell house. Flooding cells was a daily occurance in the level 5/max unit.
   I also started a hunger strike. For 3 days I refused all trays, I sat in my cell, brooding and smoking roll-ups, sending beams of hateful energy at any officer who came to my window. Gradually my righteous anger burned out, I started eating again, and new pictures came in the mail. Those tapes and CDs were a loss but eventually I got another radio. Time went by.
   I worked on correspondence courses my parents got me, philosophy and English writing & rhetoric. I also had lots of personal correspondence going on at this time, most rewardingly with a female friend from out of state. I wrote long letters examining prison life, drug use, crime, sex, music, politics, and she was a sympathetic ear and a sharp mind. I really enjoyed that kind of give and take intellectually. This girl was just a dope person in general...she was hot too.
   I got a visit from her once during that 8 months, she stopped by on her way to Florida. We had a good visit and she was cool enough to bring me an x-pill in her bra. That was the last time I saw her, 8 years ago, and I still miss her friendship and her commentary.
   I ate the roll at the end of visitation, expecting to be safely returned to my cell by the time it kicked in. Being on level 5, I had to wait on a police escort,and they usually waited until all the level 5,red flag, and administrative segregation inmates were handcuffed before walking us back to B unit. On this particular day, it took much longer to get us all herded back together. Since I was pending max, I was handcuffed and leg shackled. The walk from visitation to B unit was over a quarter mile, down stairs, through gates, and up hills. Because of the unexpected delay, we had just begun trudging up this steep incline, about halfway to our destination, when the roll kicked in. One minute I was sweating under the oppressive summer sun, taking little micro steps to keep the leg irons from biting into my ankles, and then with almost no buildup, unannounced, I was rolling my balls off. I felt like I was in an old starburst commercial, like a beautiful tidal wave had come along and now I was waterskiing back to maximum security. This was one of those good rolls that don't come around anymore, an unconditional love pill that made me happy to be alive. Sometimes people tell me that they can't understand how someone could use drugs like that in prison, like they wouldn't enjoy it. To each their own I guess. When your daily reality is waist chains,leg irons,steel bed frames,white walls, and screaming maximum security inmates a little autonomous joy is heavensent. Thank you girl.


                    GHOSTFACE KILLER

   The day after I got out, I reported to my parole officer. I don't know exactly how many x-convicts are on parole in Cobb county, my educated guess is between 500 and 1,000. I got a warm welcome, not only from my officer, but from the entire office. 5 or 6 officers popped in to see me, I started feeling like a bug under a microscope. Maybe everyone gets the red carpet treatment in this parole office, I don't know. I imagine my file is interesting reading, a counselor in prison once told me so. The parole officers were tickled pink by a remark I made the night of my arrest when one of the detectives made a disparaging comment about the quality of one of my handguns, I replied that it was good for killing cops. Of course this was documented.
   The parole officers wound up being...pretty cool. I've fought the urge to like them the entire time. My gut instinct is always to say fuck the law, fuck the police, they are the enemy. Making generalizations like that are dangerous though. There are good people in almost every catagory or group humans come up with, I know that is the truth. In Cobb county, the parole officers I've dealt with(with the exception of one barely legal closet homosexual who smiled like a little girl when he told me I was going back to prison) were mostly ok. I never got the impression that they were hell bent on making problems for me.
   That's not to say they are shining examples of compassionate humanity. Part of their mission is rapport-building, coming across as cool,reasonable people who just want to help so parolees won't just abscond and fail to report. They know what a big risk the parole board is running by ever paroling anyone, without fail, someone will get out and do some twisted act of violence, and then the public is mad that this idiot made parole in the first place. So parole officers definately employ some subtle manipulative tactics to keep their charges close and trusting. They'll let you get away with a failed drug test, no big deal. That way, when a parolee gets in trouble, instead of bonding out and keeping it to themselves, they will feel comfortable calling their parole officer and telling them all about it. Not a good idea y'all.
   On that first report day they put an ankle moniter on my left leg. It stayed there for 4 months. The officers joked, saying that since I'm well developed muscularly, if they ever had any problems and had to storm my house, they'd take no chances, and would not hesitate to shoot me... I think they were joking.
   One of them said they didn't anticipate any problems because of how long i had served in prison. It was mostly just those who had done a couple years who got out and fucked up. People like me had more sense and were more determined not to go back
   I don't know if that's the truth or if he was just releasing positive thoughts into the universe, hoping they'd influence my behavior. I had an unspoken secret agreement with myself, that I wouldn't take any major risks. What constitutes as a major risk was never clearly specified, but by any definition, I trampled all over my personal resolution. I made some foolish choices, broke the law, but I still believe I am incarcerated unfairly. I'm good people, never fuck with anyone unless they fuck with me first, and try and do the right thing as much as I can. I should be a free man now. There must be a reason I'm not.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

