Sam Paul - Why I Committed Suicide

I’m writing this in New Holland Dallas County jail because I was arrested for shoplifting again, this time at a Kroger. On our way to a movie I ran inside the grocery store to buy some snacks to smuggle into the theater with us and I ended up in line behind a lady who got popped for stealing steak or something. They thought I was with her and pulled me upstairs and searched me for stolen merchandise also. I happened to have some heroin in my pocket and the next thing I know I have an instant felony. Possession of a controlled substance under a gram is the official charge. The fucked up part is that the lady who was actually shoplift- ing got to go home with just a ticket and I got her cab ride in the back of a squad car to the Lew Sterrit Justice Center downtown.

Since this will be a first time felony conviction it should be automatic probation and if I had money for a halfway decent lawyer I could make this charge go away based on the mistaken search. I’m more worried about a misdemeanor theft charge from JC Penney for a couple of shirts that the State has pulled out of their ass from somewhere. Apparently I was a wanted man and while it’s nice to feel wanted by somebody, there’s also a law that says if you get convicted for the same misdemeanor three times the charge can be bumped up to a 2nd degree felony or something worse. This is my second minor theft charge in Dallas and if the State decides to count the one in Denton, things could get seriously heavy. Not that my life isn’t serious enough but I’m talking some BIG TIME big-time-down-south-heavy here.

I’m sad about the whole deal, I was really looking forward to the movie, and Jenifer is rightfully furious. She’s mad at me because the encouragement I’ve been around to give her is suddenly gone again. She knows I still love her but there are so many questions about my ability to remain stable enough to be of any use to her and jail is keeping me pretty unreliable. No duh, right? I guess I take too many risks when I see her in need and although I probably should have been busted before now the worst part is that she actually thinks I was trying to steal candy for our date.

So, when I walked into my new tank, the first thing all the old black men asked me was, “What drugs do you do?” A clean cut white-boy walking in with an education is a dead giveaway (and if you think that you can’t tell if people are educated by the way they walk, you haven’t been paying attention). When I tell the black guys that I am in for possession of heroin, they’ll usually say something to the affect of “I can’t be messin’ wit no hair-on.” That’s how they ALL pronounce it, without exception. “Hair-On.” It’s the strangest thing I have ever heard, and I can tell some of them do “fuck wit the hair-on,” no matter what they say.

A guy came into here today that looked a little worse for wear. An older black man with a fucked up Snoop Dog haircut, obviously kicking a smack habit. That “hair-on” got him. He calls himself something strange like “Cavity” or something. Cavity just wanted some chocolate and was having a hard time managing his bowels. I sympathize because I just went though that same bit about a month ago. It’s a very, very rough go but he’ll be fine. Looking at him makes me realize how serious this shit is. I don’t want to be an old man junkie, still getting tossed in jail, waiting through the living hell of kicking the habit again and again, my shaking bones huddled in the corner like a frightened child.

I’ve met some nice guys, I played a few games of cards and word got around that I was alright. That’s the thing. You’ve gotta interact. Play the card games. Don’t hang with too many white people. Don’t hang out with just the black people and give the “what’s happening” head nod to the illegal aliens and Mexican drug dealers. Try to be cool with everyone. Don’t smile too much and don’t start any shit you can’t back up every day with your life. When something serious goes down like a fight, riot, extra food or a smuggled joint, I want to make sure I know about it. If people don’t know you, then you won’t know about anything and next thing you know you’re getting gang-raped in the shower. Just make a couple friends in each faction and you’ve got folks to watch out for you or at least people who’ll leave you the fuck alone when they are going after certain people.

Facts are: Jail is a freaking ghetto microcosm where I’m the minority. Blacks have the numbers and the learned patience of previous generations in jail. They fit in here because some member of their family has been or is currently in jail right now. It’s a familiar territory to them that they have learned to accept as a fact of life. The blacks I’ve talked to convey that in their families it’s not a matter of whether you’re going to jail, it’s a matter of when and for what. They outnumber everyone else in here by far. I think TuPac even says “stay away from the black jails” in one of his songs.

The Mexicans have their own bond of language, culture and knives. They can make a sharp weapon out of any thing. They are mostly quiet and keep to themselves but they are the craftiest bastards I have ever met. They can make jewelry out of toilet paper and bed sheets to trade with people for commissary goods. Any ‘real’ jail documentary you’ll ever see will have someone wearing a cross of some sort around their neck. Odds are it was made by and bartered for from a Mexican. Usually one of the Mexicans in the group is educated and speaks great English. He’s not always the ringleader but he’ll be the one to communicate for the group if something goes down. He’s the one who issues the threat when the Hispanics want to watch a soccer match or the Tuesday night fights on the television or he’s the go-between guy to initiate barter. Unlike the blacks, who tend to fight among themselves, most of the Mexicans stick together.

There are a couple types of white people in here too. There’s the DWI crowd, who are usually good ol’ boys that are on their third or fourth DWI and usually have a baby on the way or an untrustworthy spouse or some issue going on in the real world. They are generally good guys that tend to have steady jobs as mechanics or in construction on the outside, but they tend to hate black people because they’ve never been exposed to their culture or lived with them in a confined space. Then there are some older white folks that are connected to someone and are usually in for big cases concerning truckloads of methamphetamine or some such. They have thousands of dollars on their books for commissary and a high-dollar lawyer that will pull them out for court a couple times a week until they get sentenced or go free. These guys have already been to prison at some point and their pasty white skin has a few dark blue tattoos that are faded and spreading. They usually just drink a lot of coffee and smoke a lot of hand-rolled cigarettes, whispering and conspiring on their section of the bunks.

Finally there are the young kids like me—the dumb fucks that did something stupid, usually for drugs or while on drugs, and they have landed in the pokey for minor offenses or felony drug offenses. Most of them/us got popped for burglary, possession or other things drug-related. We are the people that have no friends or family with money to get out, or our probation violations keep us here on a no-bond.

Here’s a typical section of conversation that I transcribed the other day while I was talking with a young meth-head white guy in here. Other than my occasional head nod or “uh-huh” he talked non-stop about shit like this for hours: