Every morning at 5:00am, the military horn blew its top off. God it took me forever to get used to waking up that way. We'd all jump out of bed to stand at attention at the foot of our bunkbeds, cold tiles on bare feet waking us up even faster. Some did the peepee dance as discreetly as possible (I know I did more than a few times), while waiting for the officer on duty to count us. Every federal prison and facility was subject to the same count times across the country. And under NO circumstances should you miss a count. None.
These couple of minutes were crucial to determining how the rest of the day went. Each CO (Corrections Officer) had vastly different personalities. There was the playful but aggressive, steroid-taking officer with the mentality of a 12 year old (his bark was definitely worse than his bite), the unpredicatable but highly intelligent (but crazy!) Mr. Loy (however many think, and I agree, that he put on an act), the good-natured, but very tempermental Mr. Steese, who could have been smart had he not grown up in the middle of the woods, and the short and sadistic Shark, who had a serious Napoleon complex.
There were others, but these were the most colorful officers. If the Shark woke us up, we were fucked. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, dreaded when he was on duty. He once crawled underneath an empty bunk before 5:00am to spy on us, and see who got out of bed before the horn sounded. Apparently that wasn't allowed, and the guy got hell for it.
After we're counted, we have a few minutes to wash up, make our beds (which had to be made hospital style... ugh...) and get ready for our morning PT (Physical Training) and this varied from officer to officer, or from day to day. Ranging from calisthenics, aerobics, endurance training, and running, working out on an empty stomach when your last meal was about 22 hours prior wasn't easy. Quite a few people threw up while running on an empty stomach, especially if they overdressed in the winter time.
That lasted about a half hour. We changed, lined up, marched to the cafeteria (food was served to us from the Camp, the lowest possible security federal prison besides boot camp), and once there, one team after the other goes in to eat, while the others stand outside waiting. The only time we waited indoors was when it was pouring, otherwise, we learned how to doze off standing and to talk without moving your lips. No yawning, no looking/moving around, no scratching yourself, no talking, no sleeping. But I've managed to hold conversations that way and play mental chess just to kill time.
Meals lasted around 40ish minutes, meanwhile we only had 5 minutes to eat. And we had to finish everything on our tray unless you're slick enough to throw it away in the trash without any COs seeing.
Bootleg Fruit Loops (I was told these would make me shit different colors, and I obviously thought they were joking... unfortunately they were not), Lucky Charms and Cheerio's made up most of our breakfasts, we also had french toast or waffles once in awhile. The milk was real at least, but we were restricted to one cup a person.
Now remember how there's nothing you can do while waiting to eat or waiting for others to finish? This is even worse when beans were on the menu, because people had no shame in farting randomly. And trust me, a bunch of guys from all over the country put together, there were some really foul smelling stomachs out there.
Then we marched back, and our day officially begins. Between mandatory classes (drug education, resume building, etc.), voluntary classes (smoking cessation, food safety, etc.) which people took to get out of work, and work, all of us go to our designated stations.
Most of the work there sucked. Mainly all labor work, from working the farm, mopping the units, laundry. I was designated to Topside, one of the best jobs. It was basically clothing issue, and the CO in charge of it was Mr. Steese, and from the day I first joined, he had requested to have me work there. Later, he told me it was because he could see I wasn't a bad kid, and wanted to save me from all the bullshit the others had to go through. And that's how he recruited everyone in Topside.
We basically didn't do shit all day lol. Once in a awhile inmates came to swap out their clothes or canteens for one reason or another. And when a new team comes in, we're in charge of distributing all of the stuff they need for their 6 months of torture. The rest of the time? We built a ghetto chessboard made from cardboard, buttons, pieces of paper and tape.
But the most important part was our ability to get brand new clothes whenever we wanted. Everyone of us working there had our stash hidden somewhere of the newest things we want in our sizes. Hey, even in jail people wanna look good! Also a cleanliness thing though. On top of that, since we were free for most of the day, we ironed our clothes and shined our boots, leaving us more of our personal time at the end of the day.
Then it was lunch time. Same routine. After lunch we had about a couple hours before we had PT again, work/class, then dinner around 6:00pm. Work/class once again, then 8:00pm is the start of our personal time. During this time we shower, write letters, and take care of our affairs for the next day.
Lights out at 9:00pm, then rinse and repeat. Six and a half months of this crap. We were all designated time slots to make our one 15 minute phone call a week. This is different from regular jail, where you have a max of 300 minutes a month, 15 minutes each, but you can call again an hour later. One 15 minute call a week was rough. Real rough.
The entire bootcamp was split into four teams: Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta. I was in Delta. And what sucks is, especially during the beginning months (they did this less as we got closer to leaving), when one person fucked up, the entire team paid for it. I've done countless pushups and other ab exercises without even knowing why, not to mention a ridiculous amount of extra miles that I normally wouldn't have had to run.
"DELTA TEAM, DROP!" was something we heard quite often. I was on a team of fucking idiots by the way.
Other random rules? You couldn't step on any black tile. When not in our sleeping areas, you can't walk past a CO without stopping and sounding off, "Sir, Inmate [NAME] request permission to carry on, sir, I can make it, I can take it, nothing can stop me sir!"
And if the CO just stood there and ignored you, you just keep standing there until either he tells you to carry on, or he walks past you.
If a CO drops you for pushups or something, before you get back up even though you're done with whatever number he said, we had to say, "Sir, Inmate [NAME] request permission to recover sir. Thank you for conditioning my mind and body, please feel free to do so at anytime, sir!" Now sometimes if they were assholes they'd say, "Anytime? Okay, do another fifty."
No looking into the CO's eyes. No hands in pockets. Boots are to be shined, shirts with three creases in the back, no snacks, no gum, no drawings or anything personal outside of a particular personal envelope.
Typical day in boot camp. Thank god it's way behind me =)
Showing posts with label postarrest. Show all posts
Showing posts with label postarrest. Show all posts
Monday, January 4, 2010
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Uh... what?
I'm not exactly sure how I ended up there, but I did. I was at this bar in the Lower East Side, called BOB, a small venue, rather coffin like since it just extends straight down to the bar, and had booths lining the sides. That was it.
Oh I remember how I ended up there, it was a friend's going away party (she had actually already left by this point I think). Anyhow, Alanna and Shannon were there with me, Alanna was up and about, Shannon and I sitting on the booth, catching up.
Then this Asian girl (more like lady...) in a jeans jacket, walks up waving. Figuring she was someone's friend, we both waved back.
"Is someone sitting there?" she asked, pointing to some space between Shannon and I. We both looked at each other thinking it was weird she'd ask for the seat in between us, considering it didn't seem like she knew either one of us.
"No, go ahead," I replied, motioning to the empty spot.
So she puts her coat there.
"You don't remember me?" she says into my ear.
"Remember you?" I asked, completely confused. "I don't think I know you."
Up close, I could see the layers of makeup, which led me to notice that there was something odd about her clothes but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.
"I'm supposed to meet you."
I was completely lost. I had no idea who the hell she was, but yet she kept insisting. The look on my face must have been revealing, because her friend that I hadn't noticed until now, stepped up.
"You were here last week right?"
This was my second time at BOB. The first time being close to a year prior.
"Uhh, no, not at all, you have the wrong person."
"Are you sure?" they both looked just as confused as I did now.
"Umm yeah I'm pretty sure I'd know if I were here last week."
They looked at each other, said something then turned back to me.
"You look just like him, are you really sure?"
Oh my god, I'd fucking know if I were here last week or not.
"Yeah I'm sure."
Nodding reluctantly, they finally walked away.
"Who was that?" Shannon asked.
And when I said I had no idea, we started laughing and talking about what just happened. The crazy part is, Jeans Jacket came back to ask me again, if I was sure I wasn't this guy she was supposed to meet, and kept insisting that I looked just like him. She leaves again.
At some point during the night, I go out for a smoke. On my way back in, Jeans Jacket stops me (again!), and asks me what ethnicity I am.
"Oh I'm Taiwanese too!" she said excitedly, then pointing at both herself and me, "You, me, brother, sister."
"What?"
I was starting to get irritated. She actually repeated herself, meanwhile my "what" was of incredulity.
"Look, I don't have a sister."
"You don't want me as sister?"
"Uh no."
Then her invisible sidekick interjects.
"Are you here alone?"
Knowing what she meant, I played dumb.
"Nah, I'm here with my friends."
I pointed to my group, then just started walking away.
About an hour had passed by now. Who were these people? I guess it wouldn't have been such a big deal if she weren't 40ish, trying to act and dress like she were 20, and looking like she fell into a tub of makeup foundation.
So I'm sitting and talking to my friends, having a good time, started joking that Jeans Jacket was a prostitute and her invisible sidekick was her pimp. It wasn't actually too far fetched considering the vibe they were giving off.
Jeans Jacket started dancing around our area, inching closer and closer. My friends started semi-jokingly forming a wall around me to keep her out lol, Danielle dancing right up against her and bumping her away.
But her pimp still comes a-fucking-gain!
"Why aren't you dancing?"
I had enough.
"Look, I don't know you, or your friend, I don't care to talk to you, I'm not who you think I am, so just stop talking to me."
I actually had to tell her that twice because the first time she didn't hear or understand. But she was respectful and walked away. Jeans Jacket comes by a few minutes later, and her sidekick rushes up behind her, grabs her arm, points to me and shakes her head.
They disappeared again, came back but didn't say anything. Jeans Jacket just did some wave motion with her hand, pointed at me, then herself, then some other hand signs that I clearly didn't understand, because I just stared at her blankly. My jaw might have been hanging open actually. Then she turned around and left.
Was she just nuts? My friends and I just looked at each other frowning, completely confused as to what that whole little episode was. But it was a relief that she was finally gone. She was bothering me for a total of 2.5 hours!
To this day I still don't know if she was a prostitute or not. I forgot what it was, but there were a few little things that happened that night that led me to lean more towards that conclusion. It's either that, or she really did meet someone there the week before and they were supposed to meet again. I'm not sure what the whole sister/brother thing was though, but I'm pretty sure that's gotta be the worst pickup line ever lol.
Oh I remember how I ended up there, it was a friend's going away party (she had actually already left by this point I think). Anyhow, Alanna and Shannon were there with me, Alanna was up and about, Shannon and I sitting on the booth, catching up.
Then this Asian girl (more like lady...) in a jeans jacket, walks up waving. Figuring she was someone's friend, we both waved back.
"Is someone sitting there?" she asked, pointing to some space between Shannon and I. We both looked at each other thinking it was weird she'd ask for the seat in between us, considering it didn't seem like she knew either one of us.
"No, go ahead," I replied, motioning to the empty spot.
So she puts her coat there.
"You don't remember me?" she says into my ear.
"Remember you?" I asked, completely confused. "I don't think I know you."
Up close, I could see the layers of makeup, which led me to notice that there was something odd about her clothes but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.
"I'm supposed to meet you."
I was completely lost. I had no idea who the hell she was, but yet she kept insisting. The look on my face must have been revealing, because her friend that I hadn't noticed until now, stepped up.
"You were here last week right?"
This was my second time at BOB. The first time being close to a year prior.
"Uhh, no, not at all, you have the wrong person."
"Are you sure?" they both looked just as confused as I did now.
"Umm yeah I'm pretty sure I'd know if I were here last week."
They looked at each other, said something then turned back to me.
"You look just like him, are you really sure?"
Oh my god, I'd fucking know if I were here last week or not.
"Yeah I'm sure."
Nodding reluctantly, they finally walked away.
"Who was that?" Shannon asked.
And when I said I had no idea, we started laughing and talking about what just happened. The crazy part is, Jeans Jacket came back to ask me again, if I was sure I wasn't this guy she was supposed to meet, and kept insisting that I looked just like him. She leaves again.
At some point during the night, I go out for a smoke. On my way back in, Jeans Jacket stops me (again!), and asks me what ethnicity I am.
"Oh I'm Taiwanese too!" she said excitedly, then pointing at both herself and me, "You, me, brother, sister."
"What?"
I was starting to get irritated. She actually repeated herself, meanwhile my "what" was of incredulity.
"Look, I don't have a sister."
"You don't want me as sister?"
"Uh no."
Then her invisible sidekick interjects.
"Are you here alone?"
Knowing what she meant, I played dumb.
"Nah, I'm here with my friends."
I pointed to my group, then just started walking away.
About an hour had passed by now. Who were these people? I guess it wouldn't have been such a big deal if she weren't 40ish, trying to act and dress like she were 20, and looking like she fell into a tub of makeup foundation.
