by Damon West
Upon arrival here, I was immediately taken to an orientation class. Right off the bat, each man learned his release date. Mine was November 16, 2015. You could feel the tension leave the room when each man was armed with the knowledge that this was really happening. Prison was finally over. Hearing my expiration date called out was a bit surreal. Each man had his ticket punched with half a year to go.
Once everyone had their release dates, the counselor got serious. He passed out a list of Cardinal Rules. These rules, if violated, would immediately revoke your parole and send you back to prison. On the top of this list was “No Fighting.” One of the other rules was no gang activity. With violence and the organized crime that runs the institution of prison off the table, I was already seeing the potential for a long six months.
Moreover, when the counselor told us one of the rules was to report any offenses you saw other offenders make, big or small, my jaw dropped. Snitching, as they called it in prison, was not only encouraged here, it was expected. A peer-driven prison environment where the inmates alerted the authorities on each other, much the way you would do in a civilized society, was about as aggressive of a detox program as there was. In maximum-security prison, I saw men who wore scars from their ears to their mouths for snitching. The scars said, “What you’re hearing, you’re telling.”
Back on Stiles, violence, or the threat of violence, was the glue that held prison together. This was true for maximum security. Here at Kyle, I’d learned the only force greater than violence was freedom.
That threat of losing your freedom had flipped the natural order of prison. For example, the level of disrespect inmates showed towards each other at Kyle was difficult to measure. The smallest man in size or courage had now become equal to the deadliest man. The little guys—the preyed upon, the timid, the weak—now had power and stature they no doubt prayed for when doing their time on more serious units. Their newfound currency was equal for once, and they appeared to be cashing in at every opportunity.
After living in an environment where the slightest accidental contact could be viewed as a declaration of war, it had been a crash course in humility to be bumped into, talked down to, and even called out by inmates you would have taken to the showers and beat mere months ago. Thankfully, I had a program of recovery that was predicated upon humility.
Here, I got to listen to classical music with the backdrop of a day room, if not at peace, then with an understanding there was an implied truce for the duration of prison. Like the saying: “A bad peace is better than a good war.”
But, I get it. The goal was assimilating us back into societal norms, where you could not beat your way out of problems, where you hold others in society accountable, and where, when you saw something, you said something. Cognitive intervention must take over in the free world if we wished to maintain our hard-earned freedoms. Prison was toxic; this was a detox facility.
Vestiges of prison are still present at Kyle. There was simply no way to eradicate many of the norms with which prisons function. One staple of prison which would never change was the premiums put on the television, otherwise known as the Babysitter. In maximum-security prison, the television was limited to local cable. Here there was satellite television, offering infinitely more options. The racial disputes over programming were heightened here, but that was because there was zero threat of violence
It was football season. Thank the Lord this would be my last season in prison. The games were played loud to the point of being obnoxious. Gambling on sporting events was one of the greatest events in the joint. At Kyle, it was no different, with the only exception being that I’d witnessed some guys flat-out not pay up when they lost. This would be unthinkable, and potentially suicidal, in a maximum-security prison. In here, with violence off the table, men were forced to resolve their disputes without their fists or weapons.
My cell, if you could call it that, D-111, was the most comfortable living environment I’d been in since being incarcerated. It was more like a dorm room than a prison bunk. This cell was my sanctuary. When in there, I turned on the classical music and read. The damn thing even had a door I could close, with a knob. Doors in prison were big metal portal-covers, which slid on tracks. A doorknob in a maximum-security prison could be broken off and converted into a weapon.
Also, this place was air-conditioned. I could easily ride out the last ninety days in my cell. But then I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the many hours I spent each day working on my mind, body, and soul.
Out of habit, my days still began early, and I performed the same rituals. The entire pod would be up and ready to start “programming” by 6. It was called programming because that was what the state had sent us here to do, work a program. The classes lasted about five hours each morning, not including individual meetings with your counselor. The curriculum was helpful, with three phases necessary for graduation. One glaring omission was the lack of a required 12-step component to the program.
This program was Texas’ answer to overcrowding. The state had identified the offenders who had chemical dependency issues and diverted them to facilities such as this. There were men here from both the prisons and county jails throughout the state. The men from county were there as part of a program to avoid having to go to prison, freeing up available bunk space in TDCJ for more serious criminals. It offered these men a chance for treatment instead of punishment, and a taste of prison.
It was an odd dichotomy, as many of these county guys had no understanding of what prison was really like. Because this place wasn’t prison, not even close, none of them fully understood the suffocating and hopeless atmosphere of maximum security in Texas. The mantra for many of these men—“Fake it ’til you make it”—was an ingrained philosophy for life, which would surely fail them. A stay at this place was like a six-month time-out until they could go back out and get high.
