Becoming A Son

by David Labrava

  “We are going to JAIL.”

  Once again everything started moving in slow motion. He walked up to the truck just as easy as you please. He pulled out his pistol.

  “You boys want to step out real slow now.” The cop said.

  We got out of the truck and all of a sudden I really noticed the aroma of fresh cut weed. It was thick.

  “Smells like you got some weed in there.”

  “No Sir. Nothing but compost.” Jeff said. He looked bad.

  “Mind if I have a look?”

  “Not at all. If you have a warrant.” Jeff said as calm as can be.

  Now that pissed that cop off something fierce. Looked like he was gonna turn three shades of red he was so mad.

  “Tell you what I’m gonna do then. I’m gonna hold you two on suspicion. Wake up the D.A. and when he says I can search your truck, I’m gonna search it.”

  “Do your worst.” Jeff said un amused.

  Jeff never took any shit from anyone. He knew we were going to jail. Me I just shut the hell up whenever cops are around me. Habit.

  It took about twenty minutes before the District Attorney showed up in his bathrobe. Not good. Soon as he got out of his car he smiled.

  “Search it. You have my authority.” He said glaring at me and Jeff.

  A whole bunch of folks from the town had gathered to watch what was happening. The first cop walked over and lifted the tarp separating the compost from the boxes of weed. He opened one box turned around pulled his gun out and faced us.

  “Put your hands on your heads.”

  “Really?” Jeff was so bored with this whole thing.

  “Yeah REALLY.”

  Since he knew we were going to jail for sure he just wanted to get inside, call his uncle and get out and get some dope. Your mind works real fast when you are a junkie, even if everything else is moving in slow motion.

  31

  I walked up to the Willits Jail and rang the bell. I took a last look around at freedom. It was surreal. Early morning birds chirping people going to work, and I am getting locked up.

  The building looked pretty foreboding with the two rows of fences around it and razor wire on top. It was probably the cleanest looking building in town. For sure it was the newest one.

  I pressed on the buzzer for an obnoxiously long time. A gruff voice came over the intercom.

  “Who is it?”

  “I think you have a room for me.” I said.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Labrava.”

  I waited for what seemed like an eternity. That two minutes waiting outside to be locked up inside seemed to last forever. I looked around not knowing what to expect. I took in the peacefulness of the outside world knowing I wouldn’t see it for a long time if I ever did see it again. You never know what can happen. I was fully aware of this fact.

  “Yes Sir. The Honeymoon suite is available. Come on in.” The cop said over the intercom. Wiseass cop. You cannot prepare for something like this. You just have to let it happen.

  The electric door popped open and I took a breath and went inside. Same drill as always. Strip. Bend. Nuts up. Cough. Dress. Get your bedding. Go to your cell. This was my new home.

  This was the first time I really went inside for any length of time. I had never been to the joint, to the pen, to the big house, the PENITENTIARY. I’ve been to a bunch of state jails, juvenile hall, but not the pen. There is a difference you know.

  After processing they put me in a room with six bunks inside with a table for the inmates to eat at. In each room were four bunk beds and the place was full.

  So that’s eight guys in each room, which makes twentyfour guys each side, fortyeight guys in the tank total. A lot of guys were in for drunk in public, weed possession or misdemeanor violence. They were a bunch of rednecks and pot farmers just like me.

  Most guys would sleep the day away and party all night, playing dominoes or cards or making pruno. These guys had cell-lab cookeries that were making Pruno by the quart. Late night parties making ‘everything roll’ which is exactly as it sounds, everything mashed up and cooked on a hot plate, then cooked into a log of deliciousness. A roll covered in mashed up crackers and soup and cheese all kinds of shit. Yeah man, now you talking.

  I had made a decision to come out of here better than when I went in. I had just turned eighteen and got caught in a major felony when I got locked up. I got convicted for having seventy seven pounds of weed in my pick up truck. Not bad for the first of fourteen trucks to come down. I got ten months and served about eight of them with good behavior. If you don’t get in any trouble they will shave a little time off your sentence. Not much but every day counts. After I had to serve five years of informal probation.

