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Look For A Friend

In document Survive Jail (Page 36-39)

Jail is probably the last place on earth you would think of to look for a new friend. Sadly, your old friends down at the yacht club are probably a little too busy to drop by for a drink, so you now have a limited group from which to choose a new friend.

Whether you’re young or old, normally your best bet when looking for someone to sit next to and talk with is an older guy. By older, I mean 40 years old or older. There are a lot of benefits to hanging out with the old guys.

First, the young guys leave them alone for the most part. Unless you’re a famous prisoner, or have a long criminal background that has brought you into contact with virtually every person in your cell, you’re an unknown quantity to everyone. For all they know, the old guys have been through the system a dozen times before. Thus, they are worthy of respect. If you have a group of youngsters in with a group of old guys, the two groups normally divide the cell between them, and except for some good natured banter, leave each other alone.

If you’re an older guy, you’re going to get the benefit of this respect, so don’t piss it away by acting like a pussy and crying about how unfair life is to you. Save that for your memoirs.

If you’re a young guy (eighteen to mid thirties) you should still try to hang out with the older guys. You can avoid a lot of the bullshit politicking that goes on with the younger crowd. Gangs are always looking to recruit new members, and the younger you are, the more likely you are to be targeted by a gang as either a potential new member, or a victim. The more time you spend with the old guys, the less time the gangsters will spend sizing you up.

If you’re up on current events at all, the older guys are usually a lot more enjoyable to talk with. How many of the shaved head 18 year olds do you think can carry on a decent conversation about the shape of politics in our country? Older guys tend to be better informed on current events, and many of them have been through the system a few times, and can give you a heads up on what to expect in your particular jail.

Another benefit the hanging with the older guys that the informal rules governing racial segregation are not as strict. In most jails and prisons, young blacks hang out with young blacks, young whites hang out with young whites, young Hispanics with young

Hispanics, and so on. For the older guys, there is still some separation, but no one gets their panties in a twist if an old black guy and an old white guy hang out together.

It goes back to the whole “respect your elders” thing I mentioned earlier. By the time you hit 40 or so, you generally have the respect of the youngsters, who will go on about destroying each other’s lives, leaving the older guys alone in the process. So if two old-timers of different races want to sit by each other during chow, no one really complains.

As it turned out during my stay in San Diego, most of my friends were black (I’m white like Casper the Friendly Ghost). I didn’t go into jail looking to make all black friends, it just sort of turned out that way. Quite frankly, the black guys were funnier, better informed on local current events, and did not seem to have the chip on their shoulders that a lot of the white and Hispanic inmates were carrying around. They were more accepting of me as a person, not just as a guy with white skin.

How things turn out for you is not for me to guess. If you hook up with an older guy, one who has been through that particular jail once or twice or ten times, he can give you all the information on who you should or should not hang with. Listen to this advice. You might not buy stock based on this guy’s recommendation, but you damn sure better give his survival advice a lot of weight. He’s old, which means he survived and he probably knows what he’s talking about.

Now, after digesting all this information, you should pick your new friends exactly the way you would on the outside. Whatever qualities you value in a friend on the outside, look for those same qualities in the people you’re locked up with. They’ll be there, just maybe in smaller doses.

If you’ve never been inside a jail before, you probably have some preconceived notions about what the inmates are like. You’ve seen Oz, and The Shawshank Redemption, and a few other movies and TV shows. You’ve seen how inmates are portrayed in these works of fiction.

In truth, there are some pretty smart, compassionate, friendly guys who’ve been locked up. Probably deservedly. This does not make them per se bad people. You’ll see what I mean once you’re inside.

Find the decent guys. Make friends with them. Your time will go much faster, particular the first 24 hours.

C. Heartchecks.

Some guys find themselves facing heart checks within minutes of their arrival in jail. For other guys, it can take days before they get their first heartcheck. Some guys never get one. Pray you fall into this last category.

A heart check is a toughness test administered by another inmate to determine if you’re going to be a pussy or a man. Simply put, you’re going to be challenged over something that seems trivial: someone demands that you give them something off your plate (as opposed to asking, which is very common), or a piece of clothing you’re wearing.

Maybe that person claims you are sitting in his seat.

No matter what it is, tell them to fuck off, and be prepared to fight to back it up.

The younger you are, the more likely you are to face a heartcheck. The older you are, the less likely you are to face one, but it is not entirely forbidden.

I got my heartcheck on my third night inside. I was still in general population, waiting to be assigned to a permanent bunk in one of the five jails operated by San Diego County. I was in a two story dorm room was 55 other guys, just sleeping and eating and waiting for my fate.

There were seven tables, each with eight seats at each table, where we ate all three meals.

Three tables were claimed by the black inmates, two by the whites, two by the Hispanics, and one which was an overflow for the guys who just didn’t fit in anywhere else. Old guys, homeless guys and the general crazies all ate at this table.

Naturally, that’s where I sat.

One of the regulars at the table was a scrawny little black man, probably 55 or 60 years old, who looked like he hadn’t eaten in days. As I was still adjusting to the salt licks, I was eating very little at each meal, so I usually offered him whatever I had left over. He always took it with the grunt, never a thank you or eye contact or anything else.

On the third night, aside from the normal slop, we each got a cookie with our dinner. I ate what I could of my meal, gave the rest to the old black guy, and was about to start in on my cookie when a fairly large black guy appeared at our table, next to me, and demand that I give him my cookie.

Notice I used the word demanded. This means its heartcheck time.

I looked up at him, and told him “Sorry, it’s spoken for”. Then I winked at him.

I’m not sure what pissed him off more: the “no” or the wink.

He thrust his right hand towards my plate and said “Give me that motherfuckin’ cookie”.

I caught his hand as it got close to my plate, grabbed his right thumb in my fist, and twisted that fucker just as hard as I could. I felt and heard a very strong “pop” as I twisted, and all the color drained from his face (no racial pun intended). He fell to the floor, screaming and rolling and holding onto his strangely misshapen thumb, as if it were the crown jewels.

After a few minutes of this ruckus, the deps quit downloading porn off the Internet, or whatever it is they do it that desk all day and all night, and came in to investigate.

“What’s wrong with him?” one of them asked.

I was prepared to cop to breaking or dislocating his thumb in an attempt to keep him away from my food. I never had a chance.

My skinny, homeless chow buddy said “He fell down the stairs.”

One of the deps told the cookie monster “Get up, you ain’t hurt,” which turned out to be not quite true. After another hour of his crying and complaining, the deps finally took him to medical call. Later I heard the so called doctors diagnosed a broken thumb.

The next day, one of the deps took me to the side and asked if I wanted to be a trustee in the downtown jail. Working is a great way to make the time go by faster, so I said yes, and the rest is history.

As it turned out, I survived my heartcheck, if that is in fact what it really was. Normally your heartcheck will come from a member of your own race. Since this one was black on white, it was more likely just a predator who made the wrong call when he sized me up and decided to steal my cookie from me.

Either way, I was now a man to be reckoned with, if anyone wanted to try and fuck with me some more. No one did.

The key to surviving a heart check is to stand up for yourself. The odds are pretty good that you won’t be able to talk your way out of it, and you’re going to have to fight. Just make sure it you do your best to fuck up the other guy real good. Don’t be shy about gouging his eyes out or breaking his fingers or thumbs. It’s your survival that’s at stake, not this dipshit’s. Leave him for dead if you have to. Just don’t give up and walk away.

If you do, there will be a target on your back for the rest of your time inside, and anything you buy, steal or get as a gift will end up being taken away from you by a bunch of guys who have no fear of you.

In document Survive Jail (Page 36-39)

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