Prison Time Chapter 1

Prison Time, the third and final book in the English Shaun trilogy is complete and should be published early next year. The other two books are Party Time and Hard Time. Here's Chapter 1:

“I’ve got a padlock in a sock. I can smash your brains in while you’re asleep. I can kill you whenever I want.” My new cellmate sizes me up with no trace of human feeling in his eyes. Muscular and pot-bellied, he’s caked in prison ink, including six snakes on his skull, slithering side by side. The top of his right ear is missing in a semi-circle.
The waves of fear are overwhelming. After being in transportation all day, I can feel my bladder hurting. “I’m not looking to cause any trouble. I’m the quietest cellmate you’ll ever have. All I do is read and write.”
Scowling, he shakes his head. “Why’ve they put a fish in with me?” He swaggers close enough for me to smell his cigarette breath. “Us convicts don’t get along with fresh fish.”
“Should I ask to move then?” I say, hoping he’ll agree if he hates new prisoners so much.
“No! They’ll think I threatened you!”

In the 8 by 12 feet slab of space, I swerve around him, and place my property box on the top bunk.
He pushes me aside and grabs the box. “You just put that on my artwork! I ought to fucking smash you, fish!”
“Sorry, I didn’t see it.”
“You need to be more aware of your fucking surroundings! What you in for anyway, fish?”
I explain my charges, Ecstasy dealing, and how I spent 26 months fighting my case.
“How come the cops were so hard-core after you?” he asks, squinting.
“It was a big case, a multi-million dollar investigation. They raided over a hundred people, and didn’t find any drugs. They were pretty pissed off. I’d stopped dealing by the time they caught up with me, but I’d done plenty over the years, so I accept my punishment.”
“Throwing raves,” he says, staring at the ceiling as if remembering something. “Were you partying with underage girls?” he asks, his voice slow, coaxing.
Being called a sex offender is the worst insult in prison. Into my third year of incarceration, I’m conditioned to react. “What you trying to say?” I yell angrily, brow clenched.
“Were you fucking underage girls?” Flexing his body, he shakes both fists as if about to punch me.
“Hey, I’m no child molester , and I’d prefer you didn’t say shit like that!”
“My buddy next door is doing 25 to life for murdering a child molester . How do I know Ecstasy dealing ain’t your cover story?” He inhales loudly, nostrils flaring.
“You want to see my fucking paperwork?”

A stocky prisoner walks in. Short hair. Dark eyes. Powerful neck. On one arm: a tattoo of a man in handcuffs above the word OMERTA – the Mafia code of silence towards law enforcement. “What the fuck’s going on in here, Bud?” asks Junior Bull – the son of “Sammy the Bull” Gravano, a Mafia mass murderer who was my biggest competitor in the Ecstasy market.
Relieved to see a familiar face, I say, “How’re you doing?”
Shaking my hand, he says in a New York Italian accent, “I’m doing alright. I read that shit in the newspaper about you starting a blog in Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s jail.”
“The blog’s been bringing media heat on the conditions.” While in the Maricopa County jail, I documented the human rights violations on sweat-soaked scraps of paper, using a tiny pencil sharpened on the door. Hidden in legal paperwork and the binding of books, my writing was smuggled out of Visitation by my aunt – right under the noses of armed guards – and posted to the Internet as a blog, Jon’s Jail Journal. In recent months, it drew international media attention.
“You know him?” Bud asks.
“Yeah, from Towers jail. He’s a good dude. He’s in for dealing Ecstasy like me.”
“It’s a good job you said that ’cause I was about to smash his ass,” Bud says.
“It’s a good job Wild Man ain’t here ’cause you’d a got your ass thrown off the balcony,” Junior Bull says.
I laugh. The presence of my best friend, Wild Man, was partly the reason I never took a beating at the county jail, but with Wild Man in a different prison, I feel vulnerable. When Bud casts a death stare on me, my smile fades.
“What the fuck you guys on about?” Bud asks.
“Let’s go talk downstairs.” Junior Bull leads Bud out.

I rush to a stainless steel sink/toilet bolted to a cement-block wall by the front of the cell, unbutton my orange jumpsuit and crane my neck to watch the upper-tier walkway in case Bud returns. I bask in relief as my bladder deflates. After flushing, I take stock of my new home, grateful for the slight improvement in the conditions versus what I’d grown accustomed to in Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s jail. No cockroaches. No blood stains. A working swamp cooler. Something I’ve never seen in a cell before: shelves. The steel table bolted to the wall is slightly larger, too. But how will I concentrate on writing with Bud around? There’s a mixture of smells in the room. Cleaning chemicals. Aftershave. Tobacco. A vinegar-like odour. The slit of a window at the back overlooks gravel in a no-man’s-land before the next building with gleaming curls of razor wire around its roof.
From the doorway upstairs, I’m facing two storeys of cells overlooking a day room with shower cubicles at the end of both tiers. At two white plastic circular tables, prisoners are playing dominoes, cards, chess and Scrabble, some concentrating, others yelling obscenities, contributing to a brain-scraping din that I hope to block out by purchasing a Walkman. In a raised box-shaped Plexiglas control tower, two guards are monitoring the prisoners.

Bud returns. My pulse jumps. Not wanting to feel like I’m stuck in a kennel with a rabid dog, I grab a notepad and pen and head for the day room.

Focussed on my body language, not wanting to signal any weakness, I’m striding along the upper tier, head and chest elevated, when two hands appear from a doorway and grab me. I drop the pad. The pen clinks against grid-metal and tumbles to the day room as I’m pulled into a cell reeking of backside sweat and masturbation, a cheese-tinted funk.
“I’m Booga. Let’s fuck,” says a squat man in urine-stained boxers, with WHITE TRASH tattooed on his torso below a mobile home, and an arm sleeved with the Virgin Mary.
Shocked, I brace to flee or fight to preserve my anal virginity. I can’t believe my eyes when he drops his boxers and waggles his penis.
Dancing to music playing through a speaker he has rigged up, Booga smiles in a sexy way. “Come on,” he says in a husky voice. “Drop your pants. Let’s fuck.” He pulls pornography faces. I question his sanity. He moves closer. “If I let you fart in my mouth, can I fart in yours?”
“You can fuck off,” I say, springing towards the doorway.
He grabs me. We scuffle. Every time I make progress towards the doorway, he clings to my clothes, dragging me back in. When I feel his penis rub against my leg, my adrenalin kicks in so forcefully I experience a burst of strength and wriggle free. I bolt out as fast as my shower sandals will allow, and snatch my pad. Looking over my shoulder, I see him stood calmly in the doorway, smiling. He points at me. “You have to walk past my door every day. We’re gonna get together. I’ll lick your ass, and you can fart in my mouth.” Booga blows a kiss and disappears.

