Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. A Prison Story.

Originally posted  January 09

He is standing in the chow line. A small framed , twenty something black guy. He is wearing his clothes backwards. His coat, his shirt, his pants, all backwards. The only thing pointed in the right direction are his shoes. The thing I found odd, even more than his 180 degree apparel is that not a single guard seemed to notice. He steps up to the serving line, they slap spoons and ladles full of starch laden prison food on his tray, the guy in line behind Mr. Ass Backwards gives him his three feet and then some. He manages to make it to a table, sits down, then just stares off in to space.

I'm sitting a few tables directly behind him, every prisoner in the chow hall is focused on the guy. Everyone just knows something is going to happen, the anticipation on their faces, waiting for something out of the ordinary to break the monotony of another day filled with instant mashed potatoes, mystery meat, and sameness. One of the guards finally notice the guy is clearly not dressed to code. He nudges a couple of the other hacks and they approach the table. I can't tell what they are saying to him, but the biggest of the three is leaning down in to the guys ear. I'm pretty sure he is saying something like " You are in violation of rule number something or another".

By now the chow hall has gone dead quiet, everyone is watching it unfold, something in the air tells you that something is going to happen. The big hack reaches down to take the guys tray, the other two step forward, one has his cuffs out, and then it happens. Backwards guy reaches over the table, grabs a perfectly round ball of mashed potatoes out of another guys tray, and smashes it in his own face. The guards step back for just a split second, not wanting to get taters and yellow congealed gravy on their too snug poly uniforms, it's the break he is looking for. He jumps up from the table, deceptively fast for a guy wearing his clothes backwards, and he bolts for the exit.

With the precision and oneness of swimmers doing a routine in one of those old Esther Williams movies, the chow hall empties out as Mr Backwards and the three hacks run out the exit. The little guy is fast, faster than the hacks, two of whom are pretty fat, the third guard, a young rookie is purposely hanging back, reluctant to reach the guy only to find he is on his own, which is understandable given the unpredictability of crazy convicts. One of the guards is talking in to his radio and by the time the chow hall has emptied, a crowd of several hundred convicts as an audience, several more guards come running out of the other cell houses.

The guy sprints out to the middle of the yard, alone with at least 40 or 50 feet of space between him and the nearest hack, then he stops. He is standing in the center of a closing circle of seven or eight guards, grinning his crazy ass off, smashed taters and yellow gravy clinging to his face, his chest heaving, then it starts. As the hacks close in, inmates start cheering the guy, egging him on. He stands there basking in it, taking it all in. Three guards rush him at once, with the agility and speed of an NFL kick returner, he lays down a couple of moves, and breaks past the guards, he sprints another 20 yards and has nothing between him and the razor wire encrusted fences except 50 yards of air and opportunity.

All the hacks are now running straight at the guy, the PA is blaring that the yard is closed, everyone return to your cell immediately, nobody moves, all eyes fixed on this crazy little fucker covered in shitty prison grub and backwards prison garb. Then he does it, and it all makes perfect sense, he starts to run backwards. He never loses that crazy grin, you can tell he is living in the moment, savoring every second of what can't last much longer. They close ground on him fairly quick, but he doesn't try to turn and sprint to gain some ground. He just keeps running backwards and grinning.

The hacks finally catch him, a couple of the real hard ass types tackle the little guy, manhandle him a little rougher than need be. But the little guy never stops grinning, he doesn't resist. They cuff him up, head to administrative segregation, a tight circle of corn fed guards and this one little crazy black guy. Applause, cheers, whistles and a litany of derogatory heckling of the red faced, slightly pissed guards follows him all the way to the hole, where he will probably spend a few weeks, probably get some psyche evaluation, or more meds. But the grin on his face tells you it was all worth it.

Everyone heads to their respective cell house, the mood is light for a change. It won't last, the air will grow thick and oppressive soon enough. There will be moments when the monotony will be broken, but they will end violently, a beating, a stabbing, something violent, most likely ending badly, Memories that you take away from prison are selective, all you have are these little vignettes of time, brief flashes, the majority of time just melds together, uneventful, mundane, long, and drawn out. I could recount a hundred moments like that, things turning out bad or worse for some convict or guard, but whats the point. Random acts of violence are commonplace in the joint. most of the guys doing time and most of the guards, just want to get through the day unscathed. Everybody just wants to go home. Unless you are especially fucked up, seeing someone beat or stabbed, or worse, just leaves you feeling a little sick to your stomach, there is no pleasure in it. But that little guy, harmless, grinning, and running backward, for a few minutes he was beautiful, and he knew it. For a few minutes he beat the system, he was free, and so was everyone who saw it.

