The following commentary was written by John Ramirez based on Billy Tracy’s Months Before Six series, with Billy’s encouragement. John and Billy are friends and neighbors on Death Watch at the Polunsky Unit in Texas. John is scheduled to be executed on September 8, 2021
Anthony Shore
So right off the bat I liked how you explained the ice cream thing we do … a good li’l extra info you could’ve threw in there would have been if you explained how most Death Row guys do that very thing when a new guy first arrives and doesn’t have anything … Then how the guys whose date comes up buys everyone an ice cream on his last $150 spend too! So swing it in such a way that you’re pointing out that arriving were all given that li’l hook up from others, and on our way out we in turn give that hook up to those left behind! BAM! HOOK/LINE/SINKER! Talk about humanizing the condemned man. I can’t even teach ya everything Billy, ya gotta figure some of this stuff out yourself, ya know? The way you described the atmosphere here when it’s someone’s date, was REALLY GOOD … the only thing I would’ve added would’ve been how SOME guards, who’ve been here so long are really desensitized to that experience of witnessing a man’s last words/steps/breaths/etc. etc. etc.! Cause that’s not something the public would normally think about on their own. You gotta LEAD the horse to the river, once it SEES the water, it will willingly drink its fill homie! I also appreciated the whole explanation about HOW they tried antagonizing him with that whole dayroom situation. Cause again most folks wouldn’t even think something like THAT goes down without light being shed on it like that. I HATE how T-Bone got pretty much RAILROADED with that silly Larry thing. You keeping a neutral standpoint pretty much, was a SOLID MOVE on your part! For that alone, I give this one a very enthusiastic HIGH 5! (making High 5’ing motions to ya!)
William Rayford
Ok so you started this one out by describing what Rayford LOOKED LIKE, which on the cool is exactly the first thing I think about when I think of him! Cause he was a character, huh? So just outta curiosity, did you do that intentionally, or was it one of those happy accidents? DON’T LIE! The way you talked about you intentionally trying to occupy his time so he wasn’t just in his cell stressing with the anticipation was also something I really enjoyed cause when you write in that manner, you’re giving folks something relatable to ponder cause who hasn’t been anxious as hell about something, right? So a subdued nonchalant KUDOS to you my cracker homie! Don’t wanna blow your head up anymore than it already is!
John Battaglia
Ok so let me begin by saying that I did NOT like Batman AT ALL cause that old man was SUPER DUPER racist and just an overall general HATER! You know how you call me a “hater”? Well I am to: hater, what Batman was to: Holocaust! (vigorously nodding my head!) But with that being said, I did NOT like this one AT ALL cause of how you basically laid it out that you tried like heck to say something good about him, but couldn’t for the life of you find anything. So you went with some oh generic “everybody gets a trophy” type spill. You did try though, I’ll give ya that cause I doubt I would’ve been able to lay it out as well as you did. But you gotta remember that you’re writing about someone who was MURDERED in the highest form of premeditated murder by his own government! Regardless if Batman was an all-out POS who went outta his way to take a dump on people (NOT saying that he was), someone loved him. Someone cared about him, someone worried about him, and most importantly someone GRIEVED for him! So imagine that “someone” reading this and having to come to terms with something like “well my (fill in the blank) was a terrible unloved person his last yr’s of life WHERE HE WAS AT.” Yeah Billy, NOT a good look Buddy. So I give this one some serious side-eye with an extra helping of cold shoulder! And just to top it all off, I’ll throw in a throaty drawn-out “YOOOOOOU SUCK!” …
Thomas Whitaker
In this one you can tell you had fun penning it, and just as laughter is contagious in real life … all forms of humor in writing are also very contagious! Have you ever noticed when reading something silly or intentionally slap-stick (i.e 3 Stooges), that you find yourself laughing even though you don’t really think that’s funny to you??? It’s one of those things like when you SEE someone yawn, for some reason it always causes you to alsoooooo … (YAAAAAAAWN) … yawn too! (Shoulder shrug!) The only thing I would’ve added was maybe a line or two pointing out that your whole “Bobby’s World” comparison was mostly due to his EGO! Cause I know him and until you pointed it out to me, I thought you were making fun of him having a big head instead. DOH! (Forehead slap!) And before you ask, NO your moniker of “ol Big Head” did not clarify that for me. Talking about his pursuit of education was also GOOD, you should’ve threw in some side-bar style footnotes explaining that most guys here don’t have the resources to do that, unless they had a sponsor! WHA-WHAT!!! (Fist pump for higher education!)
Rosendo Rodriguez
The focus here was on how much Rod was into German culture and whatnot … which WAS a huge part of WHO he was. So ya captured THAT to a TEE! Pointing out German’s recidivism rate and HOW they focus their penal system was a GOOD direction too. You should’ve threw in like a link to some websites or forums or something that SHOWED all that info for the public to read up on and inform themselves. And of course all the stuff he did and worked on to aid and look out for others is something near and dear to my heart, so I’ll always agree with throwing SHINE on someone’s “servant-hearted” disposition! WORD … FO SHIZZLE MY NIZZLE! I give this one a Siempre Fi and OOOOOH-RAAA for my fellow Marine!
Erik Davilla
You began this one again by describing how he looked which is good for setting the scene of what you wanna say (so to speak). And how you described his laugh was spot on cause HELL YEAH! His laugh was super-duper animated as if it started in his toes and its way up to his mouth. Interpretive writing is always good for painting a good picture. I would’ve left out the whole gang affiliation thing, cause UNLESS the reader has some kinda personal experience with that type of upbringing or person, then it usually automatically leads to an unsavory bias point of view BEFORE they even had the chance to digest some more details and facts about the guy! (How’s THAT for a run-on sentence? HA! … I got skills Bro!) Now the part about him looking up at the passing plane declaring “I’m here” … MAYNE HOLD UP!!! … that is one of those things that REALLY makes you stop and give some cogitative thinking to! (“Cogitative” … eh ehhh, word of the day??? … NO, alright I’ll keep trying!) Explaining the “warriors heart” mentality and also how there’s a “respect for respect” understanding with a lot of the guards was WELL DONE here SPECIFICALLY cause of how you pointed out that he was BOTH gangsta and a good person! I reread this one a second time so I could pay attention MORE and see if I FELT LIKE I AGREED WITH YOUR STATEMENT there … and cause you penned it really well. I DID! So there’s a bit of a litigation skills in ya Billy Boy! (Miming patting you on the back for a job well done!) I give this one five RED 5 PONTED STARS!!! And if Truman is in any form of afterlife where he’s even a li’l aware of us still here on the corporal plane … to him I say “YEAH Truman, you were HERE DOG! … so I end this review BARKING AT YA!
