My mom and dad fought often when I was a small. We started out in NC as a family but my dad Tony had a brother and cousins in Rock Hill SC and moved us there to be closer to them and the possibility of work in the family business of laying floor coverings. We lived on Lizzie street and one of my earliest memories was of riding in the car early one morning and pulling up the the " biker clubhouse" my dad was a part of and her barging in and catching him asleep on the couch with some whore, whose actual nickname was " whorie laurie" and I would meet some years later before going to prison in Ridgeland.

This clubhouse was like a converted car garage with a big swinging bay door and then a standard door that was used when no motorcycles or cars had to be brought in to work on. These guys that belonged to the club were all a bunch of guys that held trades or worked a plant job like Slim. My dad and his brother both laid carpet and then another fella named Eddie Hicks was a painter, whom years later on a trip down to visit with my dad , I nut punched the **** out of him and he was realll mad . Promised to **** me up when I grew up lol. There were others , that were like hangers ons, like one fella named Boo who said he was an Indian and all the guys laughed and said he was full of **** and the he was a " Mo-Nig Indian" ---More N*gger than Indian- but this guy was the nicest guy and promised one day to make me a bow and arrow. I also met him years later and he actually was an Indian living on the Catawba Reservation down there in Rock Hill- My Dad and his friends were so ****ing ignorant. I did not ask for the bow and arrow.

There was a pinball machine in the clubhouse and I kept remembering getting all the quarters everyone had and dumping them in. Eddie Hicks had been in a terrible motorcycle accident where he lost his big toe and was laid up a while recovering, The wrecked bike sat on an old wooden platform that sat against the side wall like some shrine. It was a real mess and I didn't understand at the time why they kept a broken bike, but years later I would learn the value of world war 2 and earlier Harley Davidson engines and transmissions.

My mom catching Tony with whorie laurie sent me back up to Grandpa Rays in NC and then back to Rock Hill and then finally back up to NC for good as they worked out his cheating.They stayed together and we lived behind Rays in a tiny single wide trailer until my dad started working at Winn Dixie warehouse in Raleigh and got us moved into a trailer park in Selma NC.


When Tony left or my mom threw him out, I'm not 100 % sure because I didn't understand the complexity and the nuance that goes with your father and mother breaking up the nest. I just know that my life was a complete ****ing mess and I first went to jail at 14 for a week . It was Juvenile detention and it was basically a daycare but it was the start of being somewhere else other than home. My mom secretly contacted Tony who she hadnt spoken to in years to come get me and try to raise me after I had gotten out of wilderness camp and got into trouble again.

There are so many details I have to skip or else it will be a novel and I can certainly backfill later and correct and issues

It was during this period that I played in my very first home game-

The drive from Mesa Court to Baskins Road was solemn 2.5 trip. I had just came home to unexpectantly being kicked out from home and seeing a dad I havent seen in 8 years. Some other guy had been in my life and I was miserable and here was this ****ing piece of **** treating me like I was doing him wrong.

Imagine the feelings of having no choice but to be somehwere where you don't want to be and the person who brought you into the world doesn't want you either but has to or not be in jail as required by law. I was really hurting from all angles and that ride was a *****.

I had never been to his trailer before. It sat right across the street form York Technical college and was older as was the handful of trailers along the side street that ran behind the main road. Hurricane Hugo and sent a large pine tree limb through the roof by the door. The limb was gone but the severe damage was only covered with plywood and plastic. As soon as we pulled up, he said" I live here by myself , who do I have to impress" .

Because of my previous time in SC , I asked him where was slim and uncle Jerry? How about Hicks?, as thats what people called him. These were my only real highlights , meeting new faces that weren't my ****ing parents. Tony said that we might go down to slims that weekend , there was supposed to be a BBQ and maybe a poker game " we'll see" is what he said.

That whole week, that was all I could think about and sure enough, he said we were going that Friday when he got home from work. Slim lived in Ft. Lawn, which was a good distance east and had a nice property where he would host huge parties.
Even though slim was a biker, he had a job at celenex in rock hill which was a chinese company making what I thought was cigarette filter chemicals or something but when I look up the company now it says gene therapy in kids. very scary-

anyway, Slim had a professional side of life. He didnt have the tattoos like my dad and their firiends. He had a motorcycle though and it looked like a toy when he rode it. He was a big dude and I think in a way that the bikers accepted him and his size and seen his person. So many people loved slim. He threw the biggest ****ing parties where hundreds of people show up, lynyrd skynyrd and bob seger blasting the place and so much booze and weed flowing , it was the place to be for halloween and his birthday.

This trip down with my dad was a small get together- Slim, Shirley his wife , a neighbor guy named " droopy", his girlfirend who had a famous dad- I believe in the space program but I have to research.she was a real bad drinker and could not function normally without a drink Tony said. There was like 2 or 3 other people there that i didnt know and can't remember but there was one that I do rememeber and his name was " cruiseship dave" -

We ate dinner , then the cards and pocket change came out. These weren't serious stakes but pots could be $20 and thats pretty small compared to what the skill level was in the room. My dad nor any of his friends ever went to Vegas. I'm not 100% sure on slim but I can't remember him saying it as I have a photographic memory so i'll assume he never went and they all just learned at home games. Of course , the fish I was , lost all my money and then whatever else I could steal out of tonys stack. The gane was kinda breaking and thats when slim said -

" Did you know dave here deals on cruiseships and can do some of the craziest cards tricks you have ever seen? "

Dave sluggishly smiles and nods as he's been drinking like everyone else except me. He starts showing me a couple of warm up tricks which were impressive, but THEN he showed me , right in front of my face- with me watching his hands shuffle the cards and not doing anything I did not think was normal- proceed to deal out the whole table with each having a higher ranking hand and was calling it as he flipped them. when i said " SHOW ME AGAIN!!! SHOW ME AGAIN!!!" - he laughed, put the deck down and that was it. he showed me once.


The game broke, I had to drive my drunk dad home and all I could talk about was "cruiseship dave".

My dad tells me that cruiseship dave and his wife owned a lot of land near slims and that Tony- my dad mowed the grass around the house in the summers sometimes if they were out of town. Tony said that cruiseship dave had been under investigation in relation to a big cocaine bust called " operation avalanche"

https://www.google.com/search?client...e+rock+hill+sc

The present controversy arose in the following manner: Byrd was charged in connection with an extensive undercover operation centering in York County, South Carolina commonly referred to as "Operation Avalanche."

There was a missing person connected to the investigation and that he was supposed to be buried on " cruiseship daves" nursery/land.

I went to mow Daves house one time with Tony and it was an old farmhouse that had been updated . Lots of nice stuff and plenty of trees and land. I didn't see any bodies because thats all I could think of at the time.



I went on to be sent away again shortly after this but one of the next times I was with my dad he told me that they had found the body on the land and that dave went to jail and hung himself there because he wasnt getting out. I never forgot that card trick and I suspect someone with the same skill set was working the WSOP single table satellites when i first moved there in 2011.

I played a couple of sattys and after this experience I slowed down competely because I felt like it was a big possibility there could be cheating if dealers stayed at the same table all day dealing satties and the same guy plays at that table all day with him.

I'm reg the satty, before I can sit down , this guy is screaming last longer, last longer. I wasn't focused on last longer. I was focused on win seat and move on, not side bets etc. I refused and was ****ing them up as usual . we got down to 4 handed and im in the 5 seat directly across fromt he dealer.

I am watching him shuffle but he's only doing the motion and there are no cards being riffled. I am watching him but not seeing it because I am focused on 4 handed play.

The satty ends like this- the guy in the BB who was screaming last longer wakes up with aces after I limp QQ induce pops to my left to jam with 99 and the sb calls off with AQ suited

GG. when i got to the car i realized it. I have no proof . I stopped playing single tables with one dealer all day.

If cruiseship dave can do it, so can someone else.

Anyway , I dedicate this story to Slim- the coolest Biker I ever knew

I will never forget Slim , How he treated me with such kindness and patience and now looking back with life experience , I can see that he knew my pain and that his way of helping me was kindness. I love you Slim.

I was researching " operation avalanche" and came across this law link describing the case in a lot of detail and names a guy named dave. It also mentions the hells angels which I had never heard before in the story. My dad was a biker guy but not some top tier guy. he layed carpet.

I have been to a couple of big time biker parties where there were hundreds of people in a remote area with a really awesome setup for a party and supposedly one of the best travelling tattoo artists around and all these people wearing " colors" .

I went to only one party that was decked out like that and I have a great story from it. The other biker parties were at a little bar my dad used to run in Ft. Mill SC called the " cantina" and then slims house.

read about the case -

https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case...1.91-5313.html

Beaufort A side was called the Terror Dome when I got to Ridgeland Correctional . It was one of four dorms at thi prison and each dorm had an A and B side , with administrative offices in between , dividing up the 255 men on each side for a rough count of about 1100 men total at the prison including the admin segregation unit.

This was my fifth prison since starting my three year sentence in September of 1996 . Spring Break of 1995 I went from my home in Clayton NC with some of my broken home friends down to Myrtle Beach SC and got caught breaking into cars in North Myrtle Beach. I spent the next 41 days at J Reuben Long Detention center.
I couldn't make bail so I had to go into the long term housing which was probably 100 people I think and my roomamte was a black guy named Sweet Pee who was around my age at the time, 17 but he may be a year or two older-
Sweet Pee was in for selling crack which was big in Myrtle Beach at the time and he was facing prison- He happened to have a twin brother in the next housing pod who had a manslaughter charge. They would talk thru the door everyday which I thought was cool.
Those 41 days were very eventful - Sweet Pee was a card player so we played a game called casino where you match numbers and add others to make points. not really a for profit game , but did many push ups playing it- we played a lot of spades for cakes, but our main game was Tunk- 5 cards dealt to 4 , 3 or 2 players-
dealt cards adding to 50 - automatic win
add to 13 or under pays double
tunk out on someone pays double
when no one drops their hands for numerical wins, they must play rummy style , trying to make 3 of a kind or a 3 card straight- when a player makes this , he is left with 2 cards- he can drop them for low and win on his next turn--- or keep them and try to " tunk" hit a 2nd rummy spread and get paid double
catch a guy thats drops - pays double
drop at anytime to win the original stake by all playing

I mastered this game with Sweet Pee. I know when to drop with 5 cards liike a boss and understand the differences in how many players are in the game. It is a very good game for the gambler and it should get more respect in card rooms IMO-
The double payout penalties make it a dream when running hot or playing with fish.

