‘Did he go down?’
‘Oh, yeah. He was finished. I put him on his bunk, but he couldn’t keep still ’cause of the pain. An hour later, it’s count time. A guard comes by. I’m using the toilet. My celly rolled over and blood came out of his mouth in front of the guard. He said I’d assaulted him in his sleep. They took me to the hole. I was charged with dangerous and deadly assault on an inmate. I got a seven-and-a-half-year sentence that ran concurrent with my other time. The cops thought I was a real bad character after that.’
I usually end up growing close to the people I blog about and T-Bone is no exception. He asks about England. He dreams of going to see the ruins of the Roman Empire, such as Hadrian’s Wall. He hopes his criminal record doesn’t disqualify him from getting a passport. Smiling, he states with confidence that I’m going to be an author and he’ll be my bodyguard. We have a heated discussion about politics, US military action and the crisis in the Middle East.
I start to post his stories to Jon’s Jail Journal. He quickly becomes as popular as Two Tonys and She-Ra – whose generous blog readers send letters and books.
Some of the whites express disdain over T-Bone visiting my cell because he’s black. One night when T-Bone is walking laps around the yard I offer to join him, but he tells me to stay in my cell for my own safety. I ask him what could be safer than being in the company of the biggest man on the yard. He laughs and allows me to accompany him. We stroll by the perimeter fence. Clusters of prisoners adhering to racial segregation express their disapproval. Some heckle us. One calls us lovers. With my pulse ratcheting up, I regret having suggested we walk together. T-Bone breaks his stride, casts the prisoner a mean gaze and tells him to shut up. The prisoner backs down. We continue walking.
44
A prisoner wielding a foot-long shank passes my cell door, his face obscured by a white towel folded like a cowboy’s neckerchief over his nose. I jump up and watch his tattooed, muscular physique march towards the perimeter fence, prisoners scattering out of his way, locking themselves in their cells. He yells at a dozen staff members on the other side of the chain-link, including a female filming him with a camcorder. The guards appear to be negotiating, drawing him closer. When he gets within several feet, they open up with pepper spray, painting his skin fake-tan orange. He howls and runs to a shower, strips naked, rubs his face and body with his wet trousers and puts them back on. For two hours, he struts around the yard, flapping his arms, flexing his muscles, shaking the shank above his head, shouting at the guards.
Wielding shotguns with live rounds, SRT members appear on the other side of the fence, wearing helmets with visors and shank-proof black vests. A female sergeant yells orders at them to line up and take aim.
‘Before you kill me, let me talk to you!’ he yells, seven shotguns pointing at him.
‘Drop the weapon!’
Although I don’t want to see him get killed, I’m compelled to watch.
‘Just let me talk to you, please!’
‘Drop the weapon now!’
For a few seconds, he says nothing, squaring off as if daring them to shoot. I brace to hear gunfire. Eventually, he drops the shank.
‘Put your hands on your head and kneel down!’
He complies. Guards charge onto the yard from the chow hall. They beat him flat on his stomach and pin him with their knees until a white van appears. He’s transported, heavily chained, to a super-maximum prison.
Due to his actions, days go by with the prison on lockdown. We’re strip-searched, and guards wearing rubber gloves ransack our cells. A shank is found in a mattress belonging to Slingblade’s old-timer cellmate, prolonging the lockdown. It’s obviously not theirs but both are cuffed and dragged off to a punishment block to be interrogated with a view to criminal prosecution. Meals in plastic trays are delivered by guards. With my door electronically locked and the window barely able to open, hardly any fresh air gets in. It’s hard to maintain yoga discipline with the constant irritation of sweaty, itchy skin. I read with my fan aimed directly at my crotch, hoping to soothe skin itching as if ants are crawling on it.
Every day, I look forward to the nightly mail delivery. I receive a letter from my sister and open it fast. Jade has agreed to meet her in a few days. She’ll let me know how it goes. I grin. If she’s meeting my sister, then she hasn’t written me off. I ponder the possibilities with Jade until I pass out in a sticky heap on the mattress.