Juan Castillo
Straight off the jump let me just say flat-out that this one is personal for me cause Castillo was one of the few people I’ve come across since being on Death Row that I truly consider a real “friend”! So as you already experienced once by my pervious comments about your choice of words … I MAY be a li’l bias on this one, huh! (Shoulder shrug!) It happens … so I emptied my mind and gave it a fresh read, ok! Cool! (Thumbs up!) The blank sheet of paper staring contest, is something I just went through trying to write my li’l bro. So I could totally relate to that right away. As for his dorky sounding self on the radio in his interview…YUP, we ALL sound funny as hell! I’ve SEEN and listened to a few of my interviews and if you didn’t know me. You’d think I was this super-duper friendly nerd! (Subconsciously puffing my chest out and giving my recorded self the vatos locos “what’s up ese” head nod!) Me and Castillo had one thing in common that we connected real strong on and that was that he had a teenage son who was the complete opposite of him! What we’d call a total SQUARE! And just like me, he was beyond grateful for that cause he didn’t want his son living at all how he lived. My son is the same way too, and just recently he hit that teenage growth spurt just like Castillo’s son did … so my li’l mini-me is now more like a Shrek mini-me! (Me mean-mugging my son!) … “I’ll still whoop you fool” … NOW, the part where you cried, just outta curiosity … did you REALLY? I ask only cause there has only been two guys here who I’ve cried for when they were murdered … my li’l bro Lopez and of course my JIGGA (Jewish nigga) Joey! The bonds created through suffering the same pains and injustices together, always builds a kinship that most people don’t even NOTICE. The irony of a place that’s literally designed to break a person down and keep him oppressed, oftentimes strengthens him through the bonds gained by the very things intended to divide and conquer! On a personal note, if NOT for my li’l friends and associates here … I very easily MAY have turned out just like many of these psyche patients here. What was that philosophers name … Fyodor something??? Who said “IF you have a WHY to live for, then you can BEAR any HOW”? I serve, I help out, I give, I bless, I leave BETTER almost everyone I come in contact with! Well EXCEPT for the toothless wonder down the run … (for details on WHO this “toothless wonder” is, get the INSIDE SCOOP from Billy!). But heck he’s just unhelpable! (Word of the Day??? Eh ehh … does it have to be an actual word? BOOOOOO you SUCK!) You pointing out the ignorant comments of the show’s (Execution Watch) host about Castillo’s “temper tantrum” was RIGHT ON POINT too! Cause many of us experience that complete sense of helplessness from being force to sit there and watch those appointed lawyers just throw ya under the bus (for lack of a better phrase). Castillo actually FLEXED his nuts on them fools by taking the already bad situation and at least TRYING to fight for himself. How many of us can SAY THAT about our trials? (Not making eye contact!) The only thing I would’ve written differently in this one, is HOW you let your heart (emotions) come out when you vehemently speak out against their ignorant comments. When you could’ve used that opening to hand out some insight on HOW these trials go down so tilted against us and we are mostly completely helpless to do anything EXCEPT attempt to fight for ourselves … like Castillo did! Cause once again, the public would NOT normally think of something like this. You DO take advantage of this great avenue you have to reach many people in A LOT of your writings as far as I can see … so let me just double down and encourage you to maybe ALWAYS try to make it a point to throw in some educational stuff in ALL of them! All it takes is a seed to be planted to grow a mighty oak Mr. BBB! (I’m chock-full of these neat fun li’l sayings, huh?) Oh and I liked how you made mention of his honesty too, cause he was a straight shooting kinda guy! And I can’t stand liars much, so I was here nodding my head like “YEEEEEEAH THAT’S RIGHT”! When you went into the part about his childhood tatt of the electric chair that was a good opportunity to speak a li’l on the power of persuasion and the law of attraction! Ya know, since you’re into all that psychology mumbo jumbo! It’s ok to showcase your intellect in your writings here and there Homie … just don’t get carried away and be there doing silly things like trying to say a word of the day, huh! (Cause that’s MY THING, get your own thing sucka!) So in closing this review I will say one thing after giving this a second read, I no longer feel like you’re making it MORE than what it was when it comes to yours and Castillo’s “connection” (friendship), cause people are gonna always INVEST in the things they care about. And the length alone of this one SHOWS you had some real feelings about him. So I give this one two BIG EARS for the Orejon from San Anto!!! (“Orejon” is what they call people from San Antonio … and it’s Spanish for “big ears”.)
Danny Bible
Ok so you KNOW I’m a sucka for sarcasm, so your whole blatantly outrageous sarcastic comments like “two highly trained Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) guards with body armor and pepper spray stood at his elbows to ensure he did not attempt to escape or harm the nurse” … that was TOO COOL FOR SCHOOL! More of THAT, please? (Head nodding!) The only thing I would’ve threw in there was how they emptied the courtroom when he was bench warranted back to his county jail when they had that hearing to set him his murder date. Cause you could’ve had some fun with that setting, seeing how they emptied the courtroom cause of (according to newspaper articles) how “dangerous” he was!! (SUPER DUPER eye-roll!) HAHA! That was an optimum opportunity to really drive home the extremely ridiculous actions that not only TDCJ takes, but out trial courts as well. Anybody with half a brain will read that and immediately KNOW that something is off. You also could’ve played off of the hypocrisy of Texas adamantly demanding we’re held responsible for our actions and what they cause … BUT at the same time they NEVER once took responsibility for injuring Danny and leaving him in that broken state of existence! How so very “do I say, not as I do” of them. I give this one a double “Ca-Chunk” with a side of “VRRRRRRRRM!” … (SLOW DOWN SPEEDY, SLOW DOWN!) …
Christopher Young
Yeah this style here is super LIVE! A dialogue that showed pretty clearly exactly the sentiment behind these days when we’re either losing friends, or losing OURSELVES! When Lunatic said he had to pull himself back in before he broke. THAT is something I honestly think we ALL go through. Even if most of us won’t admit it. I’ve long known the value of therapy and it’s most basic solution … repetition to desensitize us to some form of pain or trauma! Lunatic talking about counting down his days even though he was determined NOT to do that very thing, is something I personally experienced during my first murder date in 2016. I have NEVER in my (at the time) thirty-two years of life cried so much as those ninety-six days the judge gave me when he set my first murder date for February 2, 2017! Almost every one of those tears was for my son and my son ALONE cause I had just gotten close to him and he was at that age where we could conversate person to person, instead of li’l child to man, ya know? And NOW I was gonna be taken away from that and he was gonna have to go through that at his young age. I cried for all the missed days I wasn’t gonna see or hear about or sees pics of and so forth! Birthdays, graduation, first serious girlfriend, first kid, etc. etc. etc.! So during one of my cry sessions in the darked out cell, I got this insanely terrifying feeling of being up high and falling down like some extreme vertigo or something??? And for whatever reason I just let it surge instead of fight it back like Lunatic talks about here. And it chocked me out and made me gag and had me shaking so bad I thought I was having some kinda attack. I rode it out till it died out and when that feeling came upon me again, I let it surge again! Eventually I recognized WHAT was triggering that feeling, it was every time I thought about laying on that gurney strapped down unable to move while I’m slowly poisoned to death! I write about this sensation in some of my poems, about how it’s REALLY GONNA HURT WHEN IT BECOMES MY TURN and whatnot … and after letting it really hurt me each time I rode that feeling out, I started to become desensitized to it and now it still happens, but I sorta just deflect it and push it away. And I’ve thought about it A LOT and I believe that when I am on that gurney (IF it happens) I’ll be OK cause I have trained myself to BEAR IT. I did it unknowingly, but nonetheless I know full well what Lunatic was talking about and I let it break me over and over and over again … but NOW I’ve broken it! TAKE THAT weird crazy helpless feeling this mental torture causes us! I, for some reason got a big kick outta the back and forth banter between you and him where y’all use playful racial words to egg each other on. GEE, I wonder why…??? (BANTER, eh ehh … Word of the day???…OH COME ON, who uses “banter” in everyday convo Billy! You’re killing me Smalls!) Lastly, the mention of his daughter was AWESOME SAUCE cause it showed exactly what I was saying about Batman earlier. Regardless of what happened and what someone did in their past, there’s someone who LOVES them, someone who CARES about them … and so on and so on! So when you’re writing about a person who’s been murdered in such a way as the death penalty, I recommend you always err on the side of … oh, I don’t know … LETTING THE DEAD MAKE IT! FYI: I’m not really giving you a hard time about Batman, I’m just ensuring you remember my words Billy oh buddy oh pal oh friend of mine! (Flat stare!) I give this one a standing ovation since it was a GOOD one to close out this bunch with! (Even if unintentional1) Now on to the next bunch …
Troy Clark
So right from the jump I noticed how you pointed out people bumping their gums (talking crap about someone) behind Pennywise’s back, but then never did it in front of him when he was here in the section with them. THIS is exactly why I stated earlier that I don’t like that whole ostracizing thing everybody does to guys once there’s even a RUMOR that the guy is snitching! Basically what it amounts to, is all someone has to do is ACCUSE YOU of snitching, and that’s it … for all intents and purposes, YOU’RE A SNITCH! Case closed! This is the prison version of today’s commonly accepted “cancel culture”! The free world is just getting their fill of that phenomenon, but this has been going on in the penal system for decades now! Another thing to point out is that no matter where you’re at or who you’re around, there’s always gonna be those who for whatever reason just don’t get along with you or simply dislike you. Haters are gonna hate, we all do it in some form or another. So one thing you did well in this one was you made Troy’s case for himself by using his own actions and general attitude. People are gonna always show themselves by their actions and their words. You will know a tree by the fruit it bears, correct? YUP! (Head nodding!) And you also used his occasional shady moments too, so all in all a well-rounded writing on HIM and WHO: he was. THIS is the kinda farewell I want written about me if I gotta go…straight up honesty! The good, the bad, the joyful sad, the happy-go-lucky, or just plain mad! You talked about “fishing” and me and a guy named Fat Joe who was murdered in like 2014 (from Corpus Christi too) we made up this whole skit where we’re free and going to a restaurant to eat, and the whole time we’re doing prison stuff like using pencil leads to light our cigarettes, and asking the waitress if she took big flags or small flags (flags = stamps)…then pulling out our fishing line and tying off a weight to it and chucking it across the dining area towards the counter and hollering for them to put some salsa in the bag we tied onto the line! HAHA! We went all the way RETARDED with it, but it came across really well to give free world people (that we were writing to) a glimpse of how we have to adapt and do things as easy as (and commonly taken for granted by free world people) “sharing things.” It was a great convo starter and well I know my pen pals learned A LOT from that humorous twist to our “fishing” habits. You did the same here too, just not all whacko style like I did. This was a good example of my earlier recommendations for you to use your chances (like this one here) to educate the public about things they’ll NEVER think about normally. All working towards the same end result of your goal…humanizing us to them! Lastly, I gotta touch base on you sharing how Pennywise was willingly laying his life down by dropping his appeals. THAT I can tell you from my personal experience and from my li’l bro Lopez’s exit as well, is something that is very FOREIGN to them. So that’s a definite convo starter too! (Head nodding!) I give this one 1 commissary receipt with a side of three red noses! (For an explanation on THIS rating your readers will have to get the Inside Scoop from you Billy boy!)
