Some Prison Stories For Y'all (Part 10!! Woo!)

All I Want For Christmas Is Freedom

I haven't been asked about this but, I'm giving it to you anyway, in prison for christmas. So Christmas in prison is the best and very worst time of year depending on what it means to you and your family, but here in Canada most people even those who 'aren't religious' celebrate Christmas with family.

So in December we get perks, the biggest one is called Christmas Canteen, this shit is a big big deal, we get to spend like up to $100 of our own money on a list of foods we can't normally get like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Ichiban Ramen Noodles, Cereals, there's usually a list of about 60 items, people do some pretty crazy math to get within pennies of the limit. Some of the other perks are we get a few days off from inmate jobs, there is a zero violence policy between the cons, all beefs (problems with others) can wait until after the holiday. There is one more quirk, drug use spikes.

Most Christmases I was in for were very uneventful (aside from me stuffing my face with peanut butter cups), one Christmas was very very different. Christmas Eve night four guys OD'd, three on tainted MDMA, one on heroin. Two of them died, the one who OD'd on heroin was one of them, he was a lifer, he killed someone who attacked his sister when he was 15, and had been doing a life sentence since, he was months away from his first parole hearing, and was in his early 30's. A few months before he had made it to the minimum security prison, he had a housemate who had smuggled in steroids because he wanted to be a beefcake, the guards found the steroids blamed the lifer and sent him back to higher security. He was told he wouldn't have a shot at parole now, and purposely OD'd on Christmas Day. Merry Fucking Christmas, we were locked down for five days, including Christmas Day, the guy who sold the tainted drugs got a severe beatdown.

Rules Time! No such thing as gifts

So, this is something often done to fish (newbs) by scumbags, so if you come to your cell and there is something there that you didn't have before whether it's a choney bar (chocolate or candy bar) or a tv do not take, eat or use it. Leave it aside untouched until your 'charitable benefactor' returns, because he will demand you do a very out of proportion favour. Return the gift untouched and you can send them packing without issue, if you have used or eaten the gift they now have an excuse to beat you if you don't do their favour.

So, we had this fish, we'll call him Buddha, he's short, balding stretched out earlobes from missing expanders that had previously been in and a great big round belly. He came home to a bag of canteen, thought something along the lines of "FREE DIABETES!" he devoured the entire bag in record time, it was gone before the night was through. A few days later one of the biggest gang bangers on our unit went to his cell explained that he owed him for all the canteen, let him know he could either stab this other guy a couple times or he could be the one in healthcare. Buddha did the stabbing (by having a fish do it the gang can deny all responsibility, it's usually used to sort out a member of another gang that they are truced with without jeopardizing the truce).

T1 And T2 Earn A Reputation

As I have previously mentioned, T1 and T2 were the biggest trolls in the prison, the twins had been there for a few weeks. They were both skinny guys about 5'10'' and and fairly tattooed, but they both had identical tattoos on opposite sides of their bodies. The first time I caught them trolling was with my friend's games, T1 borrowed Ocarina Of Time from my buddy, the next day he sent T2 to my buddies cell to ask if he could grab the game off of him now. My buddy BT (Bad Tattoos) is now super confused, "I gave it to you yesterday" T2 "Nope, come to my cell I'll show you I don't have it, and I wouldn't lend it out to anyone else without your permission" So they go to T1's Cell and T1 slips in and leaves the game in the middle of his stack of cartridges. T2 and BT get back to BT's cell and they argue for a bit then BT goes through his stack and finds it. "Shit, I swore I gave it to you, sorry for doubting you man here you go". They did it twice more before BT caught on. He started paying attention to which sides the tattoos were on after that.

That wasn't enough to earn their reputation though, oh no, they got much bolder quickly and started pranking the guards, because you know, what can go wrong. One guard in particular they develop a hatred for, we called this guard Sparky after he got electrocuted during a cell search. He was a smarmy dick, the twins regularly would pull stunts with paperwork on him, and he was getting sick of it. So at one point, one of the twins had something confiscated from his cell, the locker they kept confiscated stuff in was locked up in the same room as some of the cleaning supplies and T1 was a unit cleaner, so he goes to Sparky to get the room unlocked and T2 managed to slip a wedge in the door so it wouldn't lock when it was closed (a wedge is a carefully folded piece of paper we slip in doors to prevent the latch from closing), when Sparky and T1 were far enough away T2 managed to slip in, pick the lock and get his confiscated tv (it wasn't on his property card). Now all this is brazen and ballsy enough, but they got caught, obviously as he miraculously had the exact same TV back in his cell. They were both charged and taken to the hole (segregation) for a 6 month vacation from general population and as they are being extracted from the unit all I hear is T1 and T2 say is "I'll be back!" and "Hasta la vista!" to the cheers of everyone that could hear. When they came back they had everyone's respect.

