Women...what can be said that already hasn’t? I love women, not to sound like a womanizer, but I do. What other creature on this planet can be so soft and gentle one minute and so hard and cold the next. But I still can’t get enough of them.

I just love the female form. The soft curve of a woman’s hips. I can’t get enough. I love seeing a woman’s silhouette outlined by morning sunlight. It’s amazing to see the soft warm glow on her body and the reflection of the sunlight off of the soft peach fuzz of her face. And the scent of a woman sets me on fire. I could bury my face in a woman’s hair and just smell her for hours. I could spend hours exploring the body of my lover, licking and kissing and touching her. From head to toe I could kiss her. Taking time to touch her all over, running my lips over the soft skin of her inner thighs or stomach, kissing her bellybutton or rubbing my face on her tummy. Lightly tracing the curves of her body with my fingertips.

There are not words that can describe the excitement I feel when I bury my face in between a woman’s thighs and breath in the musky sweet smell, and the taste of her sex arouses me beyond my imagination. I enjoy playing with a woman’s senses maybe putting a blind fold on her and running a feather over her body, then watching the goose flesh rise, then kissing it till its gone. Or touching a woman all over and not allowing her to touch back. Just kissing a woman’s breast makes my heart race with desire, playing with her nipples or licking the sweat from under them. Laying my head between them and feeling the soft warmth and the steady beat of her heart.

And making love to a woman: well there just are not enough words in this world to describe the feeling of soft slow lovemaking. I enjoy the kind of sex that can last for hours or even days if time permits so both lovers can take the time to satisfy each other. Learning all the ways to pleasure each other. Finding the areas of her body that you can touch to cause pleasure. But most of all having the love of a woman is truly the best feeling on earth, knowing that you are the only person she wants, that you are the only person who will share her bed and you are the only one who she will give her body to.

But then it also amazes me how a woman can turn your whole life upside down. How one minute she can be the most loving creature in this world and then the next she can be the most cold-hearted conniving creature. As the saying goes, "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." What amazing beings women are.

It was not long until I was to try suicide again. The outcome was close to the same. After I was over the hepatitis I was put into a holding tank with about thirty other inmates. This was where I was about to learn what life in a county jail was really like.

Being in an overcrowded jail is truly a hell on earth. The county jail holding tanks are made to fit fifteen inmates at a time but being that there was an overcrowding problem with the nation’s jails at that time, there was anywhere from thirty to fifty inmates in the holding tank at one time. Jailhouse rapes where fairly common. Inmates that where unable to defend themselves or were too afraid to fight if someone came up to them and took something of theirs and did nothing about it were easy prey. Well, that was a very big mistake, because that was viewed as a sign of weakness by the predators in there, and that was when they would start plotting to rape you. This was something that I learned by watching others and after about my second week in it was my turn to get tested.

Another inmate stole my cigarettes. I found out who did it and I went to him and asked for them back. I proceeded to try to kick his face in. Once the man was unconscious I took my smokes back. Later that week after he returned from the infirmary I overheard him plotting with a few of the clique that he associated with to catch me the next time I was in the shower. This was in the evening. I had to sleep on the floor of the dayroom area that night and I stayed awake all night. The next morning after worrying that whole night over what to do I decided to take a few pencils that I had, about five of them, and work him over with them. So I did. I stabbed this guy about seven times with a handful of five pencils. Needless to say none of his friends stepped in to help him. When the guards came in to get him to take him to the hospital it was quite amazing that no one out of all the people in the holding tank had seen or heard anything. Not only that but another inmate that knew what was going on grabbed me before the guards came in and pulled me into the cell that he had a bunk in and took the pencils away from me and made me change into a new set of cloths that he had hidden under his bunk. This guy’s name was Mike. He was in for manufacture of methamphetamine. After I had changed clothes he took what I had on and with a homemade razor knife he cut the blood stained clothes up into smaller pieces and preceded to flush them down the toilet. After that Mike got me to move into the cell that he and three other guys occupied where he kind of kept an eye out for me cause after that I got to where I would sleep all day and would only wake at night after everyone else was asleep and every night I would find my evening meal there waiting for me. I gave my breakfast and lunch to Mike and in return he would hide my evening meal away for me. I lived like that for a good three months until the depression got to me again, and once again, I attempted suicide. After another blood transfusion I was returned to the county jail but this time I was placed in segregation so that the jailers could keep a better eye on me.

In the county jail I met a person, well three people, that made a dent in my memory. The first was a jailer named Mr. Stevens. Mr. Stevens did nothing more but talk to me, that was all. He kept me occupied and would not let me sleep all day. Next was a nurse named C.K. I don’t know her real name but she would bring me books to read and puzzles to keep my mind occupied and she will always have a place in my heart. She made me realize that I was someone that mattered to another person and she gave me a will to want to stay alive. And the third person I will mention is A.J. McConnell and what Mr. McConnell did was nothing more than be nice to me. He did his job as a jailer but he was nothing other than nice. C.K. had come to me and asked me if I wanted something to do and I, of course, said yes. She talked the sheriff into letting me paint the segregation floor of the jail. Well this took me about a month by myself, when all of a sudden the sheriff decided that I could not do it anymore. I could not understand why I was not allowed to paint and no one could give me a reason. I had gotten quite used to being able to roam around the halls of the county jail. I was a model prisoner. I had gained the respect of a few people while I was in there and they saw me for more than the killer that I thought I was and felt very bad about. I just could not understand why this privilege, that I had and was working very hard to keep, was now being taken away without cause and, well, it hurt me. Being that I still was not very mentally stable I was about to attempt suicide for the fourth time. This time I was determined to succeed.