I rush downstairs. With my back to a wall, I pause to steady my thoughts and breathing. In survival mode, I think, What’s going to come at me next? In the hope of reducing my tension, I borrow a pen to do what helps me stay sane: writing. With the details fresh in my mind, I document my journey to the prison for my blog readers, keeping an eye out in case anyone else wants to test the new prisoner. The more I write, the more I fill with a sense of purpose. Jon’s Jail Journal is a connection to the outside world that I cherish.

Someone yells, “One time!” The din lowers. A door rumbles open. A guard does a security walk, his every move scrutinised by dozens of scornful eyes staring from cells. When he exits, the din resumes, and the prisoners return to injecting drugs to escape from reality, including the length of their sentences. This continues all day with “Two times!” signifying two approaching guards, and “Three times!” three and so on. Every now and then an announcement by a guard over the speakers briefly lowers the din.

Before lockdown, I join the line for a shower, holding bars of soap in a towel that I aim to swing at the head of the next person to try me. With boisterous inmates a few feet away, yelling at the men in the showers to “Stop jerking off,” and “Hurry the fuck up,” I get in a cubicle that reeks of bleach and mildew. With every nerve strained, I undress and rinse fast.

At night, despite the desert heat, I cocoon myself in a blanket from head to toe and turn towards the wall, making my face more difficult to strike. I leave a hole for air, but the warm cement block inches from my mouth returns each exhalation to my face as if it’s breathing on me, creating a feeling of suffocation. For hours, my heart drums so hard against the thin mattress I feel as if I’m moving even though I’m still. I try to sleep, but my eyes keep springing open and my head turning towards the cell as I try to penetrate the darkness, searching for Bud swinging a padlock in a sock at my head.

Click here to read Chapter 1 of Party Time.

Click here to read Chapter 1 of Hard Time.

Shaun Attwood

The Driver (Part 2) Guest Blog by Andy Stanley

My guest blogger, Andy Stanley, is a former employee of the criminal enterprise I ran in Arizona before my arrest. If you’ve read Hard Time or Party Time, you’re familiar with the larger-than-life friends of mine Wild Man and Wild Woman. The Wild Ones feature in Part 1 and 2 of Andy’s story. The entire story of my Ecstasy smuggling mission in Mexico is a chapter in Party Time.

After telling Shaun that the Wild Ones were missing in Mexico, and the house he’d rented for them looked like it had been bombed, Shaun decided that since I only knew how to say “Thank you,” and “Go fuck yourself,” in Spanish, it would be best if I returned to Puerto Peñasco on a search-and-rescue mission accompanied by Tulips and leave my wife at home.

Hispanic Tulips, an ex US-military sniper, was born in the USA but spoke fluent Spanish. Just the guy I needed to help me figure out what had happened to the Wild Ones. Once again I grabbed my keys, crystal meth, and gun. I picked Tulips up, and headed for Puerto Peñasco.

For those of you who don't live in America or a gun friendly country, Mexico isn’t exactly tolerant when it comes to outsiders rolling with a pocket full of rocket fuel and a super concealable handgun. But after what I saw at the Wild Ones’ bombed-out house the day before, I decided to take a chance with my gun. I preferred not to be sober for the money shot, so I stashed the gun and drugs inside a makeshift shelf up under the center console of my car.

We hit the Mexican border just after dark and for the first time I was stopped on the Mexico side at the border. Tulips and I were ordered out of the car by 5"4 maybe 5"6 Federales – Mexican Federal Police. They were wearing plain olive drab uniforms, clean shaven, and stinking like The Aqua Velva truck had T-boned the Old Spice truck in front of the B.O. Factory on a hot day in hell.

I was relieved Tulips was with me. He would be able to sweet talk them, bribe them or do whatever was necessary to keep them away from the center console containing my two tickets to a lifetime of ass rape in a Mexican jail. Tulips was carrying on a conversation with a Federale that was not going well. Tulips kept looking like he was going to kneel. Every time he did this, the agent went into a fit of pointing and yelling.

Finally, Tulips turned to me and quickly shuffled close enough to say in an embarrassed tone, “Andy, open the trunk. They call it a boot here. I thought he was telling me to take my shoes off.”

This was concerning as I was relying on Tulips to keep me from blindly running into whatever fate the Wild Ones had met.

I went to the front seat of the car and reached under the dash to pull the trunk release and through the windshield I see a medium-sized dog with his nose to the ground leading one of the Mexican officers towards my car. At this point I didn’t think I could handle much more and just sort of let the panic and anxiety wash over me. I looked at Tulips as I walked back to where Senior Old Spice had told me to stand, and waited.

Idly talking to Tulips about a rave we had attended a few weeks prior, I saw out of the corner of my eye Mr. Drug Sniffer finish with the interior of my car and meet up round the back of my car to really get serious. I saw four-foot sections of the trunk lining get thrown out. The drug sniffing dog is distracted by the smell and now the taste of his own large brown balls.

Then, Mr. Aqua Velva tells Tulips that we can go.

 My car is torn to bits inside. Plastic pop tiers broken on the headliner, rubber moulding pulled away on the doors, yet somehow the center console is perfect, and besides the contents, which are everywhere, it is intact. I would later learn that the Mexican Federal Police as well as quite a few American Law Enforcement agencies did not want to spend upwards of $35,000 for each drug dog. They thought it would be cheaper (and much more entertaining I have to believe) to simply buy a German Shepard and watch the reactions of people the handlers suspect are trafficking.

We arrived at the hotel well into the night and were told there were guests already in my usual room. We stayed in the next room over.

