Experience as Parable

A young (nice) kid got beat up today, 5 feet from outside my cell door. I heard the 5 or 6 taps from the assaulters first hitting the kid’s mouth and skill. It is sad I know that sound, but it’s even sadder that it took me 45 seconds or so to actually get off my bunk and see if he was okay. I saw the assaulter leave in a hurry so I knew something had happened. The kid’s face and nose were in really bad shape. Eventually the guards came in and took both of them away. They also took a third person away; a guy that attempted to hurt the original assaulter. All three people are going to get punished. The kid who was assaulted and the person who tried to stand up for him will face the same consequences as the asshole that did the violence. That is bullshit and insane, that is unless you are trying to prove two things. You cannot take the law (a monopoly on violence) into your own hands. There are no victims in jail, only criminals, on other words inmates, or more clearly, subhumans.

The blood that was all over his face and the floor made me feel many things. The first was fear, fear of pain, fear of being a victim of assault again. Then came the fear of violence, violence is very dreadful, very real. With the current inequalities and resource scarcities, a crazy amount of violence is happening right now, but soon it is going to have a more physical manifestation. Some people don’t feel fear when they see clearcuts or logger trucks or mills or paper for that matter, but first world people always react in some way to bloodshed. Some sadistic fucks get aroused or happy at the sight of it, but most get a similar reaction to mine. Our culture is use to police and military to do the dirty work. We are use to economic sanctions and prisons to commit our genocides. Back to the point – we are not prepared to see the bloodshed we are currently inflicting and the increased bloodshed that’s coming soon. I don’t even want to write about it, I wish I wasn’t. The next feeling I had was a fear of authority, I had already seen the images of victim blaming go through my head as this kid sat their bloody. I debated whether or not to talk about what I saw. Would it be snitching? Would it blowback on me? Could I say anything, do anything to hide this from the authorities and attempt to handle it on our own?

The final feeling, and I’m ashamed it came so late was, how can I fight back? How should I get this asshole back? How can I get back at the larger culture for making all this so real, so common? How can I get the cops back for putting all of us in here in the first place? How can I make the politicians and corporate executives pay for being even more culpable than even the cops? The guard finally walked over and then all the crazy lockdown, tons of guards rushing in and all that stuff happened. I sat there, well here, and standing, actually pacing, still thinking, still racing through emotions. I realized the assaulter was someone in here on a domestic abuse charge, a charge he bragged about. Why didn’t I remember that before? Why did I not go and immediately confront him? Why was I more willing to – or more rapid – or more able to fight when I was 14 and 15? Now my brain processes and thinks and analyzes. I guess this is good, given my circumstances and consequences. Why is self-preservation so high up on my worries and by worries, I mean excuses? I finally was resolved, ready to fight, and I was locked down powerless.

It’s been about 2 hours since then and I think I know why I’m still bothered by all of this. When it comes to defending those and what I love, I don’t want to act that slowly. I don’t want to have to think, I want to be able to pounce immediately. I don’t want self-preservation or consequences to affect my action/inaction. I don’t want a fear of authority or moral issues preventing me or slowing me from what I want to, what I need to defend.

I guess that’s why I’m so bothered. I already know what I want, what I need to defend and I’m not doing it. All these fears have me paralyzed. I always tell myself I’m waiting, waiting for leverage, for more bang in my buck, but maybe these are just excuses.

I don’t want to overly turn someone’s pain into a look at me, pity me, what about me-fest. So I’ll end it here. There will be no excuse good enough, no resolve resolved enoughed, no preparations prepared strategically enough, if by the time I’m ready to fight, I find myself locked down – so incredibly powerless. Repression is rising and the time for action is now. I’m ready to fight for what I love. I’m ready.

Never give up.
Jayson Tx #10126758

P.S. This is by no means meant to sound fatalist in any manner. I still look forward to fun and happy things. I still want to find more loves, grow more veggies, read more books and heck, even dance a little. It’s just having such a literal metaphor (I don’t know how else to describe it) I guess an experiential parable, yeah that’s it, having the Experiential Parable of being locked up when I was finally ready to act, made me realize that I don’t want that to happen again, not ever, especially not for those things I feel closest to.

Written from Nueces County Jail

(Transcribed by Charity)