  I had it all planned out. I was going to Amsterdam as soon as I got out of jail. I would complete my probation in Holland. My girlfriend was Dutch and we both tattooed and worked in the oldest tattoo shop in San Francisco. Having a love interest in another country let me leave with no problem. After I served my time. I knew that was going to be a big hill to climb over.

  I will never forget the first day of jail. One of the rednecks kept eyeing me.

  “Where you from?” He asked me.

  “San Francisco.”

  “You some big city slicker. Huh? A big shot.huh.” He was full of attitude.

  I just stared at the guy till he looked away. Then I knew. This is the guy my dad told me about. The one who needed to be knocked out so everyone knew to not mess with me. I waited till he went into his cell and I went in after him.

  “Where you from?” I asked him. I think I startled him. He didn’t hear me walk in his cell. Before he could answer me I hit him in the face with a right upper reverse punch. Then I gave him an upper cut and dropped like a bag of chips. I walked out of the cell and one of the older guys looked at me.

  “You handle that?” The old guy asked me.

  “Yes Sir.” I said.

  “That’s what I’m talking about.” He said with a smile.

  The old guy gave me a look and I knew everything was gonna be ok. His name was Bruce Hamilton or Hayvenhurst or something like that, some really American name. He grew weed by the acre and got caught with over a ton of it. He was gonna do a year in this place then they would ship him up state to the Pen. He turned out to be the Shotcaller in that tank, and also in the town outside apparently. He was always a pretty fair guy. Even the cops gave him respect.

  That guy I rocked never bothered me again neither did anyone else.

  I got into a routine, I would wake up, eat the breakfast, then when everyone went back to sleep, I would train karate working my way up and down the floor of the tank doing punches blocks and kicks till lunch, then do it again till dinner. I had already spent a lot of time training Karate in my life. I had a Miyamoto Musashi state of mind. I was determined to make this time inside make me a better person.

  The first three months went by ok. I never got out of that tank. The air was kind of stagnant inside. I remember that.

  The place was full of tweakers and dope heads. They made a scheme to get dope in the jail. I watched these guys pool their money together, put it on one guys books, then another guy would come pick it up. Then they all squeezed up to the window and watched him leave.

  “Better get on it.” A big redneck said to a skinny inmate. The redneck had set the whole thing up.

  I watched the skinny guy go into convulsions until the guards came in. He was laying on the ground holding his sides and screaming like he was going to die. The cops took him out on a stretcher.

  “Won’t be long now.” One guy said.

  “I can’t wait.” Said another.

  I watched these guys stare out the window the whole time that the guy was away. Saying how they were going to beat his ass if he doesn’t come through. It’s amazing they didn’t give themselves away and blow the whole gig.

  When the guy finally came back they sat like fiends waiting for him to take a dump in f
ront of everyone, they put a sheet up for privacy but it wasn’t very private. They couldn’t give a damn if that dope just came out of his ass. They were going to put it right up their arm. Amazing.

  While everyone was fiending on their dope, trying to be cool fixing it in different parts of the cell the guy who went and got the dope walked over to me.

  “Was it worth it?” I asked him.

  “Yeah. Only cause I didn’t get caught. I like to get high. I don’t shoot dope though. I had my buddy leave some tin foil.”

  The guy bent over and hit a little line of dope on his foil. You could smoke cigarettes and everyone did in abundance so the cops didn’t notice.

  “Want a hit?”

  I looked around, everyone was either nodding out or trying to be cool as they wiped out their spoon and shot up again. I grabbed the little rolled up tin foil tune and took a big hit. I held it in till I was about to burst and let it out. Loaded. Instantly. I gave it back.

  “Thanks.”

  “Its all good.

  “You weren’t scared about getting caught?” I asked.

