By R25288 ( c ) 2006
Chapter Thirteen
My Love, My Boy, J.D.
“Also I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send , and who will go for us? Then said I; send me.
“And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not.
“Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.”
The Book Of Isaiah
6: 8-10
When God said to me, (however, unlike Pat Robertson, and a few other self chosen disciples, God doesn’t speak specifically to me, or have conversations with me, probably because I’m gay ) like he did to Isaiah, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Isaiah replied, “Here am I; send me.” I had not the courage or faith of Isaiah. When God said to me, “Will you go to prison for us?” I replied, “Fuck that!” So much for my free will. Today, I am of more courage and faith, and I say, “Thank you, Lord, for sending me beyond the razorwire, where so many of your children, in need of you, reside.”
My biography is at the end of this blog, by clicking on the page R25288. I recently added the following:
(This occurred earlier this year, upon my release from prison). The state of Florida dumped me at a Homeless Shelter, unannounced, or approved, with $100.00, and a bus ticket from Liberty to Clearwater, with only the clothes on my back, and no job prospects. Is it any wonder that the Department of Justice statistics state that over 65% of inmates released from prison are rearrested within three years of their release from prison?
I still live at the Homeless Shelter, and eat at a soup kitchen. I need your assistance to help change our draconian laws that imprison too many of us, for way too long. I left many brothers behind with little or no support or hope. I struggle daily to get my own life back together. Help me keep this website up, and educate our people, for a more compassionate society of love, forgiveness, and justice.
I also recently became a member of the Round Table Group, and I am an available expert to give speeches on gay rights, prison rights, homeless rights, student rights, and human rights, for $5,000.00 a speech, plus expenses. So, I look forward to your checks in my P.O. Box and/or speech requests via my email.
Any, and all checks, of any denomination are very much appreciated, as I assist more than one poor inmate in prison with stamps, envelopes, paper, and deodorant, since the state will not give inmates deodorant, and will only give poor inmates one envelope and two sheets of paper, once a month to communicate with their loved ones. The state will also stamp the one envelope once they receive it, if mailed within their time frame (one specific day a month, and not necessaily the same day every month-God help the child who can’t read, and there are many in prison who can’t, as I use to write letters for them, or the Hispanics who also have trouble reading English). If you have more than one poor loved one, then you must choose who gets your one envelope, and letter per month.
So much for the preachers of family values of trying to keep the family together and communicating. They also only allow expensive collect calls, and only calls are allowed from the inmate to the family, which many poor families can not afford to accept. Cheaper calling cards are also against the rules (and guess who gets a cut of the profits from that legalized arrangement?). In case you didn’t know, “family values” to the chosens mean white, wealthy, and not incarcerated.
Never mind that 90% of those now incarcerated will return one day to society, and their families, that is, if their families will know them by then, with only one letter a month. Five years ago, 95% would have returned to society, that is until we started passing more draconian laws to lock our children up for life for physically harming no one. So, be sure and vote for haters this fall, for the sake of family values, and maybe one day, your son or daughter, brother, or sister, that have been such pains in your asses, may also get to spend the rest of their lives in prison for physically harming no one.
Two, four, six, eight, who do we appreciate? Haters! Haters!
Two, four, six, eight, eat ‘em, fuck ‘em, masturbate. Go haters! Go!
Your truly, in the struggle for a more just, loving, and forgiving society. This is the United States of America, at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Don’t you believe we can do better? Will you try to do one random act of kindness today? Will you join me in praying for, and assisting our brothers behind bars today? I look forward to your partnership in working for a more just and peaceful America, and world. Prayers can move mountains, part seas, heal the sick, and free the wrongly imprisoned.
“Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.”
The Gospel According To John
16:24
R25288
P.O. Box 5514
Clearwater, Florida 33758-5514
While there are many pluses to having a partner in prison, there are also drawbacks. You see, my boys (in my vocabulary, boys is used in a loving fashion, never a racist fashion, as my boys will attest to, and there wasn’t an Uncle Tom among them) would occassionally borrow from the loan sharks to gamble and lose, when I wasn’t around.