Daniel Acker
Yeah this one is what I’d call short and to the point. You focused on his feelings on dying and finally having to actually accept that he was most likely gonna be murdered. There’s so much content here that I can easily get carried away with my thoughts on the whole psychological side of this one. ..So INSTEAD let me give ya some inside scoop on one aspect of Daniel’s world that you weren’t aware of to be able to mention, but that definitely merits some lines to eternally memorialize THIS big part of his life! So Acker (as everyone called him) was what everyone would easily refer to as a “mama’s boy!” There’s a prison radio show called “The Prison Show” that airs every Fri. on a Houston public radio station called “KPFT.org 90.1FM”. The most famous thing about this show is the second hour from 10pm to 11pm where the host takes callers LIVE on the air to do shout-outs to their loved ones in a Texas prison in this area that catches that radio station. Acker’s mama, Nancy, was a devout caller on there every single Fri. WITHOUT FAIL! And she started every shout-out the exact same way…in her soft grandmotherly country accented voice, she’d go off into her spill for that day. EVERYONE who listens to this show knows Ms. Nancy! Just like everyone knew the young girl who would sing “You are My Sunshine” to her father every single week as well! Nancy was a staple on that show and Acker loved the heck outta her and was never ashamed to freely express that and show it either. I’ve been next to him at visit and he was the most loving RESPECTFUL full frown man I’d ever heard in my life! With all his “Yes Ma’am’s” and “pleases” and “thank yous” and the ever present “I love you too Mama” as well! Everyone so readily recognized how much Ms. Nancy supported and helped her son Daniel through his journey on Texas Death Row that when Daniel was murdered and the next show AIRED…they did this entire “salute” (so to speak) to her for never leaving her boy’s side throughout it all. We would all be so lucky to have even ONE loved one in our world’s that would love on us the way Ms. Nancy loved on her full grown baby boy Daniel! So to this one I give a sincere, “Ms. Nancy, this is ALL OF US, and we love you with ALL OF OUR HEART’S!” (Ms. Nancy started every shout-out with “Daniel, this is Mama and I love you with all my heart!)
Robert Moreno Ramos
Let me find out you’re a closeted bible fan??? In this one you went full-on DUALITY with Ramos’ funny humor and his funny looks! Which funny enough, was TRUE! He had his psych patient moments (don’t we all?), but he was consistently funny with either his whip-quick wit, or his superhuman ability to always have a joke ready for anyone willing to listen to it. When you started going into what happened with his last day visits when his visitor showed up so dang late …it reminded me of that whole side of things too! The last day visits! HOW have you not delved into THAT yet (up till this points I mean)? Humor is UNIVERESAL, it crosses language barriers as well! So from the start of this one, you likely won over probably almost every reader reading this farewell. So going into that big part of arriving at the date Tx. plans to murder somebody, and breaking down the all-day visits was a smooth move for sure. BUT, I think you could’ve went just a tad bit harder on it though??? (Shoulder shrug!)Let me clarify so you get what I’m saying …I’m talking about the anticipation of spending all that time out there with your people! A luxury that we NEVER have except if we’re about to be murdered! I’ve been there, I made it all the way up to two days before my scheduled murder…and YET…as freaking NUTS as this may sound to those who have never been deprives of something so simple as SEEING those you love, and TALKING to those you love, I WAS HOPING and PRAYING TO REACH THOSE LAST DAYS! Just so I could have those visits and be able to soak my people in as much as I could. Stats will show that the majority of prisoners who reach the last days before their murder date, usually ALWAYS get murdered! For the simple fact that the courts have to make a spur of the moment ruling…OR…your legal team has simply run outta time to file anything that may even remotely stand a chance at getting you some relief from your predicament. There’s also been many guys who’ve went out there (to the visitation room) and just sat there waiting for their visitors to show up, but for whatever reason, they never showed up! One last form of torture courtesy of TDCJ! The explanation on WHY they force the guys to stay in the dayroom if they don’t have visits, was also a good educational addition. You could’ve thrown in for good measure that regardless, if a guy has been on his best behaviour this whole time he’s been on DR, they STILL subject him to that last bit of oppression solely based on a big “what if” hypothetical! That would’ve inspired a sense of unfairness in your reader’s and sorta kinda served to LEAD THEM to the goal of humanizing us in here. I especially liked how you gave credit to his faith there at the end, cause you showed a lil professionalism there by not letting YOUR personal belief’s get in the way of one last chance to throw some SHINE on oh Humpty Dumpty…AMEN and AMEN! We’ll make a believer outta you yet Billy Boy! (Have you noticed I have lost the will to reach a Word of the Day?…BOOOOOOO, YOU SUCK!) I give this one all the King’s horsemen and all the King’s men!
Joseph Garcia
Well well well, where to begin??? What was that I previously said about it showing your heart towards oh Castillo cause of the length of the writing you ended up with once you were done with his farewell? I guess Castillo’s was the “Prelude” and Joey’s was the book, huh? (Head nodding!) So obviously this one is one that is hella personal for me cause of my Jigga Joey’s and my friendship, huh! Now I’m over-thinking HOW best to say something meaningful and helpful about the job you did of it??? Huhm???…PHRASE of the day: WRITER’S BLOCK! Ok. So the interview part was LIVE cause it shows Joey’s character and openness towards everyone. The questions y’all threw in that were funny and silly was a nice touch too, cause that gave us who knew him (or even those who read this and were “feeling it” so to speak), a chance to steady our breathing and blink our eye’s a few times to get that dang bit of dust outta our eye that suddenly got caught in there! (Miming rubbing my eyes!). The similarities in our childhoods and then HOW we ended up being character-wise and the type of mindset we had in here towards others…is something that had me here thinking on for a few minutes cause it’s NOT unusual for those who are the most severely abused to somehow someway become BIG “lovers” of their fellow man. Is it the threshold to receive great amounts of pain that enable us to be able to pour great amounts of affection and loving care? Inquiring minds wanna know! You did one thing that I know would’ve especially been appreciated by Joey, and that’s how you outlined his original case and his actual innocent claim! Most of the public won’t know this, but during those last months of his life he didn’t really concentrate on his Death Row case, instead he focused on his “96 case” as he referred to it. I talked with him at length about this literally weeks before his date was set. His whole focus was the injustice of the ’96 case and how he shouldn’t have been locked up. Anyone who knew him knew he wasn’t stupid…yet he purposely pursued a route he KNEW would NOT get him relief from his scheduled murder date. He never openly admitted this, though I pressed him on this ad nauseum. And I believe his true goal was to somehow PROVE that he didn’t murder Miguel Luna, but that it was FACTUALLY self-defence. The amount of time and energy he put into delving into the case laws and appellate procedures, I guess he wanted only to be able to clear his name of THAT before he went to his rest??? (Shoulder shrug!) Who knows??? The way you showcased his humor as well was cool too. That TACO poem is just soooooooo Joey! This is a grown man who once used a summer sausage as an impromptu microphone to lip sync a Shade song called “Is it a Crime”! This is a guy who for his last two days of life, he stayed wide awake with three of us who were hooked up with him. And he joked and laughed and told stories and even did an extremely WHACK guitar concert with Blaine (SEE “Blaine Milam”) using their commissary bowls with rubber bands wrapped around the center so they could strum them like guitars! Worse concert EVER! (Vigorously head nodding!) HAHA! I DARE YA to try it, it actually WORKS! WITH their mic’s laying in the bowl it made sounds like actual guitars…except that neither Joey nor Blaine were musicians and their li’l concert was TERRIBLE! But the whole time they thought they were shredding the axe and seriously ROCKING OUT! (Shaking head for real!) And the whole time you can hear them giggling like schoolgirls in the background! I was cracking up in laughter too…do I know WHY? NOPE! When you wrote about his thoughts towards Mr. Luna and the officer Aubrey Hawkins that showed his sense of right and wrong. His self-defence is nothing he glorifies, but he knows he was in the right there. At the same time even though it is well established that he did NOT shoot officer Hawkins, he STILL expresses remorse and guilt and pain at the life lost there. I’ll close this one out by quoting a French philosopher named Albert Camus who wrote “capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal’s deed, however calculated, can be compared. For there to be equivalency the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date on which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him at his mercy for months. Such a monster is not to be encountered in private life.” The emotion you were able to get across in the dialogue here was strides ahead of others in “humanizing us” for sure. I give this all-inclusive farewell with pics and all, a dozen BEAN TACOS!!!…which are MY FAVE TOO!!! (High 5-ing Joey!)