Until I get my Mojo back...........

You probably are wondering over the lack of activity around here. To be honest I just keep coming up blank. I'll get a few hundred words in to a post, then it just falls apart. I've been trying to pin down some work, but 50 year old former career criminals aren't in high demand. Background checks, a job market flooded with younger, cheaper, cleaner applicants, and a shit economy are all making it tough to find my niche. So I'm chalking the writers block up to those factors. give me a week or two, and I'll be back up to speed. In the meantime I'm going to rerun some of my favorite stuff over the past 3 years. If you've already read it, read it again. If you haven't read it, it's all new to you anyway, so quit bitchin.
.............Without further ado. ................................

Willie was one of those guys that you instantly liked, always smiling, when he asked how you were doing, you believed he actually cared, wasn't just mouthing the words. I first met Willie when I was around 13, scraping plates, scrubbing pots, and busing tables at my Uncles restaurant. Willie was so fat he looked like he was standing up when he was sitting down, the way really big people do. It's like he couldn't bend in the middle. Willie almost whispered when he talked, a low gravelly voice, like a cross between Miles Davis and Froggy from the Little Rascals. Willie was black, it was the mid 70's, he had the requisite giant afro, the shirts with shoulder width collar, he drove a dollar bill green Cadillac. Willie was the epitome of the stereotypical inner city criminal of his era.

Willie didn't run girls, he didn't sell dope, and as far as I know he never got heavy handed with anyone. Willie ran a crap game out of a house, a stones throw from the little lake on Paseo Blvd.He also fenced stolen property, cars, motorcycles, whatever would turn a buck. Fast forward 10 years or so. Willie was like the Jimmy Carter of the local Kansas city criminal world. He bridged the divide between criminals from separate areas of the city. A black guy steals a car, Willie sells it to a white owned body shop where it was magically changed to a legal car and resold. In other words Willie was able to move in and out of opposing circles. With Willie moving around in so many different circles, I would run in to him in one bar or another along Wornall road. I never had any dealings with Willie as far as that goes, we were in different fields as it were. But we always took a few minutes to talk when we ran in to one another.

Willie was a family man, married to the same woman all his adult life, he had about a half dozen kids, did all the same things with his kids, as regular Joe America does with his kids. He was a good guy. I know what you're thinking, "he was a crook, and that means a not so good guy", and you are right, sort of. Nothing in life is black and white, life is full of various shades of gray. You can argue that Willie, or anyone for that matter, who makes a living illegally is basically a bad guy, taking the easy way, morally bankrupt, and I can't fault your thinking. The other side of the coin, there are guys like Willie who do everything else, just like everyone else. All of his kids but one, turned out well, went to college or some regular job. all I'm saying is that neither one cancels out the other.

One of the last times I saw Willie was in the late 80's, maybe the early 90's, the face of crime was changing, Willie was pushing 60, he looked tired. We had run in to one another at a bar on the south end of the city, so we had a few and he started talking about his youngest son, the only one who didn't turn out so well. Gangs had begun to really take hold on the east side of troost, Willies boy was mixed up in it all. Maybe it was the booze, or the late hour, but Willie was talking about something I had never heard come out of another criminals mouth. Regret. He told me he wished he had done things different, done things right, legit. His kid had caught a drug case and a murder charge, Willie figured he was to blame, set a poor example for his son. Maybe he was right , or maybe his kid would have turned out the same if Willie had been a janitor, or a doctor, who knows. The thing that struck me was the regret. I didn't get it, not back then anyway.

There was a moment when I thought I saw Willie start to tear up, there was a long pause, and Willie got up from the bar, slapped me on the shoulder and gave his standard parting line " Don't get none on ya", then he left. I remember thinking at the time that Willie was just getting old, that his regret was just a by product of getting closer to the end of his life, a superstitious belief that he would burn in hell if he didn't repent , feel remorse.