I scammed a razor off another inmate and I braided a rope out of a bed sheet. I climbed up on the small writing desk that was in the cell and tied the homemade rope to a light that stuck out of the wall. Then I took a razor blade out of the razor and remembering what a county sheriff had told me on the previous try "son you got to cut lengthwise up your wrist to do it right". So that was what I did, and then I stepped off the table.

I must not have been there long before I was found again and cut down and no matter how you cut your wrist I found they can be stitched up. After that CK, knowing how down I was, showed up one day with a puppy. It’s kind of funny, this little dog didn’t care who I was or what I did just as long as I played with it and loved it. Now it was a black lab pup and of course being that I was in jail I could not keep the dog but CK would sneak this pup in whenever she got the chance up until the day I left for prison. I don’t really understand what had changed but I never attempted suicide again after that.

Well, as all this other stuff was happening, I was also being indicted. The grand jury would not indict me for murder in the first, second, or third degrees but they did indict me on the charge of involuntary man slaughter. This was the first time that I had ever had a felony charge against me. I had a few brushes with the law when I was younger and my dealings with Tom where never known to any law enforcement so I had a clean record. I had a fairly good court appointed lawyer who told me to take this to trial and he thought I could get off with probation. I, on the other hand, felt that I deserved to go to prison so when the district attorney offered me a five-year sentience that was non aggravated I accepted it and was off on my way to prison. I had about another week to go sitting in the county jail before I was on my way to the diagnostics unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in Huntsville Texas. What a shock this was. Upon arrival you are stripped, searched, deloused, showered and your head is shaved. Also, to make things more interesting there was a smart-ass in amongst us who kept wise-cracking to the guards. Well the guards finally had enough of him and preceded to beat the shit out of all of us using night sticks. There where about twenty of us, we were all buck-ass nekkid and when the guards were through we where thoroughly beaten.

Once we where done with our ass-whooping we were given cells and allowed to go to commissary--the ones that could walk that is. The next day we were all herded into the infirmary for x-rays, a physical, tetanus shots, and to have any broken bones set from the day before. The day after that we where assigned an inmate id number, finger printed, given a statement on what we were in for and had to strip again to show any distinguishing marks that might have been on our bodies. The next and final day at the diagnostics unit was spent talking to guidance counselors about what programs an inmate could get into and you had a trip to see a shrink, then it was back to the cell. The next day everyone on the cell block was shipped to the Goree unit for classification and your first parole hearing. Some inmates never got past here. As a matter of fact, about fifty percent of the people that were on the bus with me were released that day without ever going any farther. I, on the other hand, was considered a risk by the parole board and received my first set off, and at that time was misclassified as a high security prisoner and was sent to the Ellis unit.

Ellis was a very foreboding place. It is home to some of Texas’ most hardened convicts. It’s also home to death row. I learned two very important things while living at Ellis: 1. Never change the TV from Days of our Lives, it will get you killed. 2. Never tell a death row inmate good morning, cause there is nothing good about their mornings, their evenings, or their afternoons. The ones that are going to die and know they are going to die do not give a shit and will be more than happy to kill you just for looking at them wrong. Granted, whenever they were out in the general population they were under guard and where chained up but then again handcuffs could strangle a person pretty toughly. And the reason you never changed the TV channel, well at least I didn’t the third day I was on Ellis.

I decided one day after lunch that I was going to go watch a little TV in the day room area. There were two other inmates in there already watching TV. One was a black guy who was sitting on a bench right in front of the TV and the other was a Mexican sitting right behind him. Well, the black guy was wanting to change the channel but the little Mexican dude was watching Days of our Lives. The black guy, not giving a shit, jumped up and started changing the channel, disrespecting the Mexican. The Mexican did not take to kindly to this. He wanted the Black guy to find what he wanted to watch and sit down. Then the black guy turned to the Mexican guy, jumped at him a little, and asked him if he had a problem with it, to which the Mexican replied "no" so the black guy sat back down. Again in front of the Mexican. The Mexican without ever saying a word reached down into the sole of his boot, pulled out a toothbrush that he had sharpened at one end and melted razor blades into, and proceeded to stab the black guy. When he was done he got up and went and changed the TV back to Days of our Lives. I left the day room never to return for the rest of my stay on Ellis. I figured I would just read a book.

I decided that I wanted to do more than just sit around and work for free for the state so I started back to high school. I finished in less than three months. Then I thought I would give college a try so I took the SAT and passed fine. The first series of studies I would take was administrative office management. I, being able to study almost day and night, I was able to complete the course of study before the end of the year and got this nice diploma from the Temple junior college. I had received a BA in less than a year. Soon after that I came up for my next parole hearing at which I was informed that at my first hearing I was misclassified and was to be shipped from Ellis 1 to the medium to light security farm of Hilltop. I was to go immediately, I was not paroled.