Alvin Braziel
Oooh-Wee Billy! Now this is more like it, as far as penning something for someone who for WHATVER reasons was not well liked here. You’ll notice if you go over your own writing here…that not ONCE did you diss him (even underhandedly), but instead took the high ground by going at it from a medical standpoint. Stating simply his mental ailment and condition, then immediately leading the reader to a train of thought that was full of grace and understanding for his mental illness…expressed clearly that everybody knew he was not well mentally, and so most did not hold it against him but continued to try to be positive towards him still. Like with the offering of ice cream and whatnot. As we’ve already bounced thoughts back and forth with each other over the run (hallway), you KNOW readers are gonna have a predetermined viewpoint on men like Alvin who come across very paranoid and well for lack of a better way of saying it…NUTS! So what you did here was kinda like some journalistic deflection by leading your readers along to the conclusion you wanted them to end up at. And please make a mental note here Billy, it was well done cause you kept it simple stupid (K.I.S.S)! A military acronym…Just curious…do you notice when you end up doing something like this here where you led the reader to the end result? Or is this something that is just happening naturally without you actively doing it? I ask cause I freaking love writing and one of the things I do with my poetry, is how I go back and reread my own material…THEN just try my damnest to SLAM the heck outta myself! Here’s WHY…cause regardless, if we ever acknowledge it or not, WE are always OUR OWN worst critic. So, when you do this exercise, you’ll come across many areas where you can’t honestly find anything wrong or crappy about your writings. As you’re doing that, the REASONS will become apparent. For example, “Well heck, there’s nothing wrong with this paragraph cause it’s to the point and prevents the reader from going left into some negative train of thought”! And BAM, you just “self-taught” yourself a good writing technique. From Batman’s to this one here, you see a progression forward. You see you’re getting better at your writing. So ,I give this one the First Place K.I.S.S. Award! That was a smooth quote by Greg Isles too…
Blaine Milam
HOLY GREAT GOOGLY MOOGLY Billy, how the heck am I supposed to review this one??? It’s like a letter in a letter, that’s part of a song, that was once a piece of a letter, then came from a farewell that was intended to be a poem!?! (brain MALFUNCTIONING … askoidufub, ndnax)…(Twenty minutes later waking up on the floor miraculously with my cup of ever-present coffee STILL in my hand unspilled, and a half-eaten taco in the other hand!!!…WHEN did I make tacos?) Ok so you went HAM (better than bologna) on this one oh Billy Boy! The one thing I would say is very obvious right away was that much time and effort was put into this one. The li’l short narratives in-between each person’s letter was a nice touch. It gave a li’l structure to Blainey Pooh’s erratic all over the place style! GOOD GRIEF, this is an OCD person’s kryptonite! I’m tempted to rewrite it myself and pen a detailed essay on moderation {and showing the benefits of the K.I.S.S. approach. Nah but on a serious note, you succeeded in SHOWING this big country goofball’s personality. If personality was an eggroll, Blaine would be the whole dang Chinese buffet! (Somewhere on B pod Blaine’s having a déjà vu style sensation about sweet and sour chicken!) The whole loyalty affirmation with ensuring his good mother-like friend Betty, was also a good point to make and bring to light. It shows he understands people’s value and the importance of returning that same devotion to those who are devoted to us. It goes without saying that usually Death Row prisoners are stereotypically thought as being selfish uncaring abusive type of people with no conscience. Lacking basic empathy for others, YET you were able to show in each of these we are most definitely NOT these cookie-cutter versions of uncaring monsters. It had to cause some kind of friction (as you put it) between him and his family when he stuck to his guns and made sure his second mother Betty got her time with him too. But what did our favorite hillbilly vanilla gorilla do? He took it on the chin like a champ and did the RIGHT THING! BOO-YA everybody who stereotypes us Death Row prisoners! The li’l dialogues interspersed all throughout this farewell is very insightful in helping the reader experience not only Blaine’s personality, but yours too. So yeah, I think those are good things to keep in your arsenal of insightful journaling for our fellow Death Row residents. There’s only so many ways to effectively convey WHO we (in here) really are. So when you find one like this dialogue style, I say stick with it and give your readers these li’l glimpses of our actual back and forth banter! Blaine being honest about his terrible spelling and writing was also a nice personal touch, especially since his MOMA took that and turned it into a positive personal li’l love thing between them! QUICK, someone let her know I’m up for adoption! I’m handsome, potty-trained, and come with a lovely piece of arm-candy FREE of charge! We’re a package deal, BUY ONE GET ONE…! DAMN YOU BLAINEY POOH!!! You got a Grade-A MOMA, that country twang voice that makes all the 2nd cousins go crazy, and your beard has that “rats-nest” look I can never quite seem to achieve! Well Billy your readers may get completely LOST when reading this review by me, so please allow me to give some context here before giving you my rating for this farewell. So me and Blaine are good friends and when we get together we have a good ol’ time pretty much being ABSOLUTE IDIOTS with our joking and overall extreme gallows humor type playfulness. This is something ol’ Billy boy needs to talk about as well in the future farewells hopefully, and that’s the way MANY of us use humor as a sure-fire dependable way of COPING with this place on a day-to-day-basis. Cause I’ve personally written A LOT in my poetry about this “heaviness” that this kinda segregation puts on us from being like this for SO LONG! YET…the simple act of laughter, especially among good friends, is unexplainably HEALING in so many ways. I don’t really understand it, but I do recognize it and acknowledge it for what it is to us. So with that being said…even though Blaine isn’t HERE in the same area I’m in right now, just talking about him and writing about him, brings out my humorous side just getting in my “Blaine” zone, ya know? Hopefully it got a few laughs from you all, and if not…well then…BOOOOO, YOU ALL SUCK! I give this one an all-out country two-step with a side of new jack butterfly tootsie stanky leg roll swing! (IF any of y’all caught even ONE of those old-school dances, then let me just say you’re showing your age!!! HA!)
Bill Coble
Oh $5 Bill! THAT literally was his most notable trait in here! Jokingly charging everybody $5 (his standard fee) for any li’l thing he did for ya. He passes a kite for you in the dayroom…”that’ll be $5”. He makes you a fishing line…”that’ll be $5.” You ask him a question…”that’ll be $5.” Well old man since you’re upstairs with the BIG GUY now, can ya put in a good word for me in case I have to come join ya soon?…Yes yes yes, I already know…THAT’LL BE $5, right? Can I pay ya in big stamps? HAHA! So right from the get-go I thoroughly enjoyed you giving him his due credit for his Marine Corp. service in Vietnam! Being an ex-Marine myself (even though there’s NO SUCH THING…once a Marine, ALWAYS a Marine”…Ooooooh-RAAAA!) I am fully aware of the total disregarded vets face when they end up incarcerated. It’s like all their past SERVICE (e.g good works) is completely erased all of a sudden??? Uhhhhm okay then, since that’s apparently an option, WHY NOT erase my greatest mistake instead? Ahhhhh, I SEE said the blind man! THAT doesn’t fit into the profiteering penal system agenda, huh? Ok ok ok (hands up!), I understand! Let me tell your readers a li’l story Billy. Once upon a time there was this man of honorable disposition. Life dealt him an unfair hand from a stacked deck. With his options limited, he took the initiative of making something of himself by serving his country. While in this service he earned a prestigious award for holding down a position against so many enemy soldiers. THEN…years later when he was at a point in his life where he was facing some difficult repercussions (regardless if he was guilty or not), that exact same prestigious award he was granted for his exceptional actions in duty, was perverted and twisted into something ugly and dishonourable! His accusers used what was once an acknowledgment of something GREAT and argued THAT proved he was a cold-blooded killer! The argument was “HE MUST BE a cold-blooded killer if he could do this when he was at war for his country”. Uhhhhm, well if that’s the case, then people be afraid, BE VERY AFRAID, because there are vast numbers of cold-blooded killers among you in nice crisp uniforms! I never accomplished anything even remotely close to what $5 Bill must’ve during his service years. He was there for his country when it needed him, where was his country when he needed it? Just some food for thought, huh… The way you freely admitted your “staring contest” with an old man was both affable and at once SHAMEFUL! HOW DARE YOU pit yourself against $5 Bill?…when you know you wouldn’t stand a chance against a Marine! HAHA! Us Marines are not to be trifled with! (Nonchalantly dusting my shoulders off!) The part about him replying to everyone who took the time to write him during his time on deathwatch doesn’t quite fully showcase his cool, calm, respectful attitude towards others. BUT it comes pretty close though! Unless of course you make the mistake of talking about politics with him…(pointedly staring at Billy!)…And for the record, I don’t buy it that you won the staring contest cause with those bushy caterpillar eyebrows of his, HOW COULD YOU EVEN SEE HIS EYE’S WERE OPEN? Hehe, joke was on YOU, huh Billy? SUCKER! The mention of him winning over both inmates and guards, was also spot on cause boy you ain’t playing…you can’t please BOTH! Well unless you’re a bushy-browed Marine “Staring Contest Champ”.