I left Sweet Pea there and went on to live with my dad in rock hill while on probation. I had to stay in SC and work out the issues I was facing but I wasnt ready. I hated my dad and did not want to be around him or anyone really. I pissed dirty, smoking weed , violated and was sentenced to the restitution center in spartanburg sc where they would help me find a job and they would take my paycheck and pay my victim , where I had broke into his car in myrtle beach

I got into trouble here as this was a co ed institution and you wore your own clothes. There were all types of workers- welders, painters. I had a job working at a 200 year old textile plant- It was supposed to be 3rd shift where I take an airhose and blow these cotton looms off but I just went and hid and slept. Before they kicked me out for smoking weed I screwed this hot older girl from the womens side. Was a dream come true at the time, couldn't believe she let me hit.

Once I violated at the restituion center, It was my last stop before real prison. My mom called the center and offered to pay the restitution if they wouldnt send me to prison. They took her money and sent me to prison anyway lol.

I left spartanburg county jail for Pelzer sc and the Prison reception and evaluation center . There are several in the state and where you are convicted is the region you go
I had to serve 6 months and after a 30 day stay in pelzer , living in a 2 man room with 3 men, I was sent to minum security northside in spartanburg, where i lived the next 3 months before getting out on probation again. Northside was like a day camp and went by fast- I took a greyhound from there to rock hill when released on probation again.

Back at my dads it was immediately the same uneasiness and pull to be away from there . I was working with him laying carpet and paying on probation. I was having to pay him rent when in itself was nuts considering the dump he lived in. Hell he didnt even send my mom child support so it really bugged me to have to pay this ****.

I think that fateful Myrtle Beach trip was a huge curse. One of many in my life starting at a young age and that only now with wisdom can I look back and see the instances of a greater power influencing my life.

Leaving wilderness camp the day before my 16th birthday , I thought my life would be different. I had worked hard there to be a leader in my group and I took a lot of pride in having friends there. That all changed the second I got in the car to come home after graduation.

My mom, brother Justin and Chuck , my alcoholic stepdad who hated me showed up to see me graduate from wilderness camp and then drive us home after my 14 month stay. There were home times every 6 weeks but it was mainly a therapeutic wilderness camp for troubled boys and I had not been living at home feeling that bad energy from chuck.

The camp served spaghetti with salad that day and then did my graduation ceremony where the whole camp around 90 people chant " how - how how" like you would see in an old indian movie or something. At close of the meal I stood at the main doors and shook the hands of the other campers to say goodbye- After not seeing my baby brother for a while , he had gained a lot of weight and was huge for being 9 years old and one kid mentioned very trollish " I didnt know you had a sister" . Most kids were great , there's always a few.

After I grabbed my effects- clothes, letters etc and met my mom at the car.

And immediately dead ass silence for a 2 hour ride home. Chuck doesnt talk. He doesnt coach young men up. hes a clown of the highest order and I really wish my mom had never met the guy. It really , really sent my life in a direction that has put me in places I never should have been and learned things I never should have known-

Looking back there were instances before chuck that tell me it was destiny from the start but I can promise you , my game controller has been on max difficulty my entire life and right now the game has never been more intense and expands on a daily basis. When I started this blog in 2011 I had no idea what was in store for me. I slowed down in writing in it because I was working on myself very hard and then started growing and selling weed in vegas.

I started my own weed business in las vegas from nothing. I've now had a weed business on 2 coasts and in 4 states. - right now I am inactive because my game of life dictates caution at every level . I feel like writing is where I need to be so I'm gonna try to dig deep and weave this stuff together.

I was almost halfway thru 7th grade when I left for wilderness camp. I was 14 years old and it was the same day mike tyson reported to Indiana State prison for his rape conviction, March 27th 1992 - I rememeber hearing it on the radio as my mom drove me there with all the new camping clothes she bought for me from the list they ask that you follow as a new camper.

I had previously visited before they accepted me and seen the groups and their tents they build by hand out of trees. I was excited to be there because chuck wasnt there. I was gonna miss my mom, but coming home every 6 weeks was good enough.

The group I was assigned to was named , Sequoias - and there were usually 10 of us. This therapeutic camp was designed to halt a big problem as its happening, confront it, make the person admit the issue and we as a group decide if the lesson is learned and move on- some people take hours to deal with it. confronting one issue can open up their whole psyche and unearth painful stuff that they have to confront and grow from. It takes a while sometimes to get people to admit stuff and be honest to help themselves. That place was great for me in so many ways.

The night I arrived there was a massive group huddle late into the night.The kids had left their tents during the night and went down to the maintenance shop , where there was also the camp store where you could buy fishing stuff or x-acto kits to make wood carvings- a lot fo different stuff to be a camp - and these kids were breaking in and one night coming back , one ******* tripped on a tree root in the dark and broke his arm. caught!

So my first night was spent out in the cold , sitting on the ground, listening to kids cry and moan and refuse to talk about the problems . They debated on sending me to another group because it was not a normal thing that was going on that night in the group-

When you see someone in the group breaking a rule or having **** behavior, you loudly say " huddle up" and everyone in the group goes to your spot and you address the reason for the huddle - if it is validated by the group, the offender must confront his issue and state the remedy he has to apply to fix it to our standards.

After a while of this, a group becomes a well oiled machine if you have people buying in to consistent perfection. It leads to growth on so many levels and it's a very beautiful thing to be a part of at its peak.

The Sequoias I was a part of reached their peak in February of 1993. When your group matures, they award you with a river trip , where the group goes out and canoes down the river of their choice for around 30 days , and this trip is the ultimate test for the group and usually sends the top leaders in the group to the next level pre graduate group- which is what happened to me-

We chose the Peace river in Florida where we canoed for 30 days , with a resupply halfway planned on a certain date and a grown up from one of Floridas many wilderness camps would be waiting with a bag full of dehydrated noodles and blueberry cobbler. that camp food was dope , honestly
There were gators and snakes. We had big huddles and big talks about problems and built each other up . Sometimes I wish that trip never ended.

When we got back , I was sent to the pre graduation classroom group Mahetus -
It was about 4 weeks of 4th grade worksheets. and then I graduated one day before I turned 16-

I went from completing 6th grade, leaving halfway through 7th and returning to start high school in the 10th grade.

The ride home from wilderness camp I think started all the bad vibes all the way over for me at home- The silent ride. The way my mom just let his energy take over and not talk with me about the future or my brother and his obvious weight issues. I think looking back she knew she had made a mistake with this guy and because of his family influence and money , if she tried to leave, it would hurt a lot more to just stay?

It's hard to say, In the last years of her life in 2005/2006 we talked a lot and I knew she regretted so much. She certainly made him pay because they financed a brand new izuzu amigo for me that I drove when i started clayton high school and played defensive tackle and fullback for the JV team .

It all started out great, but coming home to no one that cared and no direction to hanging with the kids who came from homes like me and I was their new best friend since I had a brand new car.

One of these new best friends was named Jeff Forester and he was having trouble finding a stable home right about the time I was headed on my fateful myrtle beach trip.

My mom being tenderhearted let him stay and when I got locked up in Myrtle Beach and called home, he wouldnt answer the collect calls and told my brother not to answer. This was a supposed " good friend" but he was a giant manipulator - his dad was air force and he had moved all over- he lived house to house with family and then finally needed a place-

We got to know each other by hanging out and listening to the old Dr Dre and Snoop albums- He introduced me to a lot of good R+B like Jodeci and Keith Sweat - He taught me how to dress and we stole so much stuff form the malls and eventually broke into a lot of cars. In the end , he tried to take my home and forget I existed .I lied to myself though because I thought that was loyalty back then.

I was working in SC at my dads and on probation after leaving the 6 months prison sentence - Jeff had moved out of my moms and into his girlfriends parents housein nearby wilsons mills . He was selling drugs and into all other kinds of **** like robberies of the motels on 95 i later learned. Anyway he got into it with this older guy and ended up shooting him in the leg with a pistol and was charged with assault with a deadly weapon - he made bond and was at his girlfriends house-
The day he was supposed to go to court, she went to school and he was supposed to go- she came home and he was still there and she was worried her parents were gonna be on the hook for bail since they had put their property up to get him out
they argued and he went into her brothers bedroom and pulled an antique double barrel out and stuck it in his mouth. Needless to say it was a real mess.

I was working with my dad and cousin Kenny laying carppet in Rock Hill SC when me and Kenny went out to the work van in the driveway to load up the work tools. I was probably around 4:30 in the afternoon and as we got to the van , I noticed a bird flying around inside and I said he look at that-

Kenny said" Do you know what that means? that means someone you know died" - this was the first time I had ever heard this and kinda shrugged it off. we loaded up the tools and Tony, my dad drove us home .

Later that evening , I had just settled down to relax for the night when the phone rang and caller ID said it was clayton NC so I answered-
It was my ex girlfriend Jody from clayton high school and her calling was really weird but when she told me that Jeff had killed himself that day and it was real bad on kelly and everyone was taking it bad- Everyone meaning all the ragtag broken family Ctown homies that hung together when it hit the fan- they were upset and I felt like I needed to show my face-

I was due in court for probation violation soon. I knew I was going to jail. I hated living at my dads and i felt the pull to go the funeral- I rememebred the house we were working in earlier in the day- older couple who had several vehicles in their yard and I noticed all the keys were inside

I called a cab and had him meet me down the street and when my dad wasnt paying attention, I disappeared. I went to the house from earlier and stole their mazda b2200 extended cab truck from rock hill and drove it to clayton NC and met up with my friends before their classes the next morning at school.

I ended up using that truck to break in some houses, steal money and sellable items to fund my trip and then after my dad told them that I did it and my mom begging me to turn myself in, I took a bus back down to rock hill and turned myself into the police station for stealing the truck and violating probation-

a tow truck brought their truck home undamaged. I got my full 3 year sentence and was sent to broad river correctional in columbia SC where iw went thru another round of R+E and then sent to wateree prison work farm where I stayed about a month and then sent to Ridgeland- The place that changed my life forever

Ridgeland was a new prison. It was supposedly gonna be a federal institution but somehow ended up being a medium /close custody state prison. The walls of the dorms were prefab concrete and trucked there and assembled with cranes. It is at the tip of South Carolina, right before you enter Savannah Georgia. I felt like it was so far from home, I never got a visit there.

