From T-Bone (Letter 65)

T-Bone is a massively-built spiritual ex-Marine, who uses fighting skills to stop prison rape. T-Bone’s latest letter from Arizona prison:

They put a knucklehead in my cell about 3 weeks ago. He lasted about 36 hours. He tried to be slick and do the things that are absolutely loser-ville. He tried to tell me that he had a right to smoke and do drugs and drink hooch and make hooch in this cell. I told him, “NO.”

He didn’t like it, so he went to his homeboys, who tried to influence my beliefs by saying things to get me to give in to their wants. I looked at them and walked away. There’s no compromising one’s well-being.

When I look back at times in my life (that I’m not proud of), when I ran around doing things that were destructive (self-destructive), I see how easy it is for young people to be misled into thinking the wrong way because of their peers. People here always try to fit in by doing some crazy things that get them in serious trouble.

I asked the knucklehead why he wanted to do these things in my cell. He said he wanted to! “Tell tell me the truth man,” I said.

“I wanted everyone to see me as part of something and because they asked me to!”

“In other words, you allowed them to influence your thinking to do wrong!”

He thought for a moment, and said, “You’re right! I never thought of it that way”.

There is a prison story that has been around for a long time. Wild Bill conned Ugly Bob into hurting Sneaky Pete by hitting him upside the head with a clock in a sock! The white meat was showing from his broken skull. Old Sneaky Pete fell down like a millstone in a pond. He was out, gone, all because Ugly Bob wanted to fit in with the boys, to do dope and tell lies.

Strength + Honor

Steel Embrace

Yours,

T-Bone

Each one – Teach one

Click here to read the previous letter from T-Bone

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Click here for descriptions of all of the prisoners I write about at Jon’s Jail Journal ranging from Mafia hit men to giant transsexuals.

Shaun Attwood