So I'm sitting and talking to my friends, having a good time, started joking that Jeans Jacket was a prostitute and her invisible sidekick was her pimp. It wasn't actually too far fetched considering the vibe they were giving off.
Jeans Jacket started dancing around our area, inching closer and closer. My friends started semi-jokingly forming a wall around me to keep her out lol, Danielle dancing right up against her and bumping her away.
But her pimp still comes a-fucking-gain!
"Why aren't you dancing?"
I had enough.
"Look, I don't know you, or your friend, I don't care to talk to you, I'm not who you think I am, so just stop talking to me."
I actually had to tell her that twice because the first time she didn't hear or understand. But she was respectful and walked away. Jeans Jacket comes by a few minutes later, and her sidekick rushes up behind her, grabs her arm, points to me and shakes her head.
They disappeared again, came back but didn't say anything. Jeans Jacket just did some wave motion with her hand, pointed at me, then herself, then some other hand signs that I clearly didn't understand, because I just stared at her blankly. My jaw might have been hanging open actually. Then she turned around and left.
Was she just nuts? My friends and I just looked at each other frowning, completely confused as to what that whole little episode was. But it was a relief that she was finally gone. She was bothering me for a total of 2.5 hours!
To this day I still don't know if she was a prostitute or not. I forgot what it was, but there were a few little things that happened that night that led me to lean more towards that conclusion. It's either that, or she really did meet someone there the week before and they were supposed to meet again. I'm not sure what the whole sister/brother thing was though, but I'm pretty sure that's gotta be the worst pickup line ever lol.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Nothing To Be Proud Of
I went to happy hour with my boss at the time, Neil, a British guy who could drink Guiness like nobody's business. So on an empty stomach, I had about six or seven pints of beer under an hour.
Why was I drinking so fast? Well, for one, I was pacing with Neil. And for two, I had to go meet up with my girlfriend at the time, Kim, to watch Ratatouille. We were fighting the night before, I don't remember what it was about, but she was still pissed and insisted that I don't be late.
So, I hopped into a cab in the West Village, and headed up to Kip's Bay for the movie. Besides the constant jerking of the cab, everything was fine until we got to my destination. We got to the corner where I told the cabbie to drop me off, I took out a $20 bill (I have no idea how much the fare was, but it couldn't have been anywhere near 20 bucks), and then it happened.
I threw up all over the cab. And on the right leg of my jeans. Ugh.
I didn't even ask for change, got out, sat on a porch and held my head in my hands, trying to sober up.
The cab driver got out to follow me and kept on bitching, saying he wouldn't be able to get another fare. I think I mentioned something along the lines that I just gave him a twenty, but he just ignored that.
His blabbering just made my head hurt more, so I took out another $20 bill.
"Here. Take this, get the fuck away from me and shut the fuck up."
He quickly pocketed it, but the asshole didn't stop. He threatened to call the cops.
That did it. I was still on probation at the time, but I hated when people threatened to call the cops on me, especially if I didn't do anything illegal. I mean, c'mon, since when is throwing up in public illegal?
"Call the cops?" I asked. "What the fuck are you gonna call the cops for? Huh? Okay fine, call the fucking cops, give me back my money."
I approached him but he backed away, of course not giving up the money.
"Look, look! Cops right there!" he shouted, pointing to a traffic police car.
I don't think he expected me to actually hail the cops down, but unluckily (or maybe luckily) they didn't notice and kept on driving.
But that convinced the cabbie that I really didn't care if he got the cops involved, and he ran to his cab and drove off.
What a prick.
Anyhow, I called Kim, and she already sounded pissed.
"Well, I'm not late, I'm here but I can't watch the movie with you."
"WHAT? Why not?"
Uh oh.
She was with her friend Lin and her boyfriend at the time, Vic.
"Well..."
And I proceeded to explain the story that I just told you up until now.
"... so I really need to go home and change, my jeans just reek. It's fucking nasty," I finished.
Kim wasn't having it. I guess she really wanted to watch Ratatouille lol. We continued arguing in person, Vic and Lin were just waiting around, we told them to watch the movie without us, but they missed it. Then they found another movie they could watch. They missed that one too.
So apparently we were arguing outside of the theater for awhile. I'm not exactly sure how the fight was resolved, but Vic said he'd drive us home to Rego Park, Queeens.
He had some wet naps in his car, I cleaned up, got in, and no more than a few blocks later, the stench was unbearable.
"Oh my god I can't take this shit anymore," I said and took everything out of my pockets.
"What the hell are you doing?" Kim asked, looking at me like I completely lost my mind.
I ended up throwing my jeans out the car window. What the fuck was I thinking? Well... I wasn't really, to be honest, but hey, it got rid of the smell of vomit, right?
I didn't really plan this too far ahead though. Vic couldn't find parking any closer than two blocks away (technically I guess he could have just dropped me off in front of my building first), but I ended up walking those two blocks in boxers and boots lol.
Thankfully I didn't know anyone in that neighborhood.
Moral of the story? Don't be a dumbass >.<
P.S - I just remembered, sometime during that car ride home I bit Lin's hand or arm pretty hard for some reason... I think she dared me to? Or told me I could? Yeah I kinda have a biting fetish lol
Why was I drinking so fast? Well, for one, I was pacing with Neil. And for two, I had to go meet up with my girlfriend at the time, Kim, to watch Ratatouille. We were fighting the night before, I don't remember what it was about, but she was still pissed and insisted that I don't be late.
So, I hopped into a cab in the West Village, and headed up to Kip's Bay for the movie. Besides the constant jerking of the cab, everything was fine until we got to my destination. We got to the corner where I told the cabbie to drop me off, I took out a $20 bill (I have no idea how much the fare was, but it couldn't have been anywhere near 20 bucks), and then it happened.
I threw up all over the cab. And on the right leg of my jeans. Ugh.
I didn't even ask for change, got out, sat on a porch and held my head in my hands, trying to sober up.
The cab driver got out to follow me and kept on bitching, saying he wouldn't be able to get another fare. I think I mentioned something along the lines that I just gave him a twenty, but he just ignored that.
His blabbering just made my head hurt more, so I took out another $20 bill.
"Here. Take this, get the fuck away from me and shut the fuck up."
He quickly pocketed it, but the asshole didn't stop. He threatened to call the cops.
That did it. I was still on probation at the time, but I hated when people threatened to call the cops on me, especially if I didn't do anything illegal. I mean, c'mon, since when is throwing up in public illegal?
"Call the cops?" I asked. "What the fuck are you gonna call the cops for? Huh? Okay fine, call the fucking cops, give me back my money."
I approached him but he backed away, of course not giving up the money.
"Look, look! Cops right there!" he shouted, pointing to a traffic police car.
I don't think he expected me to actually hail the cops down, but unluckily (or maybe luckily) they didn't notice and kept on driving.
But that convinced the cabbie that I really didn't care if he got the cops involved, and he ran to his cab and drove off.
What a prick.
Anyhow, I called Kim, and she already sounded pissed.
"Well, I'm not late, I'm here but I can't watch the movie with you."
"WHAT? Why not?"
Uh oh.
She was with her friend Lin and her boyfriend at the time, Vic.
"Well..."
And I proceeded to explain the story that I just told you up until now.
"... so I really need to go home and change, my jeans just reek. It's fucking nasty," I finished.
Kim wasn't having it. I guess she really wanted to watch Ratatouille lol. We continued arguing in person, Vic and Lin were just waiting around, we told them to watch the movie without us, but they missed it. Then they found another movie they could watch. They missed that one too.
So apparently we were arguing outside of the theater for awhile. I'm not exactly sure how the fight was resolved, but Vic said he'd drive us home to Rego Park, Queeens.
He had some wet naps in his car, I cleaned up, got in, and no more than a few blocks later, the stench was unbearable.
"Oh my god I can't take this shit anymore," I said and took everything out of my pockets.
"What the hell are you doing?" Kim asked, looking at me like I completely lost my mind.
I ended up throwing my jeans out the car window. What the fuck was I thinking? Well... I wasn't really, to be honest, but hey, it got rid of the smell of vomit, right?
I didn't really plan this too far ahead though. Vic couldn't find parking any closer than two blocks away (technically I guess he could have just dropped me off in front of my building first), but I ended up walking those two blocks in boxers and boots lol.
Thankfully I didn't know anyone in that neighborhood.
Moral of the story? Don't be a dumbass >.<
P.S - I just remembered, sometime during that car ride home I bit Lin's hand or arm pretty hard for some reason... I think she dared me to? Or told me I could? Yeah I kinda have a biting fetish lol
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Days As a Pool Hall Junkie
When Lisa and I first met, we shot a lot of pool. We started by going to Soho Billiards on a regular basis, but it was kind of pricey, especially considering that she was still a high school student and I was working dead end jobs.
So we eventually migrated to Broadway Billiards, on 21st Street and... well, Broadway. It was a basement location (I say was because I recently passed by to find it closed, but hopefully just for renovation), a little on the ghetto side, but the regulars were friendly, and the price couldn't be beat.
Four bucks an hour per person on weekdays, five on weekends. And the owners, a Korean family, were our little dwarves. We had Grumpy, Happy and Sleepy. Sleepy was Mr. Choi, he sometimes asked us to shoot with him so he could get some "exercise" lol but that was only at 5:00am. Happy was the lady, always smiling, and Grumpy was her exact opposite.
Lisa and I got to know the regulars there, some helped us with our pool like the cab driver Issac, a couple would play against us like a couple filipinos, some we barely spoke to but still knew each other like the 273ish year old skeleton Nick.
We spent hours upon hours there, taking occasional breaks from the pool table to play Megatouch, reclaiming our usual high scores and attempting to steal new ones. We had our routine going, two peas in a pod, enjoying the same little pleasures in life. Together.
And we also met a wide variety of people during our time spent in pool halls. The old black couple, Charlie and his wife (I don't remember her name) who played Monster Madness on the Megatouch machines together. They must have been at least 60, and Lisa used to wonder if we'd be like that, at their age.
But as much as we enjoyed shooting pool together, there were some moments when we got into fights because of it. We came to a point where we took pool more seriously than your casual player, and if we performed poorly, we would get upset, mainly at ourselves. But no one's perfect and it did happen when we took it out on each other.
But those moments were more rare than not and we usually enjoyed ourselves to the fullest. We eventually got our own cue sticks, watched billiards on TV, bought books... It was our thing.
As often as we could, we took advantage of the Amsterdam Power Play (back then Amsterdam was still on the Upper East and West Side), 11:00am to 6:00pm $22 all you can play.
We graduated from Eight Ball to Nine Ball together; we watched Pool Hall Junkies pre-screening, only to go straight to a pool hall and try to imitate certain shots we saw in the movie; we immersed ourselves into this hobby together at the same pace.
At the San Genero fair, there was a pool game, three balls are racked, and after you break, you have one cue to run the three balls. $2 a game for a small prize, $5 a game for the big prize.
Starting off at $2, we tried a couple times unsuccessfully. The cues were crooked, the table was slightly slanted, the cloth was bumpy, all to be expected from a game at a fair (obviously not fair!).
Then I got the feel for it. I won five stuffed animals for Lisa, was about to play again when they told me I couldn't play unless I paid $5 per game instead, for a big prize. Lisa looked around but couldn't find anything she liked, so we left.
Lol well I guess it's only fair to mention that I spent a ridiculous amount of money at another fair for a Fireman and Statue of Libery Tweeties (probably much more than I would have paid at the Warner Bros. store, for worse quality too lol). But I do have to admit, winning these made Lisa a lot happier than buying them.
Sorry, I'm just rambling. Due to recent happenings most of my thoughts regarding Lisa tend to be more negative than not, and hence my memories steer me towards the fights that we had. So I wanted to take a detour and think of all the good times I spent with her.
Funny how memory is selective, because in the past, I always mainly thought of the good times with her. Now I have to consciously do it.
But without a doubt, some of my fondest memories of Lisa, are when she had my back, regardless if I'm right or wrong. When shit is about to pop off the street, whether it's a flower delivery guy, bums, semi-famous street photographers, she backed me up without hesitation which had a reassuring quality to it.
Hm I can't think of a way to end this post so it'll be abrupt. Lol.
So we eventually migrated to Broadway Billiards, on 21st Street and... well, Broadway. It was a basement location (I say was because I recently passed by to find it closed, but hopefully just for renovation), a little on the ghetto side, but the regulars were friendly, and the price couldn't be beat.
Four bucks an hour per person on weekdays, five on weekends. And the owners, a Korean family, were our little dwarves. We had Grumpy, Happy and Sleepy. Sleepy was Mr. Choi, he sometimes asked us to shoot with him so he could get some "exercise" lol but that was only at 5:00am. Happy was the lady, always smiling, and Grumpy was her exact opposite.