The dorms in SC prisons are usually named after the towns in the area. The names of the dorms at ridgeland are - Charleston, Savannah , Geargetown and Beaufort.
I was placed in Charleston first and then assigned Georgetown- then sent to Savannah where I got int my first fight. I had only been there maybe 2 months and had just started to get the routine of the place going when one day on the way to the chow hall I ran into an old friend-

Sweet Pea !

He was leaving as I was going and when he seen me , he immediately said "hey fat boy how you been" but in a friendly good to see you way. It felt good for him to immediately recognize me since we were in jail in Myrtle beach. He said that he lived in Beaufort A side and that it was called the terro dome but they had a card game and I should come play.

I went back to my dorm and got to my mattress for count- When you are new , you have to stay in a dorm style room until a bed comes open and then you move into a 2 man cell. someimes you can be here for weeks with others, just depends on bed space

One of the guys in the dorm was a white guy named John Greene from spartanburg SC and the second I met him I could not stand him. just a real dipshit but he had a nickname which was stretch because he was tall and lanky. well during count he kept saying disrespectful **** so when count was over IA got up to leave the dorm to go outside and his mattress was right by the door to leave and as I was walking by I jumped at him like i was gonna hit him and it scared him and he jumped-
I went on out the door and he followed me, throwing his hands up in the air saying" whats up mother****er"

when he got close I rocked him right in the face and it dazed the **** out of him and I thought it was over and dropped my hands - I hadnt been in too many grown man prison fights yet to know to NEVER drop your guard.
He swung wide and slow. It was like watching a movie but felt like I dun goofed!!! he hit me directly on my nose breaking it from right to left, splitting the sking on the top left of the bridge of my nose , going into the corner of my eye.

It was right in the open, people bystanding , the correctional officer screaming. STOP !! I grabbed a trashcan to try and kill him for breaking my nose as I realized injuries like that just hurt a little and the primal instinct to kill is greater than the pain of a cut and broken nose. The officer grabbed his mace and pointed it at my face and I thought about that **** getting in my eye and in the cut so i dropped the can and was escorted to medical

they doctor on call came and stitched me up and didnt set my broken nose. it was grossly broken to one side and they were gonna let it heal broken.He said there was nothing he could do LOL.

They packed my stuff up that night and sent me to Beaufort A side, the Terror Dome .


The next morning,I woke up and told myself a very hard truth. If I wanted to straighten out my nose , then I would have to do it myself and that I had to do it right then before it set itself -

There was a polished steel mirror on the wall of each room. You could see yourself and see some detail but it was low quality and at a time of setting ones own broken nose, details are important. I took my index fingers and stuck them up each nostril. I picked my nose up and realigned it straight with my nasal bone. It hurt massively at first but after seeing my face normal again, I considered myself to be a bad mother****er- a teenager in prison, fighting like a man and setting ones own broken bones-

I did not let stretch get away with breaking my nose. he paid a price later.

Prison is a place with no secrets unless its at the top of the smuggling game where there is a power structure of guards, inmates and/or citizens from the outside possibly flying drones over and in earlier times tossed footballs or tennis balls over the fence stuffed with tobacco, weed, coke or anything else small and valuable to make money on in prison.
At the top of that , there is some secrecy. Other than that , pretty much all business is in the street- Who is a punk(gay)- who owes money- who has bad credit- who just got turned out for protection- who is a hitman- who are the thieves- who will snitch- who is a fighter- who is in a gang-
so many categories of man you are in prison and when you go in a young man with any considerable length of time, you have to carry yourself a certain way to get maximum respect. At the moment I was moved from Savannah dorm to Beaufort A side - the terror dome- I knew I had to beat the **** out of stretch for breaking my nose and giving me stitches-
I had this gnawing feeling of revenge and since they moved me out of the dorm, my only shot was in the cafeteria. I believe the next day or maybe even one more day, I cannot remember this exact time line but I knew that if I let this go and "forgot" after just getting to this dorm, that it would cost me in respect and make others feel that I wouldnt do anything if I got in a fight- That I would take the loss or take an ass whipping without fighting back because of fear.

I wanted to leave no doubt that I was a man of revenge- I waited in the chow hall for what seemed like an enternity after lunch one day. Waiting on stretch to get up and put his tray away. I pretended to keep eating peas and drinking tea and finally when he got up , I got up to follow except I didnt bring my tray-
I got a running start and tried to visually push my right fist through the back of his head.as he was walking unaware. I connected with a mighty crack and he dropped his tray and stumbled forward, both hands grabbing the back of his head as he bent over in agony from that mighty, stunning blow.
I will give him credit,after stumbling forward and not falling, he turned towards me and recognized it was me and brought his hands up like the old mike tysons punch out, soda popinski hand mations, screaming come on !!!!!!

The officer in the chow hall grabbed me almost immediately and marched me to operations and the holding cells for trouble makers- They sent me up to admin seg. 23 hours a day lockdown for attemting to start a riot in cafeteria and assault. I ended up doing about 30 days in the hole and the released back to Beaufort A , the Terror dome, where I finally made my proper entrance after showing my new roommates what happens when I get in fights- I keep going.

The Terror Dome was a feared place at Ridgeland. The other dorms that we interacted with on the way to the dining hall were all anxious energies of people unsure if the person in front of them from Beaufort A side was in fact a blood thirsty robber or not.

Of course other homies in those dorms that weren't pussies didn't give a **** who it was in the prison but you could really tell a lot of people we wary of inmates from the Terror Dome. Each day was a rotation of a dorm going first to chow- There were 8 dorm sides in total so there was always some combo of dorms called to make it fair who ate first.

I had a roommate now and had gotten in the routine of playing cards all night and sleeping all day axcept for meal times. There arent many jobs in prison and if you play the system you can basically never work and since Sweet Pea was in the dorm and had been in prison a few times before we ever met ,was basically a top educated insider helping me master the ways.

Sweet Pea was from Horry County and was well known there in Myrtle Beach along with his twin brother Armando- Sweet Peas real name is Ramando and he and his brother are very hard to tell a part but I can since I have known Sweet Pea so long. I recently looked Sweet Pea up and see he is free but the phone numbers dont work and I didnt go to the address as im not that close to it.

In South Carolina , being from the coastal areas meant you were more OG than the " upsate" region and as far as I could tell that was absolutely the case. Our dorm was full of guys from Charleston , Summerville, Goose Creek and all the surrounding areas and some of the toughest and smartest had what is called a " geechy" accent.

In the mornings, my roommate leaves for work and I sleep in till lunch and then wake up to hit the " block " with Sweet Pea. I was still getting money from home and using it to live large when I first got there, buying up $5 sacks of weed- ( if you rolled one sitting in your car and some fell on your lap, thats $5 in prison)and then adding it to tobacco and rolling it up in a cigarette to mask the smell.

I was mismanaging my money and getting credit. I was calling home every few days asking for money . For a long time my mom sent money whenever I asked. She would send $200 and after I got to ridgeland and started smoking weed and then gambling I was asking very frequently .

I will never forget the day I had over extended my credit- credit which was freely given because I had funds all the time and payed my bills- I maxed myself out smoking weed and I think I lost in the card game because when I called home that day , this was the gist of what was said-

hey ma, can you please send me some money this week ? I need to get some food and stuff.

her reply- " where is the money I just sent you last week? where is that money? what is going on?"

well ma im smoking weed and gambling and I lost . i need to pay up and I need to try and win my stuff back.

" you are never gonna learn!! you are in prison smoking weed and gambling with my money !! I will not send you another dime !!!""

CLICK

I don't remember exactly what day it was that she hung up on me. Up until that time, my mom had always been there to send me support and I had depended on that crutch to make prison easier. Looking back , sure, I should have been managing my money better. I could have even stayed out of prison all together if I had known , but the way life is, you live , and then you learn.

I learned that the day my mom hung up on me , was the best day of my life.

Being in debt in prison is dangerous. The economy is small and most people don't have outside help. Some inmates may have been there a long time and have built up a " store" . This is where someone has a huge inventory of food, cosmetics and tobacco and they " loan shark" these items out at an interest rate of usually 1 for 2-

loan 1 item in return for 2 of the same items back for interest- other loan terms are a - 2 for 3. Loan 2 items and get three if the same items back. - lucrative business but the default rates are super high and collection can become violent.

you will have some guys with life sentences that have a " store" and run the dorm- these guys have power and know things a lot of people dont know because of their length of stay and if they are in a gang then using one of these loansharks is very dangerous if you have issues paying back.

Other people trying to hustle a " store" would be just trying to make their money from home go a little further. These people are usually the way to go with getting a quick loan as they are usually unaffiliated with a gang and negotiating is a little easier. sometimes the interest is better in these agreements because the lender doesn't have the muscle the other guy does to enforce payment. These are better prison loans as if you have to default, the lender might not fight or be able to afford to send a hitman.

it will give you a bad name to scam one of these guys, but as long as you pay the guys who will actually hurt you, you will always have credit.

When I lost my moms support and had to " live off the land", I had a pretty bad downswing where I could not focus and did nothing but worry about what the rest of my sentence would be like if I was having problems paying my bills. The state gives you $5.50 every two weeks for " state pay" and most people buy one pack of tops tobacco, one bar of soap and one stick of deodorant with that money and its gone-

Prison just got tough

I smoked cigarettes off and on since high school. As much as I hated my moms addiction when I was a kid and coming out of wilderness camp and starting to play JV football for Clayton High , I shortly picked up the habit not long after meeting my circle of broken home friends. I smoked newports and when I got to jail for the first time as an adult in the Johnston county jail, I was 16 and had just been busted stealing steaks . I had been to jail but had never been " upstairs" , dressed out in the adult male population.
I had been to kiddie jail and there were never any cigarettes and I had no real worries about petty larceny , which I was very guilty of. Another stupid thing I done and had been caught for but I knew it wasn't that bad.
At the time I was living on Kildee street at a house my mom owned. My moms mother Frances who left my grandpa when my mom was a little girl was getting older and my mom was doing great with her real estate business and had actually built her a little cottage house near where my mom lived but my grandma complained so she sold that and bought her house in town near the store .
When I was little, I was very close to my Grandma and Grandpa Phil- That's who she married in Hampton after leaving my grandpa. He was ex Navy and had a son from a previous marriage , but when I was born he took great excitement in me. I believe he is in one of the pics I posted for this story, him and I smoking-

My mom would drive up with me from Smithfield. Sometimes my dad was there but I rememeber it being more of a me and mom trip. Phil was famous for his spaghetti sauce and meatballs, plus he made this great mushroom steak stauce my mom always made years after he died.