Some people’s purpose in life is to serve as a warning to others of what not to do. My life is no exception. I’d found a lot of value in the men of this program who had made multiple trips to prison. I’d asked many of them the same question: “What are you going to do when you get out of prison this time?” Their answers, for the most part, provided me with a blueprint for the things I will not be doing when I walk out of here. The principle items on their lists were things like: getting laid, finding their old friends, getting high, getting drunk, getting “paid.” The lists seemed to be more about selfish desires as opposed to how to give back and help others.
Missing entirely from 99 percent of their lists was a program of recovery. If they weren’t into recovery meetings in prison, it was highly unlikely they would ever surrender to a program of recovery on the outside. Case in point, each week here they had a voluntary AA/NA meeting, where I join about twenty guys, out of over five hundred on the unit. Participation was beyond pathetic. The victims of our addictions deserved better.
Always, it came back to the victims of crime. Our sentences were our atonement. After all, penitence was the very root of the word penitentiary. Addicts, internalizing by nature, often only think about things in term of themselves and how their choices affect them. When they talk about prison saving their lives, I challenge them to focus not on their own lives, but the countless scores of potential victims their arrests saved. In my case, I certainly believe this to be one of the most positive aspects of my incarceration.
You either want to change and will go to any lengths to do it or you fake it until you make it, only to repeat this process over and over the rest of your life. Jails, institutions and death were what these living examples showed me were my future if I did not work a program of recovery for the rest of my life.
CHAPTER 25
Hat on Tight
Prison Diary
Monday, November 16, 2015
2:30 a.m.
This is my final diary entry from prison. Sleep escapes me. In a few hours, I will walk out of the Tex
as Department of Criminal Justice, not necessarily a free man, since I will be on parole until 2073—the end of my sixty-five year sentence—but certainly free from the bondage, suffering, and hopelessness that is this physical prison. I’ve learned there are many ways to be imprisoned. Most often, people are imprisoned more by their thoughts than by fences, steel bars, barbed wire, and guard towers. Thankfully, I have mostly endured only the physical side of incarceration, as opposed to the mental or spiritual. Texas owned my body, but it never fully took custody of my mind and soul. That is a God thing.
The final six months at Kyle have taught me much about life. Mostly, I have learned some valuable lessons through observation. My mantra is, “Why make your own mistakes in life when there are so many examples around you from which to learn?”
WATCHING TWO MEN LOSE THEIR PAROLE over a fight really disturbed me. How could any conflict be worth going back to prison? It struck me that this was the question I was going to have to keep in the forefront of my mind, not only during my final weeks in prison, but every day for the rest of my life. Nothing was worth going back to that place.
A few weeks after that fight, I had my first and only real test of freedom. Another inmate, Antoine, had been gunning for me for months. He talked smack anytime he saw me, a barrage of racial insults. The words did not bother me so much as the hatred in his beady little eyes. He was sure to strike one day. In an effort to avoid danger, I stayed away from areas I knew he would be. For example, on the rec yard, he played basketball while I ran. No way was I going to play basketball during these final days anyway. Too much potential for violence.
He lived on my pod, which meant I had to be on guard at all times. There was no reprieve. Worst of all, he knew my sentence, and knew I could not afford to fight and go back to prison. This was a fear that seized me, and he could see it in my eyes, smell it coming out of my pores. My body language betrayed me. There was no way to mask to it.
On the pod one day, the moment I had been dreading had arrived. After group was over and the guards left the pod, Antoine made a beeline for me from across the room. People scattered.
“You’re mine, ho-ass white boy!” Antoine screamed. He was bigger than me. Size, at this point, did not matter. The smallest guy on the pod could send me back to prison if he could draw me into a fight. Size only meant more power behind a punch, which hurts.
I faced Antoine as he pushed me hard. Knowing it was coming allowed me to brace for his push, give a little, and recover quickly, like expecting a hit in football. The needle in my brain went into the red. Fear transformed to fury. Adrenaline began flooding from my brain. I felt my fists clench up and the arrival of the familiar butterflies in my stomach before that first punch. Rage and violence overpowered my thoughts. Survival mode and seven years of instinct were kicking in. This all happened in milliseconds. Then my cognitive thinking kicked in.
I quickly arrested my anger and my brain took over. The only way out of this and not going back to prison was to out-think my opponent. Regaining my balance, I spoke clearly to Antoine. “Look here, man, you want to beat my ass? Go right ahead. Nothing’s worth going back to prison. Matter of fact, I’m gonna lay down on the ground and start screaming while you do it.”
I laid down, curled into a protective ball, and began screaming at Antoine, “Beat my ass, Antoine! Come on, big guy. Show me how tough you are. Get your ass back to prison!” I screamed as loud as I could. It became a taunt.
Antoine was not expecting this. Everyone on the pod was circled around laughing, either at him, at me, or at both of us. His look of hatred changed to confusion. Both of us were in unchartered territory. I was winning.
“Get up, white boy. Fight like a man!” he screamed.