In the morning, I slipped the maid a new $20.00 bill and went next door and reclaimed the 8-ball of meth I had left behind when we had fled the country a few nights prior. I ignored Tulips' jibes about how I could have gotten away with a $5.00 bill instead of the $20, and we were off to Cholla Bay.

We made the drive out to Cholla Bay with the windows of my car all the way down. It was a clear morning, the sun was bright and there was a cold breeze blowing from behind the waves. It felt like we were driving off on vacation.

We pulled into Cholla Bay and I went left instead of right, and took the road with a much sharper incline than the road our house was on. My plan was to drive up and over the house and see what I could before we drove up. I stopped in a house above ours and got out. I walked to the edge of the retaining wall and looked over at the house. It was much less menacing in the light.

Tulips was standing by the car patiently waiting. He had been pulled away from important business to come with me. Although he was incredibly polite, I could tell he wanted to get back ASAP. I got into the car right when Oscar, the local cop pulled up with his old Dukes of Hazard 1982 police car and giant beer belly. Oscar was upset because I had spun my tires trying to get traction up the hill. After the lecture and another $20.00 bribe, he sent us on our way.

I pulled up to the house and walked up with Tulips in tow. Although it now looked like nothing more than a whitewashed adobe house, Tulips was now paying attention. I opened the security door with quite a bit of effort. As we were getting ready to step in the door, I saw a matronly pear-shaped Caucasian woman trundling up the hill waving at us. She closed the last few yards red faced and sweating despite the cold wind blowing past.

“Are you Andy?” She beamed at me excitedly.

Tulips and I stared at her with our mouths open, me halfway through the black security door.

“I… um… yeah.”

Tulips and I looked at one another trying to figure out where this cherubic woman had come from. It was still wintertime and assuming Wild Man was gone, I was probably the only other Caucasian for 200 miles.

“Follow me,” she said, clearly in a huge rush despite her pleasant nature. And off she went down the hill toward her house.

We walked into a dark loving room. With sun reflecting off of the whitewashed exterior wall, I could not see inside at all. I had my Spiewak bag unzipped on the side and my hand on my gun. It really felt like we were walking into something awful. As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, my worst fears were realized. Wild Man was just waking up, wearing a huge white T-shirt with an AIDS ribbon on the front and what I remember as Ocean Pacific shorts circa 1984 in aqua and at least two sizes too small. He looked hung over and haggard as he was apt to before noon.

After man hugs and greetings were exchanged, Wild Man gave us the recap over beers at JJ's Cantina. The Wild Ones had been drinking all night and had gone back to the house. They'd had a fight over god knows what and in the ensuing spat, Wild Woman had thrown a glass, an ashtray, or let’s just say something heavy at him. It missed Wild Man and crashed into the wall near the ground.

Now here's the irony. Mexican buildings will probably be standing here inhabited by nuclear cockroaches after a holocaust. But they do have weaknesses. A wall made of solid concrete is nearly impossible to cut and snake cables, wires, or any piping through. Much of the time these things can be seen running in closed plastic conduit along the edge of floors. When Wild Woman had thrown the ashtray, it broke open the PVC gas line running to the gas heater. At that time of year heaters ran from sundown to sun up.

Wild Man described the ensuing carnage as a billowing ocean of blue fire that covered the floor in the blink of an eye and rose to the ceiling as fast. He managed to escape with none of his things as his clothing had been burned just bad enough to warrant the donation clothes. Other than legs as smooth as silk, he had escaped pretty much unharmed as the residents that were in town tried to help put the fire out.

The next week, I returned with my wife to see what could be done. The little old man that was sweeping the floor when we arrived would not look at me when we arrived. There were no papers to sign. No police waiting. And none of the smiles I'd grown accustomed to. The old man was from Mesa, Arizona. We asked if there was anything we could do. "You can go." Was all he said. Later, after we were married we bought our first house 6 houses down from him. He never said a word to us even when we passed him in the grocery store.

My next story will be about the first time I met Wild Woman.

Click here for Part 1 of The Driver: http://jonsjailjournal.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/the-driver-part-1-guest-blog-by-andy.html

Webpage for Party Time, including chapter 1 and Amazon links: http://shaunattwood.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=120&Itemid=119

Facebook page for Party Time: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Party-Time-Shaun-Attwood/211408465606796 

Shaun Attwood

SJB Visit, Woking

Did my final talk of the academic year today at SJB in Woking. In the pic are my brilliant readers, Dylan and Tara. As a little end of term bonus, I gave copies of Hard Time to the first 8 students to put their hands up and ask questions. The talks restart in September, giving me plenty of time to make progress on the self-help book I was recently commissioned to write about the ten most important lessons I learned in my life. 

Shaun Attwood 

Banged-Up Abroad Raving Arizona

Those of you new to Jon's Jail Journal who heard my Australian radio interview yesterday may want to check out my full Banged-Up Abroad episode here on YouTube:



The episode is based on my books Party Time and Hard Time.

Shaun Attwood

Where are you reading Party Time? Bondi Beach, Australia

From Bucko on holiday, this has got to be the most impressive pic in this series so far.

Shaun Attwood 

Banged-Up Abroad Raving Arizona

If you see this ex-criminal's face on your TV in the UK, there's no need to call the cops. The ads have started for the Banged-Up Abroad UK TV premiere on National Geographic Channel July 29th at 9pm. Further info: http://natgeotv.com/uk/banged-up-abroad/about

Shaun Attwood

Australian Radio Interview with Tom Tilley

My first ever Australian radio interview just aired (Hack on Triple J) and is available here: https://soundcloud.com/triple-j-hack/stockbroker-turned-ecstasy

I've been doing a live Tweet-In all morning to Triple J listeners here: https://twitter.com/shaunattwood

Shaun Attwood

Where Are You Reading Party Time?

Adam in the West Midlands

Shaun Attwood

The Driver (Part 1) Guest Blog by Andy Stanley

This week’s guest blogger, Andy Stanley, is a former employee of the criminal enterprise I ran in Arizona before my arrest. If you’ve read Hard Time or Party Time, you’re familiar with the larger-than-life friends of mine Wild Man and Wild Woman. The Wild Ones feature in Part 1 of Andy’s story. The entire story of my Ecstasy smuggling mission in Mexico is a chapter in Party Time.