PART II…GOOD GRIEF Billy, First Joey’s story, now $5 Bill’s! You’re killing me Smalls! We all remember when this happened to oh Bill, and we all surely felt an overwhelming sense of HELPLESSNESS towards it too. I’ve been here twelve years on Death Row and not once did I ever hear about or see him act “threatening” or “dangerous,” not to mention he was an old man. NONE of these unnecessary restrictions and procedures were needed, yet SOLELY because of them a Marine vet went into a downward spiral of pain and suffering during what ended up being his LAST HOURS of life! GREAT job TDCJ! (Sarcastically tipping my hat…while starting a staring contest with them too!) Now Billy I ain’t the brightest light in the warehouse, but is it just me, or is this some borderline CRIMINAL activity? At what point do we entertain the notion that it is very MUCH SO possible, that somewhere along the line the “good” became the “bad”? Reading this, would any of you beg to differ?
PART III…The fact that $5 Bill even attempted suicide but COULDN’T see it through…should testify to his mild temperament. This subject is a bit close to home for me because I went through a period where I just wanted to get this over and done with too and end it! But…I knew from the get-go that I’d never be able to do the deed myself. NOT cause of cowardice but cause I could never bring myself to actually be MY OWN MURDERER! Instead I chose an option that a handful of men have chosen since I’ve been here on Death Row. My li’l bro Daniel Lopez amongst them! I chose to let Texas murder me instead. Obviously, that didn’t happen cause I’m still here, but that’s a story for another time. Ask yourself people, HOW BAD does something have to be, that someone’s logical solution is “I know what I’ll do, I’ll let my government murder me”???
PART IV…In a situation where the atmosphere is chock-full of distress and crushing despair from being forced to witness your loved one being poisoned to death … is it not understandable that someone could break down and lose control a li’l? YET these guards on the side of “Good” felt they were required to not only assault these distraught citizens, but also arrest and try charging them with a petty crime. They say I’m a killer, they say that I’m evil…so me calling these “good” folks bad and evil is the pot calling the kettle black, huh! So let me be clear…YOU BLACKEST OF BLACK KETTLES YOU!!! It doesn’t take the brightest light in the warehouse to know the meat of what you’re doing, Billy. These are the ones that pretty much force your readers to stop just swallowing what society is spoon feeding them and take the time to actually choose their food wisely and feed themselves. As is apparent by the length of our writings on THESE farewells here, WE understand that WE are not just numbers of State property being run through this assembly line style killing machine that is the capital punishment system. We ARE human, we ARE brothers, we ARE fathers, we ARE uncles, we ARE a life! We ARE all of a piece of Marine serviceman Mr. Bill Coble, affectionally known by his fellow humans as “$5 Bill”! Your readers may not understand what I’m about to say Billy, but me and you do…My goodness I’m GLAD his struggle and suffering is OVER and done with! Rest in POWER Jarhead! I give this farewell the most prestigious, crispy wrinkle-free freshest $5 bill we can find…SPECIAL THANKS to Liliane Sticher’s witness account that she shared with Billy, and through him…me too! For those of you that personally knew Bill, I say in his stead “UNC Love”…
Robert Mitchell Jennings
Ahhhh I see I spoke too soon, huh? I see now that you did indeed write about the phenomenon of guys here reaching a point in their journey where they’re just worn out and broken by this place. To the point that they feel allowing their government to murder them was their best option! I had to take a lil pause when I read where you say you were “dumbfounded” to learn RJ (as he was called here) instructed his lawyers NOT to file anything more in his appeals. Here’s why: Imagine this…you’ve fallen TOO DEEP into your own mess of a mind and somehow allowed your ever-present sadness to consume you enough, that ALL YOU WANT is for the hurting to STOP. Then you somehow took the wrong turn on that one fork in the road of your mind that led to you honestly believing death would be a MERCY at this point. Lastly, wrap all that up in a cloud of chaotic confusion where you’re truly NOT understanding WHY you want to die so badly. Okay, so are you there yet Billy? Go ahead, take your time and clear your thoughts and insert these three train of thoughts in this order…you there yet? YES!? GOOD!…welcome to RJ’s world…welcome to Lopez’s world…welcome to Martin’s world…welcome to Rambo’s OLD world! So back to where I started this at…you were dumbfounded, huh? What about now, still dumbfounded Homie? Careful, careful now, my friend, even the hardest strongest firmest of men have proven NO MATCH for this sickness! Let me tell you a secret, just between you and me, ok? SHHH…don’t tell no one! When my li’l bro Lopez dropped his appeals and finally got what he wanted and was set a date…the day he was murdered I sorta just busied myself, ya know? Occupied my mind so it wasn’t free to do much else. Guess HOW I did that? Weeeeeell I did one of my in-depth bible studies that I enjoy so much. You can imagine with my OCD that I am a spectacular study, right? (Head nodding!) If my memory serves me right, he was murdered on a Wednesday, and I had so effectively shut-off that part of my psyche that lets us grieve, that on Saturday just three days later, outta nowhere while writing one of my pen pals I noticed I was crying. And AGAIN, I couldn’t understand WHY??? I swear it was an eternity, but in reality, it was more like milliseconds before I really let it sink in that my li’l bro was DEAD! Still feeling dumbfounded, Billy? Ok, let me go just one step further here for ya Homie…One more secret for ya, ok? Same deal, don’t tell nobody, cool? (pinky swear!) I wanna set the mood here precisely so you get the full scope of the point I’m striving to make here for you and your readers. So humor me and allow me to quote something from one of my poems…
These bonds in many forms
So mental war is born.
Suicidal depression
in lonely regression.
And strong are us few
Who can stick it all through
When society has tossed us
Away once they’re through.
In this place we bond with certain people who we just click with (for whatever reason), as I’m sure you’ve experienced a bit yourself Billy now that you’ve been here for a few years. These bonds inadvertently end up causing us to war with ourselves later when the friend is murdered. Or when we lose the friendship (for whatever reason). I say this so I can share my other li’l secret… I have never been able to cry for my blood relatives who I grew up with most of my life, when they passed away. BOTH grandmas, BOTH grandpas, aunt, uncle, another aunt! Yet somehow someway the murders of Daniel Lopez and Joseph Garcia took a chunk outta my heart! Now imagine setting yourself up for THAT merry-go-round again and again and again…Are you still dumbfounded Billy? What about your readers, can they imagine now too? You correctly stated that “despair was part of RJ’s story,” but it wasn’t all of his story. But it was ENOUGH that his reality was that it was best for him to be murdered! HUH? WHAT? Come on Billy, you follow me here, right?…something ain’t right here! RJ sadly was just another victim of a failed social experiment that’s so IGNORANTLY rubber-stamped as something called “justice.” When I got to the end of his farewell, I was unable to hold back my loud boisterous laugh when you put him out there about how he loudly proclaimed at visit (during one of the dreaded lockdowns) that “We’re on lockdown! I want everything!”…BUAHAHAHAHA! Hope they got ever-full vending machines in the afterlife so you never again have to feel hunger and be helpless to feed yourself. I give this one the “Snack Masters Special” goodie bag at visitation, which is basically the entire $50 worth of vending machine food and snacks! (FYI: Our visitors are EACH allowed to bring in $25 in coins, so when two people visit you at the same time together…well CHA-CHING!)