Phil and my grandma lived on a fixed income and stayed in a public housing apartment. She had a sister, Rudine that lived nearby and she was married to a guy named Herman. Grandmas neighborhood was cool from what I can remember. My mom said Phil would pick up all the left out toys and put them in the attic of the apartment and give them to me when I came up for Christmas one year. I rememeber one summer where there was like fifteen kids playing and someone had set up a small bike ramp to jump on of the kids bicycles

One kid hit the ramp and came crashing down on some kid and parents were all mad. I can rememember the crazy arm jerk the kid on the bike got from a parent right after it went down.

Phil died at Langley one Saturday morning after having a heart attack at home. I rememeber it being early and watching cartoons and the phone rang. My mom answered and she started screaming. I didn't really know what was up but she left to go up and see him . She said he looked like he had fell from the heart attack and hit his face because he had a big bruise and that he was still warm when she got there. She must have drove quick.
I know she really loved him and my mom was a really good judge of character. She had a knack for picking out the angels and I know he was one for sure.

This was probably thirteen years after his death that my mom was moving Frances down to Clayton. It was the brand new cottage but she hated the seclusion- My mom lived on the same street. Then she move to Kildee street and hated that . I stayed at her house a lot during this time because of my issuues with Chuck , my stepdad. This was shortly after wilderness camp , I was still going to school but I was on the cusp of the point of no return so to speak.

I was sleeping in one morning in the back bedroom and the door was shut. I heard the unmistakable voice of my grandmas sister Rudine and her Husband Herman. I was about to get up and see what was up when I realized, grandma was moving home. They had a truck and loaded up all her stuff and left. She hated it down there away from her sister and her routine so she bounced. I wasnt that close with her after Phil died and I think my mom tried to force a relationship that wasnt there for them.

So when grandma left, I had a house at 16 years old in the town I went to high school in . It was short lived as I went to jail , but it is a time period that was crazy in itself with learning experiences and character observations.

This is where I was living when I stole the steaks and was shortly after grandma had left. I totally ****ed up and landed in jail with nothing but a pack of cigarettes . Back then you could smoke in the jail, as the town was built on tobacco slavery from the very beginning. I researched this a lot and found that scottish slaves were brought here first (dads blood), english slaves next (moms blood) and then african slaves. To do all that they killed the Tuscarora indians and took the land.

At this time, I didn't know any of that. All I knew was that I was upstairs in jail for the first time, needing bail money and not really wanting to call anyone for stealing steaks so i knew i was gonna sit until one of my circle of friends decided to bail me out- I believe it was $60 with a bondsman becuase it was my first offense.

The Johnston county jail isn't very big. I believe there may have been 30 guys orless in the pod. I rememeber coming in and there being more light in there than there was in the hallways leading to the actual jail area itself. There was a lot of natural light and the TV was playing a music channel , which today would not be happening. There was a great big community cigarette lighter on the wall , where you just walk up and press a button and an oversized car cigarette lighter behind a little cage where there's only a small hole that you can stick your smoke thru to get it lit.

The center of the room were 3 steel picnic tables bolted to the floor and on the middle table I seen they had spread out a wool blanket across the top and there were mountains of loose cigarettes in front of players as they were running a poker game to kill time. The wool blanket helps the cards slide better than the flat steel where the cards are very likely to catch air and fly off the table on the deal. The wool gives friction and slows it down like felt.

The cards in jail are the old paper bycycles and most commissaries sell them,your choice, red or blue decks. If it's a good jail game, there will be extra new decks in both color variations. Candy for players that play all day and free smokes at certain times. Kinda like rakeback in jail I guess.

In Prison , the only difference now would be that for chips, they use old decks of cards- ripped in half. marked with sharpie and then a toe nail clipper clips the edges in a design that one hopes no one can duplicate on the fly and ruin the game . A lot of guys count the chips repeatedly as the game goes to try and prevent it. This hasn't been that big a deal in all the games I played but there are lenghts they go to try and prevent it .

In this game I was about to get into, I had almost a full pack of cigarettes and those were the chips. I was short stacked compared. There were loose smokes and then packs sitting behind. They were playing 7 card dealers choice and the very first pot the guy running the game tried to get me all in gambling to bust me and I ended up doubling.

When I first came in I didnt recognize anyone in the room but after winning my first hand I heard someone say Ctown doing it and I turn around and see this guy named Baby Ray , who was the older brother of a guy I played football with on the JV team- Monteese- He was several years older than us and I was surprised he recognized me. He hit me up for a cigarette after I won the pot lol, so I gave him one cuz it was my homies big bro. I cant rememeber what he was there for and I didnt stay long as you will soon find out

After the first hand , the deck seemed to hit me in the face. I could not miss in any variation. Back then I would always call 7 card stud, dr. pepper- 2-4-10's are wild. I have hit some crazy stuff playing this and this may be where I love this variation from. I won every cigarette on the table after starting with maybe 16 chips. probably 600 on the table.

anytime I was on the draw and had streets to go and didnt see any dead wild cards I would cap and I would hit them all. Several hours went by and people were walking by the table and I was giving away smokes to people that asked for one. Those full packs got opened and then won. I had pretty much every cigarette that was in play .

And then they called my name- PACK UP- ! when you hear those words, you are leaving jail. I had just won all the cigarettes in the pod and was leaving. You should have seen their faces. Disbelief, shock. Sadness. In just a few seconds I realized that trying to leave jail with handfuls of loose cigarettes is not a great play.You have to carry your stuff out with you and cant do that with smokes in your hands-

I looked over and Baby Ray was standing there and I handed him all that I had won besides what I had came with. He went from broke , to pod boss in one afternoon and didnt play a hand. I walked out and went back to kildee street.

Years later, long after the house was sold, A friend rented a house across the street from the house I lived in on Kildee street and ran a poker game from the back yard barn called the poker shack. I ended up playing poker with Monteese there a few times before black friday and my move to vegas.

There was always some type of card game in jail . Solitaire ,Rummy, Spades, Hearts , Casino, Tonk and Poker and a game called " skins" that I will explain later. Some guys would take a deck of cards and do push ups for whatever the numerical value of each card they turned over until they got to the end.
Some old guys get up early in the morning and play solitaire and drink coffee.
A lot of places the turnover is so quick , there is no gambling ,it's just games to be playing games.

State or Federal prison and some county jails have someone running a game of some type. There is an economy there and lots of time, guys need to have something to use to escape and for a lot of intellectuals in jail, poker is a good escape. I'm not saying that only smart people play poker, I'm just saying I've met a lot of smart people when I was gambling with people who cared about gambling and that lifestyle.
Gambling in itself is an artform and then add being inside a cage with every predator you can imagine- Lions- sharks- hyennas , some of them like to swarm and crossing the wrong lines is a way to get yourself put in the crosshairs of the wrong people to be in the crosshairs of. Usually the gang bangers didn't gamble. It was basically guys like me and sweet pea who were " thorough" meaning willing to fight, protect ourselves and knew the street code of not being a bitch.
That gets you a pass and respect and then people see you are gambling, hustling and a person in the mix , you get your own niche so to speak of protection. You dont pick sides and they respect it.

The Terror Dome was a lot different when I lost my moms bankroll.

I had to go to my creditor and explain what had happened and hope he would let it work out with smuggling onions or green peppers from the kitchen during meal times so he could cook in the dorm later, or make him some type of weapon and stash it. Losing funds and owing in a place like the terror dome is not something you take lightly.
I've seen some incredibly brutal **** go down over owed money and knowing you are caged in with these people is all the motivation you need to try and negotiate good terms for yourself being as fast as you can to the draw with information about their money.

Think of living with a mob boss and his whole family - everyone loves you and then has to kick your **** in out of the blue one day because you ****ed up. then maybe after they might love you again, but today, it's your unlucky day.

There are options- you could go to the correctional officer and tell them your life is in danger and you need protective custody. They will put you in short term admin seg and investigate your claims and usually send you back to the same place in a few weeks or transfer out to a different prison if its a real issue.

sometimes this happens but usually if its some real dudes involved , they will work with you. So in my case, they worked with me and I smuggled food, held weapons in my cell. Done one of their dorm cleaning jobs . Whatever I could do to save face and respect. I was ther only white guy that gambled. I fought anyone I had to and showed no fear and didnt want to be considered like some of the other white guys who would fold like a napkin under any type of pressure.

For me at this time I had already done some years in juvenile and county plus being a general street type kid , i fit in well . When the money stopped coming from home and I had to actually scheme and grind to make money to have any type of extras in prison.

I had the idea of seeing the prison therapist and trying to get any type of pills and then reselling them to the guys in the dorm. Inmates love drugs and 7 pills a week of good psychotropic medication will get a pack of newports . A pack of newports buys me into the card game.

So I got an appointment to see Ms. Le An Vogt . She was the prison psychotherapist I guess. Ive looked her up and she looks old and butchy now. Back then to an imprisoned teenager, her big tits was something to behold so I used to try and play a lot of mind games with her. She ended up prescribing me vystaril , which is a xanax like substance.

One time in our appointments I noticed that on her desk was a paper hole puncher and that it had what looked like a ruler that slid through the base that measured the paper. It looked to be about six inches long and I thought to myself I could make a knife out of that and sell it .
As she was ending the session she walked to the door to open it to let me out and some staff memeber was knocking at the same time and as soon as she started to look at the door i reached for the ruler and slid it out and in one motion slid it into the elastic waistband of my prison uniform pants.

Within seconds their meeting was over at the door and she motioned me out of her office and back to the yard and the dorms.

You get pat searched when you leave these buildings and because it was flat and i had it on my hip running down my leg and held inside my waistband , they didnt feel it and i went right back into my dorm with my new knife.

I had alot of roommates while I lived in the terror dome- A lot of people go to lockup from my dorm compared to other dorms and beds come open. The next day, a new guy is in that bed. Sometimes you can catch your homie with a bed open in his room and get the seargent to assign you that bed. It makes it better if you live with people you like and relate to. I had some really incredible roommate situations at times.

Getting this knife back to the dorm was so great. It was at least $25 worth of weed or commissary and if my debtor wanted it , i could owe less. I got in my room and covered the door window in case the officer just happens to walk by and look in which could very well happen because rent a cops are the nosiest *******s you will ever meet.

I get the knife out and start too look it over and try to figure out how to make it a knife when I realize its that weak magnesium metal that is very weak and malleable. It is useless as a knife and at this point if caught with it will induce a weapons charge and it will be a bad luck lie.

