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Life Changes Added January 12th, 2006 Nobody really knows what a change of lifestyle is like until he has gone to prison. Nobody. My first day at jail was tough. Everybody says that on the first night there, you have to fight someone or else you are going to be someone’s “bitch.” That’s not true; you could fight twenty people and kill all of them, but if there is some one bigger and tougher than you are, none of that matters. It was pretty odd being the only volunteer inmate in a prison of over 4,000, and it had only made things worse that I just turned 12. I ran away from home, made my way to the prison, and began hanging out with some classy convicts. We had a good set up; the guards thought I was a dog most of the time, so I would sneak in beer and cigarettes. Before this, I was used to messy nights at my house filled with my parents Mandarin arguing. That was why I ran away in the first place. My parents are Asian, both came from Taiwan, and they had me; but for some reason, I’m not Asian. And I don’t speak Mandarin either, so their constant yelling went over my head. That’s why I decided to leave. The first night at jail I was picked up by a short, grimey guy named “Eddie.” He took care of me, even beat up a few inmates in the process, all for the small price of swallowing condoms filled with coke. The beer and the cigarettes were easy, those coke condoms that were tough because if they ripped in my stomach, which did happen, Eddie would go beserk and yell at me. He would never punch me, though, just threaten to constantly. Eddie was paranoid, and that is what did him in. He always thought everyone was a snitch, even me, and he choked me once because he thought I shorted him some of his coke. But, I never did that. I would drop off the money to a guard named Luke, and he would give me a little baggie which I swallowed. He got so paranoid that he finally went at a terrorist, Ramzi Yousef with knife because Yousef stared at him for a while. I don’t think Eddie got far, because the guards stopped him and beat him up. That was how I got caught. They found me a little while after this and sent me back home trying to avoid as much publicity as possible. Readjusting was hard. I was sent back to my school, which just seemed empty to me. Doing homework and studying and listening and listening and writing. I had experienced a whole new world, one where the people had eloquent and interesting conversations, real problems, real addictions, and real people. It was if everyone in school was a fake, no honesty whatsoever, everyone lied to each other, just to be nice. And my parents. They took it bad. My dad had a breakdown and began cutting himself to get attention. I saw little cuts and nicks up and down his arm, obviously done by him; sometimes even creating letters. It was horrible. And my mom; she lost confidence in me, yelled at me, called me stupid, told her friends I was a mistake or adopted or that she was just babysitting me. It got bad. This was before I thought things through, though. I realized something. Last time, I had gone to jail because I wanted to, I could go back if they sent me back. But, I’d have to deserve it. I tried hard to go to jail. At first I was nervous, so I started out taking small steps. I was at the grocery store with my mom once, and we were in the milk section. She walked off to buy some fish from the butcher, and I started to stare at these eggs. I stared at these eggs for two minutes straight, blankly. I picked up the eggs, one at a time, and began smashing them on the floor while grunting animal noises at the top of my lungs. I moved on to the milk which I threw against the wall, then to the salsas, which I smashed this window with. Every possible item within sight, I threw on the ground or smashed and then screamed at. They finally subdued me, and my mom told them I was retarded. When it was all over with, they didn’t send me to jail. No, they just yelled at me, and made a big deal of it. My parents had to pay some money and then they got all mad and yelled at me some more. But, no jail. I’ll probably go back one day, but it was not to be. 2006 |