This is actually 2 different posts but I recieved them at the same time 2/7/12 & 2/9/12

   The 3 things people get sent back to prison for, according to parole officers, are drugs, alcohol, and women. That's the gospel truth. For me it was a combination of those elements. It's easy to look back and see every wrong turn I made, but I was blind and in the moment. Let me offer some unsolicited advice to anyone whos ever been in jail or prison and doesn't want to go back-CHOOSE YOUR MATE CAREFULLY. Noone knows what losing liberty is like unless they've been here, and if your significant other doesn't help protect your freedom, they just don't really care about you, Jack.
   At the beginning of my sentence, I didn't understand what a decade entails, how long ten years actually is. Out of ignorance I was fearless. It rolled off my back. Now I'm intimately aware of what a sentence like that means. If I knew back then what I know today I wouldn't have been so smug. This time is nothing to laugh at.
   It's not the living conditions or the violence that stand out for me, it's the feelings you get late at night, you've already done a couple years, and you're looking into the future, knowing that for years to come you will be confined inside a penitentiary. Instead of going to sleep with a pretty girl curled up on you there's another tattooed criminal on the top bunk snoring, farting and sharing a tiny space...For Years. It's a fucking nightmare.
   Dealing with it takes endurance. Staying hard on the yard gets old man, there's lots of mental discipline involved. Monitering your thoughts, not thinking too much about the world outside, but still having goals & ambitions, never accepting prison, never allowing it to become home. This is no easy feat.
   "Do your time, don't let it do you."One of the best chaingang cliches. How can a prisoner make their time work for them?
   Step one, stop thinking about your girlfriend. That's the wrong way to do it if you wnt to keep your head up and your time flowing. I don't care how deep y'alls relationship is, if you're married, have kids, whatever. She's out there. You're incarcerated. Don't torture yourself wondering if she's out there fucking somebody else, be a bigger man than that. In GA there are no conjugal visits, so clearly y'all aren't having sex. If she got in trouble and you were free, would you be celibate until her release? Don't tell that lie. If she writes, visits, puts some change on your books, accepts your calls, then she is keeping it real with you. Let her live man. Dudes make a bad time worse tripping about their significant other, It's a common mistake. A rookie move.
   There I go talking hard, but I admit, I let a woman completely fuck my head up once. At the root of that was an insecure desire for validation. She picked me up when I was down, boosted my already overinflated ego, and did alot to make my time sweeter. Losing that boost knocked me down for a few days until I shrugged it off and realised that being dependant on another person for emotional reasons is a setup for a major letdown.
   In my defense, this girl went to the earth to show me love, took serious risks to help me make money, basically did everything to keep it 100 with me. She should be touring the nation teaching a seminar called "How To Be A Rider For Your Man While He's In Prison". She's got that down to a science. I'm eternally grateful for all she did. Only a fool would hold a grudge against a girl who drove 4 hours each way to visit, came up there looking right, payed the police to bring the work in, payed my cellphone bill( He had an Iphone before anyone I knew did when they came out-Ed), went to western union to pick up money transfers, the whole nine. I had it made thanks to her devotion. She was down. NO HARD FEELINGS AT ALL.
   So once you can master the mental balance of looking forward to freedom without aching for it, there has to be some kind of daily routine that keeps you moving forward. I put myself into a militant state of mind, believing myself to be behind enemy lines for the entire stay of my incarceration. How can I build and improve while I'm here? What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, or atleast it can if you man up and turn a negative into a positive. For me, that means alot of reading, exercise, and becoming a student of human nature. Prison is full of liars and master manipulators, game is coming at you 24/7. Just being observant will sharpen your sword mentally.
   It's like defensive driving, I'm constantly thinking for the next man because he might not know how to think for himself. If I'm not on point, avoiding landmines, defusing potential timebombs, then I'd be fighting everyday in here. Your fight game is way less important than your mind game. but you better be able to fight a little bit or atleast willing to try.
   I'm grateful to have survived prison, this is the most treacherous enviroment on earth. Just knowing that anyone can get fucked up in here, it kind of quiets you down. The fool walking around with his chest puffed out, roaring like a lion, He's usually due for a serious day of reckoning. That loud mouth bullshit, trying to run the dorm, free picking the weak, being a bully, it doesn't get respect, and one day a real G will pull that card. Again, it comes down to a balance, you want to be respected but not feared. Nobody is such a badass they can't get hurt, maimed or killed in here. Only an idiot ignores that and they're usually in the middle of thumping their chest and woofing when someone puts a knife in their neck. Bye-Bye badass, hello wounded inmate, hello puddle of blood, hello newfound humility. That's the way it goes.
   I was blessed with enough intelligence to know my limitations. I never thought I was a hog and always had the ability to rate myself accurately. On top of that I have a pretty good heart, never try to throw my weight around, despise those who prey on the weak, and look for a peaceful solution whenever possible. I didn't look for trouble and did what it took to stay respected. Having that respect is mandatory. You gotta maintain a reputation as a stand up guy. Convicts are like sharks, weakness is like blood, a weak motherfucker is a pussy and pussies get fucked. Getting fucked has always sounded disagreeable to me so I stood up for myself. Best decision an incarcerated man could ever make.
   I got my ass beat more than a few times. I know what it's like to struggle with a bologna sandwich with a cracked jaw. I've been jumped & stomped into the floor, stabbed in the face,and beaten with masterlocks tied to belts. I payed the price to be respected in my first few years when I was smaller and less experienced, that respect came from a willingness to basically get my ass handed to me. But I was willing to fight. You win some, you lose some.
   I had some moments in the sun too, knocked some people out, beat some ass, busted some heads, whatever. Through the process of incarceration I learned alot about myself and violence and I matured into a peaceful man. I know how to get down for mine but I also know how to forgive. Most sane people prefer to get along if they can.