The problem, my dear gentle reader, would be then when my boys couldn’t pay, the loan sharks would come after me. Here is a story taken from my journal of 4-13-04, Tuesday, 7:20am:
Bee checked in yesterday, per Officer __. Inmate Welton tried stepping down on me. Welton was born in 1978, black, muscular, 5′10”, 190 lbs, and sentenced to life for first degree murder. He and a couple of his homeboy thugs run the loan shark business here at Liberty. Basically, they would only loan to whites, who had regular checks coming in from home, and charge 100-200% weekly interest. Money rolled over every Monday, so as long as you had money in your trust account, you’d get a fresh $100.00 every Monday at the canteen, to buy items with. Your ID card, had a scanner on it like a credit card. So, people also would smoke rip. or pot, and run out, or be encouraged into crooked games and lose, and then the need to borrow would become a necessity.
There are blind spots in prison. There was a 50 to 1 ratio, as in inmates to guards, and if I could have approximately one-hundred intimate moment in prison, it’s just as easy to have one-hundred moments of violence, or people getting shanked, or thumped over owing money. And, it happened.
So, as soon as the word got out that, unbeknowst to me, Bee had checked in, the vultures began circling. You see, people loaned to Bee, not because Bee had money, but because I had money (thanks to my supportive family), and they figured that Bee could always get money from me, because I was just a punk to them, (1920-2001, term for gays in prison) that people thought they could push around, sell, fuck, abuse, intimidate, take advantage of, because they were gay, and therefore weak.
Well. with my Department of Justice training in Mediation, a college degree, and a belt in karate, I don’t believe in punks. I believe in gays. So Welton came at me, while I was walking alone, and said, “Bee owes me, and I’ll settle for one case (of rip-about $18.00) today.” I didn’t know how many cases of rip Bee owed Welton, or others, but I knew my family was not sending me money to support thugs, gamblers, or thieves, and I had always let my boys know that. That was probably why they kept me in the dark regarding their borrowing. While I had no problem treating them to soups, chips, and sodas, which they did for me when they got their small checks from home, I wasn’t about to support their gambling, especially when I knew the games weren’t straight (nothing to do with the opposite of gay, but more along the lines of being corrupt).
So, I looked Welton in the face, with his thugs around him, and said, ” I never borrowed anything from you, I never co-signed a promissory note, and I owe you nothing.” They looked at me in amazement, and I walked around them. I figured they were still probably trying to figure out what a promissory note meant.
I then went to the canteen, and as I was buying myself a soda, with no cops (term for guards in prison) around, and with about 50 inmates milling around, Welton and his thugs came at me while I stood alone at the canteen window, and Welton said, ” I’m serious about those rip, before the day is out.” I turned from the window, with the soda pop in my hand, and in the loudest voice control I had ever used in prison; I got in his face, and said, screamingly, “I don’t owe you a goddamn thing, and you ain’t getting shit from me.”
In the jungle of prison, gorillas exist, and you must choose to succumb to the jungle, or live above it. You choose to belong to the gangs, or you choose to stand alone. Sometimes, you must face the gorillas in our mist, and say I, too, am a gorilla; bring it on. Because I am the quiet one, and you, you have no idea of what I am capable of doing. I lived in the jungle, but my mind was above the jungle, and that of the normal gorillas that were caged there. In prison, as in life, knowledge is power, and power scares even the most intimidating gorillas of prison.
Then, once you can overcome your fear of prison, your fear of solitary confinement, your fear of the gorillas, your fear of the guards, your fear of death, you become a king of more than the jungle.
He stepped away from his homeboys , and said, “Come here bitch, I want my money, and I want to talk to you.” I looked at him, and said, ” I owe you nothing, and I have nothing to say to you.” I stood there, opened my soda (Diet Coke was my drink), took a drink, looked at him, turned, and walked away.