  “A little. Aint got much going on the outside anyway. My cousin sells that shit, he was the guy who came and grabbed the money off the books, and planted the dope. So we made a big sale besides getting high. Sounds like an all win to me and him.”

  “How’d you do it?” I was in shock at the risk he took.

  The guy looked around the cell then peered out the door. In our cell everyone was loaded. In the other cells everyone was either playing dominoes cards or sleeping.

  “ You saw me go into convulsions?”

  “Everyone did.”

  “Exactly. The cops aint allowed to ignore that. They gotta take me in to get checked out. Can’t let a prisoner die on their watch. It’s bad for business. The cops set an appointment for me for immediate pickup to the county hospital. My cousin waits there, just like one of the sick folks. When I come in, he goes in the bathroom and plants the dope and shit.”

  “Where?”

  “Gotta be in a good spot for sure. Soon as I got out of the doctor I started getting cramps. I made a hell of a racket, saying how I will never make it back to the jail, I gotta take a shit, it’s an emergency, whatever it takes to get in that bathroom. And of course the cop goes in and looks all around before I went in.”

  “Wow.” Amazing.

  “Lucky for me he left a little Vaseline or else I would have had to shove that rig and dope and foil up my ass dry.”

  “It doesn’t sound too fun even with Vaseline.” I said.

  “Sometimes you gotta use that man pocket. These guys would not understand not pulling it off.”

  “You got bigger balls than me.”

  “I just got a bigger need.”

  I went over to my bunk and laid down to enjoy my high. Everyone in the cell was nodding out. It was kind of funny.

  I stayed in that tank for about three months before they moved me to the other side. The other side was for people with less than half their time left. It was much better. You could walk around outside, lift weights and everyone got their own room. They were rooms, not cells. We got locked in every night, and there was a little window on the door for the guard to walk by and check on you every hour, but it was still better. I started counting the days.

  Every night these kids would draw straws and the short straw had to sneak out of the jail through a hole in the fence run about one hundred fifty yards down a creek in the bushes where there was a liquor store. They would have their friends meet them and buy bottles of booze and then sneak back in the jail.

  I was absolutely amazed at the risks people would take to get high. I never imagined getting high when I went inside. They had weed and liquor, whatever they wanted. Except their freedom, which is they wanted the most and risked it further every night.

  When I got to the other side I heard about my friend Jeff’s time inside. He was my co defendant but he did his time right when I went on the run. He was out before I went in. Soon as people figured I was Jeff’s co defendant the stories started flowing.

  I guess when Jeff was here he got a job washing the cop’s cars. He would put on his street clothes, take the city bus to Police station, wash all the cars then take the bus back. Jeff had it figured out real quick. He would have his girl meet him with dope in a hotel, bang her lights out then smuggle the dope back in and stay loaded. He sold just enough dope to some inmates, the right ones, the ones with power, so no one snitched on him.

  If you keep busy inside the time goes by faster. I was drawing one envelope for an inmate for two items on his commissary. Being able to draw is big inside. Everyone is missing their family, and they like sending personalized envelopes back, which were my specialty. That helped me a lot staying busy because all of a sudden my time was up.

  You can’t sleep the night before you get out. The excitement is too great. I didn’t even try to sleep. I sat on my bunk all packed up to go all night long. They always want to kick you out before breakfast. Better save that meal.

  I was sitting on my bunk when the guard came over and unlocked my door. He looked down and saw my clothes and bedding all folded. He looked at his clip board, then at me and smiled.

  “Labrava. Today seems like a good day to go home. Doesn’t it?”

  “YES SIR.”

  I jumped off my bunk, grabbed my stuff and walked out of there. I got to the door and looked back. Everyone was sleeping. There was all levels of snoring. It was kind of funny. Like a cartoon.

  “SEE YA IN THE FUNNY PAPERS!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. About half the room sat up. The guard just shook his head. I don’t know why I did that. I just didn’t feel like slipping out without making a sound. Must be the Holden Caulfield in me.