Lisa and I got to know the regulars there, some helped us with our pool like the cab driver Issac, a couple would play against us like a couple filipinos, some we barely spoke to but still knew each other like the 273ish year old skeleton Nick.
We spent hours upon hours there, taking occasional breaks from the pool table to play Megatouch, reclaiming our usual high scores and attempting to steal new ones. We had our routine going, two peas in a pod, enjoying the same little pleasures in life. Together.
And we also met a wide variety of people during our time spent in pool halls. The old black couple, Charlie and his wife (I don't remember her name) who played Monster Madness on the Megatouch machines together. They must have been at least 60, and Lisa used to wonder if we'd be like that, at their age.
But as much as we enjoyed shooting pool together, there were some moments when we got into fights because of it. We came to a point where we took pool more seriously than your casual player, and if we performed poorly, we would get upset, mainly at ourselves. But no one's perfect and it did happen when we took it out on each other.
But those moments were more rare than not and we usually enjoyed ourselves to the fullest. We eventually got our own cue sticks, watched billiards on TV, bought books... It was our thing.
As often as we could, we took advantage of the Amsterdam Power Play (back then Amsterdam was still on the Upper East and West Side), 11:00am to 6:00pm $22 all you can play.
We graduated from Eight Ball to Nine Ball together; we watched Pool Hall Junkies pre-screening, only to go straight to a pool hall and try to imitate certain shots we saw in the movie; we immersed ourselves into this hobby together at the same pace.
At the San Genero fair, there was a pool game, three balls are racked, and after you break, you have one cue to run the three balls. $2 a game for a small prize, $5 a game for the big prize.
Starting off at $2, we tried a couple times unsuccessfully. The cues were crooked, the table was slightly slanted, the cloth was bumpy, all to be expected from a game at a fair (obviously not fair!).
Then I got the feel for it. I won five stuffed animals for Lisa, was about to play again when they told me I couldn't play unless I paid $5 per game instead, for a big prize. Lisa looked around but couldn't find anything she liked, so we left.
Lol well I guess it's only fair to mention that I spent a ridiculous amount of money at another fair for a Fireman and Statue of Libery Tweeties (probably much more than I would have paid at the Warner Bros. store, for worse quality too lol). But I do have to admit, winning these made Lisa a lot happier than buying them.
Sorry, I'm just rambling. Due to recent happenings most of my thoughts regarding Lisa tend to be more negative than not, and hence my memories steer me towards the fights that we had. So I wanted to take a detour and think of all the good times I spent with her.
Funny how memory is selective, because in the past, I always mainly thought of the good times with her. Now I have to consciously do it.
But without a doubt, some of my fondest memories of Lisa, are when she had my back, regardless if I'm right or wrong. When shit is about to pop off the street, whether it's a flower delivery guy, bums, semi-famous street photographers, she backed me up without hesitation which had a reassuring quality to it.
Hm I can't think of a way to end this post so it'll be abrupt. Lol.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Introduction to the Intensive Confinement Center
The day had finally come. After 18 months of pretrial supervision (which consisted of weekly drug tests and telephone check-ins, and being restricted to the five boroughs of NYC), after 18 months being with Lisa, after 18 months of fear wondering how much time I would actually do (and more importantly, where), the day had come for me to report to the Intensive Confinement Center, aka boot camp.
The name Intensive Confinement Center (ICC) sounds a lot worse though, doesn't it? Sounds like some 24/7 isolation lol but it's basically boot camp.
Lisa and I were to take a train down to Harrisburg, PA and there would be a car service waiting to drive us to Lewisburg, PA, an hour away.
I would be gone for six months, longest stretch that Lisa and I would be separated for. Ever since we met, we saw each other every day, and we both knew this was going to be a difficult adjustment.
Our last night together, Lisa was in tears. I'm not one to cry much, and I tried to stay strong enough for the both of us, to be her rock that she could lean on.
From the moment I met Lisa, I told her I was going to jail. I also told her I didn't expect her to wait for me. At the time I was facing up to five years, and she adamantly refused to break up, even when facing five years. I understood that she didn't realize how long five years were, so I let it go.
So looking at six months, given her conviction that she would have even waited five years (she claimed she had no doubt in her mind lol), she reiterated she would wait these six months as well.
We kissed and cuddled, wiping away her tears, soothing her with comforting words, it was both the happiest and saddest moment possible. We didn't sleep much. I also didn't have anything to pack. Weirdly, even the last night of freedom, it didn't quite hit home that I was going to be locked up. Probably because I had no way of relating to what I was about to experience. It was probably plain ol' denial.
We agreed to write to each other every single day, and when mail doesn't go out on weekends or holidays, we would keep writing and just combine them into one. If I were to list all the mushy stuff we did and agreed to continue doing despite our separation, you'd probably gag on your monitor just to stop reading, so I'll spare you a few Bounty sheets.
Dawn came, but unlike most fictions, dawn doesn't always bring comfort. This was the dawn I never wanted to see. Given that this was our last day together for six months, I would have thought we'd be more talkative, to make the most of it, but in retrospect it's obviously unrealistic.
Both the train and car ride were fairly silent. We spoke here and there but our hearts just weren't into it. Too preoccupied, we just hugged some more and Lisa cuddled into my arms.
We got to Lewisburg, a prison complex consisting of three facilities: ICC, the camp, and the penitentiary. The penitentiary is obviously a supermax, the camp is the lowest possible security level you can have (except for the ICC), and they don't even have a fence keeping the inmates in.
But any walk-off is considered armed escape with a five year sentence. Not many dared to.
Our car parked in front of the ICC, and Lisa burst into tears.
"Excuse me," I asked the driver. "Do you mind waiting a few minutes?"
"No problem. Take your time, I'm in no rush."
I thought I heard sympathy in his voice. "Thanks."
We got out to smoke a last cigarette together and say bye.
Three pulls in, I hear:
"Hey! HEY! Where do you think you are? Put that out and get in here!"
It was a Correctional Officer.
"I'm not scheduled to report before another 45 minutes," I replied politely.
"I don't care, you're here, you're in, there's no standing around here."
Goddammit. I had a problem with authority, and this was already a bad start. If I had known, I wouldn't have told the driver to park here so I'd have some more time with Lisa.
"But..."
"Get in here now!"
Flicking away my cigarette, I took one long last look at Lisa's tear-strewn face, hugged her, and my heart dropped to my stomach. This was it. This was really it. What the fuck.
With a sigh, I reluctantly let her go and finally shed a couple tears.
"I love you bebe."
"I love you too bebe."
And we both "tingled." Don't ask.
I turned around and walked into the Intensive Confinement Center.
First things first. They shaved my head. Wait, no. First things first, they yelled at me. Then they shaved my head. Then they yelled at me some more. And then other inmates whispered to me:
"Don't step on the black tiles."
"Why not?"
"Just don't."
Ugh, this was going to be a long six months...
The name Intensive Confinement Center (ICC) sounds a lot worse though, doesn't it? Sounds like some 24/7 isolation lol but it's basically boot camp.
Lisa and I were to take a train down to Harrisburg, PA and there would be a car service waiting to drive us to Lewisburg, PA, an hour away.
I would be gone for six months, longest stretch that Lisa and I would be separated for. Ever since we met, we saw each other every day, and we both knew this was going to be a difficult adjustment.
Our last night together, Lisa was in tears. I'm not one to cry much, and I tried to stay strong enough for the both of us, to be her rock that she could lean on.
From the moment I met Lisa, I told her I was going to jail. I also told her I didn't expect her to wait for me. At the time I was facing up to five years, and she adamantly refused to break up, even when facing five years. I understood that she didn't realize how long five years were, so I let it go.
So looking at six months, given her conviction that she would have even waited five years (she claimed she had no doubt in her mind lol), she reiterated she would wait these six months as well.
We kissed and cuddled, wiping away her tears, soothing her with comforting words, it was both the happiest and saddest moment possible. We didn't sleep much. I also didn't have anything to pack. Weirdly, even the last night of freedom, it didn't quite hit home that I was going to be locked up. Probably because I had no way of relating to what I was about to experience. It was probably plain ol' denial.
We agreed to write to each other every single day, and when mail doesn't go out on weekends or holidays, we would keep writing and just combine them into one. If I were to list all the mushy stuff we did and agreed to continue doing despite our separation, you'd probably gag on your monitor just to stop reading, so I'll spare you a few Bounty sheets.
Dawn came, but unlike most fictions, dawn doesn't always bring comfort. This was the dawn I never wanted to see. Given that this was our last day together for six months, I would have thought we'd be more talkative, to make the most of it, but in retrospect it's obviously unrealistic.
Both the train and car ride were fairly silent. We spoke here and there but our hearts just weren't into it. Too preoccupied, we just hugged some more and Lisa cuddled into my arms.
We got to Lewisburg, a prison complex consisting of three facilities: ICC, the camp, and the penitentiary. The penitentiary is obviously a supermax, the camp is the lowest possible security level you can have (except for the ICC), and they don't even have a fence keeping the inmates in.
But any walk-off is considered armed escape with a five year sentence. Not many dared to.
Our car parked in front of the ICC, and Lisa burst into tears.
"Excuse me," I asked the driver. "Do you mind waiting a few minutes?"
"No problem. Take your time, I'm in no rush."
I thought I heard sympathy in his voice. "Thanks."
We got out to smoke a last cigarette together and say bye.
Three pulls in, I hear:
"Hey! HEY! Where do you think you are? Put that out and get in here!"
It was a Correctional Officer.
"I'm not scheduled to report before another 45 minutes," I replied politely.
"I don't care, you're here, you're in, there's no standing around here."
Goddammit. I had a problem with authority, and this was already a bad start. If I had known, I wouldn't have told the driver to park here so I'd have some more time with Lisa.
"But..."
"Get in here now!"
Flicking away my cigarette, I took one long last look at Lisa's tear-strewn face, hugged her, and my heart dropped to my stomach. This was it. This was really it. What the fuck.
With a sigh, I reluctantly let her go and finally shed a couple tears.
"I love you bebe."
"I love you too bebe."
And we both "tingled." Don't ask.
I turned around and walked into the Intensive Confinement Center.
First things first. They shaved my head. Wait, no. First things first, they yelled at me. Then they shaved my head. Then they yelled at me some more. And then other inmates whispered to me:
"Don't step on the black tiles."
"Why not?"
"Just don't."
Ugh, this was going to be a long six months...
Monday, November 9, 2009
Metropolitan Detention Center - Supermax
MDC Brooklyn. Metropolitan Detention Center. The name brought fear and dread to all inmates' hearts. Corrections Officers hate it too actually. According to one of the doctors in Allenwood, PA, MDC Brooklyn always fucks shit up, loses shit, sends them wrong medical readings and information.
Imagine what it's like dealing with them on the other side of the law.
So, after having served six months in boot camp and nine more months out of thirteen in the halfway house, I violated and was sent back to jail. Great.
The story of how I ended up cuffed by the marshals and dragged to MDC Brooklyn is for another post. Surprisingly, the marshals were actually really nice. They tried to make small conversation, asked why I violated, but since I still had hope to fight the accusations, I wasn't very talkative.
The worst part of jail is the commuting. Being processed into new facilities, strip searched, locked in a cell all by yourself (or maybe with a couple other people), took HOURS.
It fucking sucked.
But I'll fast-forward all that boring shit.
MDC Brooklyn. A super-max. It's a holdover facility, usually meant for people on pretrial who didn't make bail, or people in transit who haven't been assigned to a real prison yet. What this means is, there's no differentiation in security here. What this means is, murderers, rapists, molesters, white-collar crimes, drug related offenses, armed robbers, all of these people are together.
MDC consists of multiple units, two per floor I believe, and each unit has two levels of cells, totaling maybe a couple hundred inmates. There's a "handball court" with an opening at the top for fresh air, a row of shower stalls, a few tables spread out, four TVs that you tune into with Walkmans.
I met my new cell mate, some 60+ year old Mafia guy. He used to be a bookie, but he was charged with three murders.
Wow. I had never met anyone face to face who had killed another person. It was weird. Scary to think that I was sharing thirtyish square feet with him.
But what he killed me with wasn't what I expected of a mob bookie with three bodies on his jacket. I mentioned he was over 60 right? And we all know that past a certain age controlling your bowels can be challenging.
So here's the approximate breakdown of a typical day at MDC. Doors open to your cell around 6:00 AM or 7:00 AM (I'm not sure, I sure as hell wasn't up at that time). Lunch is served at 11:00 AM, dinner's at 5:30ish PM, and in between those times, they count us every few hours, locking us in our cells, this can last from 30mns to 1.5 hours. What did this depend on? No clue.