My name is Andy Stanley. Back at the height of his Ecstasy empire, Shaun Attwood used to call me Mr. Wolf, after the character played by Harvey Keitel in Pulp Fiction, esteemed for his driving skills and his ability to clean up messy situations. Let’s just say Shaun employed my services from time to time.

Back then, Shaun made a splash in everyone's lives. I will never forget the little duplex on Farmer Street in Tempe, Arizona where he housed his two English partners in crime, Wild Man and Wild Woman, collectively known as the Wild Ones.

Wild Woman in the duplex on Farmer Street

The duplex served as our dilapidated den of iniquity. Watching DJ Keoki spinning records on the turntables, I traded my Rolex to Shaun as our group dropped like flies after Shaun, sitting like Dionysus on a bed of women and their assorted garments, gleefully distributed caps of GHB to everyone free of charge. I woke up in full Max Hardcore makeup, sitting in a bean-bag chair, wondering where the rest of my eyebrows were. I saw a pretty young lady looking for her – let’s say her shoes – that would later be my wife, mother of my children, and divorce court executioner. Shaun noticed my interest and gave me her ID to return and the rest is history.

Due to the rapidly rising police heat surrounding the Wild Ones, Shaun relocated them to Mexico. In Puerto Peñasco, Wild Man quickly became known as El Gladiador [The Gladiator] and El Oso [The Bear] after throwing a local through a wall at JJ's Cantina. So what, right? Well, JJ's overlooks the ocean and is built on a short pier, so at high tide you're sitting over the water. It was low tide. And it was black lava rock on the beach. I know the local survived because I was not asked to bring a suitcase full of cash to pay off Oscar the local cop.

In Phoenix, Shaun was having difficulty communicating with Wild Man in Mexico because Wild Man’s phone had gone dark earlier in the week while I was planning a trip to bring Wild Man supplies. While this was unusual, it was not necessarily cause for alarm. He had some kind of reloadable Nokia GSM, and he had run out of minutes before and money was one of the things on my supply list. Right next to the "note to self" about keeping the money from Wild Man with the words "Shaun's Pissed Off!" underlined beside it. Shaun was aggravated because his Spring Break Mexico Ecstasy smuggling mission was getting close, and the Wild One’s place was by now supposed to have been established as a temporary home for a large shipment of pills coming from Amsterdam. On these trips, Wild Man was generally able to get whatever petty cash Shaun had allocated for expenses out of me, either through coercion or picking me up by my ankles and shaking me until he had all of my money, drugs and anything shiny that fell out.

I grabbed my keys, dope, and girl then set out on the six-hour drive through Southern Arizona across the Mexican border to the tiny town on the Gulf of Mexico, Puerto Peñasco. We arrived in Puerto Peñasco as the sun was setting. My white 1998 Honda Accord was heavily laden with groceries and various items you need to make a house feel like a home. We checked into our usual hotel just down the hill from Plaza Las Glorias.

Puerto Peñasco

In those days everything but the Plaza looked like it had been built with decay in mind. The buildings seemed to melt right into the trash piles, and you sort of had the feeling that not only was there no effort to clean anything, but the environment had sort of evolved and incorporated the filth into its DNA. That being said, to this day, in my 39 years of life and love of good Mexican food, nothing has, or ever will taste as perfect as the street tacos the old man with a little igloo ice chest and a charcoal grill on wheels sold. He would scoot slowly down the strip and make them right in front of you for $1.00 each. I salivate at the memory.

As we finished getting checked in, bags unloaded, and drugs stashed, we quickly ate some tacos and drove to the end of town, through the flea market and down a little alley that opened up about 1/8th of a mile above the beach into what a plough had decided was this week’s road to Cholla Bay. I down shifted and stomped the gas until my rev limiter was about to kill the motor and shifted into higher gear. If you drove like you would on any street, you'd sink to the sand very quickly and would have to wait for someone with a 4X4 to happen past. As it was now nearly dark, you were as likely to be robbed by the police as you were the people driving the 4X4 you were counting on for a tow.

The tiny town of Cholla Bay did its best to stay up late, but it was usually asleep by 8:30pm. At Shaun’s request, my wife had leased a small one-bedroom condo in Cholla Bay. As you entered the town the sandy road turned to a V-shaped fork and the condo was to the right on the left side of the road about 6 to 8 houses up. These smaller Mexican buildings generally look like the owner built them by bending a truckload of rebar into the shape of a house then filled in the gaps with about as much concrete as the hoover dam needed for completion.

As we pulled into town, I had a strange feeling that I would have twice more in my time with Shaun. My ears felt warm and like they were growing very rapidly, my eyes seemed to pick out every detail in the sand, and my mind felt two seconds ahead in time. The hairs on my arms and neck stood out on end, and I knew everything was not OK.

We pulled into the vacant lot adjacent to the Wild Ones’dwelling. We had only leased the condo a few weeks prior and this would be my third time through the front door, but on my prior visits it was bright and loud and at least somewhat bawdy. Tonight, it was dark. The porch light was out, the windows were black and something felt wrong. In my soul I knew something was not in harmony with my memory of this place. I ordered my wife back in the car.

“Lock the doors and windows up!” I gave her the keys and had her sit in the driver’s seat. “If anything goes wrong, drive the fuck out of town! Don't stop until you are over the border!”

I closed the door on her. As I was walking up to the side of the condo cursing Mexicans and their insane gun laws and thinking of my gun, a Sig Sauer P229 sitting up inside my car’s exhaust hood next to the bulk of my drugs, I neared the first window. As I took in the window, I had a rush of vertigo as the adrenaline surged to toxic levels in my blood and my mind struggled to sort what I was seeing.

The windows were black. Blackened would be more appropriate. There had been a raging inferno. Because of the solid concrete construction, the exterior, aside from the windows looked as good as new. I edged up to the window and peeked inside at the black. Chunks and mounds of blackened mush with wiry claws entangled in rigor mortis as if hell has frozen in place and then rotted away. Of course it was just bits of clothing and furniture, but in that moment as the last breath of dusk exhaled softly in my ear, it was as if I'd stepped into a nightmare.