Of course this being prison, the word spread fast, and the joke became, “Do you think he heard ya?” The law of the jungle and of Charles Darwin are basically the same, the physically strong dominate, and it is survival of the fittest. However, I survived in prison, without one physical fight, being gay, old, and physically weak, because I used my mind, my strongest muscle. I held my tongue, and utilized it sparingly and effectively.
“Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:”
The General Epistle Of James
1:19
One of the keys to survival in prison is self confidence, self assurance, and control of the mind and tongue. It is the control of the ego, and maintaining the power within, as in, don’t give it away, or let others take it from you by their actions. Because you give them your power when you react to them as they expect. So when an inmate says, “Fuck you.” You say, “Thank you.” When he says, “You’re a real asshole.” You say, “Thank you.” More than once, I had inmates say to me ” You think you’re a real smart ass, don’t ya?” My reply was always the same, ” It ain’t hard, when you’re living around so many dumb asses.” I would then walk away, as they tried to figure out what that meant. Not necessarily the Christian thing to do or say, but living in prison twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, for four years, three months, and two weeks, God knows, I did the best I could.
Daily, I faced being called a punk, cocksucker, faggot, bitch, girlie-man, homo, dick licker, woman, sissy, wimp, pussy, queen, limp-wrist, powder puff, butterfly, honey, baby, sister, and the list goes on. The key is to know thyself and never let them push your buttons, or I would have been in a fight daily. You could say that my deceased mother sucks cocks in hell, and I wouldn’t react, because I know she doesn’t. I also know I am not all those words you use to call me. I know, in reality that you are just a poor child of God that never received proper education, or friendship, or training in communication of how to get and keep a friend, and usually the insults were a cry for attention and recognition, and often a cry for a friendship with me.
The general law library rule is that you may use it one day a week. or two half days, so I usually went every Wednesday and Friday afternoons to study the law. Welton and I avoided each other for a few weeks, and then as I was reading a law book, at a table alone, at the law library, he pulled a chair up next to me and said, “I want to apologize for putting down on you over the rip, but I’m from the old school, where partners paid off each others debts.” I looked at him, and said,”Thanks for the apology, but I’m from the new school, and I don’t believe in the old school ways at all.” He left as quietly as he arrived. Shortly thereafter, he asked if we could become partners. I gently declined, and we got along fine from then on, and he still resides at Liberty, with a life sentence.
In reality, in prison, you are on your own. There are no saviors, just survivors. Just like the lonesome valley that Jesus walked, we too, must walk it alone, no one can walk it for us. You’ll get stroked, hugged, and encouraged to do the right thing, to stand up for your rights with the man, and other inmates, but when the shit hits the fan, you will be left alone to face it all alone.
Because the average inmate in prison did not get there for doing an act of bravery, but rather, an act of cowardness, normally, in and with the support of other cowards. Because bravery is normally a learned and a trained behavior that requires the values of selflessness, courage, dedication, and faith. Something the firefighters and policemen during the day of 9/11 exhibited, on that fateful day, and most prisoners don’t know, and will never know or learn under our current system. But they all have the capacity and ability, if only we will commmit the resources and properly trained, compassionate staff to teach them the right roads to walk, and models who have found the better roads, and the benefits of those roads, versus the dead end roads, so many of our brothers in blue chose before they knew about the other roads.
“Any person who claims to have deep feelings for other human being should think a long, long, time before he votes to have other men kept behind bars-caged.”
Malcolm X
“We shall fight them on the beaches,
“We shall fight them on the the landing ground,
“We shall fight them in the field and on the streets,
“We shall fight them in the halls;
“We shall never surrender.”
Winston Churchill
The gay liberation movement has no choice,
I say:
We shall fight for our brothers and sisters,
We shall fight for understanding and equal rights,
We shall fight for an end to homophobia, oppression, and ignorance,
We shall fight for the sake of our survival;
We shall never surrender.
