🔵 By David Breaux. Photo by lauragrafie.
Last month another Lifer took his life. At times like this I gives me pause for thought and I reflect back to the many times over the course of my years of doing time to the people and methods that were used and I have to admit by myself serving a “Natural Life” sentence for a brief moment I think maybe it’s better knowing that I have no real future that it would be the best way out?
I’m sure every lifer at one time or another faces that question, probably more than once.
“Don’t Do The Crime If You Can’t Do The Time!” Number one rule of the game. “The Game” is whatever your criminal enterprise is, sticking up, bootlegger, car thief, burglar, pimp, drug dealer, conman, booster, hustler. The rule has been in place far before it was made popular by a T.V. show called Baretta! In “The Game” suicide is considered “going out backwards” which no real criminal would ever do. So one may consider the thought but it is a fleeting thought. “Going out backwards” is and always will be considered weak! I was 15 and being charged as an adult and being held in the Cook County Jail the very firs time I witnessed someone kill themselves. I was in the hole for a fight when a guy in a detention cell set hisself on fire, worse smell in the world is the smell of human flesh burning. 2 months later I would still smell the stench of it.
Shortly after that I was placed on a different tier and a guy hung hisself from the bars in the corridor. The lesson I learned that day was never go near or try to help a fool “going out backwards.” the two inmates who tried to help him were taken to the hole and were later charged in his death, I never found out if they beat the charge. I was 19 and the next guy set his cell on fire, and in the hole in the cell next to him with 2 other inmates. White dude set his cell on fire, sat down on the toilet and never uttered a sound. Hell, the three of us were sleeping and lucky we didn’t die of smoke inhalation. And probably would have if the paint hadn’t melted off the metal walls burned my arm and woke me up.
I’ve witnessed guys hang themselves; hoard pills to take, smuggle dope in to O.D themselves, slash their wrist, methods differ and vary but the results are always the same. A lot of these guys that do, have life sentences, others, too scared and weak to do the time.