The only bad thing about Hilltop was after coming from a high security pressure cooker like Ellis to a place that now reminds me of "boys town" was quite a culture shock. Ellis had some of the cream of the crop as far as cons go. You had your lifers that knew they had no hope of parole; they were the murders, the rapists, the armed robbers. These were people that you knew, just by the look of them, to stay clear of. Then there were the people you knew to stay clear of or make friends with. You showed them respect if they deserved it or not and you showed no weakness to them or it was like drawing vultures to the kill. At Hilltop the average age of the inmate was twenty-five, the average severity of their crime was breaking and entering, grand theft, or forgery, and the longest sentence that I saw on Hilltop was twenty years for a guy that committed armed robbery. I was not on Hilltop a full hour before I was beating the shit out of a guy. Right after I got to Hilltop I was run through the shower. Well at the same time the Hilltop yard squad was taking their showers and being I was what these guys thought was new meat, one of them whistled at me and slapped me on the ass. Well I turned around and punched the guy so damn hard that I fractured my arm and he just went down. I didn’t get to finish my shower. I was made to get dressed and was marched to the captains' office along with a few witness. I was taken into the captain’s office and this guy was pretty fair. He asked me what happened and I told him the truth. He looked through my folder and saw where I had just came from and shook his head. He then asked me if the story I gave him was going to be the same from the other guys and I told him that I believed that it would. He then talked to two other inmates and sent me to the infirmary under guard where my arm was X-rayed and being that though it was broken it didn’t really move anywhere so it was placed in a cast and the cast was allowed to set for a little while and then I was escorted back to the captain’s office where I was informed that I had put the other guy in the hospital but being that it was him that laid hands on me first no charges were to be brought against me. I was to work for the captain until he could find a suitable job for me.

The next day I started asking about what kinds of vocational training were available on the Hilltop unit and soon I was enrolled in classes for electrical trades, which I really enjoyed. The classes in theory of electricity amazed me and contrary to poplar belief Benjamin Franklin did not discover electricity. It was the Greeks. But anyway, electricity intrigued me. While in prison I was allowed to experiment. I was allowed to build a Tesla coil. Also in class we built a machine that would shrink a quarter down to the size of a nickel using a small but extremely powerful electric magnet, some very large capacitors, and a large amount of electricity. It was quite amazing. The experiment would usually end with quite an explosion followed by a bright ball of electric plasma that was undischarged current that would take a few minutes to dissipate in the air. It looked like a ball of lightening. But when all was over there would be a shrunken quarter. I finished up my schooling and came up for parole again and once again I was turned down but I did learn one thing: I was not going to come out of prison the same person that I was when I went in to prison. I made a promise to myself that very first day right after the beating that this was not a life that I wanted to return to and I was not going to. I was finally released from prison on December 20, 1992.

I was never release on parole, I was released on what was called a mandatory release date. That is where your good time and the time that you had severed equaled up to the full extent of your sentence. In short, I either had to do something so the state could take away my good time or by law they had to let me go. And so they did.

I called my mother from the bus station in Gatesville Texas. I was forty-seven miles away from home and fortunately for me she would come see me while I was in and we managed to develop a pretty good relationship that we still enjoy today. The first few months after my release were a little difficult because of the adjustment of free life and the need to find a job having the skills that I had acquired. I thought finding a job would be a breeze but you know what there isn’t much need for an office manager that also happens to be an ex-con even if he is a licensed CPA. So after about six weeks of going to every damn place in Waco trying to get a job in an office I gave up and went to work at Whatabuger. I flipped hamburgers for a whole two weeks till I got a job dispatching wreckers. I figured what the hell, that beats flipping burgers. I did that for two years and in that two years I took up drag racing motorcycles till I broke a leg, then I switched to cars.

I met my soon to be wife. I was now twenty-one. After I got married I went to work for the commercial metals steel group as an industrial electrician, where I learnt even more, due to an accident with an air tank that almost cost me the use of my right hand I ended up going to school for industrial hygiene and was trained by the department of labor and became a safety director. I started traveling around doing safety inspections for commercial metals. Also at the same time I became interested in computers and started teaching myself how to build networks and computers and how to administrate networks. Well the steel company found out about this and took interest and also gave me some very valuable training in this field. After working for them for four and a half years as a safety directory/network administrator, I decided that I liked computers better and went to work full time as a network admin. Which is where I am today.

I have to admit it’s a long way from being an addicted kid who was headed nowhere to where I am now. And to tell ya the truth, my life has gotten pretty damn boring since my release from prison. I have a beautiful wife and child that I would be lost without and sometimes I look at them in disbelief.

All I can say is that I have proven myself to be more than I ever thought possible. I hate that I had to take someone’s life to do it, and there is not a day that goes by that I don’t think about him.

I have to admit that I owe my life to a dead man.