Here I am in prison, where once your soap hits the floor, your shower is over, cause you ain’t bending over to get it. I’m behind bars, the American nightmare, unless you’re Martha Stewart or me. So many men, and so little time left to serve. So, this chapter of my life begins.
So, basically, I’m John Heard, in the movie, The Big Chill, where his college buddy asks, “So what , is jail another experience you want to try?” Well, honey, it’s not like I had a choice. But believe me, now that I’m here, it’s an opportunity, and God knows I like challenges and opportunities.
I didn’t know him to say hello. I didn’t even know his name. He was only a face in the crowd, cause I wasn’t looking. My time had been spent primarily with Blue and Bee. I had no real need. I didn’t care. Then I learned his name. I saw him more frequently, or at least I noticed him more frequently. He was always with his workout buddies.
There was a humble cockiness about him, a self-assuredness, a confidence, a mystique. It was an aura of raw animalism, and I was attracted to him. He was my black James Dean. He was chocolate eye candy, with sensuality oozing from him, like ice cream dripping from the cone, on a hot steamy day. He was straight, quiet, kept to himself and his straight workout buddies. He had great, straight, white teeth, and a smile that radiated inner joy and peace. He had a warm personality, and one of the best bodies at Liberty. His real name was even James Dean, but everyone just called him J.D. I just wanted to call him mine.
He and his friends worked out daily (Monday-Friday) at one end of the track, by the football field, and I started calling his name each round of the track I walked. He would respond playfully with poses, chases, but always stopping, never touching. His brown eyes would follow me, or so I liked to think. He wasn’t a player (a DL, ‘down low’, someone who quietly has sex with gays, but doesn’t want others to know); he wasn’t into the game at all, which attracted me more.
He was a strapping six feet tall, 180 lbs of muscular, black, young manhood, and he carried himself so well. I would admire his twenty-four year old body, when he would roll up his long prison blue uniform pants to his knees, with his socks folded down to his bo bo’s, while he stripped off his white t-shirt. He was by far the best built young black, white, or Hispanic man on the yard, and I wanted him to be my partner, and my best friend for life.
I finally asked him to walk with me, sometime. I told him I’d like to do an interview of him, sometime. And so we walked and talked, and talked, and walked. The interview took place, and before long we had dates at 10:30 every morning to walk the track, and 3:30 every afternoon to walk the track again. We met every evening to say goodnight before the yard closed. He would always give me a goodnight hug, or we touched hands, with a gentle squeeze, and he’d say,”I love you.”, and I’d repeat it back to him. We became the closest relationship on the yard, without a sexual component to it. It was unique, genuine, and very rare for prison. To me, it was a treasure worth protecting.
Of course, all the gays assumed there was more to it. I would never confirm or deny. I decided to support the military for once in my life, and support their, “Don’t ask. Don’t tell,” policy.
He didn’t mind my touching his arm or hand or rubbing his back, occassionally. He didn’t mind it when I put my arm through his arm walking the track, like old married folks might do. He didn’t mind my touching his hair, to remove a white piece of lint, or to remove something from his face, whether something was there or not. He always figured there was. Sometimes, I just wanted him to always be comfortable with me invading his private space, his private zone.
He knew I was gay, and he knew he had never been there, nor did he have any desire to go there. He was a man’s man, and had had lots of gays come on to him in prison, and on the streets. So, he was use to the admiration, but had never succumbed to it. We were comfortable with each other, and he was to become my best friend in prison, or for that matter, the best friend I had had in over twenty years. J.D. became my hero.
It was May 2004, when I first told him to give me his legal transcripts to read and study. A few days later, I gave them back. I began going to the law library to research not only my case, but also to begin researching his. After a month, I suggested that he start coming with me, as there was much to do. We went every Wednesday and Friday afternoons from 1-4pm.