“I am fighting you like a man,” I laughed, “a free man. A smart man. Only one of us is going back to prison today. Quit stalling and do what you’ve been wanting to do. Beat my ass! Beat my ass!”
After no punches or kicks came, I knew he was not going to do anything. My act of protest had averted disaster—for both of us. He called me some more racially derogatory names and walked off. When I got up off that floor, I felt more victorious than after any fight in prison. I had just won the biggest battle, against my biggest opponent: myself.
One thing about prison I will miss is all the time I had to read. I read hundreds of books while incarcerated. I don’t think I could have made better use of my time. Reading allowed me to escape prison mentally, educated me, entertained me, and kept me out of harm’s way. In the entirety of my time in prison, I never saw a fight over a book. Nor did I ever see a man who was reading one drawn into a fight. Safe, time-consuming, and educational. Yes, please.
My parents will finally get to see this new man outside prison walls. I stood my ground and kept my promise to my them, the one I made on the day I was sentenced to sixty-five years in prison. I did not join a white-hate group, I did not get any tattoos, and I am finally the man they raised. They’ll be in the parking lot at 10 a.m., waiting to take me home.
Home.
That word takes on new meaning. For the better part of a decade I have lived in a small space with very few possessions. Tonight, I will reside under their roof for the first time since I left home for college in June of 1994. I wonder if Footprints in the Sand will be on my wall. Knowing my mother, it definitely will.
Looking back on the littered landscape of my life, I can truly see the metamorphosis that has occurred in me. No longer do I live in “self.” I look for the ways I can be most useful to the world around me. If I could make that change in prison, the least fertile soil on the planet, then I can be that type of selfless servant leader in any environment. My world is about to expand, but I am ready. I am here to play the role God assigns, not the one Damon assigns.
What an incredible odyssey this has been. I truly believe God has a purpose in everything He does. It’s inconceivable for me to accept this is the end of my story. I refuse to believe the story is Damon had a great life. Damon is an addict. Damon makes victims out of countless people to support his habit. Damon goes to prison for a long time. Damon changes. Damon leaves prison and quietly goes on with life.
No, that’s not acceptable. The best chapters have yet to be written.
Since my arrest in Dallas County on July 30, 2008, I longed to hear the guards yell, “West, pack up your stuff. Hat on tight.” Those words never came. I wasn’t ready then, and God knew it.
With only a few hours left in prison and no chance of sleep in sight, I’m going to close this journal for good and spend the balance of my time meditating. One last chance to listen to God inside these walls.
Photo by Emily Bickford.
Kendell Romero, Clara Romero, and me at my parent’s 50th wedding anniversary on 6/2/18.
A picture with the delegation of administrators from Texas Department of Criminal Justice at the A.C.A. Congress of Corrections in Minneapolis on 8/4/18.
Photo by Michael Orta.
Myself, Sheriff Zena Stephens and our choreographer, Emma Hunter Davis, after our Cop and The Con dance routine at Dancing With The Stars. March 2, 2018.
Picture courtesy of the Beaumont Enterprise.
Dancing With The Stars.
Photo Courtesy of University of Georgia Football.
University of Georgia was the first school to adopt the #coffeebeans as a motivational poster for their locker room and football complex prior to their 2017 national championship runner up season. Many schools have since followed suit.
Photo by Michael Orta.
Arkansas Head Coach, Chad Morris, myself and Randy Ross. Randy is the football ops guy I owe so much of my success to in getting my message in front of teams. April 17, 2018.
Photo by Michael Orta.
Dabo Swinney, his wife, Kathleen, and me at the Bear Bryant Coaches Awards in Houston on 1/10/18. More than any other head coach in America, I owe Dabo Swinney so much for helping to push my #
coffeebeans message to the college football world.
Photo by Michael Orta.
Dabo Swinney and I attending the Bear Bryant Coach of the Year award. He’s telling me he still carries the coffee bean keychain I gave him when I spoke at Clemson.
Photo by Michael Orta.
Golden Triangle Sertoma Club Service To Mankind Award night with my family.
Photo by Michael Orta.
Bringing Hurricane Harvey supplies to the correctional officers at the Stiles Unit on September 4, 2017. These same guards were watching over me inside the prison behind me less than two years before this pic.
Photo by Bart Bragg.
Our first family picture after prison. The Hall of Fame induction ceremony for my father on 11/27/15.
Joe Tortorice, myself, and Milt Prewitt, in front of the Stiles Unit, after a Kolbe Prison ACTS retreat. November 2016.
Photo by Michael Orta.
Coach Saban and I in his office, reviewing his video testimonial on 8/21/17.
Photo by Michael Orta.
Speaking to my alma mater, North Texas’ football team. January 2017.
Photo by Michael Orta.
Chief Jimmy Singletary, me, Marcelo “Mo” Molfino and Judge Brad Burnett,
in April 2017.
Photo by Genie West.
Walking out of prison on 11/16/15. Photo by Genie West.