The next position I held as a carnie was that of jointy. Now the job of a jointy is to part rubes with as much of your hard earned money as possible by first luring them in with various cat calls and other interesting remarks and second talking you into the game and then not giving you shit unless he just had to. I was good at this, I was real good at this. I could get more marks to belly up to that bar to bust one to win one that it was just insane. On a good night at a good fair I could clear five hundred dollars tax-free and that was making fifteen cents on the dollar. And of course the people I worked for loved me cause I was making them a shitload more money than I was making for my self. I believe they would think to themselves “so what if he looks a little young, so what is he has no ID, he brings in the cash and that’s all that matters”. I ran every game from the bust one to win one to the flat store. I would take a mark’s money as fast as he could pull it out of his pocket. It was an interesting life to live. You either slept on the ground or in your game unless you got tired of that then you would rent a hotel room for a night or two. Traveling with the carnival I learned how to drive, grift or con (which is a fine art in itself), chase women and how the side shoe really works. I can remember the very first time I ever drove, I was taking a game to the Houston livestock show and rodeo; the rig I was in was a Chevy dully and I was pulling a thirty-five foot trailer behind me through rush hour traffic. I can still taste the vinyl from the seat covers in the back of my throat. I have seen much of the country from this experience and even though it was a nasty life it kept me fed and clothed, and I really enjoyed it. I have many, many stories that I could tell you about the carnival and about being a grifter. This is just kind of a rough draft to put some memories on paper. Anyway, back to my story, I traveled with the carnival for about two to two and a half years, maybe even three. Time gets kind of funny when it doesn’t mean anything to you and in a life like that you don’t need time so I know that I was with it for at least two years.

One fateful day in Deland, Florida a group of bunco agents raided the group I was with and gave us a good shakedown. They checked us for ID’s which I did not have, they checked us for drugs which I did have, and they checked our employer for federal gaming stamps which he did not have. So we all got to go to jail and after a long interrogation and a real interesting routine of good-cop/bad-cop I finally gave in and told them that I was thirteen and was a runaway from Texas and had been gone for a very long time. They checked this information and found out that it was true and promptly took me to a runaway shelter.

The runaway shelter after my arrival first gave me a shower cause I was stinking something fierce and then called my mother. Now that was an interesting conversation because the Texas police already told my mother that I was a lost cause and was probably dead somewhere. At first my mother told them that I was dead, and after a few minutes of convincing her that I was not dead they gave me the phone. I talked to her for a few minutes and the conversation went kind of like this. She asked my why I hadn’t called in the last two years, I told her that I was under the influence, that she did not care then she asks me how I got to where I was and I told her that I traveled with the carnival. The counselor that was listening in then asked her how she would like to get me home and she replied “tell hem to get home the same way he got there” and then hung up the phone. Well they couldn’t do that so they put me on a bus with no money for food and an escort. I wanted to point out the no money for food because I went without eating for about six days while the escort ate real well. Well we arrived in Waco on a Friday, the escort called my mother and she came and picked me up. The next day I was enrolled back in school and I was left to live alone while she went back on the road. Well by then her and Harry had moved out of the rat hole and into another house. To say the least it was a lot nicer of a place and I was left one hundred dollars to live on for a month while she was out on the road. Well that wasn’t too bad. But still I could not stand school.

The new school that I was in was in Bruceville Eddy. Yes we had made a circle. Bruceville was still a small backwater town. I think the only addition that was made to the town was they now had indoor plumbing in most of the houses. Well I really did not get along good with most of the other kids in school. I was in junior high, they had to do a lot of tests to decide where to put me because even after being out of school for so long I was still advanced from most of the kids. The biggest problem I had in school now was getting along with others because even though most of them were the same age as me, I was not a kid anymore. The stuff that the other kids did would have gotten you killed in the real world that I just came out of but I did manage to make one friend and that was Jim or should I say Jim’s father Tom.

Tom was an importer of sorts. His main means of making a living was the importation of opium, weed, and coke into the United States and then distributing it to smaller figures in the underground. Me and Tom hit it off the first time we met. He found in me a son that was expendable, but someone that he could show the family business to. And someone that he could trust, love, and not worry too much if I got killed because I was not his real son. although he did treat me like one. Tom also believed that I could someday take over his business and not ruin it and still take care of his family. Tom did as much as he could to keep his own child safe and one way of doing that was by not letting him in on too much. Well Tom was also the first person to give me my first gun and teach me to shoot. The pistol was a small snub-nosed thirty-eight. I believe it was a five shot, and was black with a shaved hammer and no trigger guard. Tom took me out to his hunting cabin every weekend to teach me how to shoot. His cabin was on the bank of White Rock Creek. That cabin was also used for other miscellaneous activities that I would find out about later.