And at 11:00 PM, they locked us in our cells until morning time. A tiny cell, one bunk bed, one metal "dresser," a small table attached to the wall with an also attached stool, a sink and a toilet.
So lights are out. Door is locked. Within five minutes, my cellie is apologizing.
"Sorry bunkie, but when you gotta go, you gotta go."
What is anyone to say? He's right, if you gotta go you gotta go. And boy did he gotta go. The stench, the wet sounds, the... ew nevermind I'llshit shut up now.
Have you ever tried to fall asleep with that stench? Can you imagine going to bed in a public bathroom? Don't try, it's obviously not pleasant.
Anyhow, during the rest of my time there, I read (a lot), played chess (a lot), played cards (even more). I met this asian guy Mike, part of the original Flying Dragons (FD, an asian gang), he was in for thirteen murders, and was wrapping up an eleven year bid. He was the only other asian person there, and if there's one thing you do in jail is stick with your own color. Doesn't really matter who they are or what they've done, because hey, who are we kidding, we're not going to find any saints in there.
People take care of their own, and when you're put into a situation where you have nothing and no one, you revert back to very primitive ways of distinguishing your own from others, namely race.
He seemed like a nice enough guy. After eleven years in jail though he was worried about rehabilitating himself to the real world. The internet, how to pick up girls, etc, he felt completely lost, like a newborn. I didn't quite know what to tell him, I didn't know how to bring him up to speed from such a situation. Talking to him reminded me of Red and Brooks from Shawshank Redemption, who both became institutionalized.
I also think I came very close to dying (or getting the living shit beat out of me at least). This giant of a Puerto Rican guy, mentally unstable, but built like a mountain, for some reason got mad at me. I don't even remember why.
We were playing cards, Casino to be exact, and I've played with him many times before. Him and this other younger Hispanic kid. The younger one was one of those very talkative, tries to be suave kinda guy, slightly cocky, but funny and good-natured enough to be tolerated. Seems like I found one of those in every facility I went to.
The giant however was much older. Graying hair, thick glasses, 45ish, with a neck thicker than a tree trunk. I really don't remember what happened, but something pissed him off. Something I said.
"What, you wanna go? You wanna throw down?"
I stared right back into his eyes, and my mind drew a blank. What do you do when confronted with this situation in jail?
On the streets there's no question really. But in jail, it's a completely different story. There are only so many possible outcomes to this:
"Nah man, I'm tryna go home, but if it comes down to it, I'll go," I replied.
That was my bullshit way of trying to talk my way out of it. I backed down without really backing down, basically meaning I didn't do or say jack shit. Well, I didn't do jack shit but infuriate him even more.
The younger kid luckily squashed the whole thing. He pulled him away, saying it was just a misunderstanding, that everything was cool. We actually kept on playing Casino right afterwards lol.
The guy was obviously mentally unstable. I have no idea what he was in for, neither did I want to know. I still played cards with him from there on out, but I was very cautious.
This other guy in there, this lanky white guy who did time in state prisons as well, had chunks of metal embedded in his body in various places. Now I'm talking about huge chunks of shanks that he got stabbed with, and doctors were not able to extract from him. It looked unreal. He could just pull a chunk, stretching his skin as far as it could go, and boing it'd snap right back into his arm.
Cigarettes went for $10 each, $200 a pack. People who went to court didn't even wear socks so they could slip off their shoes and pick up cigarette butts on the street with their toes.
And that was that. Six weeks here literally felt like six months. It was the worst time of the entire seven year ordeal I went through since my arrest until the day I was done with probation. MDC was by far, the most horrid experience of the entire stretch.
Letters and phone calls help you get through the days, listening to that stupid smug female recording over and over:
"This call is from a federal prison. This is a prepaid call. You will not be charged for this call. This call is from: [insert my name here]. To accept, please press five. To decline all future calls from this person, please press seven, seven."
As much as I hated hearing this recording, I also loved it. It meant that whoever I called picked up. What sucked was that I only had fifteen minutes at a time to talk.
And I would also like to thank all the people who were there for me to write to, and call, even though a lot of those people I had just met, and had very little incentive to keep correspondence with an inmate. One person in particular, I had never even met lol.
Disappointingly but not surprisingly, Lisa was the hardest to get a hold of. We were broken up by this time, but I guess I still thought she'd be more available for me to call or write. She wrote one letter during this stretch. One letter in ten months. Oh well.
But I never thought I'd be happy to hear that I was going to be sent to a prison facility. But when I heard that I was being transferred to Allenwood, PA, I was ecstatic. That meant no more MDC. I'd miss the cheap phone calls (since it was local calls, it was about 1/3 of the price from PA), but a gym, facility, better food, cubes instead of cells, everything else would be better in Allenwood.
And it was. Especially when June 2005 came along.
Imagine what it's like dealing with them on the other side of the law.
So, after having served six months in boot camp and nine more months out of thirteen in the halfway house, I violated and was sent back to jail. Great.
The story of how I ended up cuffed by the marshals and dragged to MDC Brooklyn is for another post. Surprisingly, the marshals were actually really nice. They tried to make small conversation, asked why I violated, but since I still had hope to fight the accusations, I wasn't very talkative.
The worst part of jail is the commuting. Being processed into new facilities, strip searched, locked in a cell all by yourself (or maybe with a couple other people), took HOURS.
It fucking sucked.
But I'll fast-forward all that boring shit.
MDC Brooklyn. A super-max. It's a holdover facility, usually meant for people on pretrial who didn't make bail, or people in transit who haven't been assigned to a real prison yet. What this means is, there's no differentiation in security here. What this means is, murderers, rapists, molesters, white-collar crimes, drug related offenses, armed robbers, all of these people are together.
MDC consists of multiple units, two per floor I believe, and each unit has two levels of cells, totaling maybe a couple hundred inmates. There's a "handball court" with an opening at the top for fresh air, a row of shower stalls, a few tables spread out, four TVs that you tune into with Walkmans.
I met my new cell mate, some 60+ year old Mafia guy. He used to be a bookie, but he was charged with three murders.
Wow. I had never met anyone face to face who had killed another person. It was weird. Scary to think that I was sharing thirtyish square feet with him.
But what he killed me with wasn't what I expected of a mob bookie with three bodies on his jacket. I mentioned he was over 60 right? And we all know that past a certain age controlling your bowels can be challenging.
So here's the approximate breakdown of a typical day at MDC. Doors open to your cell around 6:00 AM or 7:00 AM (I'm not sure, I sure as hell wasn't up at that time). Lunch is served at 11:00 AM, dinner's at 5:30ish PM, and in between those times, they count us every few hours, locking us in our cells, this can last from 30mns to 1.5 hours. What did this depend on? No clue.
And at 11:00 PM, they locked us in our cells until morning time. A tiny cell, one bunk bed, one metal "dresser," a small table attached to the wall with an also attached stool, a sink and a toilet.
So lights are out. Door is locked. Within five minutes, my cellie is apologizing.
"Sorry bunkie, but when you gotta go, you gotta go."
What is anyone to say? He's right, if you gotta go you gotta go. And boy did he gotta go. The stench, the wet sounds, the... ew nevermind I'll
Have you ever tried to fall asleep with that stench? Can you imagine going to bed in a public bathroom? Don't try, it's obviously not pleasant.
Anyhow, during the rest of my time there, I read (a lot), played chess (a lot), played cards (even more). I met this asian guy Mike, part of the original Flying Dragons (FD, an asian gang), he was in for thirteen murders, and was wrapping up an eleven year bid. He was the only other asian person there, and if there's one thing you do in jail is stick with your own color. Doesn't really matter who they are or what they've done, because hey, who are we kidding, we're not going to find any saints in there.
People take care of their own, and when you're put into a situation where you have nothing and no one, you revert back to very primitive ways of distinguishing your own from others, namely race.
He seemed like a nice enough guy. After eleven years in jail though he was worried about rehabilitating himself to the real world. The internet, how to pick up girls, etc, he felt completely lost, like a newborn. I didn't quite know what to tell him, I didn't know how to bring him up to speed from such a situation. Talking to him reminded me of Red and Brooks from Shawshank Redemption, who both became institutionalized.
I also think I came very close to dying (or getting the living shit beat out of me at least). This giant of a Puerto Rican guy, mentally unstable, but built like a mountain, for some reason got mad at me. I don't even remember why.
We were playing cards, Casino to be exact, and I've played with him many times before. Him and this other younger Hispanic kid. The younger one was one of those very talkative, tries to be suave kinda guy, slightly cocky, but funny and good-natured enough to be tolerated. Seems like I found one of those in every facility I went to.
The giant however was much older. Graying hair, thick glasses, 45ish, with a neck thicker than a tree trunk. I really don't remember what happened, but something pissed him off. Something I said.
"What, you wanna go? You wanna throw down?"
I stared right back into his eyes, and my mind drew a blank. What do you do when confronted with this situation in jail?
On the streets there's no question really. But in jail, it's a completely different story. There are only so many possible outcomes to this:
- I fuck him up, get sent to solitary, get my security raised, and good time is deducted
- He fucks me up, and I still suffer all the consequences from possibility #1
- I back down and I'm branded the unit bitch until... I don't want to think that far ahead
- Death for one or the other
"Nah man, I'm tryna go home, but if it comes down to it, I'll go," I replied.
That was my bullshit way of trying to talk my way out of it. I backed down without really backing down, basically meaning I didn't do or say jack shit. Well, I didn't do jack shit but infuriate him even more.
The younger kid luckily squashed the whole thing. He pulled him away, saying it was just a misunderstanding, that everything was cool. We actually kept on playing Casino right afterwards lol.
The guy was obviously mentally unstable. I have no idea what he was in for, neither did I want to know. I still played cards with him from there on out, but I was very cautious.
This other guy in there, this lanky white guy who did time in state prisons as well, had chunks of metal embedded in his body in various places. Now I'm talking about huge chunks of shanks that he got stabbed with, and doctors were not able to extract from him. It looked unreal. He could just pull a chunk, stretching his skin as far as it could go, and boing it'd snap right back into his arm.
Cigarettes went for $10 each, $200 a pack. People who went to court didn't even wear socks so they could slip off their shoes and pick up cigarette butts on the street with their toes.
And that was that. Six weeks here literally felt like six months. It was the worst time of the entire seven year ordeal I went through since my arrest until the day I was done with probation. MDC was by far, the most horrid experience of the entire stretch.
Letters and phone calls help you get through the days, listening to that stupid smug female recording over and over:
"This call is from a federal prison. This is a prepaid call. You will not be charged for this call. This call is from: [insert my name here]. To accept, please press five. To decline all future calls from this person, please press seven, seven."
As much as I hated hearing this recording, I also loved it. It meant that whoever I called picked up. What sucked was that I only had fifteen minutes at a time to talk.
And I would also like to thank all the people who were there for me to write to, and call, even though a lot of those people I had just met, and had very little incentive to keep correspondence with an inmate. One person in particular, I had never even met lol.
Disappointingly but not surprisingly, Lisa was the hardest to get a hold of. We were broken up by this time, but I guess I still thought she'd be more available for me to call or write. She wrote one letter during this stretch. One letter in ten months. Oh well.
But I never thought I'd be happy to hear that I was going to be sent to a prison facility. But when I heard that I was being transferred to Allenwood, PA, I was ecstatic. That meant no more MDC. I'd miss the cheap phone calls (since it was local calls, it was about 1/3 of the price from PA), but a gym, facility, better food, cubes instead of cells, everything else would be better in Allenwood.
And it was. Especially when June 2005 came along.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Eight Year "Anniversary"
Just a quick post to point out that it's been eight years since my arrest. Exactly eight years ago, I was sitting in a cell, wondering what the fuck was going to happen to me.
I've come to realize that, regardless of anything, time flies, not just when you're having fun, but in retrospect.
Odd enough to say, as boring as it was, as much as it sucked not being free, time in jail still flew. Yeah on an everyday basis, midnight couldn't come fast enough, but when looking back, I was still amazed that ten months, eighteen months, thirty months had passed.
So much has happened in these past eight years. I went from being a drug addict, to a convicted felon, to working dead-end jobs, to building my career and living in the middle of Manhattan. I reconnected with, then lost for a second time an old love; I've rebuilt family bonds (with my nuclear family at least); I've gotten back in touch with my biological father after twenty plus years only to tell him to fuck off.