When I got out of prison it was the year 2000, Willie was dead, killed in an argument over a game of dice. Most of the guys I came up with were either dead or in prison for the rest of their lives. In most cases the thing that killed them or put them away, was drugs, whether directly or indirectly, dope was their downfall. I never fell under that curse, that's probably why I'm still around. Not because I was smarter than the Willie's of the world, I wasn't, I was just luckier and in the end that's all it comes down to , at least for me, just dumb luck.

Fast Eddie Friday........Douche Bags , Facebook, and the Waldo rapes.

Plenty to cover, short time to do it. Here we go , Fast and Loose.

There is something about the Waldo rape case that brings the D Bags out of the woodwork. Today's example just proves my point. But lets back up for just a second. Sex offenders, even those just accused, or suspected, evoke an understandably negative reaction from most of us. Hey, just ask Uncle Ed Muscare. We all want to see the Tree Jumpers and Pamper Bandits suffer a million painful deaths. Mention any high profile rape or child molestation, and without fail someone will offer up the obligatory curse on the offending creep, which usually goes something like this. " I hope they put him in a cell with a big Bubba who ass rapes him until his colon trails behind him like a prehensile tail", or something along those lines. Point being, any decent human being is angered when they hear of a woman or child being abused. Most ill informed people believe that rapists and chomo's will spend every moment of their prison sentence being passed around, beat down, and forced to wash some other dudes socks and boxers, while sporting Koolaid rouge and boot polish penciled in eyebrows. Hey it happens, but by and large sex offenders usually blend in with the rest of the prison population, and manage to avoid nightly colonoscopies performed with some dudes meat whistle wrapped in a bread bag.

My point, I get the anger, the desire to see some predatory creep suffer. Wishing a major Pox and a thousand slow deaths on a convicted sex offender is nothing new. Most of us have wished for bad shit to happen to some sex offender in jail or prison. The majority of you rubes have never set foot in a jail or prison, kudos for that, so you only have Hollywood, the media, and me as your frame of reference. You can nix the first two, and just go with yours truly to set you straight. I've been there, done that, and I bullshit ya not.

Now, back to the Waldo Rape case and the latest group of Latte sipping clueless morons to stir up the soup pot that is already boiling over with divisiveness and entitlement. No the 2 nimrods pictured above are not stunt doubles for Ryan Seacrest and Chris Tucker. The white guy started a facebook page celebrating the black guys one achievement in life. Beating up waldo rape suspect Bernard Jackson in the city jail. The black guy next to him is Antonio Collins, who was in the city jail with Jackson for carrying an illegal, unlicensed and most likely stolen pistol.

So whats the problem M M? The guy beat up a rapist, that's a good thing , right?

Let me be clear before some knuckle head tries to get me twisted and claim I'm somehow sympathetic to Jackson. Bernard Jackson spent most of his adult life in prison. He is a predatory scumbag, who is looking like he might be good for the recent string of rapes in the Waldo area. He hasn't been charged with the most recent rapes, but he has been charged with a number of rapes in the same are dating back to the 1980's. The only place Jackson will find sympathy is in the dictionary, somewhere between shit and syphilis. He wont garner sympathy in the court of public opinion, and he won't find it here. That said, it doesn't make these two ass hats pictured above any more palatable.

The white clown, and creator of

The Official Antonio "Waldo Rapist Fighter" Collins Fan Club

is Ben Blackman. He wants to sell T shirts with Antonio's image on the front, along with some kind of slogan. Ben claims all proceeds will go to some rape victims organization. Dude standing next to him is the one and thankfully only Antonio Collins. The facebook group is currently a shade under 2,000 members, and most of them are the same morons as the members of the Let's catch this prick facebook page. That's the same page that advocated dragging random black guys into your yard after you shoot them in the street. The same group that called for anyone resembling a police composite of the rape suspect, to be lynched in Arrowhead stadium.
On the Antonio Collins site, you will find comments that list Collins as one of the top 20 important African Americans of all time. They also mockingly quote Collins Ebonics street speech.
The group is chock full of white folks and 3 or 4 relatives of Collins, all calling him a hero, and a few offering to buy him shots, although I doubt he even knows where Kennedy's or any waldo bar is at, and probably wouldn't pass the dress code if he could find it.