Each cell door has a keyed lock. There are 2 keys besides the master key the officers have- you and your cellmate are given a key each. these keys are about 8 times the normal size of a key- Thick, big and heavy- most guys wear theirs on an old shoe string to keep from losing them. Looking at the door from the outside, from the floor up following the door and door casing line up towards the handle-

as you get about 4 inches from intersecting with the lock inside the knob, there is a plate covering it. like a security plate that covers the lock part that fits into the door. Well I took that tool that I thought was a knife and stuff it under that plate between the door crack and pulled it towards me and the door opened without a key

I stuck my new tool in the door , right by the handle , in a motion like I had a key and opened the door like butter. I did it 5 times in a row to make sure and then I tried the door next to mine. It also worked. At that exact moment I realized I could break into any room and rob anyone . I could sneak in other dorms in the mornings as people left for breakfast or work and go in and clean them out .

This tool was worth so much and no one knew I had it

As great as this sounded, stealing from criminals isn't the best plan when you all live together. At the time I thought I had the advantage of being an unknown face in other dorms , especially GeorgeTown , which was the closest dorm to operations .
It housed a lot of older inmates , outside workers like trash details and then the prison industries workers who had been in prison a long time and had made the cut to work for more money making fancy **** the state sells for high profit. A lot of the weapons on that yard came from that plant- 7 in steal rods filed down to be razor blades that made me shiver the 1 st time I seen one.

My idea was to roll up into Georgetown A side and specifically go for this old guy named Doc who always had stacks all over his locker- He had been there forever and just left his canned goods and stuff stacked up out in the open. I would slide in, take my laundry bag and fill it up with his stuff, and roll right out of the front door and across the yard like nothing was wrong.

Well, that was successful on my first attempt. I kept this really quiet and I actually pulled off the heist and the secrecy. My thinking here was that he was old and he wouldnt want to fight and that if he paid someone, it would be someone who knew they would have to actually fight and may just talk a lot of **** but never swing. Or he might actually send the dogs, which in case I am ****ed but I know who they are so I can at least try to bargain on the back end.

I started young in the system, was in for a stretch and did not give an absolute ****.

My secrecy was short lived. Because of robbing doc and getting away with his roast beef, salmon and packs of coffee, I went and done another heist , but this time on the B side of Georgetown dorm. I chose a random room that looked well kept and at that time grandfathered inmates had TV sets from the 80's , early 90's and if you saw someone with one, there's a good chance they got " bank" - paper, cheese, bread. Money.

I rolled up into the room, peeled the locker- It was a double door wall locker with the lock in the center- I butterflied the doors, bending the top corners back and reached in and grabbed all I could from both lockers. Again filling a laundry bag , the kind with the netting. I rolled out just like clockwork, not calling attention to myself. I felt like I made another clean get away.


I get back to my dorm, the terror dome and get to my room and cover my door window and unload the loot. Again I got the same canteen stuff but I notice in the stuff a pair of pajamas that were street bought and a grandfathered item and hard to get. I was like damn jackpot ! so i put all the stuff away, took a shower, made some food with the loot and put the pajama pants on and walked around the dorm with them that night , out of nowhere , wearing a highly noticeable pair of " hard as hell to get" pajama pants- green tartan style. very nice .

well, the word had already gotten out that the person the pants belonged to was robbed. He worked in the prison industries building and had been in prison a long time and was good friends with someone in my dorm- I had stupidly went and broken into some violent old timers room and his homie was in my dorm and now the word was out I had robbed someone in another dorm -

Let me explain some things. I always thought stealing was a game. I never robbed anyone of their life. I never hurt anyone that wasnt already in the game. I was so ****ing crazy in my youth during this time after my mom abandoned me and I was coming to terms with what my life had been.

There were times in this prison I was pressured for sex. More than once. Sometimes nicely and one time im sure it would have been forceful but somehow , someway I avoided becoming one of the people lost in that world of self destruction. I walked in day one knowing that I was not gonna be the prison bitch.

I would meet other white guys trying to portray a tough image and yes they seemed real and about it but as a poker player, I pick up on tells with people and see their true nature over time. I knew I had 500 x the heart these guys had and I felt like everyday I was gonna have a good time, live off the land- trick , fool hustle whoever let me to get by. If I did not become that guy, I would have been the victim of someone doing the same to others .

I had no homeboys at the time- Sweat Pea was my bro but was not gonna fight with me or for me. I was from a small town in NC and instead of telling people the name, I would say Raleigh to save time.Everyone there was from South Carolina, so having the pull of your city and that crew wasnt there. I was apart of no gang. I had been in fights but just mainly I was being a young crazy white kid who had been locked up a while trying to prove he was no bitch and had no fear.


Well , as soon as I was seen with them on, I heard someone ask where I had gotten them and then another person said I better get them off before someone seen me wearing them and It was so fast after I was seen with them on and the urgency in their voices I was immediately concerned.

I did not know who I had robbed but it was someone important enough to get the word out on channels I didnt know existed. I went back to my room and took them off and went down to the guy who said something and handed them to him and he said you better hope thats all you took.

Hoping was no good because I took all kinds of food and his roommates stuff. I went and got as much of that as I thought was theirs and took that to the guy I gave the pants to and said that it was a mistake, I didn't know. please here's the stuff. He gave me a pretty dirty look and went into his room and shut the door.

I went to my room and on the way had most of the dorm staring at me , all up in my business cuz there aint no secrets. The next day, im trying to lay low and im in the dayroom in the dorm. It is a ground level room in the center of the building and has the microwave, a tv , 2 tables and a bunch of chairs to watch tv with.

Im in there at the microwave heating up water and watching the price is right. Most of the dorm is out at work and at lunch , the correctional officer is outside watching the sidewalks while inmates are moving

I see the guy I gave the stuff to the night before walking towards the dayroom and there's a guy walking with him that I didn't recognize . They both come in and come right up to me and It hasn't crossed my mind that this is the guy I robbed because neither one gave off any body language to alert me. It was very calm.

Before I could even speak , The older guy I gave the stuff to the night before, slapped me open handed, fried my face. Like whoa slapped the **** out of me.

The other guy pulls out that 7 inch steel rod razor blade point and says to me-

" the only reason you didnt get this is because you gave it back before i got here- dont come in my dorm again-" and spit in my face.

No one was around. It was us 3. There were no indoor cameras back then. they could have killed me looking back but im thankful it happened because the epicness of all the research i've done made those times worth while.

That slap felt like a shotgun blast and I never went back into his dorm.

I was a little nervous having been outed as the " room robber" . So many people had been robbed at different times by many different people over time and if a guy who was robbed recently believed I done it because I was outed that week as a thief, then I'm gonna have some **** said to me-
which was said shortly after - And others are gonna say , " If my room gets hit , im coming for you mother****er". Which was also said-
Very predictable in prison where gossip and drama are all there is to do and some people like keeping up with your business better than they like keeping up with their own.

Everyone knew that I robbed those guys. I was worried for several weeks about retaliation from that old man doc because he was from an area where some " loud mouths" were from and they started that jaw jacking **** like they were tough and gonna do something when it hit the yard about me being a robber.

A lot of people didn't like me already because I dont give a **** and do me , no matter what or who says. I wasn't in a gang, I wasn't no bitch and you couldn't run no game on me so I was a not your usual white boy PLUS , I rolled by myself. So here is this group of wanksters, " yo we gonna get you" " yo you better watch your back" - while standing outside in the rec yard with no police around.

If dude wanted to fight, we coulda banged right there, got plenty of blows in before someone knew . Him and his " boys" yelling from 50 feet away at one dude. The guy yelling is all beefed up from pushups but has no heart-

Everyone in that dorm knew if they stepped to me , we would fight and it would be as much as they could handle. Yelling made him feel better , but the real og's knew what it was.

After that, I didn't do any more robbing for a while. I had been wilding out the whole time I was at the prison- Fights in multiple dorms, the chow hall. I had been robbing people, smoking weed like crazy, gambling all night and basically getting a Masters in criminology .

If you get too many " write ups" in prison , you get classified for higher security . It can go so far as to send you to supermax. This is a place like ADX Florence in colorado where the unabomber is. Except the state has it's own version. I believe it's in columbia, where death row is but I cant be sure. It's been a while since I was in SCDC-

I had been getting written up, some were petty and some were leaning towards long term lockup if I kept it up so I really tried to chill since I was only doing 18 months of a 36 month sentence. If I was infraction free, I do 18 months and go home-
If I get written up and they stick, each write up could be an extra 30 days in prison added on until you get up to your max out date- 36 months.

Going from lots of financial help to zero financial help in prison is a mighty blow to suffer. Especially if you never managed the money, always spent it before you got it and never thought about it not being there.

I had always been a prolific thief even before prison , starting as early as I could rememeber. The first time I got caught I believe I may have been 7 and had stolen the yellow bulldozer transformer from a old chain called "sky city". My mom seen it after we got back and drove me back up there to return it. I dont rememeber the punishment later so im assuming it was let go by my mom.

This was before her and my dad split up when we lived out in the rural part of selma nc in a place called sauls trailer park. this was probably 1983/1984 and I remember having went to see " the last starfighter" at the last movie played at our local drive in theatre before it was demolished and replaced with a super walmart.

I had the best toys out- Transformers , Optimus Prime - and He man plus Grey Skull castle. My dad had also got me a go cart and would ride me up and down the trailer park street. My little brother was still a baby so he didnt ride. All the kids around would be running up and down the street while we rode though, praying my dad would give rides.
He did give rides one day but it was short lived because the go cart broke down and it ended up going to grandpa rays house which was in wilsons mills , about 10 minutes away.

A significant moment for me in my life till this day happened in this trailer park. Our trailer was 2 bedrooms,1 bath. My brother and I slept on bunkbeds in our room and I had the top bunk.

One night I decide im gonna sleep beside him on the bottom bunk.Usually I always took the top, didnt want the bottom. It was his, this was mine and that was it. But that night I decided to sleep beside him.

sometime in the night I woke up as i was kind of sliding off the bed , but it wasn't like an open free fall, it was the - wake up as you feel your weight shift off the bed and your foot stops you- but i slid all the way down and just gently fell. No big deal , I will just get back up on the bed-

but right there in the bedroom doorway is a ghost. like a shape, a form. it was like mist but denser and had shape like cloth- I seen the midsection of something that was gone before I could get my eyes up to the top of its shape to actually see its face or whatever it was.

i hit the floor, put my right arm and hand on the floor behind me to push up to my feet and when my head looked straight, it was right there. and then gone.

