Fourth Down and 50 by James Leon "Jimmy" Wilson

Author:James Leon "Jimmy" Wilson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Karen Hunter Publishing/Pocket Books

Seven

People who haven’t been to jail assume that getting out is the easy part, but those who have been locked up know otherwise. Jail doesn’t rehabilitate you; it makes you worse. And readjusting to life on the outside is where the real fight begins.

I got released to Grandma Gloria’s house, but I ended up going to stay with my mom in San Diego. Everyone knew I had gotten out of jail, and we didn’t want Kevin’s friends to come looking for me. I got home on July 11—the exact day that had come to me in my dream, the day I told my mom I’d get out of jail.

My mom had a one-bedroom apartment in San Diego, and even though I was sleeping on the floor, that was never an issue for me. I’m superclose to my mom, and I love her more than anything. I also knew that she did all she could to help me and take care of me with the limited means she had. Even when I was growing up, she always treated me like a man and never brought another man in the house. Things weren’t easy when I was young, and she was raising me as a single parent, but she did a good job and I give her a lot of credit for it.

Unfortunately, there just wasn’t a lot she could do to help me through my transition back into the real world. Being in jail is serious, and among inmates there is zero tolerance for disrespect. On the outside, you might hear someone say, “Shut the fuck up,” or hear somebody else call someone a “punk” or a “fag.” But there’s none of that in jail. If you talk to someone like that inside, you’re getting beat down and there’s no way around it.

When I first got out and heard things like that, I felt like I had to fight whoever said it. In jail, you’d rather get whupped than not fight, because if someone disrespects you and you don’t do anything about it, all of a sudden you become the one getting attacked. You’ll be disciplined by your own crew, and you’ll also be known to everyone as a punk who rolls over, and that reputation will follow you wherever you go, no matter how many times you get transferred. It was all about respect in jail, and that mind-set was a hard thing for me to shake when I got out. Jail hardens you and makes you accustomed to a certain kind of behavior.

A week after I got out, I went to a bar with some of my friends to play pool. I had my quarters up on the side of the table so everybody knew I had the next game. But this other cat, this big Samoan dude, kept screaming, “I got next!”

I was calm, and I told him, “No, I got next, man.” Then, dude looked me straight in my eyes and told me to shut the fuck up.

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