Lost in a Fantasy World
By Jay Goodman
While sitting here in prison I try very hard to look at things from both sides. I take the CO’s perspective as well as the inmates. When I finally decided to make a positve change in my life, I spent hours and hours contemplating what I was was going to do. It was not an easy task to be truthful. I examined my life as a whole and recounted my many mistakes and bad choices. I did this for a substantial amount of time and then took a hard look at my good qualities. I realized then that Jay was not a bad person as a whole, Jay was actually a good person who has done some bad things. Now I started examining how I would start changing while I’m in prison. I have seen others in here who want to change. They have left prison with good intentions, but realized once they were free, it was going to be a difficult road. They would become discouraged and before long, give up.
For some, I believe it was the lack of discipline, and of course, I do throw a lot of the blame to the state of Texas, for using their institutionalization tactics. I look at both sides, and I see that both are to blame. This led me to start visualizing what my plans were to be for my life and how I could start making preparations right now. This would give me a head start before I even get out of prison. From what I have witnessed, it is a lack of goal planning that causes most of these people to fall. They have good ideas but seem to wait until the very last minute to start putting their ideas into action. Their inability to put their ideas into action causes much frustration and grief. Then the thoughts of, what will I do now, take effect.
With all of the talent in prison and all of those with great ideas, so many are lost in a fantasy world. Instead of taking advantage of this time to better themselves, they stay lost in the streets and actually believe the outcome to be different the next time around. Next time I’ll do this, or next time I’ll do that. Doesn’t anyone locked in prison look around themselves and see how many people say, “the next time”? Doesn’t anyone pay attention to who these people are saying these things? Those inmates have been going to prison three to four times now. These “next time” people are lost in a fantasy world, and the reality of this world is, a lifetime of imprisonment. To the Puppetmasters, this is a dream come true. They sit back and quietly observe all of these idiots selling their dope, using dope and laugh knowing that they have slaves for the rest of their fantasy world lives.
Please allow me to give everyone here a few examples of the madness I witness on a daily basis. I have been recently watching this one inmate who, as they like to say in the penitentiary, has it going on. He is gang affiliated and used to sit at the table right outside my cell door. The big drug of choice in T.D.C.J is K-2, or synthetic marijuana. This inmate has someone who had been bringing in this K-2 for him. Or he had been acquiring it from someone in here. At first, all he did was sit at the table and smoke this stuff off and on all day. The money his grandmother would send him, he would run around and blow it on K-2. He would even have his grandmother send the money to other inmates who had been supplying him. At first, he made an attempt to sell this stuff, but from what I saw he smoked way more than he sold.
Once it appeared that he had finally found his lucky break, an endless supply of the drug. Now, all of a sudden, he has five or six guys swarmed around him constantly. They would start as soon as they woke up in the morning. I saw this guy go from a healthy well fit young man in his thirties to looking like he had AIDS or cancer. His jaws sunk in, his eyes were foggy and sunk in his head. Two of his so-called gang buddies he used like cheap whores. He had one washing his clothes, dirty boxers included, and the other knucklehead cooking for him. He would also do all of the cleaning, cups, bowls and utensils. About this time another young guy moves in that everyone refered to as “Fat Boy”. He is another young guy in his thirties as fat as hog. Naturally, these two jackasses became good buddies. Together they smoked every second they were awake. As football season started they decided to run some guys off the front bench so they could sit there and watch the games. Fat Boy had an endless supply of this stuff rolling in just like the other one did and hundreds of dollars of food came rolling in right with the dope.
A friend of mine named Bowleg and I would watch these two idiots and just shake our heads. He asked me one day how long I thought they would make it. I told him I was surprised they weren’t already in isolation. When they would get in a big supply, they would have another guy who ran with them, roll joints all day. Bowleg told me he saw the “joint roller” steal just as much from them as he was rolling. Besides running old people off of the benches and using their fellow gang members as slaves, Bowleg and I would sit back and laugh at these two, because they truly thought of themselves as gangsters. Growing up the way I have, I can not help but to laugh at these people. How can anyone who gets high on synthetic marijuana consider themselves as gangsters? This stuff is like the lowest form of drug you can get next to spray paint and inhalants. These people truly are living in a fantasy world. They sell this trash for a little prison commissary or a few hundred dollars sent to their family and think they are real tough guys. All the while they are smoking this crap non-stop every second that they are awake, polluting their minds and killing themselves.