John William King
You switched it up with this one, huh? You went the narrative route here and led us down the path of being injected into the penal system and what that entailed for a white man at that time and period. Big Cat was Possum’s friend! Which to ME isn’t really that surprising as it may seem to the public, being that Possum had a hate crime case with a black man victim. I harp on this point a lot because it rings TRUE in my own situation, and I know it does for others as well in here. And that’s that no matter how TERRIBLE our crime, or how violent or repulsive, or any other number of descriptives you can come up with…we will NEVER be the sum of our greatest mistake! PERIOD! It’s impossible! Everything is ever changing, constantly evolving and progressing. Even creatures that go into suspended animation, are NOT truly completely STILL and unchanging. To ever think or feel that a human being will just suddenly STOP progressing and growing forward…is just idiocy! Unless there’s some kind TBI (traumatic brain injury) involved or drug chemical reaction, we’ll never be the same person who stole that pack of chewing gum at the corner store. And although the level of Possum’s crime is much higher, the application is the same. From my interactions with Possum, he was NOT racist at all! At least not in here, if he was in the FREE world, then he no longer carried that with him in here. I can testify boldly to this by simply comparing my own realization about my personal growth and changes that I went through when I was finally captured and incarcerated in 2008. Just for a li’l context here, my problem in the FREE world was, in a nutshell…SELFISHNESS! Having to finally face my punishment somehow caused me to drastically alter my whole mindset. Before it was ME ME ME, now it’s all about OTHERS OTHERS OTHERS! And not only was Possum regularly interacting with many black men in here, but his bestie was a black man too! Now I don’t know what kinda racist people are out in the FREE world now-a-days, but I doubt they have a black bestie, huh? Giving the rundown of how the prison experience is for a young white man, and giving your own personal viewpoints, was helpful to even me because I never been through the GP (general population) experience. And I can most definitely relate to how situations can easily and effectively SHAPE a person into a product of his environment. Think, abusive childhood! Or drug addict parents! Get my drift? Making note of his signature smirk brings to mind his love of manga-style comics and his beloved pictures too! He WAS pessimistic, huh? But in a funny sarcastic kinda way…Huhm???…why am I getting déjà vu right now? Do you think Billy, that Possum’s medical inclination to be pessimistic, had something to do with his sense of humor as well? I COPE in this way too, that’s why I ask? By the way, Possum’s blood type was “B negative” … get it? BE NEGATIVE…that was why he was a pessimist! (CHEESY Joke of the Day!) One thing I would’ve added to this one, was a bit MORE info on who Big Cat is as a person, you already stated that he didn’t prejudge Possum, REGARDLESS of his crime. A good commentary detail here would be that Big Cat is a man of Faith! He’s actually a Messianic Jew just like me! (Jewish FLEX!), WOW I just realized that your readers brains probably just went “KA-BOOM!” cause they’re already computing a black man not judging Possum for his crime…NOW they gotta process that he’s a man of God too! THEN add to that that he’s JEWISH too! HOLY GREAT GOOGLY MOOGLY Big Cat’s a bit confused, huh! Buahahaha! Sorry sorry, couldn’t help myself…I give him a hard time and tease him that he’s struggling with an identity. OH WAIT WAIT…I almost forgot the rest of it, he’s ALSO Irish!…”DOUBLE KA-BOOM!”…You may not know him yet Billy, but take my word for it, he’s really a good guy. So, it’s really no surprise that he had such a significant effect on Possum in here. And I totally agree with you that most likely Big Cats’ CHOICE not to ostracize Possum, most likely had A LOT to do with others warming up to him and accepting him as well. BUT WAIT!…isn’t Big Cat on Death Row too? Sooooooo he’s a cold-blooded monster too, right? Isn’t it absolutely astounding how MUCH undeniable evidence there is in here (in US the prisoners) of how oh so incredibly human we are? Possum very well MAY HAVE made a grave mistake in his life, just as many of us have done as well, but he was NEVER the sum of those mistakes. Imagine if your readers picked out what they believe has been their GREATEST mistake in life, then were assigned a judgement and punishment for THAT mistake. A punishment that not only was designed to inflict as much oppression as possible, without an outlet for relief. Then, ending in their murders! Would they feel like they were rightfully dealt with, and that that great mistake they made all those years back, was still the type of mistake they’d make again in the here and now? OF COURSE NOT, right? So would they think it was justifiable to STILL punish them AS IF they were the same person from way back when they made their old mistake? Again, OF COURSE NOT! Yet as you well know, THIS is literally the play-by-play process in which EVERY Death Row prisoner is dealt with. You talked about Possum’s viewpoints being shaped by his prison experience, right? There’s no doubt there is merit there. So is it safe to say yet again that he was one of the ones that was a product of his environment, and that led him to being a victim of a failed social experiment too? You yourself speak about your prison trials and struggles and how they shaped you too? So tell me Billy, honestly…are you the SAME MAN you were when you got that original prison sentence? Then go one step further and tell me if you will, are you the same man you were when you got your death sentence? Inquiring minds wanna know…Do you remember our talks about how you feel about some past mistakes you’ve made? Huhm…MORE of that evidence I talked about earlier! Me personally I’m a totally different human-being than I was in my late teens/early 20’s! I see that kinda thing in many guys in here, so I’ll step out on a limb here and boldly say that John “Possum” King was a new person than the man who was judged and sentenced to be murdered. To this farewell I pass the baton to Big Cat, so he can give this a big BEADY-EYED pessimistic squinting smirk of brotherly love to his dearly departed bestie, who DID have a friend in him…a black man.
Larry Swearingen
I enjoyed the whole “roast” aspect of this one! Who doesn’t like a good laugh, huh? You definitely captured his walk to a tee. So much so, that my toes were hurting and aching just reading about the immense weight bearing down on Larry’s poor li’l piggies! As you noted, he did indeed have a big personality (to match his belly!). I’m not too sure about whether or not he would give away his last food??? (FLAT stare!) He was pretty helpful to others though. One thing you probably never witnessed yourself was the fact that he was one of those type of prisoners that delved into the laws and legal procedures extensively. He received a few STAYS (of execution) before his last date that ended in his murder by State. Which unless I’m mistaken, was partly due to his own legal work and filings??? Working on your own legal filings in the appellate courts, takes a certain degree of strategy to be successful. He showed his strategic mind as well in a fantasy card game called “Magic the Gathering”. Which I can best describe as the card version of D & D (Dungeons and Dragons). Putting together combos and very damaging (to your opponent) creatures and spells, can oftentimes result in your opponents not even being able to do anything against you except sit back and take that whooping. Larry taught me how to play that game and even gave me three “decks” (a set of at least sixty cards) for me to get my feet wet and learn to play with. Ever since then I’ve been getting my geek on! (Head nodding!) Just as you could always ask him about some game rule or a certain card that we were not understanding…you could also always hit him up about something in the appellate process too! He honestly thoroughly enjoyed studying the laws and legal codes, which was readily apparent whenever you brought up anything legalistic. I believe he understood these things very much so…so much so, that after returning from one of his last visits right before his murder date, he replied “nah, I’m out of there this time” when someone asked him something like “Larry, are you getting another STAY?”. The dejected manner in which a man can say a statement like THAT, about their very own state sanctioned murder, is beyond discouraging! Now think on this, even being in such a horrible state of mind, he still chose to end his days in a light-hearted humorous way. One thing we all see here on the row, is how many turn to humor to help themselves COPE with this crushing depressing place. Every time I think about this coping mechanism we turn to, it reminds me of that breaking point where people are so sad that they laugh semi-hysterically, instead of doing what normal folks would do…CRY! To this farewell, I tap all my forest Lands, pay the one green and pour the remaining green into (x), to cast a “Stream of Life” on ol’ Twinkle-Toes!
Billy Jack Crutsinger
In this one here you bring to the table a good aspect of some of the guy’s disposition back here on the row. That of being distant, or reclusive so to speak. Although it is not very obvious to most people here, there are A LOT of men who are extremely introverted. I happened to be outside (at rec) one day with one of these men who’s like that. Now never being one to bit my tongue, I asked that person WHY they didn’t kick it (hang out with) anybody or go to the dayroom (inside rec area) most of the time. I was given a very understandable answer too, yet one I never really thought about until that moment. I was told that they didn’t hang out or socialize with anybody here cause then they’d have to lose a friend, and they weren’t willing to sign up for that kinda loss. OUCH! (Said teary-eyed and with a trembling lip!) This is very reminiscent of that whole is it “better to love and have lost, then never to have loved at all” type of argument. Is it better to have a friend and lose them, then never to have a friend at all??? Obviously neither you nor I can for sure say whether or not this was Billy Jack’s reason for not socializing much with anybody. But it’s definitely something to bring up. The second thing that you wrote about that was also a common theme here on the row, is the willingness and acceptance some guys have of just getting this over and done with. How many men have you yourself seen on deathwatch who were there on their own free will? Pennywise, Justin, Rayford, and many others that I’m not mentioning since you never met them. Billy Jack came across as one of those jolly happy-go-lucky type of guys that could easily play the shopping mall Santa Claus. Pale, rosy-cheek looking fella that even seemed to speak in a jolly happy tone of voice too! Explaining his life events that took place shortly before his crime, was a great concrete bit of detail that put some perspective behind his actions. None of this makes his mistakes ok, but it does help the readers understand that those mistakes were not WHO Billy Jack was. Your explanation of how you can sorta notice when someone has that criminal element to themselves just by observing them, was on point as well. Would most of your readers believe it if I told them that the majority of the men on the row are also lacking that element as well? Even if someone was a big time criminal, one thing I can personally attest to is that the man who ends up strapped to the gurney to be murdered…it almost NNEVER the same man who committed the crime. At the very least, he is “away from here” now. I give this one the “Exclamation of Explanation” award. For explaining just HOW such a NON-criminal type person can end up on Death Row.