I've put myself in debt, been promised an inheritance, worked two jobs at seventy hours a week, wasted money, made some... I've basically been finally allowed to live in the past few years.
And it feels great.
As much as life sucks, I still think it's beautiful. As much as people are backstabbing assholes, I still give them the benefit of the doubt, although I have learned from my past mistakes. And as much as it's damn near impossible these days to build a fortune without compromising your morals, I will still try, why? Because regardless of anything, it's the ability to choose that empowers us.
And so this date has marked the beginning of a new personal era. I still see it as a blessing in disguise, because if it weren't for this arrest, I might have overdosed, been shot, or arrested for a much larger quantity, and the power of choice still wouldn't have returned to me yet.
So thanks Big Brother but no thanks >.<
I've come to realize that, regardless of anything, time flies, not just when you're having fun, but in retrospect.
Odd enough to say, as boring as it was, as much as it sucked not being free, time in jail still flew. Yeah on an everyday basis, midnight couldn't come fast enough, but when looking back, I was still amazed that ten months, eighteen months, thirty months had passed.
So much has happened in these past eight years. I went from being a drug addict, to a convicted felon, to working dead-end jobs, to building my career and living in the middle of Manhattan. I reconnected with, then lost for a second time an old love; I've rebuilt family bonds (with my nuclear family at least); I've gotten back in touch with my biological father after twenty plus years only to tell him to fuck off.
I've put myself in debt, been promised an inheritance, worked two jobs at seventy hours a week, wasted money, made some... I've basically been finally allowed to live in the past few years.
And it feels great.
As much as life sucks, I still think it's beautiful. As much as people are backstabbing assholes, I still give them the benefit of the doubt, although I have learned from my past mistakes. And as much as it's damn near impossible these days to build a fortune without compromising your morals, I will still try, why? Because regardless of anything, it's the ability to choose that empowers us.
And so this date has marked the beginning of a new personal era. I still see it as a blessing in disguise, because if it weren't for this arrest, I might have overdosed, been shot, or arrested for a much larger quantity, and the power of choice still wouldn't have returned to me yet.
So thanks Big Brother but no thanks >.<
Monday, October 26, 2009
Requiem
Remixed beat from Requiem for a Dream movie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmdCZLCoP94
i was, caught up in a scheme
trying to, attain my dreams
number one lessons that, nothings what it seems
traitorous snakes, hiding on my team
a vicious crew with a sick gangsta lean
waiting at the corner preying on the dope fiends
u aint got a clue so its now a mystery
torture u like the lady from King's misery
ima rewrite ur entire history
stack enough to still on u w/ my salary
some advice my enemies never took to heart
i tutor my adversaries so they keep to par
its the art of war, niggas get torn apart
by a soldier learning from battlefield scars
a world trade survivor pushed to the edge
plotting schemes in my head ready for revenge
i let, the haters get to me
i turned, to the hennessey
coz thug passions always been all my remedies
the devil sure as hell runs in the family
im a convict released on strict stipulations
first to cross my path gonna be in a situation
3 counts coz i was under suspicion
ran my game tight, so u couldnt fuck w/ these
5ks tryna front like they own the streets
i aint here for telling, pull my file i can take the heat
wiretaps had me selling x-t-c
01 is my year of conspiracy
slanging ex by the G's is how i conspired
60 large by the lines and now im retired
couple more months and my hustle woulda fired
coz doing business i aint never ever getting tired
i was, out of control
i was, ever so cold
like those pocket aces u cant fold
thats how the story went, just like christ
the classics done told if ur men or mice
till death do me part w/ the federal info
used to do lines that was white as snow
its dangerous to stay alive in the ghetto
forget all the shit u learned and what u know
never seen the atrocities of the world below
bitches running game and they jack ur dough
got caught up in a world of trouble
tryna break even in the daily struggle
paying debts and making way w/ arms and elbow
the thug philosophy carries nines and ammo
a 10 yr minimum aint no joke
already done paid for all the drugs i sold
worth more than my weight in 24 karat gold
step on my toes and i'll murder ur soul
assassinate ur character with words from this flow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmdCZLCoP94
i was, caught up in a scheme
trying to, attain my dreams
number one lessons that, nothings what it seems
traitorous snakes, hiding on my team
a vicious crew with a sick gangsta lean
waiting at the corner preying on the dope fiends
u aint got a clue so its now a mystery
torture u like the lady from King's misery
ima rewrite ur entire history
stack enough to still on u w/ my salary
some advice my enemies never took to heart
i tutor my adversaries so they keep to par
its the art of war, niggas get torn apart
by a soldier learning from battlefield scars
a world trade survivor pushed to the edge
plotting schemes in my head ready for revenge
i let, the haters get to me
i turned, to the hennessey
coz thug passions always been all my remedies
the devil sure as hell runs in the family
im a convict released on strict stipulations
first to cross my path gonna be in a situation
3 counts coz i was under suspicion
ran my game tight, so u couldnt fuck w/ these
5ks tryna front like they own the streets
i aint here for telling, pull my file i can take the heat
wiretaps had me selling x-t-c
01 is my year of conspiracy
slanging ex by the G's is how i conspired
60 large by the lines and now im retired
couple more months and my hustle woulda fired
coz doing business i aint never ever getting tired
i was, out of control
i was, ever so cold
like those pocket aces u cant fold
thats how the story went, just like christ
the classics done told if ur men or mice
till death do me part w/ the federal info
used to do lines that was white as snow
its dangerous to stay alive in the ghetto
forget all the shit u learned and what u know
never seen the atrocities of the world below
bitches running game and they jack ur dough
got caught up in a world of trouble
tryna break even in the daily struggle
paying debts and making way w/ arms and elbow
the thug philosophy carries nines and ammo
a 10 yr minimum aint no joke
already done paid for all the drugs i sold
worth more than my weight in 24 karat gold
step on my toes and i'll murder ur soul
assassinate ur character with words from this flow
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Bottle on the House
I hadn't really celebrated my birthday in awhile. I came back from jail in 2005, and the first two years I was really just trying to get back on my feet. I found a couple jobs but nothing great (besides the amazing people I've met at almost each). But 2007-2008 was game changing.
I tripled my salary in a little over two years (yes I realize "tripling" isn't very descriptive, I'm sure people with no income can easily increase it by hundreds of percent lol), finally moved to (the middle of) Manhattan, and things were on the right path, still are actually. So I ended up in a digital ad agency, building websites and web apps for some of the biggest brands in the world.
So not like 27 is a special age, but 2009 was the first time I decided to actually throw myself a party, something I usually hate doing. The invitations, splitting the bill, finding a place, never tickled my fancy.
But hey, I'd been locked up for 2.5 years, why not? So I invited a combination of friends I met through work and friends from years ago. We went to Third Floor Cafe, a Korean bar on 32nd St. and 5th Ave.
Location was chosen for a couple reasons.
A couple cocktails later, more people showed up than I anticipated. We had some seating problems that were eventually resolved, then the shots started.
I remember ten to twelve shots. Problem was, my friends were mixing the type of shots they kept (easily) "forcing" down my throat.
Johnny Black, Patron, Three Wise Men... that's just what I remember.
The rest of the night was a blur. I was wasted. Not everyone could tell, since I had different groups of friends present who didn't know one another, I was doing what I could to make sure everyone was comfortable.
I still feel bad because there were a few people I don't think I even got a chance to talk to that night. Adrenaline kept me going, more shots came, and somewhere in all that there was a bottle of Patron on the house. I found out through Facebook the following day.
People came and went, leaving me money asking if it was enough. Laughing, all I could reply was:
"I have no idea."
The next day I was filled in by various sources. Apparently I had over twenty shots. How I wasn't rushed to the hospital I have no idea, but all I know is that I sure as hell didn't feel healthy the next day.
The bill came out to $1,600. I covered a quarter of it lol. I guess instead of saying "I have no idea," I should have said "Hell no, give me another $20!" But it's all good, I kind of expected something like this to happen beforehand, it always does with big groups. But I wanted to have a celebration, somewhat of a combination celebration of my freedom, birthday, and the positive changes that I've affected upon my life.
Partying as a teenager all drugged up was fun. But something has to be said for guiltless, hard-earned fun =) Thanks to everyone who made it, and thanks to those who couldn't but wish they could. The rest of you? Fuck off =P haha jp I <3 you all
2009 has been, on a personal level at least, a good year.
I tripled my salary in a little over two years (yes I realize "tripling" isn't very descriptive, I'm sure people with no income can easily increase it by hundreds of percent lol), finally moved to (the middle of) Manhattan, and things were on the right path, still are actually. So I ended up in a digital ad agency, building websites and web apps for some of the biggest brands in the world.
So not like 27 is a special age, but 2009 was the first time I decided to actually throw myself a party, something I usually hate doing. The invitations, splitting the bill, finding a place, never tickled my fancy.
But hey, I'd been locked up for 2.5 years, why not? So I invited a combination of friends I met through work and friends from years ago. We went to Third Floor Cafe, a Korean bar on 32nd St. and 5th Ave.
Location was chosen for a couple reasons.
- It was close to home so I could easily stumble back.
- They knew me so I get free shit sometimes
- The waitress Cecile is friendly*cough*hot*cough*
A couple cocktails later, more people showed up than I anticipated. We had some seating problems that were eventually resolved, then the shots started.
I remember ten to twelve shots. Problem was, my friends were mixing the type of shots they kept (easily) "forcing" down my throat.
Johnny Black, Patron, Three Wise Men... that's just what I remember.
The rest of the night was a blur. I was wasted. Not everyone could tell, since I had different groups of friends present who didn't know one another, I was doing what I could to make sure everyone was comfortable.
I still feel bad because there were a few people I don't think I even got a chance to talk to that night. Adrenaline kept me going, more shots came, and somewhere in all that there was a bottle of Patron on the house. I found out through Facebook the following day.
People came and went, leaving me money asking if it was enough. Laughing, all I could reply was:
"I have no idea."
The next day I was filled in by various sources. Apparently I had over twenty shots. How I wasn't rushed to the hospital I have no idea, but all I know is that I sure as hell didn't feel healthy the next day.
The bill came out to $1,600. I covered a quarter of it lol. I guess instead of saying "I have no idea," I should have said "Hell no, give me another $20!" But it's all good, I kind of expected something like this to happen beforehand, it always does with big groups. But I wanted to have a celebration, somewhat of a combination celebration of my freedom, birthday, and the positive changes that I've affected upon my life.
Partying as a teenager all drugged up was fun. But something has to be said for guiltless, hard-earned fun =) Thanks to everyone who made it, and thanks to those who couldn't but wish they could. The rest of you? Fuck off =P haha jp I <3 you all
2009 has been, on a personal level at least, a good year.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Amateur Fight Club
It was about a year after my arrest, meaning that I had been on pretrial for a year. Weekly drugs tests, and weekly calls to report in. At least I wasn't on house arrest, even though I couldn't leave New York City.
An old friend of mine Sean from high school (boarding school upstate NY) invited Lisa and me over to his place, on the Upper West Side. Actually, it was his parents place. It was a beautiful apartment, not nouveau-riche but au contraire, it emanated that old wealth that you can only be born into.
Sean had a particular family. His (hot) older sister had moved out with her fiance, his mother was very fond of French culture (particularly their vineyards), and his father was a retired judge who was clinically diagnosed with depression.
Anyhow, I was a regular at Sean's house when I first moved back to NYC. He had a fair amount of privacy in his room so we were able to smoke to our lung's content. This night, I went there with Lisa with a bottle of Bacardi and Alize.
The three of us split the Alize, and Sean and I finished the rum. Three to four hours later, I got up for the first time to take a piss. That's when it hit me. I was pretty fucking drunk. I stumbled my way to the bathroom, still trying to not wake up Sean's parents despite my drunken state.
I finally made it to the bathroom, which was unusually long, and of course, the toilet was on the other side. For some inexplicable reason however, at the sight of the sink, I had a sudden uncontrollable urge to vomit.
And out it came. A lot of it. I don't remember what I ate that night, but from how it clogged the sink and filled it two-thirds of the way, I'm assuming I had a hearty dinner.
I tried (kind of) to unclog the sink, but I couldn't think of any way besides sticking my hand in there, so hoping Sean or Lisa would have a better idea, I left it for now. I borrowed some Listerine, then almost forgetting why I was there in the first place, I answered nature's call.
Back in the room, I heard both of them laughing.
"Yo yo yo, Alex, you gotta take a look at this," Sean said in between spurts of laughter.
"Sean, I gotta tell you something, I..."
"Yo, come check this out bro, this shit is mad funny."
"Yo Sean, you don't understand, I puked in your sink. It's clogged."