Off lockdown, I greet T-bone on the yard.
‘What’s going on with you and Jade?’ he asks.
‘She got back with her boyfriend. I can’t blame her. It was good while it lasted, but how can I expect a woman like her to want to go out of her way to come and visit me in this shithole?’
‘It’s because you haven’t stepped up to the plate,’ T-Bone says, smiling confidently.
‘What are you on about?’ I ask, confused.
‘I forgot, they don’t play baseball in England,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘They play cricket. You need to stick it in her wicket. Tell her how you truly feel about her.’
‘When I did that last summer, she backed away,’ I say.
‘And so did you back away. You need to tell her to leave Sancho alone.’ Sancho is the name prisoners call the man who steals his partner. ‘Tell her to get back down here, so you can give her a bit of old English know-how.’
‘I can’t satisfy her needs from in here, though!’
‘It doesn’t matter. She’s fascinated with you. If she’s with Sancho, it’s just ’cause it’s convenient for the moment.’
‘She’s engaged! I can’t expect her to put her life on hold for me.’
‘She obviously already did. She visited you. Has she found a yoga expert who can get into extreme positions while tickling her thang?’
I laugh.
‘How many times has she visited?’
‘A few.’
‘She’s in love with you, then.’
‘How do you figure?’
‘For her to be messing around with a guy in the joint like that, she’s got to be up to something serious.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘At least you’re not thinking with your thang, but I think you may have stepped on it. Do you love her?’
‘In a way. I was head over heels last summer.’
‘Have you told her what your feelings are – your desires, your aspirations?’
‘I’ve covered it.’
‘But it must really come from the heart. Put a little soul into it, brother.’ T-Bone points at a bird of prey gliding, slowly, majestically, as if it owns the sky. ‘That’s a hawk. It’s a sign for me that the day’s gonna be all right. I’ll catch you on the weekend.’
I return to my cell more optimistic about Jade. T-Bone has that effect on me.
45
Still writing Two Tonys’ autobiography, I spend hours daily with him. During breaks, we discuss what’s going on in our lives. Proudly, he says he has a daughter around my age and that they’re finally in touch. She’s been sending him books and money to spend on commissary. He’s hoping she’ll visit soon and he’ll get to see his grandchildren for the first time. He always asks how my family are doing. I tell him they’re busy planning my sister’s wedding, which, sadly, I’ll miss because I’m inside. When I tell him what’s going on in my life, I find his frank advice reassuring. I’m confident he wants me to succeed. Sometimes, it feels as if he’s infusing me with his spirit because he’s never getting out, imparting knowledge he knows I’ll put to good use. He’s convinced I’ll be an author and insists I keep ‘sharpening my pencil’ – practising my skills. Even if I don’t win the race, he says I’ll always be his horse.
In my cell, sitting on a chair, I say to him, ‘I’m thinking about asking the shrink for advice about staying away from drugs when I get out.’
‘What do you wanna know about drugs?’ Two Tonys says, standing by the toilet. ‘I’ve done them and sold them, and killed for them in a rou
ndabout way, drug debts and shit like that.’
‘I’m going to ask for some general advice. Dr Owen seems really intelligent.’
‘How the fuck’s he gonna tell you to stay away from drugs?’ Moving to the centre of the cell, Two Tonys throws his hands up. ‘What does he know? Has he ever been hooked? Ask him that. Does he know the thrill of driving down the highway after you’ve just blown a motherfucker’s jaw off, high on crystal meth? Your mind’s tripping hard and fast, and you’re listening to Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall”, thinking you just made the most intelligent decision in your life ’cause you’re so fucking smart on drugs. You’re high. You’re Jet Li, Arnie and Sly Stallone all rolled into one.’
Nodding, but keen to defend Dr Owen, I say, ‘I see what you’re saying – the shrink’s an academic – but he seems to know his stuff.’