I moved as confidently as I could past the rest of the windows and spared only a glance at the front of the house and something snapped into place in my head. All of the windows and now the front door had furniture piled in front of them. Had Wild Man barricaded himself inside? The thought didn’t make sense. I'd seen him do incredible violence without becoming excited enough to open his eyes all the way. I covered the distance back to my car in the blink of an eye.

Waving at my wife and mouthing the words, “Move over NOW!” I flew down the sandy street, across the long dark road to Puerto Peñasco, through town and onto the highway, only spending $100 two times to make the speeding charges go away. Mexican cops – getting that job must be such a windfall.

We made it to the border four minutes before it closed. It was a massive relief. After two hours driving on a dark highway with sporadic streetlights – and don't discount that we were as high as kites on crystal meth – we had come up with the most terrifying cartel kidnappings involving moustachioed Mexicans straight from central casting, carving up Wild Man and cauterizing the wounds with a fat cigar pulled from between rotting teeth. We reached cell reception north of Ajo, Arizona and dialled Shaun. Voicemail first ring. Shit! Try again. Voicemail. So we went 3.5 more hours trying to reach Shaun.

Click here for Part 2 of The Driver: http://jonsjailjournal.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/the-driver-part-2-guest-blog-by-andy.html

Webpage for Party Time, including chapter 1 and Amazon links: http://shaunattwood.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=120&Itemid=119

 Party Time on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Party-Time-Shaun-Attwood/211408465606796?ref=hl

Shaun Attwood

Second Review of my new book Party Time, the prequel to Hard Time

By Steven McLaughlin, author of Clubland UK and Squaddie

Shaun Attwood is one of life's gifted people. When he was young his gift was for numbers. Now he is older that gift has been supplanted by a gift for words. But it is a gift that has been well earned and paid for, in losses of freedom and opportunity that most of us can scarcely imagine. And the gift that he has to offer in the telling of his tale is one that we'd be wise to seize and ponder - because his gift is a lesson to us all.

Party Time is a book that succeeds on many levels and Shaun Attwood is a writer of brilliance, wit and sensitivity. He is an outstandingly gifted raconteur and his ability to portray human emotion stretched taut as piano wire, caught up in a nightmare of spiralling drug addictions and Faustian pacts with deranged, tragicomic gangsters, is a bittersweet joy to behold. His writer's voice slips effortlessly from observational, to conversational, to stream of conscious - and never once does he lose we the reader. Shaun takes us on a roller coaster ride of desperate highs and lows, which veer from rocket-fuelled joy to slow-motion car-wreck, as his glittering Las Vegas lifestyle burns out in merciless desert heat - an apex predator turned roadkill, scorched into the sands. If ever a cautionary tale was written then this is it.

Laced with warmth and humanity, Party Time is more than just a crime tale; it's a story of friendship, innocence lost, the ties that bind and riches that blind. Underpinning the drama is Shaun's touching and at times misguided sense of responsibility towards his man-child enforcer and childhood protector `Wild Man' - an earthy force of nature who is as physically powerful and destructive as a Mid-West typhoon. Their shared loyalty is an unbreakable, almost telepathic bond that carries dangers in itself - the one area in which Shaun's razor sharp intellect fails him.

When Wild Man trips out so far that he baits infamous Mafioso `Sammy the Bull' Gravano as a `Plastic Gangster' and actively seeks out violence with his crew it is an unintentionally hilarious - but incredibly perilous - crisis for Shaun to damage control and mediate back to peace. And yet he does - time and again using his instinctive gifts to bail out his bear-like pal from all manner of situations. Wild Man rewards Shaun's care with an utterly fearless and unswerving devotion; he is Shaun's not-so-secret weapon and is able to resolve almost any situation by the mere fact of his presence and his aura of a man that is prepared to go to any lengths to protect his friend - even at the cost of himself. As Wild Man succinctly puts it: “you're the brains and I'm the brawn la.” There is never a second's doubt that each man will come through for the other - be it with cash, muscle, a helping hand or a helping fist.

The mental image of these two fiercely bonded Englishmen and their eccentric friendship conquering America's notoriously tough drug scene is one that lingers in the mind long after reading - it is an image that was made for the movies and belongs on the big screen. I look forward to seeing that happen.

If you've ever been involved in clubland and heard the distant wail of blue flashing lights, the close din of rushing boots, the breaking of a bottle, or the harsh utterance of guttural threats and known that `they' are coming for you, then Party Time will resonate like a pounding drum machine. And if you haven't then you'll certainly learn something about what goes on at the business end of the rave equation - behind the dancing and the getting high.

Click here for Party Time’s webpage and Amazon links, including chapter 1: http://shaunattwood.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=120&Itemid=119

Click here for Party Time on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Party-Time-Shaun-Attwood/211408465606796?ref=hl

Click here for the first review of Party Time by journalist Mike Peake: http://jonsjailjournal.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/first-review-of-party-time.html

Smashed in Karate

Just did a gruelling 3-hour's of karate. In the first session, Sensei Steve Gurney chose 2 people to fight everyone else without a rest in-between fights, and I was one of the two. The rules were I couldn't attack. I could only block, get the hell out of the way or absorb the blows. After 3 fights, I was panting like a dog. It did not go unnoticed that for the first time in my life, I had colour in my entire face. Walking home in my karate suit past the drunks at the local pub, I didn't even have the energy to respond to their regular heckling. All I could do was offer them a feeble smile. My hands are still trembling as if I have Alzheimer's. The forearm I blocked the most with appears to be growing a golf ball. I think I need to get off Facebook and lie down. :)

Click here for the blog When Not to Smash Someone - A Lesson From My Karate Friends

Shaun Attwood   

Grandma Abused in Sheriff Joe Arpaio's 4th Avenue Jail (By Rita)

I received this story from Rita via Facebook.

I am a 64 year old mom of two, grandma of an amazing 16 year old, and wife of 40 years who saw your Locked-Up Abroad episode Raving Arizona. I have such a 4th Avenue jail story. My family and friends can barely believe what happened to me.

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It’s pretty hard for me to write, but I've been carrying a lot of pain and fear and anger for 16 months. I’m a Buddhist and that has saved me, otherwise I think I would have been devoured by the whole mess. There is not a soul in the world I hate or hold bad feelings for, however Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his thugs tip the scale.