"What? Ah man don't worry man, come check this out man!"
"Nah but Sean, wait, your mom... you don't understand, you sink is completely clogged!"
"Nah nah don't worry man, come take a look man."
He never stopped laughing the whole time. Sean's bedroom walls have some posters but mainly a lot of graffiti. He used to be part of a graffiti crew back in the days. Earlier that day he had bought these new paint markers, and apparently he didn't realize drunk graffiti wasn't the most aesthetic form of art.
And to prove that point, he had tagged his name on his wall, but it was more akin to a kindergardener's scribble.
"Look at that shit!" he said emphatically, "I've never, ever, EVER tagged anything THAT fucking ugly!"
His tone of voice, body language, everything, cracked me the fuck up. You had to have been there. Obviously we all know the alcohol was the main catalyst in all that but that should be left subtly implied. I sat back down next to my girl and kept on laughing.
I was laughing so hard my sides were hurting, eyes watering, clutching my stomach and, hysterical. After awhile though, it seemed to cause a problem.
"Yo," Sean said. "Keep it down. Keep it down man my parents are gonna hear us."
But I've already hit the point of no return. You know those rare laughs that you wished you could have more often? The laughs that let you release that inner child with wild abandon. And the more he told us to shut up, the harder we laughed.
"Yo seriously man, keep it quiet man, shut up!"
And he punched me in the face. My head whipped from side to side, eyes wide with confusion. When I slowly realized what had actually happened, I burst out laughing even more because I couldn't believe that such a good friend had just punched me.
The previous scenario repeated, and Sean actually punched me again.
"Ow, damn son, chill that time that shit actually hurt."
Laughing apologetically, he said sorry and said I could hit him back.
Drunk as hell, I barely formed a fist and I ended up only half punching him.
"Nah nah that shit don't count," I said.
He agreed to let me hit him again. This time, I nailed right on the side of the nose.
"Oww damn that shit fucking smarts!'
We laughed at what just happened, rubbing our faces, wincing every now and then. Lisa and I promoted at Exit at the time, and we impulsively decided to go. Problem was, we were pretty broke (notice a trend from these days?), but promoters didn't have to pay cover until 1:00am, and we had an extra promoter's card for Sean.
Then what's the problem? It was past 12:30am. We had to make it down to Columbus Circle, which was possible but very tight. We decided to try anyway.
On the elevator ride down, I was whispering something to Lisa in her ear, and out of nowhere Sean punched me in the neck. Seriously, what the fuck lol?? I obviously punched him back.
To this day I still wonder what his doorman must have thought seeing us walking out, holding our neck and face respectively, moaning in pain.
Walking to the train station, Sean started randomly punching car windows. He was a violent drunk. A block or so later, I'm guessing it was due to pent up frustration and anger (mainly at myself), out of nowhere, I took a couple steps and kicked at a car's passenger side window.
Next thing I knew, I was knee-deep into the car, window shattered.
"Oh shit..."
I hopped out, and made sure to shake off as much glass from my pants and shoe as possible, I sped walk around the corner. Released on bail, that was by far the dumbest thing I could have done.
Around the corner of 72nd St, a family was walking by, grandparents, parents and kinds (why kids were out that late, ask the parents), but Sean randomly went to a trash can and threw it across their path, garbage and litter spilling all over the place.
Too embarrassed to even look at them, I 've always pictured the look of complete shock on their face.
Without missing a beat, Sean runs up to a Benz, and rips out the Mercedes symbol from the hood, then runs to a phone booth and smashes his hand so hard against it to shatter the glass of the advertisement.
We finally made it into the train. Sitting there and talking, Sean repeatedly taps me on the shoulder while talking, unaware that his hands were covered with blood. About to say something, I realized the futility of it all, especially considering that I already had blood all over my jacket by now.
We arrived at Columbus Circle 59th St., and I guess Sean was ready to have a little fun. Every person he saw on the train platform, he ran up to them spastically and shoved his bloody hands right in front of their faces and screamed:
"AHHH! AHHH! I GOT AIDS!!!"
Then ran off to the next poor unsuspecting victim. I was cracking up, I never seen Sean this drunk and wild.
He grabbed a piece of paper from the floor which turned out to be a post-it note with "PULL MY ADHESIVE" written on it.
Sean ran out of the subway, the post-it note by his crotch, approaching strangers and couples alike, thrusting his hips forward shouting:
"Pull my adhesive!! Pullll my adhesiveeee!!!"
All pedestrians avoided him like he was the brainchild of the plague and swine flu. Lisa and I tried to keep up, and I kept calling his name and he either didn't hear me or ignored me. I think it was the latter.
He climbed up the side of a small Mack truck, tried the door handle, and by some weird twist of coincidence, the door actually opened. Lisa and I looked at each other somewhat confused, and before we could say anything, a Jansport backpack flew out into the sidewalk.
"Sean! SEAN!"
I looked in the truck and he was no longer there, the passenger door was open, and he was already a half block down.
Lisa didn't look too happy.
"Are you mad?"
"Yeah kinda, you guys are acting like fools."
"Yeah I know, sorry bebe."
I knew we were acting like fools. But to be honest, only Sean was now. I somewhat sobered up after kicking in that window.
As we were talking, two guys walked by and I thought I heard one of them say something about Lisa. When I said I had somewhat sobered up, that was a half lie. Still drunk, but just not retarded drunk.
"What the fuck did you say?" I asked.
One of them seemed to be as drunk as I was, meanwhile the other was sober.
"What?" the drunk one spun on me.
"The fuck did you say about my girl?"
"Look, you don't want none of this. I got ten people following a couple blocks behind us, you don't want none of this."
In the meantime, his sober friend was trying to squash everything and keep walking, saying it was a misunderstanding.
"I don't give a fuck about you, or your ten boys, I'll kick all of your asses!" said the Bacardi and Alize.
By this time, Sean doubled back and was wondering what was going on. No sooner had he caught on, we were surrounded by ten people or so.
Ah fuck, not again...
But luckily, the ten other people were in no mood for a fight even if it would have been like winning a court case with Johnny Cochran as your lawyer.
At Exit, we missed the promoter's line. Bummed, we started to leave, and waiting to cross street, the infamous paint markers resurfaced to perform an encore of a child's scribble on the club wall. Two guys soon approached Sean, and thinking that they were thugs trying to start shit with him, I went to see what was going on.
One of them intercepted me and asked:
"He your boy?"
"Yeah he's my boy."
"So you got his back?"
"No shit I got his back."
Thinking shit was going to go down, he put his arm around my shoulder and waved a walkie-talkie in my face.
"You sure you got his back?"
Ah fuck... (for the second time tonight)
But it was too late to back out now.
"Yeah I got his back."
The other security guard was talking to Sean across the street and ended up letting him go. Walking away, Sean was furious.
"Those fucking fake ass thugs think they can fuck with me, I'll motherfucking slit their throats, who the fuck they think they are stepping up to me like that I..."
"What the fuck nigga, they were cops, security for the club. They're doing their jobs.."
"Nahh fuck that man, they were just some thugs stepping to me man, they..."
"They waved a goddamn walkie in my face, what the fuck are you talking about? Yo, every time you're mad drunk you do some dumb shit, I can't even fuck with you like this anymore."
We started arguing with one another, shoving each other but things calmed down. He slammed his hand against another public phone booth (old grudge perhaps?) but soon he sobered up.
We went to a nearby McDonalds and he washed up. In the subway station where we were going to part ways, he asked what the fuck happened that night.
I started to tell him the story I just told you, and at first he wouldn't believe that he hit me to begin with. An hour and a half later, finally done (I omitted some smaller unimportant details here), we went home.
Next day around 3:00pm, I got a call.
"Hey man, it's Sean."
"Hey..." still groggy.
"I think you told me last night already but I don't really remember, but can you refresh my memory?"
He had no idea what happened. Moral of the story? There isn't one, I just thought it was funny lol (minus my little slip of the foot)
An old friend of mine Sean from high school (boarding school upstate NY) invited Lisa and me over to his place, on the Upper West Side. Actually, it was his parents place. It was a beautiful apartment, not nouveau-riche but au contraire, it emanated that old wealth that you can only be born into.
Sean had a particular family. His (hot) older sister had moved out with her fiance, his mother was very fond of French culture (particularly their vineyards), and his father was a retired judge who was clinically diagnosed with depression.
Anyhow, I was a regular at Sean's house when I first moved back to NYC. He had a fair amount of privacy in his room so we were able to smoke to our lung's content. This night, I went there with Lisa with a bottle of Bacardi and Alize.
The three of us split the Alize, and Sean and I finished the rum. Three to four hours later, I got up for the first time to take a piss. That's when it hit me. I was pretty fucking drunk. I stumbled my way to the bathroom, still trying to not wake up Sean's parents despite my drunken state.
I finally made it to the bathroom, which was unusually long, and of course, the toilet was on the other side. For some inexplicable reason however, at the sight of the sink, I had a sudden uncontrollable urge to vomit.
And out it came. A lot of it. I don't remember what I ate that night, but from how it clogged the sink and filled it two-thirds of the way, I'm assuming I had a hearty dinner.
I tried (kind of) to unclog the sink, but I couldn't think of any way besides sticking my hand in there, so hoping Sean or Lisa would have a better idea, I left it for now. I borrowed some Listerine, then almost forgetting why I was there in the first place, I answered nature's call.
Back in the room, I heard both of them laughing.
"Yo yo yo, Alex, you gotta take a look at this," Sean said in between spurts of laughter.
"Sean, I gotta tell you something, I..."
"Yo, come check this out bro, this shit is mad funny."
"Yo Sean, you don't understand, I puked in your sink. It's clogged."
"What? Ah man don't worry man, come check this out man!"
"Nah but Sean, wait, your mom... you don't understand, you sink is completely clogged!"
"Nah nah don't worry man, come take a look man."
He never stopped laughing the whole time. Sean's bedroom walls have some posters but mainly a lot of graffiti. He used to be part of a graffiti crew back in the days. Earlier that day he had bought these new paint markers, and apparently he didn't realize drunk graffiti wasn't the most aesthetic form of art.
And to prove that point, he had tagged his name on his wall, but it was more akin to a kindergardener's scribble.
"Look at that shit!" he said emphatically, "I've never, ever, EVER tagged anything THAT fucking ugly!"
His tone of voice, body language, everything, cracked me the fuck up. You had to have been there. Obviously we all know the alcohol was the main catalyst in all that but that should be left subtly implied. I sat back down next to my girl and kept on laughing.
I was laughing so hard my sides were hurting, eyes watering, clutching my stomach and, hysterical. After awhile though, it seemed to cause a problem.
"Yo," Sean said. "Keep it down. Keep it down man my parents are gonna hear us."
But I've already hit the point of no return. You know those rare laughs that you wished you could have more often? The laughs that let you release that inner child with wild abandon. And the more he told us to shut up, the harder we laughed.
"Yo seriously man, keep it quiet man, shut up!"
And he punched me in the face. My head whipped from side to side, eyes wide with confusion. When I slowly realized what had actually happened, I burst out laughing even more because I couldn't believe that such a good friend had just punched me.
The previous scenario repeated, and Sean actually punched me again.
"Ow, damn son, chill that time that shit actually hurt."
Laughing apologetically, he said sorry and said I could hit him back.
Drunk as hell, I barely formed a fist and I ended up only half punching him.
"Nah nah that shit don't count," I said.
He agreed to let me hit him again. This time, I nailed right on the side of the nose.
"Oww damn that shit fucking smarts!'
We laughed at what just happened, rubbing our faces, wincing every now and then. Lisa and I promoted at Exit at the time, and we impulsively decided to go. Problem was, we were pretty broke (notice a trend from these days?), but promoters didn't have to pay cover until 1:00am, and we had an extra promoter's card for Sean.
Then what's the problem? It was past 12:30am. We had to make it down to Columbus Circle, which was possible but very tight. We decided to try anyway.
On the elevator ride down, I was whispering something to Lisa in her ear, and out of nowhere Sean punched me in the neck. Seriously, what the fuck lol?? I obviously punched him back.
To this day I still wonder what his doorman must have thought seeing us walking out, holding our neck and face respectively, moaning in pain.
Walking to the train station, Sean started randomly punching car windows. He was a violent drunk. A block or so later, I'm guessing it was due to pent up frustration and anger (mainly at myself), out of nowhere, I took a couple steps and kicked at a car's passenger side window.
Next thing I knew, I was knee-deep into the car, window shattered.
"Oh shit..."
I hopped out, and made sure to shake off as much glass from my pants and shoe as possible, I sped walk around the corner. Released on bail, that was by far the dumbest thing I could have done.