I enjoyed it because we were together, and I was teaching him how to research law, what to look for, how to read and analyze cases. It gave me a chance to be close to him, as we sat next to each other reading cases. Whenever I found something good, I set the book in his lap, and read the significant sections to him, and touched his leg. He always sat to my left. I knew our closeness raised the eyebrows of other inmates. J.D. didn’t care, he just called it getting, “your freak on.” He was totally comfortable in his heterosexual masculinity, and a gay old cracker touching him wasn’t going to change his disposition.
“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.”
The Book Of Jeremiah
29:11
He was my King David of the Bible , and I was his Jonathan. He was Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman) of the 1968 movie classic, The Graduate, and I was his Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft), where in one scene Dustin asks Mrs. Robinson, “You’re not trying to seduce me, are you Mrs. Robinson?” And although J.D. never asked that, we both knew that that was what I wanted.
I loved and cared for J.D. I was excited by him, and sometimes, sexually stimulated being around him. He was fun, funny, spontaneous, innocent, natural, full of energy, and I wanted to be intimate with him. I wanted to share my feminine feelings with him.
While normally, reciprocity was my game, I wasn’t looking for that with J.D. I wanted to make him feel good. I wanted him to let me express my feelings of love, that I felt for him, by allowing me to manully masturbate him, or give him a blowjob.
Through this act, I believed we’d become more intimate with each other, that we would then have crossed over a barrier, a mountain, that was separating us. Then, we would be inseparable friends, having broken down all boundaries that separate men from men, and intimate male relationships.
“By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”
The Gospel According To John
13:35
Like D.H. Lawrence’s, Rupert, in the 1969 movie classic, Women In Love, with Glenda Jackson, Alan Bates, and Oliver Reed, I too, longed for that closeness with another male that can develop between a man and a woman through sexual relations. I believed then, always have, and still do, that God doesn’t make mistakes, and he made me in his image, and that gay relationships are not only OK, but as good, if not better, and as healthy, if not healthier, than heterosexual relationships. I believe future generations will become more androgenous, and as such, further human development and evolution in creating a more loving planet, as God desired for us.
However, J.D.’s religious upbringing, like the majority in our Christian nation, did not condone or support such behavior. God made woman for man’s sexual needs as J.D. had told me, more than once, and regardless of philosophy or orientation, to J.D., I was still a man, and men do not get involved sexually with other men.
So, while J.D. was OK with hugging and the good night hand shake, held a moment longer, that’s where it stopped. I had never touched his private parts, or seen them, and that was how it was going to be, as far as J.D. was concerned. For me, I was getting frustrated. I was as successful as moving J.D. toward sexual intimacy, as I was in to getting the administration to allow my Playboy subscription into the institution.
I wanted my own way, as we most do, even Jesus:
“Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me.”
The Gospel According To John
13:8
I tried one ultimatum after another. I pushed, complained, and whined, all to no avail. So, I cared for, and loved J.D., and I did want us to get over the hurdle, but if we didn’t, then I was the one who was going to just have to live with it. Because, even after all was said and done, I still loved our friendship, and sex or no sex, I wasn’t going to walk away from what we had nurtured and developed. We had come a long way in a short time, and he was still fun, funny, charming, spontaneous, natural, and giving, and I didn’t want to lose him.
On Tuesday, June 15th, 2004, J.D. hugged me goodnight when the yard closed, and we said our “I love you’s,” and for some reason, I gave him a spontaneous peck on the neck, that surprised us both. That night, he was arrested and locked in confinement for a crime he did not do.
He was awake and took a piss, at approximately 2am, when another inmate was hit in the head while sleeping, with a lock, by a friend of J.D.’s who had been having a beef with the guy for several days. We had no communication for thirty-nine days. I missed our walks and talks. I loved and missed him. I was lost.
“Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them: and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves in the body.”
The Epistle To The Hebrews
13:3
