Shake down!!! It's a term used by inmates and jailers when the jailers are going to search the inmate's property. I was sleeping when they came in and told everyone to get up and stand by their bunks. So they came over and woke me telling me to pack my things, that I was going to solitary (the hole). The hole?!? For what?!? The hole because I was sleeping.
The next week or so was hell…It was so dank and dark back there that we couldn't tell if it was day or night outside. And it was freezing cold. Not just cold from the AC (which they kept on full blast), but they also had the venting system somehow blowing backwards, bringing the freezing weather from outside into the building…To keep warm I learned to work out, but I couldn't work out too hard because I didn't want to risk sweating and chance getting sick. I didn't know if they'd do anything for us, and I wasn't trying to find out. Sleep and work out was the routine of the day everyday to do time in the hole. And to keep up with how much time I was in the hole I took to keeping the little spoons they gave us with our meals. Every three spoons was another day gone…I spent over a little more than a week back there just for sleeping and sleeping in the day time wasn't even against the rules. No wonder why I never got wrote up.
While in jail my dad looked out for me. He made sure that I had money on my books so that I could buy some extra items, and he also stayed on top of my attorney, who I had only met once for about five minutes. I recall my dad asking me what I was doing out stealing cars, and I gave him the only answer I had: I was bored.
The Christmas holidays came around and everyone in the whole jail got reset to go to court January 10th. We knew there was no way we'd all get to go, and that most of us would end up being reset again. I think it was on the ninth that I decided that I better start rethinking about going to God when I was in trouble. And on that day I said a prayer, promising to get it together when I got out. The tenth came, and everyone was up waiting and ready for their names to be called. One group went out around 7:00am, the next group went out around 12:00pm, and then another group went out around 3:00pm. As they begin to come back you could tell by their faces who had been reset, who had been given some time, and who was supposed to be going home. It was over for me; they had reset me and didn't even call me down to let me know. Or so I thought. That's when ay 5:00pm (very late by standard) they came and called me out…I was going to court. When I got there I saw the reason for my being in court that day sitting in the gallery of the court room. My dad was there, and he flashed me a thumbs up sign, and then the number six. I had no idea what he was trying to say with that six. So I waited…
I was the last one in my group, and when I finally made it to the bench I learned that a deal for six years probation had been cut and all I needed to do was sign for it. Sign for it! I was ready to agree to whatever as long as it meant that I'd get out of jail today. But then the judge wanted to talk to me, and he asked me the same question my dad had asked as to why I'd been out stealing cars…My lawyer had been talking with my dad, because he gave the same response I had given my dad. I was bored…The judge told me the next time I got bored to go pick some cans and leave other folks' property alone. They gave me a restitution to pay and fixed it time served. I'd be going home today!
I did all the promising that people do when they are about to get out of jail. Im'a write you man, I'm not gone' get back out there getting into any trouble. I'ma come visit man…The guys in the tank wasn't trying to hear it. They told me that by next week I'd be right back out there. But in my mind I meant what I was saying. My time spent in the hole had given me reason enough to never want to go back to jail. I promised myself that if I went back to jail, it wasn't going to be for something small…
I don't know why they do this, but they made me wait until 12 midnight before letting me out of jail. That's part of the reason that old boy stole the judge's car. It was too damn late when they let him out, he had no other way. My dad was there for me to make sure I had a ride back to Houston. And on that ride back he asked me to come live with him…Going to stay with him might have been a good idea, it would have taken me away from the South Side of Houston and away from my friends. But then I had too many reasons as to why I didn't think that it was a good idea. Living with him would mean giving up my freedom, living with him would mean living under his strict rule, and after all the time not living under any rules but my own I wasn't ready to subject myself to that type of rule anymore. I felt that I was past being whipped, and I knew that he didn't see it that way. And if I chose not to accept a whippin', then it would be a fight that I knew I couldn't win. I used to see my dad punch on trees and knock the bark off them with his bare hands. Once I saw him one-two a grown man and knock him into a flip, I'm talking about some shit you might see on TV. Dude got hit, went in the air, did a backwards tuck, hit the ground and rolled some more. I ain't never seen a man get his butt kicked, and then apologize to the man who whipped his butt, but this man came to our house the next morning and apologized to my dad…Naw'll, I wasn't about to risk being hit by him, and I already promised myself that if he did try I'd shoot him, so to avoid trouble I told him that I was going back to live with my cousin…
He also hit me with a different type of bomb; he told me that my sister wanted to meet me…My sister? Wait a minute, I only got one sister and she knows me already…I thought…He told me that I had another sister who was six months older than me, and that she had gotten in contact with him while I was in jail. She wanted to meet her other sister and brothers…He told me that he'd set up a meeting and take me to see her, and with that he dropped me off promising to pick me up the next day so that we could go back to Fort Bend county to take care of my probation papers and to get my probation transferred back to Houston.
The smell of freedom is refreshing; it's like a new sense of mind. You can do and go as you wish. I went in the house and tried to greet my cousin, who didn't want to be interrupted. She was watching The Fresh Prince of Bellaire. I spoke to Yolanda, but then being up in the house wasn't for me right then. I needed to move around; I needed to be out in the night air. I didn't live far from my mom's place, so I went out to show her that I was back home…I surprised everyone when I knocked on the door. I stayed for a while, but was soon on the way back home. It was late, so I only paged QUANNIN (RIP), Kilo, and Ken just to tell them I was home…
The second day of freedom. As promised, my dad came and took me to take care of all my probation issues. Then he took me to see about getting my job back, which they had ready for me. On the third day of freedom, I got back with friends, and it was the same as always. They teased me about going out and getting caught with them knuckle heads. And before the day was out I had slipped right back into the same old scene forgetting all the promises I had made.
On the forth day we went out cranking again. But it wasn't about joy riding, money was to be made tonight. And despite the numbers rule, we only came back with three cars. One we dropped (a term for stripping a car), and the other two we took everything we could and still leave them as drivable as we needed a ride to get us close to home. Kilo and I was in one car headed back home when It started raining real hard. That's when we found out that we must have done something to mess up the windshield wipers because they wouldn't work at all. A part of a certain street we had to go down to get home was in very bad shape and we didn't want to risk driving fown that street not being able to see. So we headed for a spot I was sure we wouldn't have a problem getting something to take us home. We wasn't looking for anything special, but then I saw this new baby Cadillac with cell phone and just had to have it…Within minutes we had dumped the other car, and was riding and talking on the cell phone. The night was still young, and neither of us was ready to go home, so we went out looking for one more. "The numbers rule." And that's when we hit up on another Cadillac, one with a drop top, and all-white interior. That interior was pay day! We took both of the cars to my place and I took Kilo to his grandmother's.
January 15th, my fifth day of freedom. I got a wakeup call from Q; he wanted me to take him to school. So I went and got in the baby Cadillac. On the way to Worthing, I swung by my place to show him the drop top, but it wasn't there. For a moment I thought someone had come by and stolen it, but then I realized that Kilo must have come by, and sure enough there it was up at Worthing when I got there. I stayed up there for a little while as there was a lot of students there that I hadn't seen since my day at Attucks; we made plans that I'd leave and come back to the school house around 12 and we'd take off.
That was fine by me as long as I was able to take off and head to pick up a girlfriend of mine from school on the North Side. I'll never forget this one. Tina was a good girl type who was one of Q's cousins I had met at one of their family reunions. We never did much more than talk on the phone. A few times I went by her house. In fact, the last time I saw her was like a few days before I went to jail. Anyway, she was eager to show off her Bad Boy Boyfriend from the notorious South Park, which was why I was supposed to pick her up from school that day.