First, I am not looking for pity or absolution or trying to make excuses for what I did and the consequences. I am ashamed and still in disbelief over what I did and what happened to me. I do accept responsibility, but I will never accept being dehumanized at the hands of Arpaio and his sadists in the 4th Avenue jail in Jan 2011.

My background. I’ve lived in my home for 30 years. I have never had any problems with the police or courts. I volunteer in food banks and reading programs. My last job was a Flight Attendant.

Both of my parents were died in the wool alcoholics. Dad was a vicious bully who beat my mom senseless for years and mentally terrorized me. Mom had series of suicide attempts. I was an only child – a mistake in the back seat of a car.

I was a great student. I made up my mind to never wallow in the crap I was subjected to as a child. I held good jobs and met a "solid" man who I married and the rest is history.

I did inherit the addiction gene, and battled alcohol off and on for years, but I was never a script druggie or used illegal drugs. Once a year, I smoked a joint, which hurt my lungs, so I never made a habit out of it.

I’ve suffered from hideous nightmares since childhood. Sleep is very strained. I have been prescribed several sleep tablets: Ambien, Lunesta… But I can’t tolerate them. I become irrational and horrible when I take them, so I just get whatever sleep I can. I am prescribed Enbrel, a biologic medication for rheumatoid arthritis and it is wonderful. I've been on Fluoxetine for about 20 years. It seems okay. I take vitamins and heart medication as I had a cardiac ablation in 2006. I love reading and have hundreds of books in my library. I love art, music and nature.

My daughter is bipolar, which we have experienced with her since she was about 22. She lives with us off and on, and has had many suicide attempts. She has a big heart but a huge hole in her soul.

Okay now back to Jan 30^th 2011. At about 10am, I was asleep in my room. I heard scratching at my door, so I got up. My Australian Shepherd pet was standing there caked in his own diaherrhea. My husband had been up since 3am, and my 38 year old daughter since 9am. The poor dog couldn't get anyone to let him outside to do his business. I just stood there for a minute. I walked toward the back door, through the kitchen and family room. There was dog poop the whole way as he was becoming occasionally incontinent. His long hair was coated with poop. I let him out and went to my husband in his den. I asked why he hadn’t let the dog out.

He said, “I’ve been busy on my computer and didn't notice him.”

I went to my daughter in the bathroom, getting ready for work, and asked her why she hadn’t let him out. I got an eye roll. That just did it for me.

Everyone expects me to clean up the poop. I always have and still do. I went out and hand-cleaned his poor old bottom. I came back, but couldn't get anyone to communicate with me. I went and had two Natural Light beers. I thought I didn’t want to argue and face today, so I went and got my husband’s Temazepam he takes for sleep. I took at least two. I went back in my room and lay down. I just wanted to sleep.

I do not remember anything till after 3pm. I was standing in front of my front entry door with a 9mm Ruger pointed at my head, babbling, reality going in and out. I remember looking up at the sky and thinking, What a wonderful blue sky. Then I saw four Chandler Police officers with their guns aimed at me behind our retaining wall about six foot from me.

I heard them yelling, “Please don't make us do this!” and I didn't have a clue what they were talking about.

I was standing there with this gun as if it were no more than a cell phone or a soda. I knew I had it, but I didn't know why. I was brandishing it. Then I saw our neighbor across the street coming down his driveway and I thought, Oh Roger is gonna wash the Corvette. Maybe I'll help him...

I felt totally disconnected from what was happening , and like I was floating, no fear, no worries, just in the moment as we Buddhists like to say. I sat down on a bench at our door with the gun in my lap and the police still yelling at me. I felt so sorry for the young men in front of me. I couldn't understand why they were so upset. Then my front door opened and out came my poor old 70 year old husband.

The police then took aim at him. Well, he grabbed the gun and threw it in the birdbath away from me. The police were screaming, “Get in the house!” The next thing I knew, I was walking toward the police with my hands up. I went around the corner of house where two very large officers with assault rifles grabbed me, handcuffed me behind my back, dragged me half a block to the squad car, and threw me in. They had cordoned off the whole neighbourhood. There were 15 officers there. They thought I was probably going to die that day.

I give them so much credit for their restraint in not firing at me. They were just playing it second by second. I have no problems with their behavior or response at all. They were professional and did what was necessary.

Next, I was taken to the Chandler Police Department building, finger-printed and booked. I started to get into reality a bit more. It was my arresting officer’s second day on the job. He was so nervous, absolutely a great guy. His training officer let him take charge. He was having a hard time with the fingerprint machine, so we both worked on it together. I was still not totally in reality. I knew where I was, but just didn't care. I was cooperative, jovial and even downright funny. We got along fine. The officers told me that I would need to be booked at Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s jail and I could be bonded out that evening or early morning.

So far, I was making the best of a very bad situation. They took me into the 4th Avenue jail, and right off the bat I knew this wasn’t a good situation. It was dirty and loud and hostile and oh so cold. I was barefoot and in my jammies. No one would even offer me flip flops for my feet, which were scraped bad from being drug through the rocks and over the pavement.

I kept thinking, Hold on you'll be okay. You got yourself into this and you will have to suffer the consequences.

 A guard threw me in a Plexiglas tiny holding cell with a poor girl who had seen better days. Her makeup everywhere. Only one high heel. Her fishnets ripped. She was totally not there.

My arresting officer said, “Don't talk to the crazy lady.”

I told him, “I’m the crazy lady.”

He and his trainer and I had developed a good rapport.

I was interviewed and asked health questions. I told them about my prescription meds. Then my arresting officer said he was going to be leaving soon. I got scared, more scared than I have ever been. Just the week before, Marty Atencio had been killed by guards using Tasers at this jail.

Video of the guards murdering Marty:

In a loud voice, I said, “Please don't leave me. They kill people here.”

So help me God, you could have heard a pin drop.

The woman interviewing me said, “Tell ya what I'm gonna do with you. You don't seem to be taking this very seriously, so four guards are gonna take you to a cell where you will be all by yourself. It’s padded. No toilet. No toilet paper. You get a hole in the floor to do your business. These guards will throw you on the floor and take all your clothes off and your dentures and they will leave you there. If you don't cooperate there with them, they will make it bad on you.”