The first job I ever did for Tom was that of being a mule. A mule is someone that moves or delivers stuff for you. What I would do is I would pick up a car that was loaded--usually the tires were full of drugs--and I would take this car to a specified place, park it, and hopefully there would be another car there with either a bag or something with money in it. If the other vehicle was not there I left. No second chances--if it was not there I was gone. Or, if someone else was there that I could see I was gone. Fortunately I never had to use the guns I was provided. I also got to see a lot of the world with Tom. After a little while Tom convinced my mother to give him rights over me which she did. she kept custody of me but Tom could act as a legal guardian. So Tom took me and got me a passport and our next stop was Thailand. Tom would do most of his importing from there and he also enjoyed the opium dens. Anyway, Tom would go to a friend’s house that lived there and would buy whatever he needed, have it taken to his plane and loaded up, then Tom would go lay up in a den for a day or two. My place in all this was to be the big motherfucker that stood behind Tom with a gun showing. A little note about Thailand is that most of the small villages are somewhat lawless and the one that Tom would frequent also had private airstrips. Once we were ready to leave we would fly back to the US and land at another private airstrip outside of Waco near Rock Creek where Tom’s people would $ 2>We also made frequent trips to Turkey to buy hash, opium, and weed. After about a year of doing this kind of stuff Tom figured to bring me in a little deeper and show me more of his world. This is where I found out what the hunting cabin was used for. Tom would front to dealers and also loan money out to people at a small rate of interest. He would give them lots of chances to pay up before he gave them a warning and when he gave that warning they listened and Tom would have his money a few days after. Tom’s warnings were blunt to say the least. What he would do was send someone out to find the said offender and kidnap them and bring them back to the hunting cabin where they were stripped of all their clothing and tied to a straight-back wooden chair. Then Tom would take off the blindfold and politely ask if he could have his money now. If the person had the money Tom would allow them to get dressed and we would go get the money. If they didn’t have the money Tom would smack ‘em upside the head, slap them around a little, then he would get out his staple gun and staple the offender’s scrotum to the chair. He would leave their cloths there and give them a pair of pliers, tell them that if they went to the police “it would all end” and we would leave. I only attended about two of these little parties, I just did not care for them. And I shudder to think what else might have happened there at that cabin.

Well I worked and lived with Tom till I was seventeen and by that time I had developed a really nasty coke and speed habit. Being fried on speed, weed, and coke is how I learned to deal with some of Tom’s business. And I had just learned to shoot up meth and heroin which at that time was just another way to cope. I feel today that if I kept going the way I was going I would have been dead in less than year because someone would have killed me or I would have killed myself. Which might not have been so bad.

It was December 19, 1989. I was supposed to fly out that night to go to Turkey with Tom to do business. But I was sick, bad sick. I had Hepatitis and did not know it. I called a few of my friends over. I decided that since I wasn’t going out of town I would party a little. I could not think of anything that would make me feel better other then getting stoned. So I was at my mother’s house. Tom didn’t like me bringing my friends around. He would tell me that we had no place for friends in the type of life we were leading and I guess he was right. I had a few friends; they where Danny, Chad, and Robert, besides Tom’s son who Tom did not allow to go anywhere with me. Anyway we were all sitting around smoking premos (weed mixed with crack) and snorting coke and speed. We had partied all night long and well into the next day and were all severely fucked up. We had just run out of weed and were sitting there smoking our last joint. I was taking a hit when Danny picked up my pistol off of the coffee table. At that time I was carrying a 44-40 Smith & Wesson revolver and all the bullets where laid on the table besides the gun or so we thought. Danny was wanting me to pass the joint his way so playing around he picked up the gun and pointed it at me and pulled the trigger the gun just went click. Well, me playing around back, I picked up the gun and pointed it back at him and pulled the trigger and instead of just going click the gun went off hitting Danny in the side of the head. I can recount what happened almost play-by-play after that because the images of his death are permanently stuck in my head.

After a few minutes of intense panic I called the police to try to tell them what I had done. The dispatcher told me to stop prank calling the police station and hung up on me. So I drove myself to the Waco police station and turned myself in. I went into the station, walked up to the first person I saw, and asked to speak to a detective. The receptionist I spoke to told me to go away, that she had no time for jokes. I explained to her that it was no joke. She called a detective up to talk to me. I told the detective what had happened and being that it was out of Waco’s jurisdiction she called the county sheriff’s office and told them. They came and picked me up and I took them back to my mother’s house where they, after going into my house, read me my rights and handcuffed me.

The officer radioed for backup and once they arrived, read me my rights once again. After about three hours of sitting in the back of a police car they finally took me to the county jail. It was December 20, 1989 about five or six in the evening, and I was sick as a dog. I had just killed a good friend of mine. I was in one hell of a state of shock as soon as I was booked I was asked to have a powder test done on my hand, which I had agreed to, then I had a urine sample taken and some blood taken by a nurse. As soon as the nurse saw that color of my piss I was immediately confined in a segregation cell. Let me tell you of the tricks the human mind can do when a person whom has a conscience and has just killed someone that was close to them. That month and a half I spent in that confinement cell with noone to talk to almost drove me crazy. The only time I would see anyone was only one day a week when I was allowed to shower and see the doctor. I would wake up from sleep after having nightmares over what I had done. I started seeing things that were not there. As I look back on it now I don’t quite understand how I managed to hold on to my sanity at all but it was a living hell. Finally I had all that I could take so I was able to pry off a piece of metal from the hospital bed that was in that cell. It took me a few days but I managed to sharpen the metal to where it was sharp enough to cut flesh and so I slit my wrists and laid down to hopefully go to sleep.