Mark Soliz (a.k.a “Kilo”)
So here is another one that is a bit personal for me, cause “Big Dummy” was someone (of a few) who I could call a li’l “homie” of mine! There was a guy here when I first got here who everyone called “Superfly” cause of the way he dressed all crisp and walked all like a smooth operator type figure, ya know? Any who THAT was how Kilo was! Now there’s been a few guys here throughout the years who have had quite the EXAGGERATED “pimp walk,” Kilo’s wasn’t THAT BAD though! One thing that everyone took away from interacting with Kilo, was that he was silly as hell, to the point of always making those around them laugh and just shake their head in good natured humor. Now add to that a “NO SHAME” disposition and you got the basic cookie-cutter template for HOW Kilo was as a person. Now talking about chess…GOOD GRIEF do y’all know what a savant is??? Well an “idiot savant” is a person whose mental state is such that they are stunted in all aspects of mental capabilities…EXCEPT for one area. Well if Kilo was one of these people, then CHESS was his one area of exception! I started playing this GENIUS version of chess that some guys from Mensa created, that is called “three-man chess”. Basically it’s chess with three players! The board is a circular board with 24 squares all the way around. So anyways, I teach this game to Kilo and we get to playing. You can play this game with just two players by either just leaving the third players pieces on the board and playing as if that player has already been beaten and his pieces are considered “dead”…OR…by alternating turns moving for that third player and using those pieces to also attack your opponent. So anyways, we go with the former way and start playing. Now in all seriousness I AM A BEAST at this game and there is no one who can ever get near me in this game…YET…oh NO Shame in his game pimp walking savant Kilo over here, kicked my butt on our 3rd game!!! Like…uhhhhh…WHAT!?! (Forehead slap!) DOH! Nah but after that initial whooping he gave me, I doubled down and smashed the gas on Big Dummy! (Nonchalantly dusting my shoulders off!) Billy mentions Kilo’s last day and how they put him in the dayroom the morning of his murder, and how we walked around and chatted with guys in the deathwatch section and in the other sections. Well I actually got the officers to put me in the dayroom right next to deathwatch (B section dayroom) so I could holler at Kilo…when I crossed over the center door on my way to the dayroom, I see that Kilo is indeed in the dayroom himself. So I got to shake his hand and chat with him and even let him know about a certain friend who was gonna call him while he was at Huntsville getting his phone privileges. So it was real good to say goodbye and send him off with some love, huh…(SIDE NOTE: that WAS the weirdest nickname origin story EVER!) I give this one “Krat 5”…(“5 stars” spelled backwards and put the “k” in place of the “s” and drop the “S”…then you get “Krat 5”!)…
Robert Sparks (a.k.a “Deuce”)
Well first of all, let me say that I did NOT “like” Deuce very much cause of his entire FAKE character and attitude…AS I SAW IT of course! (Shoulder shrug!) So that may come across here in this review…Unlike Billy, my goal is not to humanize these fellow Death Row prisoners. My goal is much simpler, and that’s to give my thoughts on Billy’s writings and give some more in-depth input from my point of view since I have interacted with almost all these guys for much longer than Billy ever has due to his unique housing situation where he’s perpetually housed in the deathwatch section. Now I did enjoy the whole “Part I/II/III” thing you did here. Did Deuce actually describe that story of his arrival at Ferguson Unit, or was that some freestyling from your experiences witnessing what youngsters went through arriving fresh to prison? Inquiring minds wanna know!!! You touched base on his mental state and in THAT I did agree with you cause Deuce WAS thrower off! One time playing dominoes with him, he literally wanted to tell me from what spot on the pile of dominoes to pick out his dominoes!!! Uhhhhh…okaaaaaay! (Serious side-eye!) I’m not sure if he was paranoid or WHAT, but he definitely had some issues to say the least. As for the last day show of “fighting them”…well I’ve been on Death Row when one of the guys REALLY fought the guards and did everything in his power to resist them. So I know what something like that SHOULD look like and sound like (when you hear the stories told from both prisoners and guards)…and well Deuce in my opinion did not “fight them”. I honestly think he only made a “show” of doing so. You know the type of person, the one who “keeps it real” and “holds it down” and any number of silly completely BOGUS li’l insecure sayings guys say back here. Guys here who really care WAY TOO MUCH about what others think about them. The reason I see it that way is cause IF…and this is a very big IF…you resisting was actually capable of saving your life and preventing them from taking you to Huntsville and murdering you, then HECK YEAH let’s all resist and “fight them” on our last day. Since it will NEVER EVER in a million years stop that, then you are effectively acting on stupidity in one of its highest forms possible here on Texas Death Row! And when you break it down to its bare bones root reasoning and cause, you’ll find that a person is ONLY doing that to “look good” to a bunch of other guys who honestly do NOT even care much about you at all. THIS is a very common aspect of being locked up, everyone wants to impress everyone else. Everyone wants to impress, others who likely wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire! The evidence of this is easily SEEN by how easy it is for someone to wire up another guy in here. Most times all you gotta do it question someone’s manhood or integrity and they’re ready to go get in a wreck right there and then! And this makes no sense to me whatsoever…So I tend to look down on that kind of behavior from someone…(Shoulder shrug!)…I’m only human! Regardless of his struggles and mental issues, he is down with all that and hopefully at peace now. To this one, I chunk up the deuce! (Peace sign!)
Justen Hall
This one points out an aspect of life on the row that NOT too many people in the free world can ever truly understand. How the WILL to keep living just dissolves and evaporates so UTTERLY from some of us in here. IN 2010 I hit my own li’l brick wall (so to speak) and decided I was dropping my appeals too. Thinking about it logically, I could NOT find an “out” from this situation. It was either spend my entire life in prison till I died of old age or some other prison related death, or fight this death penalty and die in a decade more or less. Cause on average a person spends a decade on Texas Death Row before they’re murdered. WITH no hope in sight and my situation being very CRAPPY to say the least (no support, no visits, and what SEEMED like a minimum amount of mail)…getting this “over and done with” seemed like the best option for me. So I completely understand that type of mind frame, as many of us in here do. (Head nodding!) What was different about Justen was mostly what Billy points out here in his writing about how Justen realized his façade had come crashing down around him and he felt that he was actually a piece of shit! Oooooh-Wee…How many of you reading this can truly dig down deep into yourselves and come to the conclusion that you’re a terrible person??? I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say damn near NONE OF YOU! I’ve been down that road and it isn’t pretty. Justen hit a pitfall in his journey here on Death Row that many of us witnessed as he went from this character who constantly JOKED and LAUGHED and poked fun at the guards and other prisoners. SOME would characterize this behavior as being a “bully” or just generally mean-spirited. I have somewhat of the same type of personality, so I strongly feel that it isn’t like THAT! From my own introspection I know that I do that as a coping mechanism of sorts. I try to FIND humor in my surroundings and the things I must endure, so I joke around and poke fun of my fellow prisoners and the guards too. NOT to be a DICK, but to laugh and find a reason to be light-hearted and NOT allow the weight of this place (Death Row) and this situation (death sentence) to crush the life outta me. There was a certain situation that went down here that I will NOT speak on, but that I will say had a HUGE effect on Justen from that point forward. From then on, he was adamant about NOT FIGHTING his appeals and actively seeking out his murder date. I wanna believe it was during this period that he started to really dig deep into himself and self-analyze his past actions towards others. I was fortunate to overhear a couple of conversations he had with some of his friends here. One was a guy who he previously had a falling-out with and they buried the hatchet. Justen was telling him about his hernia he had and how he wasn’t going to medical or trying to get it treated. The friend asked him why he didn’t want to go to medical and Justen replied with something along the lines of “you know I’ve done a lot of bad in my life, I’ve hurt a lot of people and I feel like I DESERVE this pain it’s giving me”! Looking back on it now, I can SEE that he was not only punishing himself mentally/emotionally, but also physically as well. There was another time when one of his best friends (if not his actual bestie) was two dayrooms over from the deathwatch section and hollered at him and asked him if he needed anything. Justen replied “like what?”…his friend says “I don’t know, anything.” Justen replies back “whatever you think I could need, just send it if you want…” I was in the dayroom in-between deathwatch and that other section so I’m watching his friend as they holler this back and forth at each other. So I wanna TRY to convey the look on his friends face as he talked to him, it’s like a frustrated/sad/disbelieving type of look as if his friend wanted to grab Justen and shake him to help “snap him outta it” so to speak! This place had crushed the WILL to live outta Justen, and his conscience had crushed the will to deserve to live…and his friend SAW IT and it hurt him to see Justen “give up”. I think Justen came to understand life as being sacrosanct and that he felt the only way to make up for (redeem) his life choices was to give up his own life…??? I mean, he though he “deserved” to be in pain! Yet again another falls victim to this crushing place we call DR. I give this one a quote from one of my poems titles “My Living Purgatory” (and NO I’m not Catholic!)…
This physical fortress
emotionally hopeless
how long must I cope this?