I started crying

“Shut up!” she yelled.

I called over to my arresting officer who looked about as scared as me. He came and put his arm around my shoulder and said, “You are a strong woman. You can do this. Stay calm. Don't talk. Don't cause trouble and do exactly what they tell you. You'll get thru this.”

Then I pleaded with him to call my family and let them know where I was. I asked him to call and check to see if I was still alive the next day. He said he would. I really thought I was going to be a statistic. I’d pissed the jailers off and they were gonna make sure I was as miserable as possible.

My arresting officer walked with me to the bench in front of the booking desk and set me down and cuffed me to the wall. He was talking with staff.

A young African American was a couple feet down the bench, dressed so cool. He kept staring at my bare feet. “Where's your shoes?”

“I don’t have any.”

“You shouldn't be walking on that cold filthy floor barefoot.” He yelled up to one of the staff at the desk to get me some slippers and they told him it wasn't his business and to shut up and stay out of it.

I said quietly, “That's okay. Don't worry.”

“No it isn't. I'll get my shoes off and you take my socks.”

“No. I’m sure they’ll give me something.”

A few minutes later, my arresting officer came over and walked me back until the jail staff took charge of me. He held my shoulder the whole time and kept whispering, “You will make it. Stay strong.”

I don’t think I've ever been given more compassionate concerned advice from a stranger in my life.

“Thanks for not shooting me.” I knew he would make a great police officer.

My own personal hell was about to begin.

I can’t stand whiners and I don't want to come across that way. I only spent 4 days in Arpaio’s jail, but what I want to emphasize is whether you are there for 4 minutes, 4 days or 4 years, you have certain human rights, and if you do not do anything to disrupt the system, you should not be degraded and dehumanized.

First thing was I had to strip in front of the guards, both male and female. They gave me a cavity search. I was dressed again to be taken to "wherever." Four women guards took me, handcuffed and shackled. They pushed me into a room called “the pit” and pushed me forward on the floor face down, spread-eagled. They tripped off all my clothes and warned me they would make it hard if I didn't cooperate.

They told me to give up my dentures and one said, “If you don't, I'll take them and you won’t like that.”

They left me totally unclothed. The pit smelled and had handprints on the wall of people who had streaked their poop across it. In the middle of the floor was my "urinal'' – a hole in the floor about 12 inches in diameter with metal bars across it. Every time someone flushed a toilet upstairs it would gurgle like it was going to back up. I figured I was in a women’s section but soon found out differently.

The door opened and a male guard threw in a 3 by 3 foot plastic dog pad as a blanket. It was stiff and not large enough to cover much. There were cameras in the room and oh my God how cold it was. I was born and raised in Denver, so I knew the cold, but this was terrible. I couldn't quit shaking. About every couple of hours, a male guard would come to the door to look in a small window to check on me.

After several hours, I was so thirsty, so I stood by the door and waited till he came and asked for water. When he gave me half of a bathroom Dixie cup for mouthwash, I asked if I could have toilet paper.

“No.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Figure it out.”

I was in that pit for 17 hours with no food and only about 4 ounces of water, really cold and so humiliated. I couldn't sleep because I was so cold and I was on the cold floor. I really thought I was going to die. I hadn't had my medication in 2 days. I could feel I was dehydrating. My arms were completely black from my fingers to my elbows from the cuffs the police and guards had put on me. I was bearing everything but the cold. I put my modesty and femininity aside and just knew I had to deal with it.

During the night, I had to urinate twice and those times were the closest I came to crying. I have never had to squat to pee on the ground with no toilet paper. I mentally told myself, You will not poop in here and believe me I held it in.

Believe it or not, I sang Johnny Cash jail songs and Emmylou Harris also. My Buddhism helped me. I focused on each individual moment and didn't think ahead about, When am I getting out? I just had to be in the moment.

The guy in the room on my left cried and sobbed a lot of the night. The guy in the room on the right ranted and cursed and raved the whole time. Apparently he was a Veteran of Afghanistan and was hitching across the country when he was picked up by Sheriff’s deputies and thrown in jail because he had a sign asking for food money. I didn't try to communicate because I didn't know if that would violate their rules, plus both of my neighbors were in their own hells.

I did look out of the tiny door window and made the attention of a young Hispanic guy in a room labelled ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement]. I started giving him the peace sign and he grinned and gave it back.

Finally, I had no idea what time it was but the door flew open and a male guard threw a plastic bag with my clothes in it at me. Two people dressed as civilians were standing there staring at me, a man and a woman. They never said a word, but I took them for psychiatric doctors. I had to ask for my dentures.

I was foolish enough to think I was leaving, but the guard said, “Hurry and get dressed you are going to court.”

I thought, Okay, at least that is progress.

I wasn’t allowed to wash or comb my hair to go to court. I got dressed and was taken out and shackled to a bunch of women in a line in the hall, cuffed at the waist of course, still in jammies, still barefoot. We stood there for a long while, men on one side, women on the other, no one talking. I was the oldest person there, 63, and I think everyone knew I was out of place. The inmates were all kind to me, and somewhat caring. The guards were disgraceful. I'm not a dancer or very coordinated, but I was having a horrible time shuffling down the hall once we got moving. I didn't want to trip the other girls up because I thought the guards would beat me.

Buddhism....focus....focus...focus...

We were led to a garage area to get into a paddy wagon, men on one side, women on the other to go to Chandler Municipal Court. I had a hell of a time getting up the steps to the wagon. I pretty much crawled on my hands and knees, and not a guard would give me a hand. We were scrunched in pretty tight with no safety restraints. There was no heat, and it was really cold. Some of the gals and guys bantered back and forth. I guess there were a lot of return customers. I just kept looking down at my cold bare feet. Everyone else had shoes or slippers. Everyone else had an ID bracelet. I had a piece of paper they gave me to hold on to. We made the 40 minute trip to Chandler court.

I stumbled off the wagon and we stood for a long time, each waiting our turn to go to the room and talk to the judge through a phone. I could not hear him. When I finally got there, he was a pisser.

He said, “This is terrible. You cannot go back to this address on the report until you have a letter on my desk on Monday morning from all the residents in the house that you can come back, and I'm going to plead for you guilty.”

