[Story Index] [Discussion Thread] [The Asylum]
The Story of Me, Part 2 of 3
By Jyates
2001-01-05
The carnival made for an interesting life. The first job I had with the carnival was running a ride. I was what was called a “Ride Jock”. Most of the ride jocks were real muscular because of all the hard work of setting up and tearing down the rides. The first ride that I learned to run and put together was called the Heart Flip. Now what that was is this ride that had two seats in a cage that was shaped like a heart, and in the middle of the heart was a wheel that one would turn thus making the heart flip and then of course it would go in circles. Now my job was to operate and take care of this ride. Well of course I took good care of the thing but the operation was a different story. I tried to see how many people I could make puke in a day. My operation of this ride became great entertainment for the rest of the carnies; as a matter of fact they started betting on the number of marks (people) that I could make puke in a given day. Each day I would find out what the pot was so I could find out my share and I would try to shoot for as many as possible. Fun, huh? But, hey, a person has gotta eat somehow.
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 unload the plane then Tom would pay the person who owned the strip and we would leave. I have no idea where the drugs where taken. Usually he already had a buyer for the larger quantities and Tom always kept a little stash for himself.
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