I got up and went down the hall to my parents room and crawled under their bed and into and old rolled up rug that was under there to keep warm . I know for a fact what I saw was what I saw. I havent seen any since. BUT

Right after my mom left my dad and started to date chuck , she was working two jobs as her realestate stuff was building. Her 2nd job was the kanki japanese steakhouse at crabtree in raleigh - this was 85-86 and I believe it was new then because it's still open today.

Whenever she worked late like that I would stay at grandpa rays in wilsons mills , which was about 10 minutes away from our place. Most of the time she came home and this one night after she started dating him, she didnt come home. I was feeling bad that day and went to bed thinking I would see her the next morning.

My grandpa was married to this woman named alice who had 3 kids of her own, the way my grandpa picked up women with kids , it was almost the brady bunch sometimes lol.Alices daughter Gina had a new baby with this guy richard and they were both nice. I like Alice a lot and called her grandma. Richard has a scar on his throat where someone had cut him ear to ear. shocking to see him as a kid to say the least but he was nice--

anyway im feeling bad and go to sleep thinking my mom will be here soon and she'll make me better. at some point I wake up and have to pee but I cannot move- When I try to move, I hear the voices of gina and richard- SUPER EVIL SOUNDING- threatening me, just going hard at me with evil stuff and of course I cry a little but I didn't go all out. I made myself get up and willed myself down the hallway where the voices were coming from , towards where my mom would be sleeping if she came home from work, the bathroom and where my grandma was sleeping- were all in that direction

I slowly walked down , seen my mom was not in her room and started crying pretty bad and that woke grandma up and she helped me get back to sleep.

The next day my mom took me to the pediatric doctor in smithfield. I did not say a word about seeing any ghosts and I did not say a word about hearing voices. I kept it to myself because at the time and for a long time I knew it happened but didnt want to talk about it and why it may have happened.

I really didn't feel like going around with a ghost story. or a voice story. I felt that people with those stories get stories of their own and not what they intended.

At the doctor, im getting checked over she seems to think its minor and nothing to see here. take some kiddie tylenol etc.......
BUT, right as we are walking out of the exam room she says-

" If he starts hearing voices, bring him back"


Again, I did not say a word and just internally processed it. I never told my mom for many years and when I brought it up one time she didn't rememeber it

Why would she ask that without any prompts?

There were never any voices telling me to steal. For the most part as a young man it was the thrill of getting away with it. The macho group thing that I thought helped me fit in with my friends. It was never any thought out , professional theft- this was petty crime that turned into probation and then prison.
I feel bad sometimes for having stolen some items but in the big scheme of things, I am not the first person to steal an item. SO MANY items were stolen before I was ever born so my candy and CD's aren't bankrupting granny.

When I first got into the big trouble in myrtle beach- broke in like 1 or 2 cars and those were felonies- not even 18 yet and i got felonies for breaking into a car- where there is no profit to be made. it's one of the dumbest crimes a kid commits and one they most frequently commit.

These weren't planned but spur of the moment and a lifetime of regret. had I been in the right situation and environment with leadership in my life, this would have never happened to me. I ****ed up early and I knew I did and I lost myself in that prison , trying to figure out just who I was.

I was broke, had a year or more ahead of me to do and at that time , felt like forever. My credit was shot and when they know you are broke, with no money coming- they cannot hear a word you say about loans-
they got that **** to a science haha.

So, here I am, I've got a pill subscription that I sell for a pack of newports every week. I sell my baked or fried chicken ( dorm bosses buy up chicken from anyone selling on chicken days) and I am doing line hustles , where I go stand in a line for someone and when I get to the front, they come and take the front spot and never have to wait. Then I'm smuggling food back to the dorm from the chow hall to cook later in recipes from commissary food.
I'm holding the tattoo gun for the tattoo guy and earning free tattoos.
I'm doing whatever I can to come up and live better.

The only gambling I can do is the Tonk table and it only opens on canteen day. if I try the stud table, I need like 5-10 items to handle the swings -
The Tunk table I can drop on them with my sick ass range off the deal.
I had a system to try and double my pack of newports on the tonk table and then move to the stud table and try to run it up.

The tonk table was pretty easy, Its just a hybrid game of lowball and rummy and knock poker almost. Just understanding how valuable a dealt low hand is a killer play in this game. some guys wont gamble wih mid range counts 28-33 for total points in hand- they like to go with 17-22 and very conservative I noticed. Depending who was playing , I would try this play fairly quickly depending how the hands were running.

other times if im getting **** starters, i'll try to spread as fast as I can and then drop out with two cards remaining and the lowest count.

If they can catch me in these hands , I pay double but I usually got away with it and would win a pack or 2 of cadillacs and move to the stud table-

One day out of the blue , Sweet Pea said to me - " if you ever fight haiti , watch out, he will bite you , dont get your hands near his mouth"

I actually thought this was an odd thing for him to just blurt out to me but hey as long as I had known him, Sweet Pea has given me some great advice and taught me many things about prison and the world. I remember one day I think someone had some extra food or something that was free and me being a greedy **** at the time, always tried to get whatever was being offered.

Sweet Pea was there and looked at me trying to get it and was like " damn man, let something get by you"

well I immediately saw the duality in that and understood that I needed to fall back and be less opportunistic all the time. Let things go sometimes. And he was right and i've worked that into my life. I know my strengths and I know my weaknesses , I tried to make them both my strengths.

So , him telling me about fighting Haiti was interesting considering I hadn't thought of fighting Haiti-

Haiti was the house man who ran the 7 card stud strip deck game-
all the 2's, 3's and 4's are removed. The game usually kicks off on payday and runs for usually 3 days straight. then the next 10-11 days off.
I had played some in the game but the variation threw me and I lost a ton in the beginning. Probably $100 in commissary items and cigarettes and then losing my bankroll from mom, I didn't have the power of buy ins to spin it back up. I had to nit my way to doubles and cash out because the rake was high. Looking back now with an educated eye at what the rake was around 6% of a buyin stack every hand. I think thats fairly high-
you would get 20 chips per item. ante 1 chip ,capped at 3 - so easy to go broke in one hand with one buyin and he pops it for 3 chips every pot, that means avery 7 hands he is clearing an item and it he plays all day for 14 items average and then plays for three days , thats 42 items from rake - That is CRUSHING it .

I have to admit , it was a fun game. Haiti was a short little older man with a huge Haitian accent that you couldnt understand a word he ****ing said- Literally.
I understood when he said raise, fold- and when he was disgusted with anything he would yell this weird " skeesh skash skeesh" all the time.

I smoked at the time and he had cigarettes and candy. The first time I jumped into the stud game from winning in the Tunk game , I won 3 more items and cashed out for my biggest win up to date since arriving at Ridgeland. One pack of newports, One pack of coffee , 4 soups - one item cause so cheap - 1 iced honeybun.

Let me tell ya, playing all day on pennies and coming out on top in a high rake and finding out later, a cheated game, I felt like no one could beat me in poker. I didn't brag to anyone, I just felt like my game was tight and I had a better chance at winning that whole bag than anyone else.

There were other gamblers- since we were in the coastal region a lot of myrtle beach inmates were housed there. There was this older white guy, fat as hell and supposedly ran a whore house at the beach and was a card player but wouldnt play in the dayroom game. I think his name was Schultz but the story with him is , he would buy a whole box of phillie blunts at the commissary every two weeks and he would walk around and chew them. Then he would smoke them. A lot of weed smokers would trade him items for blunts when no one had any .
he would buy the big box with 50- if no one on the yard had any and visitation was " HOT" - meaning someone got some fire weed on visit and wanted to chief big blunts-

would pay a pretty hefty price to get those blunts and this is where old schultz hustled a lot of times. A lot of people knew him for that but he was a ****ing shithead old man and that was his only use.

One day he said he wanted to play me heads up Tonk. BUT we had to pay up when we got to a carton owed and could not play anymorer until it was paid- I felt like he was hustling me because at the time I was broke and he knew- The dorm knows who has money- he knew I was broke and was trying to get me in the hole . I knew this but was so confident in my game I said sure.

We get to his room, he has a brand new deck of red bycycles and from the jump I ran it up on him steadily to up one carton- and when I said we had to quit to pay up, the rules changed. I knew then that getting paid was gonna be a hard time and I played him tough but let him get back to even and quit immediately. never owing him anything-

I held a grudge against this guy for a while and ended up deciding to rob him while he was out to dinner one night. I went in his **** and took some bullshit and like 4 cigars. He then tried to put a hit on me with this lame dude that was scared to swing. I tell you right now , prison fights are cool but let a man get his pride hurt in front of his guys or someone with life and you **** up and go to blows all the time, one day it will be real bad and that is the moment you wish you had not been so ready to fight all the time.

Sometimes you have no choice and if someone sends a guy at you that means business, you are gonna have to fight. Schultz was mad that his first guy chickened out so he went and got one of the guys who loved being a hitman for hire.

Columbia- the capital of SC had a small group in our dorm. The head dorm janitor and all his homies had a lot of power. Their guy "TEE WHY" spelled TY was a really quiet guy with a violent streak rumour. When people come to the dorm , others that know him or have heard of him will tell whatever they heard about them.

People love gossip, but they are usually right about people. TY was a bammer and a guy most people feared because he was fit and had a repuattionas a fighter. This is who Schultz hired and this is who had some guys that he didnt even normally talk to ask me to come to their room to smoke weed and when i was in there, he came in the room and we started fighting- I didn't know he was after me, I wasn't expecting to get punched in the mouth but that's what happened almost instantly.

I felt my lip spilt and tasted a lot of blood. The guy who had asked me to come smoke laughed and said man I had nothing to do with it - I brought my hands up ready to fight and TY said " oh yea u wanna go" -

there was like 5 guys in the room and i'm the only white guy and this is one of those times that u have to make good choices no matter what. I decided to push past him and roll up out of the room . He rocked my grill real nice and busted my lip real deep and I have a nice scar there to remind me.

the dorms have 2 floors and Schultz was standing on the 2nd tier blacony by his room and he was laughing real loud and saying he wishes he had my teeth . I wanted to **** his ass up but it goes back to picking battles - he had cash flow- he could deposit in these guys account from the street and they could **** me up and not think twice. I considered a lot of options , believe me. I love to fight and if it weren't for that, I would have pounded that old man -

Months later his mom died while he was there and he cried and cried. I did feel a lot of pity for him then, as I loved my mom and would have hated to be in jail and she die. I didn't **** with him after that. It wasn't worth it lol.