‘All he can tell you is there’s nerve-endings in your head, like a little clit, that twitch when you do drugs and make you think, Man, I’m having a great time. How can I get more of this stuff ’cause I really like this feeling? I’m so smart. I’m so handsome. I’m so tough. They’re all looking at me in this nightclub, saying, “Man, who is that guy?”’
‘So, what advice you got?’
‘Don’t fucking do it! And don’t hang around with people who are doing it or else you’ll end up doing it, too. I don’t care how cool your friends who want you to do drugs think they are, you’ve got to understand that all the values and decision-making processes that you’ve acquired along the road of life, which parents, aunts, uncles, schoolteachers have taught you – right from wrong, good from bad, smart from stupid – you’re gonna throw them out the fucking window on drugs. I remember being in those discotheques back in the day with a bad-ass three-piece Armani suit on, gold chains around my neck, packing a five-shot Smith & Wesson .38, my Rolex, my pinkie rings, as high as Ike Turner on coke, and that’s a motherfucker who grew a moustache just so he could catch the rocks falling out of his fucking nose. I knew everybody in the place was looking at me, thinking, Man, oh, man! Boy, is he cool. And the reason I knew that is ’cause the drugs told me so. It started out recreationally for me. It turned into a dependency. Let me tell you something, ’cause you’re getting out next year. I guarantee that you’ll be right back in here if you go back to drugs. That is if you live long enough. If someone doesn’t kill you. If you don’t OD. Like I’ve told you before, there’s a BD, a DD and an AD in my life. Before Drugs, During Drugs and After Drugs. The most horrendous and costly decisions I ever made in my life happened During Drugs. Many people lost their lives. I lost my decision-making processes. How the fuck can a guy like me go from living in a five-level house in a beautiful subdivision in Anchorage, Alaska, driving a gold Cadillac Eldorado and a silver Jag, with people around me who cared about me, to sitting at the back of a Greyhound bus at a food stop, watching people eat their fucking hamburgers ’cause I haven’t got any money in my pocket?’
His advice stirs up my wolves. ‘Don’t you think people can do a little bit of drugs and function fine?’
‘Not if you’re weak. It could be alcohol. It could be marijuana. One leads to others. Supposedly Cary Grant took plenty of acid after he was 60. That’s OK if you’re Cary Grant and you’ve got a manager and motherfuckers who can protect you from your fucked-up decision-making processes. But if you’re just out there, climbing the ladder, don’t do it!’
‘What about drug-addicted celebrities?’
‘They’re a bunch of fuck-ups, too. Look at Whitney Houston or Kurt Cobain. What possessed Kurt Cobain to climb up to his loft and blow his brains out when he had the number one band in the world?’
‘Heroin.’
‘And Robert Downey, Jr. How many times has he crashed and burned? And then there’s motherfuckers who turn into monsters. Look at Charles Manson with the women on LSD, driving around LA sticking turkey forks in people’s bellies, cutting pregnant women open to look at their foetuses and giggling while they’re doing it. They weren’t insane. They were from Iowa and Nebraska. Their daddies were grocery store managers and shit like that. How did Charles Manson control them? With drugs. They’re bad, man. Back in the ’70s, when coke was chic, they lied to us.
They told us we couldn’t get addicted. Cocaine wasn’t like that scumbag heroin that made you wanna lie around all day, puking and scratching your ass and balls. They were wrong.’
‘So, what’s your advice for me when I get out?’
‘Listen, Shaun. I like you. You’re a nice guy. The cards turned on you and you wound up in this motherfucker not because you’re bad or evil but because you made bad decisions due to taking drugs. Get out of here and just don’t take them any more. Stay the fuck away from them. It’s that fucking simple. You can spend all the money in the world on shrinks, drug counsellors and thirty-grand-a-month rehab centres, but the bottom line is, you’ve just got to fucking say no!’
