Fucked Around And Got Locked Up

In March 2019 I was about 8 months back from a vicious relapse, and selling phones at at&t. I was living in a sober house in Bradley Beach, NJ.

My oldest friend was going to our hometown (plymouth, MA) and I figured i’d take the train there to meet him, despite knowing I had 14 bench warrants in that state.

The funniest thing happened when I got to south station in Boston, before taking the MBTA commuter rail down to the south shore. I figured if I had a Guinness at the train station bar, it’d be alright. I woke the beast up right then, and it took over.

I got to Plymouth and had dinner with my friend and his mother, all whole drinking high alcohol pale ales. I couldn’t stop drinking for the next few days. We went to see a Dead cover band that a friend player bass in, I remember hitting a THC vape pen, and doing my hippie swirl dance. I blacked the hell out.

I woke up the next day and went to the bar from the night before, I drank grey goose bloody marys until they cut me off. I was supposed to meet with another friends mom, and I think I did it in one of those belligerent asshole blackouts I get in.

I woke up in the hospital about 12 hours later. When I was sober enough to be released I took an Uber to the big 24 hour wal-mart in town. I bought about 10 cans of air duster, and got to huffing them.

All I know is that I came to in the Plymouth house of corrections. I had gotten grabbed on my 14 warrants.

The warrants were all from different counties so I spent 2 weeks in the Plymouth jail, a month in the dedham jail, before getting sentenced to 90 days in the billerica house of corrections.

Plymouth has bigger 4 man cells. I woke up one day to this thug kid Geno yelling at another cell mate because he hadn’t brought him enough milk cartons back from breakfast. Next thing I know, Geno is punching the other guy in the head repeatedly, the sound of the impact was viscerally disturbing.

When I finally got sentenced and transferred to Billerica, I was able to settle in a little bit. Being polite and likeable the COs let me have my own cell. I devoured books. When there is any screens to distract me I can read about 500 pages a day. I got really into the Stephen King book “The Stand”, I reread Orwells 1984, and a whole bunch of Dennis Lehane books that were set in my old Dorchester neighborhood.

One day I got a knock at my cell door, it was one of the Irish white supremacist gang members on A pod. He said “you know you can come out of your cell, you’re a good whiteboy, and I ain’t gonna let anyone fuck with you”. I was staying in my cell, not our of fear but because I was so invested in the books I was reading.

Everyone in our cell block liked me because I could crack jokes, so I never fell victim to the routine violence that went down every day.

I think my sense of humor has always protected me from getting the shit kicked out of me.

My mom started a go fund me to place me in sober housing in Boston upon my release from jail. I was so embarrassed, but I appreciate her raising 800$. Nothing went well after jail, and that summer is a whole volume of pain and suffering. I’ll save all of that for another day.

My favorite ex-girlfriend called me a “nerd with an edge”, and I suppose to some the history of incarceration lends a bit of street credibility to my story. That’s horrible, going to jail isn’t at all cool, jail sucks, stay out of jail. Fuck jail.