Let's cut to the chase, this things getting too long. Antonio Collins would find himself surrounded by police cars if he walked a residential Waldo street after dark. These people who are swinging from his ball sack aren't his peers, they won't be spending long weekends together at the Lake House, or sampling wine and cheese at some white bread waldo establishment. If Collins approached one of them on the street, they would roll up their car window so fast it would create a vacuum in their Beemer and make their ears pop. Collins was busted packin a pistol. He was in jail, he stands for everything these people fear and loathe. But he did a piece of dirty work that these internet tough guys have been claiming they would do, or worse. So he is like a pet to them. Not unlike a one eyed , one eared , alley cat. The one you'll feed at the back door, but wouldn't ever let into your house.


You are probably wondering where this thing is headed, why I would care about a facebook page dedicated to a dude who beat up a bad guy. Well here's the rub.


There is a recurring theme in these two facebook pages. You have large numbers of people, displaying a mob mentality, turning a horrific string of rapes into a circus. The victims have once again taken a back seat to a bunch of nimrods who posture, talk tough, and make light of a serious situation. Most of these morons don't know any of the victims, most of them don't live in the Waldo area. They don't really have a dog in the fight. What they share is a juvenile and naive belief that Internet tough talk, off color jokes, and fawning over some petty street thug, is somehow productive and helpful. It isn't.......


Anyone who ever spent a day in the life will tell you that negative public opinion, especially where a defendant is villanized and publicly convicted prior to his trial, is a sure fire way to get a change of venue or win a new trial, post conviction. The lawyer who defends Bernard Jackson will almost certainly ask for a change of venue, based on shit like reactionary facebook pages, jailhouse beatings, and Internet threats made by thousands of white folks. If the change of venue is denied, then it will be grounds for appeal. Either way, the victims lose. They either travel to testify, or they repeatedly get drug back to court on appeals. So the victims end up reliving the most traumatizing event of their lives, over, and over, and over. You won't find much talk about the victims in the latest facebook page. These women will never completely move on from the traumatic event. They really can't even begin to move on until they are certain the right guy is in prison. Two things matter in the case of the Waldo rapes. The Victims, and Justice. Both deserve a little respect. The victims deserve to have a little peace, a little dignity. They won't find humor in Waldo rape beater T shirts. They won't be sitting around the living room laughing at Antonio Collins while he acts like a clown for a bunch of white middle manager types and bored soccer moms. Five women still live in fear, they still wait for charges in their cases. They deserve better than facebook parodies. They deserve to be treated with respect, dignity, and time to begin healing. Turning their tragedy into a circus and trying to capitalize on their pain is beneath low.

****If you tried to follow the link to the facebook page, you are probably shit out of luck. The page has either been shut down or gone private.*****

Back. Bigger. Better. More cynical than ever.

I've got about a half dozen unfinished posts just sitting drawing dust. Weighty subject matter, serious, heavy, slightly depressing, with a twist of pessimism. Just like you rubes prefer your double M served up. But I'm going to let those posts find their way to the trash bin. It's a new dawn, a new day, and I'm feeling good, or whatever. As previously threatened I've been on hiatus, which is blogger slang for burn out. But I'm back, bigger and better, or something. To be honest I was just about to pull the trigger on this thing, lets face it, you can only point out the obvious so many times until it becomes redundant and pretty fucking boring. So I've just been sitting back in the cut, waiting for something, anything, that would rejuvenate. A few days ago I crossed paths with my reason to keep pounding the worn keys on my antiquated laptop.


I was running some errands out south, and decided to take the scenic route on my way back to the house. Not so much because I prefer travelling the back roads of Kansas City, but because Max the Yorkie prefers hanging his head out the window and growling at trees as we wind our way along Blue River, through Swope, or in this instance, along Grandview road. If you aren't familiar with the area I'm talking about, it's a winding 2 lane road that runs from about 85th in south KC to Grandview. Anyway, it's about as close to the sticks as you can get and still be in the city. So we are driving along, just crossed over Bannister road, heading north down this twisting hill that bottoms out at Blue River, and that's when we encounter her. More precise, we hear her first. A blood curdling scream, " Help me, Help me, somebody help me". No exaggeration , the woman was probably a good quarter mile away, and she was screaming so loud it was like she was right next to me.