After he leaves, I ponder his advice. I know not to do drugs, but the situation is more complex. Yes, I’m off drugs now, but I fear for the future. Dramatic things tend to happen in my life. What if I get stressed out and resume drugs? By asking if drugs are OK in certain situations, part of me must be stuck in that world. Two Tonys is right: the door to that world needs to be welded shut and I must take responsibility by the choices I make. I’m going to put the same question to Dr Owen, curious to compare his answer with Two Tonys’.
46
Dr Owen’s listening to ‘The Godfather Waltz’. He reads my thought journal, documenting highs – how I calmly read a long passage in SMART Recovery class and how I transferred nervous energy into writing – and lows – getting mad at Frankie for instigating wrestling when I was trying to write.
‘Before we begin, is there anything you’d like to discuss?’
‘Yes, there is,’ I say. ‘I’d like to get your advice about drugs. Obviously, I don’t need to be running around raves doing designer drugs. But where do I draw the line? It seems everyone in the world is on drugs, if you include alcohol, tobacco and prescription pills. Can I drink a glass of wine with my parents over dinner? Can I take Xanax for anxiety before flying?’
‘There are two things you need to think about. First, you need awareness and mindfulness to understand the situations and the premises that are drawing you to drugs. Second, you need an awareness of how drugs work. On the wall behind me is a diagram of the limbic system, a system of nerves and networks that, when stimulated, make you feel good and tell you, Let’s get higher and higher. Then, doing more drugs gives you immediate gratification. Instead of seeking such chemically induced extremes, you must learn how to activate it at lower natural levels. Ecstasy, ketamine or whatever don’t come in nature; they are refined substances that cause huge cascades of neurotransmitters. You need to think about what gives you a little euphoria without doing drugs.’
‘Writing. Exercise. Sex!’ I say, smiling, hoping to be prescribed plenty of the latter.
‘But frequent sexual encounters are not a positive addiction,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘If you’re having sex compulsively, you’re not enjoying it.’
‘I never had sex I didn’t enjoy,’ I say, hoping to make him laugh.
He remains serious. ‘If you’re increasing the amount, and your sexual aggression is escalating, doesn’t that interfere with your ability to function normally?’
My smile fades. ‘I don’t know. I think we’re designed for sex and it’s a good natural, healthy thing.’
‘Sex is a good thing, but becoming a sex addict isn’t. It may be pleasurable in the heat of the moment. Some people misappropriate Tantra for Tantric sex.’
‘Sex addicts?’
‘Yes. The idea is mindfulness. It’s part of being in a healthy relationship with a person.’
‘Are you saying any kind of drug is out of the question?’ I ask, encouraged by the wolves. ‘What if I want to take a one-time trip to do peyote with North Mexican Indians or Amanita mushrooms with Siberians? I
read about professional people who occasionally take these trips as consciousness-raising experiments.’
‘Why would Mexican Indians or indigenous Siberians want you, some Westerner, sharing their sacred rites or rituals?’
‘Are you saying they’d only be doing it for commercial reasons?’
‘Which leads to problems. You’re assuming you can buy a cheap thrill through a mystical experience. A mystical experience is supposed to give you a profound understanding of the universe.’
‘Timothy Leary claimed to get that through LSD.’
‘Maybe he did, but my answer for you is a resounding no,’ he says, raising his voice. ‘There are no shortcuts for you. Ahead is a journey down a long, hard road that’s going to get you where you need to be. If you do drugs once, you’ll want to test yourself again and again. You’ll think: I can do this and this. When, in actuality, your willpower is fucked up by drugs.’
Shocked to hear him use the F word, I sit up straight. He really cares, just like Two Tonys. It’s time to tell him about the wolves.
‘Your neurotransmitters are screwed up by huge chemical loads in the brain. You’ll have to become like a teetotaller who learns to appreciate tea, or a highly sexual person who learns to have sex with one partner, allowing your partner to look into yourself. Yoga will help. Yoga was developed by people who sat outside in isolated situations. Their ideas have matured over 5,000 years of tradition. You need to find things that make sense to you and explore those to achieve unity.’
Prison Time Page 19