  They processed me out and I walked over to the next building, which was probation. I got my five years of forms to fill out. One form a month for five years. Sixty forms. Informal probation is no big deal. Just had to stay out of trouble. I wasn’t worried, I was going to Amsterdam. Everything is legal there. What trouble could I get in I thought.

  I took a bus from Willits back to San Francisco and went into the tattoo shop. My girl had left me a ticket to Holland and Sammy had left me a pound of weed from the Harvest. I took the pound and sold most of it in one deal, then took that money and went to where Jeff was staying and got loaded.

  Jeff had graduated from smoking dope to shooting it. He held up a thousand pack of diabetic syringes.

  “This is the only way to go.”

  “That aint for me. I’ll just smoke it. “ I sat there smoking dope on foil while Jeff was shooting up. It was kind of sad watching him try to find a vein. He wasn’t the best at it.

  That was the last time I ever saw Jeff. About three weeks later Zack called me.

  “Jeff’s dead.” Zack said crying into the phone. They were real close.

  I was stunned, even if I saw this coming a mile away. The first thing I thought was that didn’t even take a year, from discovery to death.

  “What happened?” I asked still in shock. I knew the answer.

  “I don’t now. Did too much I guess. He holed up in a hotel and paid for a week. Had a bunch of dope and coke on him when they found him. He must have been shooting speedballs. That’s the new thing.”

  “Speedballs?”

  “Yeah. He laid there for three days before they found him. He must have smelled up the place something fierce. It was in the paper and everything. The headline read ‘Local man found dead’ they didn’t even release his name till they contacted his mom.”

  I hung up the phone and stood there for a minute. It was cold in the city all of a sudden. I felt the loss this one human being I knew so well which now left a void. Even if I hadn’t spoken to Jeff in months I always knew he was there. Now he wasn’t. That was my first big loss in life. Losing that friend. I didn’t know a lot but I knew it was time for me to get out of there.

  32

  I landed at Schipol airport i
n Amsterdam wearing my best suit. Fresh from Jail in new country felt like a new beginning. I had no idea how true that was.

  I used to always wear suits. I thought that looked classy. Suits that were a little big in the shoulders. Oversized. I came from the city so I dressed like a city thug. Just like the character OddJob in the James Bond movie. I always boxed and I thought it was cool after training to put on a suit. Classy. Snazzy. Serious. Probably cause that’s how my Dad rolled. Even if we didn’t get along too great, I revered him. He wore suits and he was a boxer and a giant. At least in my eyes.

  I pushed a cart through baggage claim with basically ALL of the stuff I owned.

  “What you got there?” The customs cop asked me looking at my pile of stuff.

  “Everything I own.”

  “Proceed.”

  I would have thought they would at least want to give it a glance. Nope. There is an open customs policy in Amsterdam. Everyone can bring in anything they want. That’s why there is so much drugs here. At least that’s what I figured.

  My girl was standing there with a friend of hers named Jeroen.

  “Hallo.”

  “Hello.”

  “This is Jeroen.”

  He helped me with my bag and we went to the car. Little car. Everyone drives little cars in Europe.

  “Let’s get some weed.” I said.

  “We will.” My girl was in no rush for me to get high. She new I like getting high. I got high a little too much in her mind.

  “He’s got to see it with his own eyes.” Jeroen said.

  Jeroen knew I couldn’t even imagine buying weed over the counter. We drove into the city and went to a coffeeshop, which is where they sell weed and hash. Jeroen was as excited as I was, not to buy weed though, but to see me buy it. He pointed to another Coffeeshop a few doors down and explained how it worked.

  “If the sign says coffeeshop with a C, then it sells weed, if it says Koffieshop with a K then it sells Koffie. Come on.”

  We went inside and they had a menu. I couldn’t believe it. I bought myself some weed and hash and rolled a joint right there. It was so civilized. Everyone was smoking with tobacco rolled in it, which I wouldn’t do. And not many people wanted to smoke a pure weed joint. I got known for smoking pure weed all the time.