If I had hair on my neck, or my head, it would have been standing on end. Max practically jumped out the window. It sounded like someone was killing the woman who we couldn't see but could hear so clearly. Two things were going through my mind as we crested the hill that blocked her from our view. The first was, " Somebody is getting killed" followed by " Shit, there's no place to turn around". As we top the hill I see her, a middle aged black woman stands in the middle of the road, and she is screaming bloody murder, clearly terrified. It takes a second before I spot the source of her terror. Two dogs, a lab mix, and a beagle. My first thought is they must be attacking her. But they aren't, they are just standing one on each side of her, wagging their tails, no aggression, no signs of damage to the lady, no torn clothing, no blood. I stop about 20 feet away. She is looking dead at me at this point, screaming her ass off, pleading for help.


Now you might be thinking ol MM has got sugar in his tank, you probably are wondering why I didn't just get out, maybe shoo the dogs away. Better yet, why not just pull alongside the distressed woman, let her in my car, and ferry her away to safety. Here's the rub, I grew up watching The Price is Right. I've witnessed the carnage when an overly excited African American lady guessed the closest price of some Lane Furniture. I've watched the impeccably dressed Bob Barker get mauled. No way I'm letting this woman in my car. Now had these dogs been vicious, or shown signs of aggression, my conscience would have gotten the better of me, I'd have intervened. As things stood, she wasn't in any danger, besides, there could have been a couple of highwaymen waiting in the woods, ready to pounce, relieve me of my 10 year old car, the 6 bucks in change I had in the console, and the half a joint that was in my shirt pocket in case I had a glaucoma attack.


While I'm sitting there trying to figure out what if anything I should do, a newer SUV rounds the bend coming from the opposite direction. The driver is a black guy, 30 something, appeared to be an upwardly mobile professional suit type. He stops, also about 20 feet from the screaming crazy woman. and there we sit, me looking from her to him, and back to the two dogs who at this point are sitting to the right and left of this woman, heads tilted quizzically, tails wagging even as they are sitting. Upwardly mobile black dude is doing the same routine as me, looking from her, to me, to the dogs. Then it happens, one of the dogs makes his move, he licks her leg. She freaks the fuck out. Black yuppie guy is now in her sites, she runs up to the passenger side of his SUV. Unlike me, dude did not have the foresight to lock his doors. The woman yanks his door open, screaming like a banshee, and jumps in his vehicle, promptly followed by the 2 dogs.


Life is a funny thing, you just never know what kind of random shit you are going to come across. You never know where or when something life changing might occur. It's all random moments, frozen in time, forever stored in your memory, like little vignettes, your own personal short films. This was one of those moments.

The frantic screaming woman climbs into the upwardly mobile black guys SUV, the two dogs follow. For just a second, our eyes lock, his are in full panic, WTF do I do mode, mine are showing a mixture of relief and amusement. Relieved she didn't try to get in my car, amused she got in his. When the woman realized the dogs were practically in her lap, she proceeds to scream even louder, and starts climbing over this poor guy. He bails out of his car, she bails out of his car, the dogs just sit in the car, like it's time to go for a ride. At this point a white guy comes running across the lawn of one of the few houses along this stretch, calls his dogs, they jump out of the SUV, and with a final whiff of the frightened lady's leg, they trot off towards the house. I finally drive around the woman and stunned upwardly mobile dude. I watch them in my rear view mirror, woman clinging to the guy like there's no tomorrow, dudes trying his best to extricate himself and get the fuck out of Dodge.


As we continue to wind along Blue River road and eventually through Swope Park, Max with his head out the window, the wind whipping through his hair as he sniffs the air, I realize I've just been witness to something that only 2 other people and 3 dogs saw. As lame as it may sound, I was struck with a moment of clarity, a realization that what I witnessed is what makes me keep writing, for zero pay, and not nearly enough notoriety. Who was going to tell you rubes what happened at a particular moment in time, on a semi isolated stretch of road, if not me. So I'm back, hopefully, and with a little more dedication to cranking out at least a few posts a week. And it's all thanks to a hysterical woman, on an isolated stretch of road, and 2 dogs who just wanted a belly rub or a ride in some random dudes SUV.