Oh my God, I thought, Wait a minute, you can’t do that. It’s my right to plead guilty or not guilty.

He issued me a $2,500 dollar bail, and that was it other than to keep telling me I was terrible. At that point, I didn't know what crazy shit I had done that day, but I knew I was in deep and I felt like I was singled out. I just kept quiet and remembered what the arresting officer had told me. I knew I was in Arpaio's custody and anything could occur.

We made it back to the 4th Avenue jail, where we were put in a hall and divided up. I was sent to a cell, not back to the pit. A guard threw a real blanket to me. I tried lying on the concrete shelf and sleeping, unsuccessfully. I had no idea what was coming next. I was alone, but the blanket was a blessing. Actually it was a sheet, but who's to quibble. I was still barefoot, still in my jammies.

I was taken to another room with a lot of guards and fingerprinted again and given another piece of paper. I couldn't read it because I had no glasses.

A woman guard came up to me out of nowhere and said, “Don't accept any favors. You’ll never be able to pay them back.”

I had no idea what she was talking about.

From there, I was taken back to a little cell, and sometime later, collected.

A guard told me, “You’re going to see the psych.”

I thought, Good, let me tell them I have no idea what’s happening, no idea what I did to get here.

I was really scared, sat in a holding cell waiting to see the psychiatric doctor for a long time. A nasty little cell with cockroaches.  I had no idea how long I had been there even what day it was and I was so tired and cold. The guards everywhere in the facility were wearing big old ski jackets.

Finally, a doctor came in and asked me a few questions. He wanted to know if I would go to a treatment center if they scheduled it. I happily agreed. I would have agreed to eating nails at that point.

“I'll get on it,” he said.

Now up until this point and through the entire ordeal no one had given me a sobriety test or drug test. I sat there alone for a long time, so thirsty and light headed and not thinking I was ever going to go home or if my family even wanted me. I started thinking I have crossed the line and my husband is not going to bail me out, and I'm not really sure what I did.

So now I was really depressed and paranoid and thinking, This is my future.

I’m going to stop here for now, and will write more later. In my heart of hearts, I know my human rights were violated and in this country at this time that is totally unacceptable. What is even worse is that I'm frightened to step forward. I just can’t seem to let go of this, and I don't want others to have their humanity ripped from them.

Click here to read the story of the wife of a guard working for Sheriff Joe Arpaio

Shaun Attwood

Birthday Party

Great weather for my niece and nephew's Wizard of Oz joint birthday party. My niece, Yasmin, has cancer, which my sister Karen Parsons writes a deeply moving blog about here: http://ourlifewithleukaemia.blogspot.co.uk/

Shaun Attwood

YouTube Interview

In Central London at the YouTube television studio, getting interviewed by Simone Thorogood about my latest book, Party Time, the prequel to Hard Time.

The video will be posted when it becomes available. The previous video with Simone about Hard Time is here:



Shaun Attwood

Where Are You Reading Party Time?

Dan reading Party Time in Costa Del Sol
Click here to like the Facebook page for my new book Party Time
Shaun Attwood

Help With Self-Help Book

I’ve been commissioned to write a self-help book about the ten most important lessons I’ve learned in my life. The publisher has requested a 1½-page prologue, starting with the SWAT team raid, and mentioning my relations with the Mafia. Below is just a draft and there’s plenty of time to make changes, so your feedback and editorial suggestions are most welcome.  

Prologue 

Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!

“Tempe Police Department! We have a warrant!”

As I leap up from my computer table, my insides clench. I rush to the door. The peephole’s blacked out. Feeling the threat from the other side flare up, I jolt back. Through a window, I see police positioned behind cars and marksmen aiming rifles. Afraid of getting shot, I duck. Get the hell out! Blood surges to my head. Hide in the ceiling? Jump off the balcony? Nowhere to go! I’m trapped!

I’m halfway through the living room when – boom! – the door leaps off its hinges. Pointing huge guns, the SWAT team barricades me in with a wall of Plexiglas shields, screaming, “Get on the ground now!” Fear of getting shot paralyses me. My chest seizes up. The price has finally come for committing so many crimes.

It was years before I realised that the SWAT team had saved my life that day. Before my arrest, my drug-crazed behaviour had become so extreme, I once smashed my head through a plasterboard wall, just missing a lengthy nail by a few inches. I woke up caked in vomit with no recollection of what I’d done. The carpet cleaner couldn’t remove the stains because the chemicals in what I’d ingested were so toxic. My biggest competitor in the Ecstasy market, the Mafia mass murderer “Sammy the Bull” Gravano had a hit out on me, and I was under the protection of the New Mexican Mafia, the most dangerous criminal organization in Arizona.

Sobering up in prison, wondering how on earth I was still alive, I went on an amazing journey of self-discovery. Previously, working my way up from a penniless student to a stock-market millionaire and Ecstasy kingpin, I’d rushed through life without any introspection. Prison forced me to grow up. I saw how emotionally immature, selfish and foolish my behaviour had been. The pain I caused my family made me ill, but added extra motivation to my soul-searching. I regretted sending people down the road of drug use, which devastates so many. Shocked, ashamed, I set out to try and make sense of my behaviour in the hope of becoming a better person. I read over 1000 books and submerged myself in psychology and philosophy. I was fortunate enough to have counselling with a brilliant psychotherapist, Dr. Owen, and to befriend Two Tonys, a Mafia mass murder who left the corpses of rival gangsters from Tucson to Alaska. After I started putting his stories on the Internet, Two Tonys, a self-taught philosopher serving 112 years, took me under his wing and schooled me on prison etiquette

To this day, I fall back on what Dr. Owen, Two Tonys and other people taught me. Since my release five years ago, I’ve been blessed to share my experiences as a motivational speaker with tens of thousands of students in the UK, I managed to expose human rights violations in the jail I was at via an episode of Locked-Up Abroad televised worldwide, and my story was published as a trilogy. But just as importantly, I wake up with a smile on my face because I feel at peace with myself and the world. In this book, I’m going to share the lessons I learned that transformed my life.

 

Shaun Attwood 

Francis Holland School Visit

With Sawyer and Millie
 

Shaun Attwood