Prison is easy...

Life is hard. So this technically isn't a prison story but I have been asked a lot about my experiences since release and how difficult it is for someone to re-enter society. I have been out about 2 and a half years, the first year I was out, I started dating a girl and got a steady job (I hated it because the company treated me like shit, but it was steady and paid the bills). I had been with my girlfriend and renting this basement suite for about 9 months, she had been living with me for three months and had been sober for about four months. I didn't meet her at AA or anything just she met me and decided to get sober after she had a problematic episode shortly after we met. The owner's of the house lived on the main floor, youngish couple with four kids, both in their early thirties, seemed nice but fought like cats and dogs behind closed doors. The kids cried a lot, my friend knew them which is how I got the place as she had nannied for them for a while, so I knew at least one of the kids was special needs. This is the story of my worst day since I got out... scratch that, this was the worst day of my life, worse than the day of my crime, worse than the death of my brother, worse than any day in prison.

So one night my girlfriend at the time went out to "play pool with a friend", I am not possessive or jealous and have no problem giving my girlfriend a night out with her friends, so I asked that she be home by 1 AM so she didn't disturb my sleep as I had work the next day. I stayed up until 2 AM and she didn't come home so I went to bed after trying to get ahold of her, to no avail. So I went to bed worried and woke up to an empty bed. It was 7AM, I was groggy, upset, worried and felt a little betrayed. So I try calling her and get her answering machine, I hang up grab a cigarette and am just about to go outside for my first cigarette of the day. No sooner do I grab a smoke do I hear several sets of heavy boots come in through the side door of the house (which has the entry to the basement suite). No knocks nothing, my door gets kicked open and they rush down the stairs, I'm greeted by the barrel of a shotgun at head level, followed by several plainclothes with pistols drawn. I put my hands up and my cigarette on my ear, as the head honcho says "Mr. Crashed Ego, I'm with the Child Crimes Unit of the RCMP, we have a warrant to search your premises." It takes me a bit to process this because I'm shocked and disgusted and angry amongst other things, all at the same time so I finally manage to say "You said my name so you clearly know I'm on parole" Sergeant Wreck My Day (from this point on WMD) replies with "Yes", I say "So you know you don't need a search warrant." "Yes" WMD replies. Angrily but with as much control as I can muster I say, "Search, but you know I'm on parole for manslaughter, do you know the circumstances?" WMD gives me a withering look and says "I do." I snap at this point "So you are asking a convicted pedophile killer if he has FUCKING CHILD PORN!?" WMD retorts with "The IP matches" "I share internet with my landlord upstairs, you had better talk to him because I am no fucking goof, you fucking goof!" I get sat down politely with a push of the shotgun at this point and I give them permission to scan all of my computers and they preemptively charge me for possession, manufacture and distribution of child pornography, I immediately decide that unless this gets dropped, I am not leaving alive, I will not go to prison with that on my head.

In the meantime WMD and one other officer holster their weapons and go upstairs, I hear them knock at the door, and step inside, in under five minutes I can hear the wife screaming "No! No! Why would you do that! Why!?" I immediately think of the kids crying so often, how often they aren't bright exuberant children, my stomach turns, my heart breaks and my anger flares. WMD comes into my basement suite and looks at me, "Mr. CrashedEgo, I am very sorry that we made these allegations and charges against you, we are dropping all criminal charges, Mr. goofpedoscumbag admitted to it. Can I speak to you before you leave? You are free to go if you like." I sat down, explained the network setup to him which explained a recent IP switch by my landlord and cleared up some confusion they had and then I did something that shocked them. I looked each and every cop in that room in the eye and said "Thank you for doing your jobs, I know I'm an ex-con but that doesn't change the fact that you guys deal with unimaginably hard images and sick fucks daily, I could never do your job and you do your best to protect children that were harmed like I was. I couldn't do your job." They left a short time later, I called out of work that whole day, I spent the rest of my day at an AA group, shaken to my core, I got in contact with my girlfriend at 3 PM and I should have dumped her that day, but I stayed with her another six months, because prison screwed me up and I thought she was my last chance at love, that if she wouldn't have me, no one would.

Thank you so much for reading everyone, I sincerely hope you enjoy this post as much as the previous posts. I look forward to talking to you all in the comments and messaging.

As Always Links to the Previous Posts:Part 1: http://imgur.com/gallery/0ciN5
Part 2: http://imgur.com/gallery/6t183
Part 3: http://imgur.com/gallery/9Edtt
Part 4: http://imgur.com/gallery/4yNxY
Part 5: http://imgur.com/gallery/o3ka1
Part 6: http://imgur.com/gallery/nuCXH
Part 7: http://imgur.com/gallery/Cp1B0
Part 8: http://imgur.com/gallery/W7cRW
Part 9: http://imgur.com/gallery/TP79z