TUNE IN SUNDAY FOR THE EXCITING CONCLUSION AND FIND OUT IF JYATES IS DEAD OR NOT

One of my first memories is of Sea-O-Rama in Galveston. Well I have to say that is my first memory. I don’t remember much cause I was I guess only about one year of age but what I saw did make a mark. What I remember is that there was this giant black and white thing that jumped up and took something out of some person’s mouth. Then I did not understand it but now I do; it was a killer whale that jumped up out of a big pool and took a fish out of its trainer’s mouth. I also remember there was another baby there with me who I later found out was my cousin.

Now we fast-forward about four years to the small town of Bruceville Eddy. Now Bruceville is one of those small backwater country towns where your supply of sunlight is pumped into you. I remember that I lived on a farm there where we had cows, chickens, dogs, and a goat. My best friends that I had at that time where a collie named Sugar, the goat named Nanny, and a big red rooster named Applejack who rode on my shoulder. I remember having a lot of fun at that time in my life. A few things stick out in my mind about that time, the first of which is that goat. My mother raised that goat from a baby. I mean she bottle-fed it; the first few weeks of its life it even slept in the bed with her and my dad. But mom would soon learn that was a mistake cause when the goat grew up it still wanted to sleep in that bed. Every time that nanny would see the door of our house open she would make a mad dash for it, knocking over whomever might be in the way then down the hall she would go into my mom’s room and jump into the bed, grab the covers, and get comfy. Then mom would have to go and fight the goat out of her bed and drag nanny kicking and screaming down the hall and back out the door.

The next memory I have of that time period was me finding a snake. It was a beautiful copper-gold color with a spear-shaped head and catlike eyes that where also a golden color. The snake seemed to stand straight up when I walked up on it and must have been at least four-foot long. I have to say I was fascinated with it cause I walked up to it and picked it right up and went straight to my father to show him my newfound friend. My dad was not amused. He did not think that Mr. Snake made a good friend at all cause he grabbed the snake out of my hand and promptly cut its head off with a shovel. I cried for hours over my newfound friend recently deceased. I later in life found out that Mr. Snake was a copperhead but I have to admit to this day snakes still amaze me and I have studied and kept quite a few of them both of the poisonous and nonpoisonous varieties.

Now one thing I came to realize, as a child, is that we moved around a lot. Later I learned that was because of my father’s dislike of having to pay the government. The man, to my knowledge, still owes the government an unknown (to me) amount of money. My father was for the most part a hard working man. His main means of survival was the auto body trade and most of his pay was under the table. And so he would work in a given town doing the normal auto shop scams until either the local police or the government would start to catch on then we would move on. So that made for us never staying in one place for more than a year or two. And in turn that affected me in one major way. I was always a loner who yearned to have friends but was afraid to make them only to lose them a short time latter. Another thing I learned about Gene was that he liked his scotch and women a whole lot. As a matter of fact he enjoyed those a lot more than his family. Eventually Gene tired of moving and settled for about three years in the suburb of Richland Hills in Ft Worth where he worked at Lee’s paint and body shop. Gene was a fairly good teacher he taught Lee the owner of the shop the fine art of tax evasion and he taught me at a young age how to rebuild a motor.

The first school I ever attended was North Richland Hills elementary school where my teachers quickly discovered that I was a little different from the other students. I bored real easily of the lessons that they taught and my spelling and handwriting sucked. But math, science, and reading--along with my comprehension skills—were things I excelled at and as a matter of fact I could read long before I ever set foot in a classroom. So by me being different from the other children, I was placed in classes with other kids that were different and only allowed interacting with the rest of the school during planned functions or recess and lunch. But being in these types of classes was a lot more fun than being with the other kids because it kept me interested in what I was learning. The classroom environment was more interesting, most of the work was harder, and so it kept my attention and we did a lot more than the other kids in school got to do. We would go on field trips to the public library at least every other weak, the class would go to a different museum once a month, and we got special test done every other month. But unfortunately this was short lived because it was time to move again. I later in life found out that this class I was in was a test bed that the gifted and talented classes are based upon now. The special tests that were given to me every other month were a combination of psychological, academic, and IQ tests.

The next stop was the small town of Aledo, Texas. Aledo is located between Ft Worth and Weatherford, Texas. I was around the age of six to nine here and I have to say that this is where my childhood was about to end. Although we lived in Aledo longer than we ever lived anywhere else, and up until this point my life to me seemed normal. Although it felt strange living in one place for so long, but mom and Gene where not getting along too great. I spent many nights listening to them fight or hearing my father beat my mother. Well as Gene got worse with his drinking the beatings went from my mother to me and my mother so we both learned to walk on egg shells around him and do everything possible to keep him happy. The only times I remember being happy around Gene is when we would go camping. For one, he would lay off the scotch and only drink beer, which would not make him as mean. And two, he would go out hunting alone for two days at a time.