The Terror Dome had a lot of characters. It was close custody - at a medium security facility. Close custody is the highest level before you start messing with being locked down 23 hours a day. Fortunately there was one wing of the four medium custody dorms reserved for that custody level.
I learned later that this is a transition dorm for people trying to get their level lowered back to medium and more visitation privileges or work release consideration.

It was supposed to be that but it was really just a mad house of people you would hate to be trapped on a desert island with. So many of us stayed up all night gambling or telling stories. Showers were best at night because most people slept at night and showered in the day so at night the water was super hot and no one was shitting nearby in one of the half stalls with no door.

The correctional officers worked in 12 hour shifts with different crews working four days, then off three, then work three, off four. always some rotation in there . Usually the same people worked the Terror Dome because there was so much to keep up with in terms of being on their guard , that a new officer or one used to working another dorm would get set up by someone to get his lunch or backback stolen.

that is some funny ass **** to see those masters totally mind **** one of the new rent a cops. don't get me wrong, there were some down ass c-o's at Ridgeland , mostly on lockup. But then there were many ****ing power hungry fatsos that loved to write you up for the dumbest ****.

After a while of being there and not hearing from family and basically joining the wolves so to speak but not officially becoming one of them, I started to rack up issues with certain C-O'S. One morning the cop, her name was johnson, she just got on her shift and it was the first day of her week. Usually they go all gung ho, its the first day to **** someone!

and she did! she seen me and I seen her eye go off and immediately turn and come in my direction. When she got about 15 feet from me, she said, " where's your room?" as she was putting on surgical gloves to keep her hands clean while she went thru all my property.

I had just got 2 onions the day before from the kitchen and knew there was no way she was not gonna find them.She made me stand outside my door with it wide open as she went thru all my bed linens and then my locker and immediately finding the contraband in the jacket pockets.

She's finished going thru my stuff and she says, " you can pack all that up, you're going to admin seg" . I immediately blew up on her because having onions was no reason to be going to lockup and she right away went to enforcing the close custody rule code , so I had to go to the hole and wait for a hearing.

The hole or admin seg at ridgeland I believe holds 37 or 38 inmates. From the air it looks like a cross. 2 wings of the cross are short term , where someone is being mental or has to do 15 days lockup for punishment or is being investigated.

The other side with its 20 cells make up the long term side. This side is where people who got in so much trouble on the yard are sentenced to level 3 admin seg which means long term 23 hours a day lockdown.You get one hour a day, five days a week. Rarely one hour on the weekends.
This side does not interact with the short term side. it is a world by itself as this was a newer prison when I was there and there were showers in the room. radio recepticles in the wall where you could listen to the radio all day everyday . there wasn't any commissary but there were inmates from the yard that came up and cleaned the hallways, done the laundry and passed out meals three times a day-
if you trusted one of these guys, you could get money sent to their account and they bring you some stuff up when they travel back and forth.

The long term side was very quiet. Some of those guys had been in lockup before they ever got to ridgeland. They were in the hole somewhere else for a long time and then sent to the new ridgeland lockup as a treat. Theres a big steel door that separates the two sides and if anyone is kicking on their door and making a lot of noise on the short term side, that door will be closed to not disturb the long term guys who get a lot of respect from staff .

It is on the short term side that I find myself , freshly jailed for possession of onions.I didn't think it was fair but to be honest, I hated the room I was in and them locking me up, guarantees a new room when I get out so it's a win -win. I still get out one day and I get a new room to help me pass the time.

It's maybe 9:30 a night and it's pretty quiet up on the lockup. People are laying down to begin with because thats almost all there is to do but as it gets close to lights out , people read and generally go silent . It's nice at that time because it's all steel and concrete so any loud sounds echo throughout the building .
If multiple people kick on their doors at the same time, it will draw FAST attention because it is so loud and deafening. If people kick late at night, it needs to be a good reason or else it wont be long, someone up there will get tired of not being able to sleep and will want to punch you in the mouth.

I'm laying down, reading a book that I picked up out of the hallway as I was escorted to my room. Out of nowhere, the mighty sound of the backwards mule door kick has set off in the mighty deep and it's right next door to me. He kicks like hell for like a full minute and then he yells C-O , C-O, C-O ... and then back to kicking.

at night there are only two guards in admin seg- the booth guy or the control room guy and the walker- If the walker has to run up to the main building for anything, no one is around, maybe 20 minutes at the most. It happens and since that door is locked , they know you will wait right there. LOL

anyway this guy is kicking and finally I say hey man lay the EFF down bro the police aint coming. get the EFF off that door.

right away he fires back, EFF you , PPussy mothereffer, like all kinds of **** talk and real tough.
when that happens on lockup, you say to the other guy- go outside on rec in the morning and we'll handle it. when you two get outside, it's on and that's that. someone gonna get punched or slapped and a mighty brawl will happen.......
OR, there will be one of the two door gangsters that do not come outside the next day for the showdown. The guy staying inside will be quiet as a mouse and generally the guy who went outside will let it go unless the scared guy starts talking **** again
if thats the case, the guy who went outside will say things like

" BBitch I took your rec, you cant go outside no more" - " you go outside again when I say so"

it really does get funny at times but it's a sad place when you get down to it.

The guy next to me didn't go outside the next morning.I did, I was ready to throw hands and see whats up but he didn't say anything or come outside so that meant he didnt want any. After coming back inside and getting thru the day he was mostly quiet and didn't try to talk to me or anyone on the hallway. Later that night right before the lights went out , I heard a tapping on my wall coming from his side. I didn't think much about it and ignored it and it stopped for a second but then it started back a little louder and a different rythym . I knew he was trying to get my attention so i yelled out from my bed, yo man whats up.

he had came up to his door and was talking at the crack closest to my door and said-

" hey man come talk to me"

In prison, you cannot stop people from talking. Normally people used hushed tones when talking into the night to their homies. If they are being respectful and just talking to each other , you can't be mad - you are all in prison together. Got to suck it up and wait them out if it bothers you too much.

Then there's the night time door bangers which all the old cons hate. On lockup you have all types of people , especially on the short term side. When I say all types, here are a few examples-

The guy who swan dived off the second floor tier onto the concrete below and shattered both arms. He had pins all up and down his straight out arms as the slowly walked him to the suicidal cell. Imagine the pain and discomfort, led into a room and a paper gown is your only clothes. Its is dark and the sun never reaches any part of the room, it's all indirect light so the concrete and steel never warm up. You have a suicide blanket that barely covers you and that is it.

no mattress, no pillow. nothing. and this guy was in there. I felt so bad for him and wondered what the **** would make him do that to himself.

You get the old guys who need to see a nurse and beat on the door all day until she finally rolls thru and gives him the bad news that prison doctors dont work like outside doctors. He has to come to terms with how ****ed he is inside that concrete box now as she leaves without a **** given.

Then you get guys like William Chad Miller, AKA Cat Burglar-

He was tough on the door but when it came time to talk about his mouth face to face, he wouldn't come outside. Now, I am not gonna hate on him because as I said earlier , you have to pick your battles and im not sure what his thinking was when he didn't meet in the yard the next morning.

When he said come talk to me later that night, I could tell he wasn't trying to start anything so I said , " yea man whats up " .
A lot of times when you meet someone in prison, the first thing they ask or you ask is, " where are you from" -

for me being in a south carolina prison , almost in georgia, I always replied that I was from Raleigh NC because most people have heard of it and I dont have to explain further.
If I tell them I was born in Smithfield NC , I would have to explain where that is and to be honest, a lot of people that ask you that are not really worthy of a detailed explaination.

His first question to me was" where you from man"?

For some reason I truthfully said Smithfield NC . He didnt say anything at first , you kind of expect him to say " oh ok, well im from georgetown SC, my name is chad ". But he didn't say that. He said, no you aint.
So now when he says " no you aint" , im thinking here we go again , playing games on the door like last night, and I was just about to tell him to go **** himself when he says name someone you know from there.

For me at that time and probably now too I always thought of a girl that was in my 4th grade class. When my mom and dad had first got the new double wide and five acres of land in Hidden Valley , right between clayton and wilsons mills. My mom had seen the land come up within a new subdivision that had no restricted covenants that ran along the neuse river.

she didnt get a river lot but she got a tributary creek lot that fed the river and there was always cool camping and wildlife. When it was new to us as a family, it was some great times .

I had just started Wilsons Mills elementary in the 4th grade and I was in Mrs harpers calss. You could still be paddled in school and Mrs harper would smack your palms with a ruler.

The most beautiful girl , with the most beautiful smile and personality was in my class. Her name was Tammy Butler and from the moment I saw her I loved her. I felt an incredible pull to her . I was super shy and never tried to talk to her on a regular basis but I always seen her. She had the most beautiful hand writing to me and always seemed to be hard at work in her books.

My home life had started to fall apart and my school work was suffering. I started acting out and becoming the bad kid in class. Her and I didn't talk much but I did get the courage to ask her to write the song lyrics to bon jovis " you give love a bad name" , which she did and I always thought about that for a long time after. we didnt talk outside of school.
she lived in a different part of town but my moms friend sheryl from her high school days had married a guy named jerry with 3 kids and they bought the lot next to us. Jerrys ex wife lived down the street from Tammy and her family and " the boys" Nick , Chris and David would split time between our neighborhood and their moms neighborhood. They knew Tammy and her brothers and Nick would tell me stuff about the neighborhood and how Tammy was doing if he seen her when he would come back to his dads and visit.

I adored this girl and always felt like she would be in my life. In the 5th grade I signed up for a 4H public speaking competition because I seen her name on it. I showed up just to watch her speak and then went up myself to speak and totally didnt care . I came to see her and I did.

I failed the 5th grade and she went on ahead and then I never seen her again until November 2000. We weren't any type of friends . We had spoken in class, knew people commonly and that was it.

" Name someone you know from Smithfield"

I figured it was gonna be a short conversation when I named a beautiful girl that took AG classes (academically gifted) so I said- Tammy Butler

This time he immeditely went into - NUH UH MAN - THERE AINT NO WAY , YOU ARE LYING- YOU ARE AN EFFING LIAR- and this time he's loud - it's late , the lights are off and him getting loud is gonna get some friction if he keeps it up.

He says "man who sent you? are you real? "

So i'm pretty much thinking this guy is a nutcase so i'm like man lay the **** down, you are a ****ing clown. You can't tell me who I know and don't know.
He says " thats my cousin" -
Now it's my turn to say, " you are ****ing liar dude, shut the **** up"

he says I can prove it , she's got a brother named Tommy and a brother named Ronnie. At that moment I knew what I felt for her would come true. her brother Tommy was one grade ahead of us , so while her and I were in 4th, he was in 5th. I knew for a FACT that her brothers name was Tommy.