(End of first entry. Below is the second-Ed)

   Throughout my journey in corrections much of what I encountered was opposite ends of the spectrum. I met the realest & the best, men whom I'm deeply honored to call friends, men who helped to inspire and motivate me. Incredible people. The most die-hard, loyal, courageous men you'd ever want to meet, dudes who have so much heart who run from noone. The realest and the best. Not to put a YO! Mtv Raps spin on it but I'm talking about gangsterfied individuals. As this blog goes on I'll highlight some of them. Alot of them know who they are.
   As for the opposite end, there are men in prison who barely merit being called men, or even human. Total garbage. Slithery black hearted vermin. Hate-filled, cowardly pack animals. Snitches, rats, snakes, just bitch assed dudes. In most enviroments, it's the people who make it a miserable experience or a positive one and this class of losers I refer to here could fuck up a wet dream tosay the least.
   The living conditions breed alot of discontent and violence. It really is like a bunch of sharks in a tank, and there we are, staring each other down all day. Overcrowded, under-stimulated, sexually repressed, and full of testosterone. By the very nature of the enviroment, it's a bloody mess waiting to happen.
   There's plenty middle-of-the-spectrum, mediocre cats in the chaingang aswell. Keep in mind that prison is a repository for the homeless, mentally deficient, and hopelessly drug addicted. So you come across the stereotypical meth users with a mouth full of fucked up teeth, the trailerpark rejects, the good-hearted downtown atlanta crackheads, and the good ol' boys. Some of them are real characters, funny to observe in action. Filler for the prison system. It's sad that these people are so inept or addicted that society can't find a position for them or role they can play and be alright in the world. I guess the republican view would encourage us to believe that it's all their fault, survival of the fittest, if they can't pull themselves up by their own bootstraps then too bad, prison is the place for them. That's an easy opinion to have when you were born with above average intelligence, good role models, and a safe neighborhood to grow up in. I had all of that, but I still don't believe these kind of people belong in prison, Many times it IS societies fault. So what's my excuse? I had lots of advantages, what brought me to this place to begin with? Why am I continuing to come back? That's a vital question, maybe a little background info for those who don't know me.
   I was born in 1983, the first son of J### & G####### R#########. Two years later my younger brother B#### came along. We also have an older brother,C####, from my fathers first marriage. Sadly, we didn't see much of him in our youth since we lived in different cities. My sainted mother is a brazilian woman ten years my fathers junior. My dad was a successful chemical engineer, overachiever, workaholic type. My mother stayed at home and raised us until we were getting to be middle school age. We were well nurtured, protected without being sheltered, involved in sports, and encouraged in every way. I do not have a degree of any kind and am not qualified to analyze my childhood but the picture I'm trying to paint is of a safe, comfortably middle-class background in a good school district. Growing up in a home with educated parents who loved eachother, didn't use drugs or get drunk, didn't go to jail, didn't scream and fight and hit eachother. No sexual or physical abuse. None of the classic red flags, no alarms, no clues as to why I'm back in jail on my third parole violation since my release in 2009. It would seem I am where I am in life strictly as a result of my own poor choices. I could of been a lawyer, maybe a college professor, whatever. I somehow managed to squander these advantages, take a life full of promise and possibilities and repeatedly smash it into slivers of what it could have been. I'm like a man who's standing at an open window with my dick hanging out and over& over & over, I'm slamming that window down on my poor beat up penis. To look at my background you'd think I would've grown up to be a porn star. Why did I choose the window? What the fuck am I doing in prison? I still don't know, but based on my results in life so far, I'm good at being incarcerated and have not yet managed to shift that energy into being good at freedom. In the window metaphor, my dick is my life and I;ve smashed it the fuck up. Peace.