Regardless of the fact that the phone company has a disclaimer that states each call that is placed will be recorded, these two clowns continue to conduct drug business with their families on the telephone. Freaking geniuses right. The first guy was on the phone one day and the Gang Intelligence Sgt. shows up, tells him to hang up the phone, then handcuffs him and it’s off to isolation. Bowleg and I just so happened to be sitting together at this time. As the Sgt. took him out, Fat Boy who was also sitting there next to us, started panicking and freaked out at what had just transpired. You might think some hardcore gangsters would be prepared for a situation like this. The worry stuck all over Fat Boy’s face still makes me laugh out loud. It looked like someone let loose a cobra in the room. I wanted to hype up the situation even more by letting Fat Boy know that if he wanted to, the Sgt. might come and put you together with your buddy in fantasy world lock up.
Later in the day I couldn’t help but to notice that when Fat Boy figured out he might be safe for a while, he moved over into his buddies spot. I saw right away he was glamour struck having the position that his buddy used to have. I told Bowleg that he has just now taken over the throne. In no time he took over as the new K-2 king. He never learned from his friend's mistakes and word spread very quickly that he too was under investigation. To the logical man you might think, hey they are on to us, let’s pull back and let things die down a little. But, not to Fat Boy all he saw was an opportunity to take over and have it all. He wasted no time getting started. Fat Boy took off without a care or worry about anything but himself.
Bowleg and I sat back and started watching him start smoking every few minutes. He was called Fat Boy for a reason. This guy would buy other inmates chicken with K-2 joints, and then sit back and demolish them. We watched him sit and eat ten pieces of chicken straight, including chips. He would open a pack of cookies and eat the whole pack, opening the cookies up and sloppin’ the icing out one by one. On commissary day we were amazed at this guy eating four pints of ice cream back to back. He also had a soda pop with each pint and a pack of cookies. His buddy back in isolation looked like he was dying, while Fat Boy looked like he was growing by the minute. Of course, all of the guys that were so loyal to the first guy, are now sitting right next to Fat Boy. Both the first guy and Fat Boy would hide their stash underneath their seat. Their supposed friends would come to the dayroom at 3:30 in the morning for breakfast and steal their stash.
I walk around the dayroom every morning, and I would crack-up to myself or with Bowleg watching these guys run all over the place looking for the stash. The first guy that went to isolation is pissed now because everyone that owed him money, or that is holding food for him, decided to just keep it. Blatantly ripping this guy off, what a slap in the face. Thinking that the prison officials can’t prove anything on Fat Boy, things continued on full steam ahead. These guys smoked like freight trains for months. I saw one of these idiots smoke so much of this trash until his whole body went into convulsions like he was having a seizure. Not a care in the world or even for themselves. They did actually believe that by sitting at this table full of noodles, chips and other commissaries they were real gangsters. They are truly lost in a fantasy world.
Well, after the first guy finally gets released from isolation sixty-three days later, he quickly made his way over to our cell block to take what’s owed to him. Did he learn his lesson? Of course not. He is back to smoking, on the phone doing business and using Fat Boy to the fullest. Within a very short time afterward, Fat Boy's main squeeze is caught passing some of this K-2 off in a visit to another inmate that worked in there. That day and night the Warden and Gang Intelligence Sgt. interrogate this guy, make a deal with him and he gives the operation up like a little canary singing its heart out. The next day Fat Boy, the first guy, and six others are taken into custody. Not only has this guy put himself into more trouble, been given more time, but he has also pulled his wife into it, now she’s also on her way to prison.
I know the Puppetmasters are in their offices roaring with laughter. I can picture them shaking hands, pats on the back, and as happy as Fat Boy in a pastry shop. Now, all of these fantasy world big time gangsters just signed up for life. They were G-5 classified, which means they are off to super segregation for two years. Then after that, it’s another year in medium security. As I’ve written about in my other chapters, super-seg is built to turn inmates into animals and institutionalize anyone who lives there. By the time Fat Boy and his crew finish their initial sentences, they will start their next one.
I ask myself again and again, why? A little money and a truck-load of commissary are not worth one more day of incarceration. Use this time wisely, decide what you really want in life and start making plans to achieve those goals now. Don’t sit here until the last minute. There is so much talent in these walls, and it should not be wasted here in the Puppetmasters world. I’m sure there are several inmates that think I have no idea what I’m talking about. They can hustle and smoke, drink and stay gangsters, but remember this, you are lost in a fantasy world. Your future is eternity with the Puppetmasters.