24 hours ago I had wanted to fight this guy and now I have my first true homeboy and he's the blood relative of the most beautiful girl i've ever seen that lives not 5 miles from my moms house and in the same neighborhood of my childhood friends.
In the prison world it's literally like hitting the jackpot of the lottery. I went from literally having no friends that truly had my back to Chad who would become a great friend but could not rise above the traps of life as I did.
Chad's mother Mary was sister to Tammys mom Anne - Anne just happeed to be one of the school lunch ladies at our school when we went together. She later became a nurse in old folks homes. Tammy's dad worked as a top mechanic at the Raleigh Ford dealership.
Mary married several different guys and Chad had actually stabbed on of those guys in the stomach and was in prison for that. Chad had also been to youth institutions like me and had a much tougher time because of who he was. He was tall and skinny as hell and had some weird jail tattoos . He had been hit in his eye , I believe it was a wreck but his eyebrow had a pretty bad scar and to go with all that he was kind of jumpy. It may have been because we were in prison but at the time I met him he was a mess.

I gambled. I stole. I was fighting. I was pretty much holding my own against the baddest in there and I had no weapons. I would have got my ass beat down in certain matchups , for sure . But no matter those outcomes and possibilities, people will always consider what they know you are capable of before they take it to other levels. I dont think I was that feared but everyone knew what time it was with me. I got more respect from my black friends and dormmates than I did the white people in the dorm.

the whites in my dorm were all fake as hell and scared to be real. When I say real, I mean get in the mix. Gamble, interact with everyone in the place. these guys would congregate together , whisper and all that **** like they were in some other prison where their rules were different.

I guess it could be that their lives were in a different phase and that them seeing me being buck wild and pretty much the opposite of what they were trying to be was intimidating and didn't want to associate with any drama .

When I got out of admin seg for the onions, it wasn't but just a few days and Chad was placed in the terror dome. he had been transfered from another prison , I believe the big coastal R+E place but I can't remember the name and then put into seg and then onto the yard. And in my dorm.

I pretty much took him under my wing and spent everyday talking about Tammy, her family, his family. Everything about him . I told him a lot about me but there's so much to me that i just skim a lot to keep from having to talk for a week explaining. That was 24 years ago so just imagine the complexity of it all now going forward.

Chad was jittery, he took medication and wasn't on the criminality level I was . He stabbed his stepdad and had a lot of mental health stays. Still a good guy and good heart but when it got stressful, he chose the extreme path , while i chose the wise path. He couldn't help it but right away I knew just by his lash out instinct that he would get into some **** and I tried to help him avoid it.

People literally treated me like an idiot for rolling with him and no matter what I stuck by him. He wrote home to Tammy to make sure she knew me. She wrote back yes and that she wasn't surprised I was in prison and sent a picture of her and her 2 boys , Wyatt and Warner. I told him that day that she was gonna be my girl when I got home. He said she is still married and that it wouldnt happen.

Of course I was crushed seeing her with kids and hearing she was married but It didnt matter. I was a stepkid and I knew I could treat those boys like the best stepdad there ever was. I wouldn't corrupt them, but teach and guide- You have plenty of time to think in prison. This was around the time of Tiger Woods rise and knowing his dad shaped him from birth , i knew i could have a good impact , in some way on their lives . I felt that strongly about it. **** was wild but it wasn't like every thought was that type of futuristic fantasy maybe land-

Those thoughts came as I was about to drift off to sleep a lot of times. Wondering, wishing. When I was sent to prison I had nothing in life and when I was to be released , I was gonna have to build a life and I envisioned it with her. I just felt it and it was another one of those internal thoughts like the ghost and the voices. I kept it to myself.

Chad was fine for a while. His mom also sent him money , but not consistent and would put him in the loan trap where he couldn't pay on time. Over time he got bad credit and the only people that would loan him anything were people who would beat him up for real , knowing they were loaning to probably have to beat him up.

Chad would do things like this secretly , which he had a right to, but I tried to help him avoid and not get credit. Tough it out - it's only 4 days, it's only 1 week. I tried to coach him up to having control over things that got him in trouble like the loans he kept getting. He then tried to hide it from me by going to one of the bad loan guys.

I can't remember exactly how much cat burglar (chad) borrowed from this guy Named Supreme- This wasn't his real name . He had a normal real name but changed it to , Supreme God Allah after converting to a religious sect in prison. This religious sect isn't the normal preachers on sunday stuff.

we are talking some heavy hitting knowledge and at first glance you may think , yea right , but once you elevate your thinking and leave the matrix, the world becomes a different place. You could not be a white guy in this religion. You could study, you could have fellowship and you could sit beside them but you could not be a true convert and it's Gods law.

I kind of knew of these guys as I knew of all the different groups and gangs. I knew that this Religious group was to not be taken lightly because for one, they had the numbers and two, it seemed the power structure of the whole dorm ran through them and I had no proof of that except some things that have happened between groups and once taken to this one individual, there was no more beef.

These groups of guys weren't no chumps. Quite the opposite and when they have issues and are about to get physical , there are no secrets in prison. You see the moves to negotiate. Who is demanding peace. You also see who sends the dogs and the levels of speed in which this stuff happens is no game.

Chad has borrowed up this mans cigarettes and has checked into protective custody. Chad is a white guy and I'm a white guy- This is an issue sometimes in prison if you align with certain people and apparently my aligning with Chad, My friendship, my total allegiance to helping him not get his head busted has ****ed me by Chad seceretly borrowing the guys stuff and checking off-

I didn't know anything about the cigarettes until Supreme yelled at me across the dorm-" YO where's your boy with my ****"

I didn't know chad was gone to protective custody. He never said a word. When Supreme was yelling at me I was instantly on red alert because , I never spoke a word to this guy. He was from Manning SC and in for manslaughter or 2nd degree murder or something, I cant rememeber but he was tall, muscular and a 5% Nation member and I had no business with him up until that point. These guys aren't looking to make friends and it was shocking to know chad had borrowed his stuff. Chad was stupid and didn't know who people were. He just knew the guy had nicotene and needed a drug fix.

Well I knew who he was and who they were and I didn't want no part of that deal but It was made clear that I was gonna pay the debt since Chad was gone. Well, of course I took issue with that because I didn't smoke his cigarettes, I didn't borrow **** from the guy. I had never spoken to him but here he is telling me I owed PACKS of cigarettes that someone else borrowed and i'm facing a fight If I dont pay- Tomorrow- payday.

Of course I'm on edge. Chad is gone, nowhere to explain or make right. Here is Supreme threatening me and I don't have any money to pay him. I have other obligations. So the next morning I go about my business and try to avoid being around, hanging out for him to walk by and see me.

I lay low all day long and finally when it's dark I feel like he's chilled out and not gonna come looking for me. I'm down in my room and I have my lights out. I'm on the top bunk and im about to drift off to sleep and I see a shadow at my door and a face presses to the glass. It's Supreme- he's come to see if I got his stuff and I just lay there and dont move. he finally leaves the door and I'm going to sleep thinking how to get out of this with him.

I was early to breakfast and at a table alone the next morning. I was eating and just in my head when I look up and 2 tables away from me sitting in my direction looking directly at me was Supreme. I didn't say anything I just slowly looked away and kept eating and acting normal.Inside I was like **** man this guy is psycho, how will this **** play out... what is my best option here. well I stalled a long time drinking milk. There were bladders of milk in the machine and it was drink all you want. SCDC has their own dairy so milk flows in the mornings.

He left and then I left some time after maybe 15 minutes. I walked slowly to the door hoping he would go lay down or leave me alone. As im getting close, I see his face pressing against the sidelight window, looking for me to get back to the dorm.
I know in this moment that the showdown I have tried to avoid is about to happen

South Carolina prison uniforms are tan and have elastic waistbands. Pretty much pajamas. The state issued work boots are poorly made and the soles are a hard plastic and easy slide and lose grip on the polished concrete floors of the dorms. Fighting in them is very risky in doors and most people about to start fighting either kick them off or wear other shoes.

As im walking up to the door of the dorm, He is standing about 5 feet inside waiting for me like a linebacker covering a hole. I figured if i didn't do anything that I would get ****ed up and if I defended myself, I might have a chance. So i opened the door, walked in and in one stride swung my right fist and connected with the side of his face.

he was stunned as he was not expecting me to swing first. They are always stunned. after contact I backed up out of the door and out of the dorm. Off the concrete , away from bad footing and out onto the grass where I had a chance against a bigger guy .

This is early morning , during the week breakfast time .Both sides of the dorm are open and people are flowing back and forth - here we are stumbling out the door, squaring up to fight.

there's 510 inmates in every dorm, I would say half were watching us fight. We got out into the grass and we squared off. he swinging wildly , very mad that I had hit him. I backed up at his charge and managed to hit him again before he rushed me to the ground

He got on top of me and was working my arms into a lock to get a good free swing on my face when in one motion i swung my hip out and over spinning my way top the top and in the same motion freeing my hands and punching him in the mouth several times.

He threw me off and I got up and squared up again and he did the same , but this time blood coming out of his mouth and an unsure look in his eye. At that same moment, here comes the officers, grabbinmg us both and taking us to opereations.

We had to sit up in seperate holding cells for hours until the situation was calm and then sent back to the dorms. No lock up , which was cool because I thought for sure witht hat many people watching and yelling , they were gonna make examples out of it , but they didnt.


Two days later, after laying low and avoiding Supreme or any of his brothers and trying not to gloat or act tough like I had beat anyone up- The guy didnt hit me at all. I got like 5 good ones in and made his mouth bleed. I was smaller and did not instigate it. I knew that if I made a big deal out of it, his pride would kick in and there was a chance he would take it to another level like I did with stretch when he broke my nose. I knew not to try to be a big guy . I knew to shut up and forget it.

that was my plan until the guy who never said 2 words ever around me and that I thought to be the head of the power structure of the dorm gangs looked at me when no one else was around and said-
"you are gonna stop going around here beating up black people"


well, this kind of shocked me but I knew that the fight did not make any of them happy. I wasn't singling out any black person to fight. It just happened to be who the poeple were who had beef. I didn't see it as black/white. But I knew they might and this is why I did not go around acting like I had won the world championship. I shut my mouth and avoided conflict the best I could.