Around the corner of 72nd St, a family was walking by, grandparents, parents and kinds (why kids were out that late, ask the parents), but Sean randomly went to a trash can and threw it across their path, garbage and litter spilling all over the place.
Too embarrassed to even look at them, I 've always pictured the look of complete shock on their face.
Without missing a beat, Sean runs up to a Benz, and rips out the Mercedes symbol from the hood, then runs to a phone booth and smashes his hand so hard against it to shatter the glass of the advertisement.
We finally made it into the train. Sitting there and talking, Sean repeatedly taps me on the shoulder while talking, unaware that his hands were covered with blood. About to say something, I realized the futility of it all, especially considering that I already had blood all over my jacket by now.
We arrived at Columbus Circle 59th St., and I guess Sean was ready to have a little fun. Every person he saw on the train platform, he ran up to them spastically and shoved his bloody hands right in front of their faces and screamed:
"AHHH! AHHH! I GOT AIDS!!!"
Then ran off to the next poor unsuspecting victim. I was cracking up, I never seen Sean this drunk and wild.
He grabbed a piece of paper from the floor which turned out to be a post-it note with "PULL MY ADHESIVE" written on it.
Sean ran out of the subway, the post-it note by his crotch, approaching strangers and couples alike, thrusting his hips forward shouting:
"Pull my adhesive!! Pullll my adhesiveeee!!!"
All pedestrians avoided him like he was the brainchild of the plague and swine flu. Lisa and I tried to keep up, and I kept calling his name and he either didn't hear me or ignored me. I think it was the latter.
He climbed up the side of a small Mack truck, tried the door handle, and by some weird twist of coincidence, the door actually opened. Lisa and I looked at each other somewhat confused, and before we could say anything, a Jansport backpack flew out into the sidewalk.
"Sean! SEAN!"
I looked in the truck and he was no longer there, the passenger door was open, and he was already a half block down.
Lisa didn't look too happy.
"Are you mad?"
"Yeah kinda, you guys are acting like fools."
"Yeah I know, sorry bebe."
I knew we were acting like fools. But to be honest, only Sean was now. I somewhat sobered up after kicking in that window.
As we were talking, two guys walked by and I thought I heard one of them say something about Lisa. When I said I had somewhat sobered up, that was a half lie. Still drunk, but just not retarded drunk.
"What the fuck did you say?" I asked.
One of them seemed to be as drunk as I was, meanwhile the other was sober.
"What?" the drunk one spun on me.
"The fuck did you say about my girl?"
"Look, you don't want none of this. I got ten people following a couple blocks behind us, you don't want none of this."
In the meantime, his sober friend was trying to squash everything and keep walking, saying it was a misunderstanding.
"I don't give a fuck about you, or your ten boys, I'll kick all of your asses!" said the Bacardi and Alize.
By this time, Sean doubled back and was wondering what was going on. No sooner had he caught on, we were surrounded by ten people or so.
Ah fuck, not again...
But luckily, the ten other people were in no mood for a fight even if it would have been like winning a court case with Johnny Cochran as your lawyer.
At Exit, we missed the promoter's line. Bummed, we started to leave, and waiting to cross street, the infamous paint markers resurfaced to perform an encore of a child's scribble on the club wall. Two guys soon approached Sean, and thinking that they were thugs trying to start shit with him, I went to see what was going on.
One of them intercepted me and asked:
"He your boy?"
"Yeah he's my boy."
"So you got his back?"
"No shit I got his back."
Thinking shit was going to go down, he put his arm around my shoulder and waved a walkie-talkie in my face.
"You sure you got his back?"
Ah fuck... (for the second time tonight)
But it was too late to back out now.
"Yeah I got his back."
The other security guard was talking to Sean across the street and ended up letting him go. Walking away, Sean was furious.
"Those fucking fake ass thugs think they can fuck with me, I'll motherfucking slit their throats, who the fuck they think they are stepping up to me like that I..."
"What the fuck nigga, they were cops, security for the club. They're doing their jobs.."
"Nahh fuck that man, they were just some thugs stepping to me man, they..."
"They waved a goddamn walkie in my face, what the fuck are you talking about? Yo, every time you're mad drunk you do some dumb shit, I can't even fuck with you like this anymore."
We started arguing with one another, shoving each other but things calmed down. He slammed his hand against another public phone booth (old grudge perhaps?) but soon he sobered up.
We went to a nearby McDonalds and he washed up. In the subway station where we were going to part ways, he asked what the fuck happened that night.
I started to tell him the story I just told you, and at first he wouldn't believe that he hit me to begin with. An hour and a half later, finally done (I omitted some smaller unimportant details here), we went home.
Next day around 3:00pm, I got a call.
"Hey man, it's Sean."
"Hey..." still groggy.
"I think you told me last night already but I don't really remember, but can you refresh my memory?"
He had no idea what happened. Moral of the story? There isn't one, I just thought it was funny lol (minus my little slip of the foot)
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Why You Shouldn't Air Your Dirty Laundry in Public
It always interested me how humanity rebuilds societies, from the smallest scale to the largest. Post-apocalyptic settings are full of these scenarios, the backbone of novels and games galore. What becomes currency, what economic issues are encountered, what kind of groups emerge from the survivors...
And jail was no different. Pouches of mackerels were a dollar each since they cost $1.05 at commissary (our Walmart). Macks and stamps were the most common form of currency. A billionaire secretly employs a quarter of the unit, a hustler starts his own underground, after-hours K-Mart, a gambling kingpin sends out his henchmen to collect debts.
But you don't have to be a billionaire to be lazy in jail. If you have five macks to spare a week, you can get your cube cleaned and your laundry done and folded. All the inmates that are not fortunate enough to have people on the outside able or willing to send them funds work for their keep.
And because of this side job of theirs, two Jamaicans got the shit beat out of them, one of their eye popping out of the socket. All over laundry.
Six Mexicans took over the laundry room one Sunday, since they were doing a couple dozen loads. The two Jamaicans were on their day off and wanted to wash their own clothes. From what I heard, they waited for quite a while.
Sick of endlessly waiting for their turn, they took out whatever clothes were in the washer and started their own laundry load. Whether they were justified or not in doing so is up for debate, I can understand both sides.
The Mexicans weren't so understanding. They proceeded to crack them in the head with one of those really old, heavy (iron?) mop buckets, kicked off a broom handle, and stabbed the Jamaicans with the splintered end. Supposedly one of the Jamaican's eye popped out of its socket.
All of them were detained, and sent to solitary or the hospital as necessary. FBI got involved and our unit was shut down and isolated for a couple days because they thought it might have been gang related.
We never saw any of those inmates again. They all got their security level raised and were most likely going to a medium-level security prison. And the Jamaicans were most likely hospitalized for a while.
What irks me about this whole story though is, I made it a point to not get involved with all the jail politics and bullshit drama, but it still affected me regardless. One of those Mexicans was the guy I paid to do my shit!
Lol I say that in jest however. Not really that big of a deal. But jumping someone over laundry? Really? What happened to using our words? =P
And jail was no different. Pouches of mackerels were a dollar each since they cost $1.05 at commissary (our Walmart). Macks and stamps were the most common form of currency. A billionaire secretly employs a quarter of the unit, a hustler starts his own underground, after-hours K-Mart, a gambling kingpin sends out his henchmen to collect debts.
But you don't have to be a billionaire to be lazy in jail. If you have five macks to spare a week, you can get your cube cleaned and your laundry done and folded. All the inmates that are not fortunate enough to have people on the outside able or willing to send them funds work for their keep.
And because of this side job of theirs, two Jamaicans got the shit beat out of them, one of their eye popping out of the socket. All over laundry.
Six Mexicans took over the laundry room one Sunday, since they were doing a couple dozen loads. The two Jamaicans were on their day off and wanted to wash their own clothes. From what I heard, they waited for quite a while.
Sick of endlessly waiting for their turn, they took out whatever clothes were in the washer and started their own laundry load. Whether they were justified or not in doing so is up for debate, I can understand both sides.
The Mexicans weren't so understanding. They proceeded to crack them in the head with one of those really old, heavy (iron?) mop buckets, kicked off a broom handle, and stabbed the Jamaicans with the splintered end. Supposedly one of the Jamaican's eye popped out of its socket.
All of them were detained, and sent to solitary or the hospital as necessary. FBI got involved and our unit was shut down and isolated for a couple days because they thought it might have been gang related.
We never saw any of those inmates again. They all got their security level raised and were most likely going to a medium-level security prison. And the Jamaicans were most likely hospitalized for a while.
What irks me about this whole story though is, I made it a point to not get involved with all the jail politics and bullshit drama, but it still affected me regardless. One of those Mexicans was the guy I paid to do my shit!
Lol I say that in jest however. Not really that big of a deal. But jumping someone over laundry? Really? What happened to using our words? =P
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
A different kind of love letter
A letter my mom sent me in jail.
"In general, there are two kinds of love, one that rocks your world, and the kind that soothes your heart. When we are young, we tend to believe the first to being the real deal, because we want drama (not to mention the greatest loves in literature, films and music of all times are of the first kind), because we long to feel the flutters in our hearts, because we envision the height it'll take us, and we can't wait to take that plunge... then we grow up. But still there are those who still pine for it despite their age, until the end of time. They, we call them the old fools.
The other kind is more complicated. It isn't so much the falls and the heartbreaks but the everyday aches that hurt. I think you truly love somebody when it pains you to see him/her smile. The love pain - almost a strum in your heart, it's so sweet that it hurts and brings tears of gratitude - thankful to having this person to love. When it breaks you to see him/her in a stage of struggle, so much that you'll step in and take over that fight of hardship to stop that pain - that pain of your own heart breaking and when you'd rather trade places with him/her than to see him/her hurt and suffer, because somehow it is easier to take the pain in your body than in your heart.
It is an adventure, almost a drug, to love someone... and a blessing to be loved... Unlike what most believe, the power lies in the one who loves and not in the beloved. The beloved is merely chosen - for in some small way he/she calls to his/her lover, the beneficiary so to speak, and the lover, the donor, who decides all... Because ultimately it ends when the lover decidedly stops loving...
In the end it doesn't matter how great the love, once gone, it will fade over time and will be replaced by another eventually. For all the obvious reasons but mainly it is our instinct to survive that moves us forward. I cannot fathom a love so great that the loss of which will leave a person so incomplete, that it mars him/her forever... except when that love is but a vision, her/his very own, for then no one can replace that..."
"In general, there are two kinds of love, one that rocks your world, and the kind that soothes your heart. When we are young, we tend to believe the first to being the real deal, because we want drama (not to mention the greatest loves in literature, films and music of all times are of the first kind), because we long to feel the flutters in our hearts, because we envision the height it'll take us, and we can't wait to take that plunge... then we grow up. But still there are those who still pine for it despite their age, until the end of time. They, we call them the old fools.
The other kind is more complicated. It isn't so much the falls and the heartbreaks but the everyday aches that hurt. I think you truly love somebody when it pains you to see him/her smile. The love pain - almost a strum in your heart, it's so sweet that it hurts and brings tears of gratitude - thankful to having this person to love. When it breaks you to see him/her in a stage of struggle, so much that you'll step in and take over that fight of hardship to stop that pain - that pain of your own heart breaking and when you'd rather trade places with him/her than to see him/her hurt and suffer, because somehow it is easier to take the pain in your body than in your heart.
It is an adventure, almost a drug, to love someone... and a blessing to be loved... Unlike what most believe, the power lies in the one who loves and not in the beloved. The beloved is merely chosen - for in some small way he/she calls to his/her lover, the beneficiary so to speak, and the lover, the donor, who decides all... Because ultimately it ends when the lover decidedly stops loving...
In the end it doesn't matter how great the love, once gone, it will fade over time and will be replaced by another eventually. For all the obvious reasons but mainly it is our instinct to survive that moves us forward. I cannot fathom a love so great that the loss of which will leave a person so incomplete, that it mars him/her forever... except when that love is but a vision, her/his very own, for then no one can replace that..."
A bootylicious babe
I met Lisa on 11/07/01. I had just gotten arrested nine days prior, released on bail after four days, and needless to say, I was broke as hell. So what do you do, at 19 years old, with less than ten dollars to your name, and on your way to jail?
Go online lol. I used to go on AOL (still do occasionally), and there used to be this chat room called "nyc asians." Self explanatory enough. So I'm sitting there, minding my own business, looking through girls' profiles, and this one girl, "bo0tilishuzbabe" said in her profile that she promoted for this club, Exit.
