Sam Paul - Why I Committed Suicide

I got approved to be put on the crew because I listed that I could do all kinds of stuff to cars that I really didn’t know that much about, but since I worked on my VW numerous times I knew I could figure it out if I had to. Most of my work consisted of stuff I had never done before but they kept it really simple and I was a fast learner. I mostly learned minor repair things like how to balance and rotate tires, change brake pads and install extra lights or expensive chrome accessories to the various pig-mobiles. It’s a weird gig, changing the brake pads for the police cars and fixing their tires, almost like working for the enemy. I would have loved to fuck over their brakes too, but the garage has actual city mechanics on staff that would supposedly check over our work when we were done. I couldn’t help but think about all the misery I was helping cause for some poor guy who would get pulled over later. Some of the cops even insisted on watching us do the work which was intimidating at first but after a while I got used to it. Paranoid is as paranoid does. I can’t count the number of times officers would swing by to get a free tire rotation and kill some time on their shifts and sometimes they would get one of the guys to install a new stereo or a fancy horn in their personal vehicles. Most of the cops seem like they’re good guys, but since their uniform is blue and mine is orange there’s always a power trip going on in some fashion.

We also had to wash and clean their cars for them too. The rule among us guys was that whoever cleaned out the backseat had to share with everyone else whatever they found stuffed down in the cracks. So while someone is cleaning the inside of the car the other people move in to distract the officer that’s watching or we would call attention to something interesting on another side of the garage. Deep down in the backseat is where everyone who’s going to jail gets rid of any extra incriminating evidence, usually just coke or weed. I was really only interested in smoking a little pot to pass the time but that only happened for me once while I was out there.

I learned two different ways to hotwire a car from one of the guys on my crew. There’s the simple old fashioned way that involves jamming a screwdriver where the key would go and forcing it to turn over with a wrench or there’s the way you see in the movies where you actually pull the wires out of the ignition and start the car. Since there is nothing but free time once we were back to the Unit I got a long detailed discussion complete with illustrated diagrams and elaborate ways to get around different alarm systems. I guess people that are destined to teach will always try to pass along useful knowledge, no matter the circumstances of their life.

Since the auto garage is actually a fenced-in building a couple blocks away from the jail, every night when we returned the guards would make us “assume the position” and pat us down just to make sure we weren’t smuggling tools or anything else back into the jail. After a point, you know the routine and everyone knows everyone’s face so eventually it’s just a quick cursory pat down, then off to the Unit for well deserved showers.

One night when we got back, a replacement guard was there instead of any of the usual guys and during the pat down I didn’t spread my legs far enough apart to his satisfaction so he took out his nightstick and smashed my left knee on the side as hard as he could with one wide wooshing stroke. I fell down in pain and he gave me a good kick in the back, then laughed and let us through, me limping behind.

Whatever he did, my knee is totally fucked up and it still hasn’t healed right. I filed a complaint against the guard for the record. I know they won’t do anything about it in here, but one day I’ll get out and sue him or find his ass on the street and return the favor. I can tell already that any quickness I had in that leg is gone and I have to be very mindful of how I position and bend my joints when I walk now. With my knee went any chance I still had at an athletic scholarship (ha!) and if I ever find myself in a tight spot with mall security again I can forget about outrunning them.

One night after work I was feeling pretty depressed. I hadn’t seen Jenifer since that one time a month or so ago and I wrote her another long letter filled with a lot of emotion and a hidden request. Since I was working at the garage outside the jail with only an ordinary chain-link fence around the property, right across from public roads and a shitty apartment complex (where we would ironically watch people selling crack during our lunch), I drew her a crude drawing of where I was working everyday, hoping that maybe one night she could stop by and throw a joint or two near the dumpster for me to find.

It turns out that someone saw me drawing the map on my bunk and tipped off the guards, who then opened my mail and found the picture that I had drawn outlining the layout of the jail and location of the garage, along with the best place to park and have someone make a mad dash to the fence with some joints. They came and picked me up in the middle of a tire rotation right before lunch and I got charged with “Planning an Escape” which is supposed to be an automatic 5 years in jail and it got me tossed directly in solitary confinement after a few redneck guards beat the living shit out of me.

Unwittingly my prisoner status changed to “Solitary Confinement, Maximum Escape Risk” or in jailhouse terms “Bad Motherfucker,” which meant I was only allowed out of my 6x6 cell for one hour a day (with leg cuffs on) and I couldn’t get any visitors. Solitary is in an old small damp area of the jail with eight cells, four on each side. There are no windows and my only exercise consisted of walking around the four person table in the middle of this group of 8 cells filled with the meanest motherfuckers in the entire jail and a few people like me who got caught up in something they didn’t understand. You can’t exercise or walk for shit with leg cuffs and a fucked up knee, so I usually just sat at the stainless steel table or tried to call Jenifer to let her know what happened to me in case she had been trying to visit. It was almost better to know she couldn’t visit than sitting around waiting in vain for my name to be called twice a week. Though I guess I deserved that for not visiting as much as I should have while she was in the hospital.

By law, the longest they can put a person in solitary confinement is 2 weeks, beyond that it’s cruel and unusual punishment. It’s a rule that came about because of the conditions at Alcatraz back in the 30’s. I was in solitary a week before they dragged me into a room with three old guards who told me I would have to do 2 solid weeks in solitary, starting then, and THEN be transferred to a more secure area AND I would still be classified as a high escape risk, even though I wouldn’t be officially charged with an attempted escape (big sigh of relief). I was also notified that I had the right to appeal their decision AND that I had been granted time served on the theft charge from the book store while I had waited a week in solitary. Apparently I was deemed too dangerous to appear at my misdemeanor court case so they let it go. Naturally I went back to my cell and worked on appealing the two extra weeks in solitary right away; spending one week with just a toilet and the floor had already been enough to drive me batty and I was anxious to write again.

Oh, my English teachers would have been proud to hear me. Finally given a piece of a pencil and a sheet of paper I assembled a ten-minute speech that touched on the emotions of the heart, included historical references and cited current case laws, some of which I just made up to suit my purpose. When they pulled me back into the room with a different group of three old guards, I gave an oratory address that would have made Abraham Lincoln weep. My voice rose with triumph to the rafters and then fell back down in sorrowful repentance and shame as I presented my motivations, telling my tale of woe to their blank uncaring eyes. I inspired them, I moved them and finally I used simple raw logic to behoove them to get me out of solitary hell by explaining I had no reason to try and escape since I would get automatic probation on my first felony case anyway. I clearly outlined the fallacy of the logic behind ruining the rest of my life for a mere few days of freedom and then I thanked them for taking time out of their busy schedules to address this petty concern. I wish I could say that I saw tears form in each of their eyes as I left the room, but the best I can say is that they listened politely and took about ten seconds to pass around the paper and sign off on keeping my sentence as it was. It’s the old boy network so I don’t know why I should have expected anything different.