You see I had this uncle who owned a peanut farm in Dueleion, Texas. For those of you that don’t know that’s fifteen miles right out side of Blanket, Texas (look it up on a map). This peanut farm encompassed about (just a wild guess here) 2000 acres of land with some of the best deer, bird, and cougar hunting to be found in Texas, not to mention the fishing. Uncle Stacy had two lakes on his farm and a few ponds. The ponds were mostly for swimming. The lakes, on the other hand, were for fishing. One lake was somewhere around one hundred and fifty acres big and the other was at least one hundred, and both had to be at least 50 feet deep. Uncle Stacy would stock these lakes every other year with an assortment of game fish. And to make sure the fish would get enough to eat he would take two hundred pounds of dog food out to each lake once a day, load it up in his paddle boat, and paddle to the center of the lake and dump it all in. There were catfish in those lakes that where bigger than most men.

Whenever Stacy knew we were coming out camping, two weeks beforehand he would stop feeding the fish. We always caught something in those lakes. Also Stacy would have a fish bake for us when we would be there and he would catch the fish himself. Usually only one fish would do. Stacy would go out in the middle of the lake with a deep sea fishing pole with the biggest fish hook you could ever see baited with a stinking piece of meet and drop it in. Now back on the bank there would be someone with a wench truck waiting. Within a few minutes you could see the paddleboat start to lean over almost capsizing and the deep-sea rod would be almost bent in half. Uncle Stacy had dinner on the line. It would be either a channel cat or a yellow cat but he would fight the big fish up to the side of his boat and when it was close enough he would slam a hay hook into the fish. Usually he would try for its head or he would shoot the fish in the head then get it with the hay hook. When he gave the signal the person with the wench truck would wench the fish to the shore where it would be cleaned. I have learned from my mother that most of those fish would weigh around one to two hundred pounds. Can you imagine a two hundred-pound catfish? But during the summers we would spend anywhere from two weeks to two months on that peanut farm. I have to say I loved it.

Another highlight of our stays at the peanut farm was harvesting fresh honey. There is nothing that I can think of that tastes better than fresh honey, the kind that you yourself squeezed out of the comb. I used to just love to go raid the beehives. But our trips where always too short for my liking; we always had to go home. Once back home it would all start over again--the drinking, the beatings, and so on.

School at Aledo sucked for the most part. They really did not know what to do with some one like me, and so they stuck me in the resource classes. The poor teachers in those classes where dumfounded with me; there was nothing they could give me to keep me busy. The work they would give the other kids that took them hours to do would take me minutes. And I have to say that reading the Dick and Jane books sucked Dick. So they made me help teach the other kids in the class which was nice but soon led to resentment from my classmates, so the only friends I had in school were the other teachers.

Back at home things were getting worse. Mom and Gene fought all the time--not just yelling and arguing, but actual fighting with fists and shit. I remember helping my dad put up a fence to keep our horses in and I kept doing something wrong so instead of showing me what to do he picked up a two by four that was about five foot long and beat me with it. We finished putting up the fence and went home. He did not hit me in the face with it, but he did hit me in the ribs, chest, and legs. I remember later that night my mother over my father wishes rushed me to the hospital because I was having trouble breathing. Chest X-rays where done and it was found that I had a punctured lung and all of my ribs where broken. So I got to wear this neat chest brace for what felt like forever. It was not soon after that, that mom and Gene split up.

The last fond memory I have of Gene was the last night mom and me moved out (got kicked out). It was the normal nightly fight when mom or maybe it was Gene had enough. Well mom went and tried to pack her clothes and Gene would not let her. So mom came into my bedroom to get me. She told me that we were leaving. I did not know where Gene was at the time but I got up. We were headed down the hallway, I was in front of mom, when we heard the workings of a lever action 30-30 rifle. Mom tackled me and I heard the gun go off. It missed us. Mom got off of me and dragged me as fast as she could to the back door, opened it, and forced me out. By that time Gene had caught up to her. They were in the kitchen and I heard another blast. Scared for my mother I tried to get back in the house but the door was locked. I heard a crash of something big and hard hitting a wall (a chair) and then to my relief mom opened the door. Then I heard the lever of the rifle again. Mom turned around just in time to grab the barrel of the gun that was pointed at her head and raised it up. The gun went off again blowing a hole in the door seal. Gene jerked the gun from her hands and pushed mom down the steps backwards which were pretty steep and she landed on her back unconscious with blood coming out of her nose and mouth. I thought she was dead and all I could feel was hate for my dad, I could feel the hate for him in every part of my body, yes I was worried for my mother but at that moment all I wanted to do was kill my father. That feeling is something that no 9-year-old should ever even know. I picked up a shovel-it was the kind that you use to dig holes for posts with-and I ran at him. At the same time I could see him reloading his gun, I swung the shovel and hit him in the knees breaking one of them. He fell to the bottom of the steps where I could get to him. I raised the shovel above his head. My mother screamed NO! The shock and joy of knowing that she was not dead made me stop the shovel in mid swing. I dropped the shovel on Gene and ran to my mother’s side and helped her up. The first thing she did was kick the rifle out of Gene’s reach, then she went into the house, gathered me and some cloths and we left.

I believe that my childhood ended that night. Because the feelings that I had that night of wanting to kill another, especially my own farther, like I said is something no child should ever feel.

