CHAPTER FIFTEEN
It took me two weeks to bond out of jail, and it only took that long because the judge kept putting off the hearing. By the time I got home, I discovered that someone had ripped me off. They had found my hiding spot under my shed. I went around for weeks, months trying to figure out who it could have been and what I should do about it.
I still had some money in other places, but the bulk of it was gone. I had taken the advice of Caesar Molina, my gun contact. He had always told me to be ready to be caught, to lose everything. He had said that he made sure to have contingency plans for when the crap hit the fan. Because of that, he gave me his attorney’s number.
His attorney, Robert Justice III, was a very powerful and influential man. He lived in the state capital and was childhood friends with the current Governor. He rubbed elbows with all of the movers and shakers all the time.
He also didn’t care if his clients were innocent or guilty. He just cared about being paid.
My initial investment was one-hundred thousand dollars. His retainer was twenty-five thousand. That was what was in his account books. Another thirty-thousand, a miscellaneous fee, went directly into his pocket. He put the remaining fifty-thousand in an escrow account, in case I was ever arrested, in order to pay bond.
Well, when that day came, I was sure glad to have listened to Caesar’s advice, but I didn’t like that I had to sit in jail for so long.
Obviously, someone knew that I had all of that cash stashed away. My thoughts swirled as I tried to figure out who? Was it my attorney? Was he in cahoots with a crooked judge, or maybe a bad cop? Or, was it someone else?
There was really no way to figure it out, unless someone made a mistake and ran their mouth about it. Besides, at that moment, I had to change gears and make staying out of prison my main concern.
With that in mind, I sat back and hoped that my attorney was as good as everyone said he was.
Turns out he was worth every penny I paid him. Six months after my arrest, I was signing a plea deal; eight years in prison at thirty percent, which worked out to about two and a half years with ‘good-time.’ My attorney got the D.A. to recommend that all of the charges be run concurrently.
Of course, I was pretty angry. I’d expected him to get everything dropped, or at least, a few years of probation. I sure never thought I would be going to prison.
The judge who sentenced me didn’t like the deal I got. She said in my sentencing hearing that I got off too easy. Wow, if only she knew the truth! She also said that she knew that I had been committing break-ins for quite a while and that with my burglary skills, she would see to it that the prison would be notified that I was an extreme escape risk. That’s why I was heading to a maximum security facility.
It was a cold, blustery day in January when the bus pulled up to the prison. Ice and snow were everywhere. After we passed through the gates, about fifty of us walked from the bus to a small building that had a sign over the door that read, ‘Intake.’ We were all wearing cheap, slip-on canvas shoes and thin cotton jumpsuits. My body was shivering the whole two to three minutes we were outside. The bus had not had any heating at all, but it’s been at least five to ten degrees warmer inside if only because of body heat, and the wind had not been blowing in there.
When we got into the building, we all moved to some benches and were told to strip off our clothes. Four guards came down the line, looking at us front and back and asking us to squat and cough. I’m glad they didn’t perform a cavity search. I had some money hidden.
Once we were through with that bit of unpleasantness, we were led in our undershorts, to a counter and issued our state prison uniforms, an ugly set of orange and white shirt and pants.
After we were dressed, a guard passed out large envelopes to everyone containing booklets and papers that had all of the prison’s rules and regulations in them. He gave us a brief overview, pretty much telling us to be careful, that your life wasn’t worth more than a Ramen soup or a candy bar. He also said that we should all try to stay away from tobacco, drugs, and alcohol, and not to get into debt, that all of those could easily get you killed.
That pretty much marked the beginning of my next phase of life.
It didn’t take me much time to adjust to the prison life. When most guys first got to prison, they were scared. Prior to getting there, they heard all sorts of horror stories about it, getting robbed, stabbed, raped. Those things caused considerable fear.
Not in me. My fears, or should I say concerns, were having to be around queers and all of the idiocy and games that came with them.
I never paid them much attention on the street, but I hated the thought of having that type of person in my face, so to speak, everyday.
My only other concern was being put in a situation where I might have to kill someone. I only had a few years to do, then, I was free. I didn’t want an eight year sentence to turn into a life sentence.
Prison was bad, but it was tolerable. Like anything else, it had its’ good points and bad points. I knew it could always be worse.
I was told by some of the ‘old-heads,’ older prisoners, not to trust anyone, that no one was your friend in prison.
Well, that information meant nothing to me. I came to prison with no friends, and I had no plans on making any while I was there.
And yet, despite my feelings, I did.
My days consisted of studying, eating at chow hall, working out and showering, then locking down for the evening. Every morning, I woke up to the sound of my cell door being opened by the guard, followed shortly by someone shouting, “Chow, chow!”
I ate whatever they passed out, half the time not even knowing what it was. It was usually some type of flavorless slop that most people wouldn’t even feed their dogs. The Governor had made some kind contract with a company called, Quick Chill, to supply all of the food for the state’s prisons. I heard he had stock in it. All I know is that it was really bad. I had seen some of the wild animals that lived on the compound; skunks, squirrels, even crows, sniff at the garbage and turned and walked away from it. I guess we were lower than them.
But then, you know, society as a whole has already viewed prison inmates as nothing more than animals.
I witnessed cruel treatment, indifference, and plain old neglect. And as far as I could tell, no one outside of the walls, not the state, not the churches, not even many family members seemed to care. It was a damned shame.
As far as meeting decent people in prison, I met quite a few. Although a lot of the men in there had less than average IQ’s and some were just plain insane, a lot of them were very intelligent. They had just been brought down by addictions to drugs, alcohol, even money. Many of those addictions had caused other tragic events and had cascaded like dominoes, spilling them into the prison system.
For example, a man, a good man, law-abiding, loses his job and can’t find another one. He then loses his home. That leads to his family abandoning him. Then he turns to turns to drugs or alcohol. These serve as a band-aid, covering up the wound. A temporary fix to help make from one day to the next. This causes you to be selfish, caring for nothing but yourself. You neglect your kids, treat your friends and extended family like trash. Under the influence, you stop caring. You grow more unhappy as you watch everything that ever meant anything to you slip away and vanish.
Then, you do something stupid; careless; self-destructive. Of course, you don’t realize it at the time because you’re still under the influence of whatever substance has enslaved you.
Then, you get caught doing something. Maybe someone gets hurt, maybe even killed. Now, it’s too late.
That’s when reality sets in.
From the confines of an 8x12 prison cell, the old man emerges. The man you used to be. The one that is sickened by what he has become and is wishing for another chance. A chance to go back in time and try to work out life’s troubles differently. This happens more often than you think.
I met truck drivers, mechanics, lawyers, preachers. Men from all walks of life. Some were young, some old. The thing they all had in common was they were all trying to make it through one more day.
For me, prison was more of a school than anything else. In the time I spent there, I learned more about the world and life than I had in my entire time on the streets.
The men I spoke to in prison didn’t acquire their knowledge solely from books. Much of what they shared with me came from their life experience.
For example, an ex-Navy Seal named Neville Jones taught me about ghillie suits. These were special clothes that snipers and others in the military would wear to camouflage or disguise their appearance and allowed them to blend into their environment in order to get closer to the enemy.
They could also allow me to get close to homes during my reconnaissance outings before I decided to break into them.
Neville was a master tactician. He used chess, and an oriental game called, Go, to show me how to think, to plan. To control and manipulate my opponents and even my environment. He also showed me how to apply this information in real-world situations because he always told me that knowledge without application is just information.