Right before my arrest, I used to deal at that club, and from that one common ground, we started a conversation. She mentioned how she just started shooting pool and asked if I would be willing to teach her. I obviously agreed.
This all happened around 5:00am, and we met later that day around 10:00pm. We met at Sambuca's, this cafe in Chinatown, not too far from my mom's place. I'm waiting on Canal St. and Mulberry St., and across the street I see this tiny lil thing walk to the corner.
"Lisa?!" I shouted tentatively across the street.
I saw her head look around in search of the source of her name, and she finally saw me. The usual introduction ensues, we go inside Sambuca's, and since she had just finished a promoter's meeting, she was with around eight people.
We sat at a table off to the side, alone, and got to know each other. We eventually went to karaoke, and that's when I found out that this guy Johnny who was there, had been trying to hook up with Lisa for months.
Now, I'm not a big dude. I'm actually short and pretty small. So when I say Johnny was little, I mean it literally and without exaggeration.
Lisa stood at five foot nothing without heels. He was shorter than she was with heels on. Enough said.
Anyhow, sipping on my beer in the karaoke room, Lisa and I are flirting, whispering into each others ear, lips barely brushing, interrupted a couple of times by cock-blockers, then she leans over the low table to reach something on the other side.
And I had to remind myself to breathe. For a tiny lil asian girl, she had one hell of an ass!
After karaoke, most people left and it was just Johnny, Lisa and me. Johnny asks her what she feels like doing (mind you, I had just met Lisa hours earlier), and she turns to me and asks what we're going to do. Caught off-guard since I was expecting her to make plans then ask if I wanted to join if anything, I replied, "Well I'm kinda broke so yeah..."
Johnny suggests that we go shoot pool at Broadway Billiards, and again I reiterate that I have no money on me. We somehow ended up cabbing it there anyway.
Now, either Lisa was a very quick learner, or she was lying to me lol, because for someone who had only shot pool three times, I didn't have much to teach her. We spent a couple hours there, then cabbed it back to Chinatown.
Driving down Broadway, once we made it to Chinatown, the unavoidable question surfaced. Where is Lisa going? So, after Johnny pays for a cab to the pool hall, then pays for the table time at the pool hall, and again pays for the cab back from the pool hall (all this for three people), Lisa says:
"I'm gonna go to Alex's."
I'm pretty sure I must have smirked.
Now, dear reader, you must be thinking, what kind of girl is she, going back to your place less than 24 hours after meeting you online! Yeah, that crossed my mind too. You'd be surprised to know that we were together for 18 months before I was sent to jail. And you'd be even more surprised to find out that this relationship only truly ended two months ago. Also, I was her first (wtf, right?)
We went through thick and thin. It was us against the world. And against each other. The type of relationship you can only dream of, because you can only have it when you're young and naive. Or just very lucky. The passion, loyalty, blind devotion, trust... most of which have very little room in reality.
She was the morning sunshine after a nightmare; she was my confidante; she was my everything. In retrospect, where did things go wrong? Probably right from the start. How could we have prevented our recent break up? Probably couldn't. Do I regret having ever met her? Never.
Lisa will most likely always have a part of my heart, not her as a person, but the memory of her that has crystallized in my mind's eye, only reinforced by months and months of incarceration.
Obviously we had our problems. And I can't deny the pain and disappointment that I felt over the years. But despite all of it, I kept on trying. Despite all of it, I kept on loving. What's the point of having a heart, if you don't use it because you're afraid it'll be broken?
Despite it all, I will always move on.
Go online lol. I used to go on AOL (still do occasionally), and there used to be this chat room called "nyc asians." Self explanatory enough. So I'm sitting there, minding my own business, looking through girls' profiles, and this one girl, "bo0tilishuzbabe" said in her profile that she promoted for this club, Exit.
Right before my arrest, I used to deal at that club, and from that one common ground, we started a conversation. She mentioned how she just started shooting pool and asked if I would be willing to teach her. I obviously agreed.
This all happened around 5:00am, and we met later that day around 10:00pm. We met at Sambuca's, this cafe in Chinatown, not too far from my mom's place. I'm waiting on Canal St. and Mulberry St., and across the street I see this tiny lil thing walk to the corner.
"Lisa?!" I shouted tentatively across the street.
I saw her head look around in search of the source of her name, and she finally saw me. The usual introduction ensues, we go inside Sambuca's, and since she had just finished a promoter's meeting, she was with around eight people.
We sat at a table off to the side, alone, and got to know each other. We eventually went to karaoke, and that's when I found out that this guy Johnny who was there, had been trying to hook up with Lisa for months.
Now, I'm not a big dude. I'm actually short and pretty small. So when I say Johnny was little, I mean it literally and without exaggeration.
Lisa stood at five foot nothing without heels. He was shorter than she was with heels on. Enough said.
Anyhow, sipping on my beer in the karaoke room, Lisa and I are flirting, whispering into each others ear, lips barely brushing, interrupted a couple of times by cock-blockers, then she leans over the low table to reach something on the other side.
And I had to remind myself to breathe. For a tiny lil asian girl, she had one hell of an ass!
After karaoke, most people left and it was just Johnny, Lisa and me. Johnny asks her what she feels like doing (mind you, I had just met Lisa hours earlier), and she turns to me and asks what we're going to do. Caught off-guard since I was expecting her to make plans then ask if I wanted to join if anything, I replied, "Well I'm kinda broke so yeah..."
Johnny suggests that we go shoot pool at Broadway Billiards, and again I reiterate that I have no money on me. We somehow ended up cabbing it there anyway.
Now, either Lisa was a very quick learner, or she was lying to me lol, because for someone who had only shot pool three times, I didn't have much to teach her. We spent a couple hours there, then cabbed it back to Chinatown.
Driving down Broadway, once we made it to Chinatown, the unavoidable question surfaced. Where is Lisa going? So, after Johnny pays for a cab to the pool hall, then pays for the table time at the pool hall, and again pays for the cab back from the pool hall (all this for three people), Lisa says:
"I'm gonna go to Alex's."
I'm pretty sure I must have smirked.
Now, dear reader, you must be thinking, what kind of girl is she, going back to your place less than 24 hours after meeting you online! Yeah, that crossed my mind too. You'd be surprised to know that we were together for 18 months before I was sent to jail. And you'd be even more surprised to find out that this relationship only truly ended two months ago. Also, I was her first (wtf, right?)
We went through thick and thin. It was us against the world. And against each other. The type of relationship you can only dream of, because you can only have it when you're young and naive. Or just very lucky. The passion, loyalty, blind devotion, trust... most of which have very little room in reality.
She was the morning sunshine after a nightmare; she was my confidante; she was my everything. In retrospect, where did things go wrong? Probably right from the start. How could we have prevented our recent break up? Probably couldn't. Do I regret having ever met her? Never.
Lisa will most likely always have a part of my heart, not her as a person, but the memory of her that has crystallized in my mind's eye, only reinforced by months and months of incarceration.
Obviously we had our problems. And I can't deny the pain and disappointment that I felt over the years. But despite all of it, I kept on trying. Despite all of it, I kept on loving. What's the point of having a heart, if you don't use it because you're afraid it'll be broken?
Despite it all, I will always move on.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
I Bleed
a rhyme I wrote, there's a youtube link to the beat
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIfDZ_ww0CY&feature=channel
im only playing with the hand that was dealt to me
in the care of lady luck, im a living prophecy
tryna make the best from a petty life of greed
escaping from the grasp of my realities
my addictions to the underground never ceased
temptations never setting me fully free
i battled with the beast within for eternity
please let me be, the last of a dying breed
this eternal hell and pain isnt meant to be
witnessed by the faculties of mentality
caged soul bound by the shackles of treachery
cold as ice as my eyes witness this tragedy
lies from the lips you love on a path of misery
hips and thighs mesmerize got you acting differently
so i bleed so i bleed so i bleed
* * * * * * * *
i shoulda asked for some proof of paternity
but they dont gauge another man's veracity
you have to see for yourself past hypocrisy
picking up empty promises to the third degree
everything nowadays happens for a reason see
destiny runs its course even with disbelief
im a learned cynic tagged with a felony
never led astray by the off key melodies
i cant help but pity the parody
of a man reaching desperately for his family
he's not worth any more mention lyrically
he's as good as dead to me, mentally, physically
i repent for a life of immoral deeds
got me wondering if im nothing but an evil seed
quicksand drowning in the doubts of self deceit
never giving up at the cruel hands of defeat
breathe for another day, better times painlessly
there will be time for redemption thankfully
lessons from a fallen soldier on the battlefield
is it true when they say that every wound heals
new york to cali i give you a rhapsody
classical portrait of a broken family
so i bleed so i bleed so i bleed
* * * * * * * *
i do have to say i chose my path selfishly
fear the cold wrath of a man waiting patiently
surrounded by deceptive masks of heresy
how can a single man overthrow fallacies
conformity with the masses is policy
contract killings are the norm, no compliancy
so rest in peace or agree with the Agency
learn to shut your mouth and not speak blatantly
eyes shifty coz the world is your enemy
if you can't beat em, join em coz you're outta strategies
nothing ever is what it first seems to be
number one lesson learned in a conspiracy
in a cube 9 by 9 dying with a cellie
sharing 9 square feet coz i used to sell ecstasy
23 and 1, going crazy in solitary
serving us trash and green expired meat
consequences of the past finally catching up to me
its time to pay the piper he wasnt sworn to secrecy
progression of the world at the cost of purity
corruption is the bane of a lost humanity
intricate patterns of behavior like a tapestry
and every word i say, know i say it factually
so i bleed so i bleed so i bleed
* * * * * * * *
tragic memories from a child lost at sea
passed down in my genes from my ancestry
its a never ending circle in a cycle viciously
thats the burden of the curse of my family
bound by the chains of time, can we break free?
can we see the light of day, smiling happily?
maybe many days, far from now eventually
but it will likely never be a probability
so i bleed so i bleed so i bleed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIfDZ_ww0CY&feature=channel
im only playing with the hand that was dealt to me
in the care of lady luck, im a living prophecy
tryna make the best from a petty life of greed
escaping from the grasp of my realities
my addictions to the underground never ceased
temptations never setting me fully free
i battled with the beast within for eternity
please let me be, the last of a dying breed
this eternal hell and pain isnt meant to be
witnessed by the faculties of mentality
caged soul bound by the shackles of treachery
cold as ice as my eyes witness this tragedy
lies from the lips you love on a path of misery
hips and thighs mesmerize got you acting differently
so i bleed so i bleed so i bleed
* * * * * * * *
i shoulda asked for some proof of paternity
but they dont gauge another man's veracity
you have to see for yourself past hypocrisy
picking up empty promises to the third degree
everything nowadays happens for a reason see
destiny runs its course even with disbelief
im a learned cynic tagged with a felony
never led astray by the off key melodies
i cant help but pity the parody
of a man reaching desperately for his family
he's not worth any more mention lyrically
he's as good as dead to me, mentally, physically
i repent for a life of immoral deeds
got me wondering if im nothing but an evil seed
quicksand drowning in the doubts of self deceit
never giving up at the cruel hands of defeat
breathe for another day, better times painlessly
there will be time for redemption thankfully
lessons from a fallen soldier on the battlefield
is it true when they say that every wound heals
new york to cali i give you a rhapsody
classical portrait of a broken family
so i bleed so i bleed so i bleed
* * * * * * * *
i do have to say i chose my path selfishly
fear the cold wrath of a man waiting patiently
surrounded by deceptive masks of heresy
how can a single man overthrow fallacies
conformity with the masses is policy
contract killings are the norm, no compliancy
so rest in peace or agree with the Agency
learn to shut your mouth and not speak blatantly
eyes shifty coz the world is your enemy
if you can't beat em, join em coz you're outta strategies
nothing ever is what it first seems to be
number one lesson learned in a conspiracy
in a cube 9 by 9 dying with a cellie
sharing 9 square feet coz i used to sell ecstasy
23 and 1, going crazy in solitary
serving us trash and green expired meat
consequences of the past finally catching up to me
its time to pay the piper he wasnt sworn to secrecy
progression of the world at the cost of purity
corruption is the bane of a lost humanity
intricate patterns of behavior like a tapestry
and every word i say, know i say it factually
so i bleed so i bleed so i bleed
* * * * * * * *
tragic memories from a child lost at sea
passed down in my genes from my ancestry
its a never ending circle in a cycle viciously
thats the burden of the curse of my family
bound by the chains of time, can we break free?
can we see the light of day, smiling happily?
maybe many days, far from now eventually
but it will likely never be a probability
so i bleed so i bleed so i bleed
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