We drove from Aledo to Waco that night to my Aunt’s house. She took us in for a little while and we lived there for about 4 months. There again was an abusive man, his name was George Love. He too, like my father, was an alcoholic and thought that he liked to beat up on women and children. The reason we lived there for such a short period of time was that he tried to beat up on my aunt and her three kids a lot. The kids and me would go and hide in the travel trailer that mom had bought and lock him out but another thing mom had bought was a .410 shotgun. Well the last night we lived there George was beating up my aunt pretty good, and one of my cousins came running out to the camper to hide. Well I had seen enough of that shit I got the shotgun, loaded it, went into the house and into the room where they where fighting and took aim. George saw me and said “boy, I’ma gonna shove that thing up yur ass.” I shot him in the leg. My aunt called the ambulance (one of the EMT’s patted me on the back and said good job), then the sheriff showed up and took me off to Juvenile hall where I spent a month before I went on trial for attempted murder. The case was dismissed immediately after the judge read the report. And my uncle was brought up on charges of abuse and assault.

After that we moved into an old apartment complex in what could only be called “the ghetto”. That place had roaches that where so big that when stepped on the crunch would drown out the sound of the TV and if that wasn’t bad enough when me and mom ate dinner we had to fight with the rats over who got the first bite. Most of our neighbors there were fine upstanding citizens. I saw my first heroin junkie OD in the alley next to our apartment, he was shooting up in his neck. Well this is where life started to get fun; this is where I really started “living”. My mother after the divorce had to work three jobs to make ends meet. She would work during the week in a drapery shop and at night at a diner called Steak & Eggs and on the weekends she would hang drapes and wait tables at the diner and being that there was not much supervision on me I ran the streets.

I met a guy by the name of Ken. Ken was a street bastard of the worst kind. He preyed on people’s feelings and some of the things that I am going to reveal here is stuff that I have never told anyone. First Ken was bisexual or just a plain old pedophile that liked to play with little boys and being that I was a little naive boy at that time I was prime prey and I’ll leave it at that. He had an uncle that was the same, he was the first person to get me high and introduce me to cigarettes. Looking back on the time that I associated with him I learned stuff that no eleven-year-old should ever know. Ken had two major problems about himself: he enjoyed cocaine and speed a little too much and he could not handle his alcohol, and thanks to that he helped me get laid for my first time.

It was on my birthday I was turning twelve and Ken his girlfriend Connie and a friend of hers named Sherrie had a present planed for me. Sherrie’s family owned an old farmhouse that my birthday party was held at. There was a lot of whiskey there and Ken drank as always more than his share and passed out. That was when the fun started. Both of the ladies that were there were over 21 and knew a lot more about the ways of the world than I did. Hell, I hadn’t even figured out how to jack-off at that time. Sherrie, after a few beers, came over to me and took off her shirt and bra. Now being that it was the first time that I had ever seen a woman’s breast, well I almost came in my paints right there and since Ken was completely passed out Connie did the same. The two women laid me down on an old mattress and proceeded to undress me. I swear I had such a hard on that it hurt. When they got my cloths off Connie started to kiss and suck all over my chest while Sherrie played with my testicles and sucked on my dick. I swear I came as soon as she put her hands on it but she just wiped it off and started sucking on it. It was back up again in no time. Connie saw that I was good and hard again and got on top of me. This was the first time that my dick had ever been inside of a woman and it felt good. I loved it. Sherrie straddled my face and instructed me in what to do. Soon in felt like my balls were going to explode and they did but Connie kept going and I never lost my hard-on. she stayed on top on me for a few more minutes before she got off. Then she went into the washroom and cleaned herself up. While she was doing that Sherrie took Connie’s place and rode me for what seemed like hours. Soon Connie was back and she climbed onto my face and I went to work. Soon after that I came again. Then I was spent. The two girls tried to get it back up but it just wasn’t happening, I was done for the night. One thing I shall add is that Sherrie was a redhead and Connie was a blonde. I have been hooked on redheads and blondes ever since.

Life was just a little different with Gene not around. For one, I didn’t have to worry about getting the shit beat out of me at random and mom was a lot happier. But there was one problem. Mom, being a woman, had all the normal urges that all women have. There was just one problem. No one really cared to have a woman with a twelve-year-old kid, or at least not the men she went out with.

Mom went out with a lot of different men but she finely settled down with Harry. Harry was a very large man from what I remember. I believe he weighed in at about five or six hundred pounds and he was a truck driver. Now being that he drove a truck he expected mom to go with him and so she did. I was sent to live with a woman named Irene. Irene was not a bad person, at that time she was my mom’s best friend and she had three kids of her own. I did not care much for this arrangement and with a little help with Harry (he told me that him and my mother did not want me around), I ran away and being that I liked to eat and I was only twelve I could not get work anywhere. And I am not the type to whore myself out, so I hooked up with the carnival.

YEAH, YOU THINK YOU'VE LIVED!? OUR BOY JYATES HERE HAS MORE LIFE EXPERIENCES IN HIS LEFT FOOT THEN YOU DO IN YOUR FAMILY TREE!!! TUNE IN FRIDAY FOR PART TWO OF THE FIRST ASYLUM SERIAL!!!!