Sunday, February 5, 2012

2/5/12

   I took a 10 year plea on my 19th birthday. That's when I started thinking I was special. I've never been superstitious,for a long time I didn't even believe in God, but the events in my life have led me to the conclusion that I'm here for a reason. I've spent years stumbling through crime and incarceration looking for that purpose. I'm still stumbling, once again incarcerated, trying to figure it out.
   There was a time when the future looked like it held alot of promise but fucked up choices and drug addled thinking derailed my life at an early age. On April 25th 2002 I was arrested for drug related kidnapping and armed robbery. I spent the next seven and a half years in the foulest prisons in Georgia, literally coming of age in the penitentiary.
   There's alot of misconceptions about the prison system and from what I've seen on TV, alot of public interest in it too. I don't know a whole lot about anything but when it comes to understanding life behind bars inside Georgias level 5 chaingangs, it's not stretching the truth to say that I'm an expert. This is my blog with my observations, advice, and experiences as they pertain to doing time in the pen.
   It's hard to believe I'm locked up again but the time has come to BELIEVE IT. Luckily I've only got 10 months left until I "max out" in November. 2 days inside jail or prison is too long for sure, but in the grand scheme of things this little 10 months is a trifling irritation. I'm tired of wasting time of course and part of doing time is knowing how to make the most of it, take it as a given that I'll be doing that for this last mild stretch.
   I'd be disturbed to think that anyone (particularly the Cobb County parole officer who gloated in my face when he told me I was going back) believes I'm in here with my spirit broken, this is just the final chapter in my journey through "corrections". To repeat an overused phrase, I could do this 10 months standing on my head. Ain't nothin to it but to do it.
   The real damage is to my family and friends, people who'll be missing me. My thoughts are constantly with my mother, who has stood by me unwaiveringly through it all. God bless her and God bless all my family. To everyone I let down, please forgive me. I love y'all.
   I'm convinced that our justice system is broken. There's so many gifted, good hearted people trapped inside here, victims of circumstance, poverty stricken, drug addicted, lost but full of potential. To be fair, prison is also full of the most ignorant, depraved, and sexually deviant scum to ever crawl the earth. Its been my dubious honor to have had many a misadventures with this vermin over the years. I'll spend time later revisiting these events in this blog.
   In practice, jail and prison serve to house the poorer segments of society. The best justice is reserved for the rich. Right now, if I had a thousand dollars, I'd almost certainly be out in April. Instead, I'm gone until November. That's a difference of 7 months. Now think about how small a thousand dollars is. This cruel twist of fate is the result of misfiled paperwork. Talk about feeling like a number. Over half a year of my life, and it's all down to how a judge wrote " credit for time served". Kinda makes you feel insignificant and maybe a little bitter. The violin is playing my song.
   So now I'm sitting in Cobb County jail, waiting for the gears of justice to turn and a bed to become available in prison. This usually takes a month or two. The first waystation on my journey will be the Georgia Diagnostics & Classification Prison at Jackson. They'll shave my head, keep me locked in a cellhouse 23 hours a day, and do a battery of tests, intelligence, a physical, take my DNA, etc. Based on the seriousness of my crime and criminal history, I'll be classified as either close, medium, or minimum and shipped to a prison according to that classification level.
   It will be interesting to see how I'm classified this time. I'm back on a parole violation, only have 10 months left, but my convictions were for robbery, a violent charge, and my previous behavior in prison was checkered at best. They've never cut me a break before so I'm guessing that I'll be close security again. We'll see within 90 days.
   Sometimes you gotta laugh to keep from crying. The treatment, the circumstances,the conditions, the lifestyle inside of jail and prison, it's fucking outrageous. We as convicted felons are villanized  to such a ludicrous extent, it's comical. It's as if we've got a super human power to do heinous shit, like because someone's in prison they're snarling through a mouthful of fangs, spitting venom, counting down the days until they're released to rape and pillage the elderly. Haha. Bitch please. The reality is far removed from that popular fantasy.
    Here's my humble approximation. Of all inmates in prison, 10% are seriously twisted, mentally deranged, evil motherfuckers. In an ideal world, this is who belongs in prison alongside the next 10%, sexual deviants. That leaves 80%, the overwhelming majority of us, who are incarcerated for drugs, directly or indirectly. From robberies to assaults to sales cases, follow the trail from the crime and you can believe you'll arrive at a big pile of drugs. The great myth of the superpredator criminal really translates to the drug dealer and drug user that made poor choices. Prison is home to the addict. The gangster. the killer, the pimp, the dope dealer, the thief, the liar, the con artist, all these versions of criminal, and the common denominator is drugs one way or another. That's real talk y'all.