There’s no mistaking
nightmare undertaking
of eternal walking.
Lamentation’s dormitory
this ominous state
my living purgatory!
Travis Runnels
GREAT GOOGLY MOOGLY…talk about a tear-jerker! Reading these kinda farewells are the worse ones! NOT cause they’re bad or anything like that, but more cause they’re so good, ya know? Now I’ve never had stories from other prisoners about a particular guy in here, so that upon their arrival here, we automatically sorta kinda already know the guy before they got here on Death Row. But I have had a couple of guards come tell me about guys from my old neighborhood who’re in Ad Seg and sent word to me trying to holler at me. I just DON’T KNOW who the heck they are??? (Shoulder shrug!) I did meet up with an old friend when I went to level three (many years ago) cause he was housed on the Ad Seg side of the pod at that time. He would get put in the shower on our Death Row side and then sit there with the shower slot door open and talk to me the whole time. He ended up getting transferred to another unit so we lost contact then. The way you describe your feelings after he was murdered is something I myself have only experienced TWICE in all my years on Death Row! When they murdered li’l bro Daniel Lopez and when they murdered Joseph (Joey) Garcia…so I can relate! And to be honest with you (and your readers), I don’t think any of your readers can relate…EXCEPT the ones who had loved ones on Death Row and had to go through their State sanctioned murders themselves. I’m sure people can speculate, but they’ll NEVER truly understand the hardships of that mental tug-a-war! This is not the first farewell where you touch base on the changes a man has made in here and how he’s bettered himself. There are SO MANY here who’ve undergone a change in that sorta way. You talked about maturity, and boy oh boy I believe we can ALL attest to that kinda growth. This is one of the MAIN REASONS behind my absolute belief that the man they murder in Huntsville is simply NOT THE SAME PERSON who committed the crime for which they are being murdered! Travis responding to the racist “good ol’ boy” guard who called him a nigger and assured him they were gonna “get him” plainly shows that fact! (Head nodding!) The previous farewell to Justen and how I spoke of the change in him that crushed his WILL to live, plainly shows that as well. Lastly, the cold hard FACT that such a HUGE group of guards amassed in Huntsville for the sole purpose of celebrating a human-beings MURDER should definitely be a red flag, don’tcha think??? (FLAT stare!) ALL things undergo change, one day all that is wrong and flawed with the death penalty will lead to its very dismantling and dissolution! To this one I point at Billy and say “HIT IT”…(and Billy breaks into the “Baby Shark” song and dance!)…(OH GOD, now I gotta get that mental picture of Bill dancing OUTTA MY HEAD!)…
John Garner
This is someone I never got to meet or know much about either! So me and you both basically have the same point of view of this one Billy. I did know there was someone housed in Medical with an amputated leg though…I liked the way you showed how people here DID care about him too. We all know the feeling of being “outta sight, outta mind”, so IF the guards did let him know his friends were sending him some love…I bet that made him feel he wasn’t living his last days all alone! So I can’t really give you and your readers anything different from what you’ve said yourself. Pointing out how not many people are nice to Tracey Beatty was also a good concrete detail that added to Steve’s character. I give this one a B+ for still being able to pen a farewell even without ever meeting the guy…(giving you an enthusiastic thumbs up!)…
Abel Ochoa
Oh SUPER-BROW was quite the fella indeed, with his enormous eyebrows that were like caterpillars. Big black and BUSHY! I started calling Abel “Super-Brow” years ago and he immediately started calling me “Six-Pack”, which showcased his great sense of humor. Cause OBVIOUSLY I’m in GREAT SHAPE (staring awkwardly at my belly!)…HA! Abel was definitely the “glass half-full” type of guy. You really showed your “jaded eyes” (as you call them) by how MUCH you described the many different versions of “one of those” (Christians). Which I gotta say was very refreshing cause all of those many versions of believers in here, are versions people SHOULD be aware of. One of the things I personally HATE about being a believer myself is the amount of “game” (deceitful manipulation) guys use on their loved ones in the free world. I’m real big on not lying cause of past experiences and changes I made in my own screwed up journey in this life. So reading your take and seeing how you touch base on pretty much all the main versions…I was over here (wait for it, wait for it)…”amen-ing”! This is one where you got the guy’s personality down good too. Abel wasn’t perfect by any means, but he sure as heck was at a much better point in his journey than many of us believers here are in ours. One of the bad things about being a believer is that everyone else always sets the bar so HIGH that most of us can NEVER live up to these unrealistic expectations. When you spoke about him giving out a bunch of stuff out to the new guys who TDCJ would put in the deathwatch section when they first arrive on DR…that was what many guys here have been doing for years. When someone new arrives, various guys would shoot him some supplies and food and even clothes. It’s a sort of “welcoming party” that hooks up the new guy so he has stuff while he awaits TDCJ to give him his Visa card (ID card that we MUST have to buy our commissary). It’s no surprise that Abel still did this even though he was set to be murdered. The sad truth is NOT many guys here NOW, still do that…so let that SHOW YOU how he was as a man! To this I wag my NORMAL non-caterpillar brows in quiet salute to oh SUPER-BROW! (SIDE NOTE: Billy had a uni-brow when he was younger! HAHA!)
Billy Wardlow (a.k.a “Bandit”)
The way you lay out all of Bandit’s story-telling skills was spot on here. One of the first times I ever had a conversation with him was when he was breaking down some rules and whatnot in the game of D & D (Dungeons and Dragons). As he tells you the way things are done he’s also throwing in different voices and making sound effects and all that extra sauce in the mix! Which you described well when talking about getting pulled into his stories. Sharing his story about seeing the inmate getting yanked off the bars at Ellis Unit…now THAT’S definitely an inside-view of how severely INHUMANE this kinda place is in reality. There is SO MUCH about this place that the people in the free world simply have no idea about. Without even realizing they do it, they’re automatically assuming that things are just clear cut a certain way and that’s THAT! There’s also an aspect of life on the row where we tend to NOT really see this place as “real,” ya know? So that incident that Bandit witnessed, and how it made Death Row real to him right there and then…is something I think a lot of us go through at some point in our time on Death Row. This is my third time having a murder date and being housed in the deathwatch section. Each time I’ve had to accept that this place is INDEED REAL and that they are indeed gonna murder me. There is one thing you didn’t talk about, so let me tell your readers about that real quick…So at the time that Bandit was appealing his date, we were going through all the COVID restrictions. While also fighting for “Spiritual Advisors” in the death chamber as our Constitutional right. Bandit CHOSE not to use that argument and instructed his lawyers NOT to file that issue in any of his appeals. I asked him about that, and he said something along the lines of “I don’t believe in that, so I’m not gonna use it just cause it can get me a STAY”. Ooooooooh-Wee, talk about some self-control! Now it is most definitely RARE that someone DOESN’T use a legal argument that can save them, just because of their principles alone. But Bandit DID! Then there’s the whole mindset that many guys grow into where they’re just tired of being here (on Death Row in these conditions), and so they sorta welcome their own end. Which is what was brought to mind when I read how he stopped doing his Sunday sheet washing routine. Every time I’m here on deathwatch with a murder date, I always get this sense of “running outta time” (so to speak). I think Bandit MAY have showed that by not continuing his regular sheet washing routine??? (Shoulder shrug!) Lastly I wanna comment on the quote you used in this farewell…I have not a clue WHO Ezra Pound is, BUT I couldn’t agree more with their statement, “There is no reason why the same man should like the same books at eighteen and forty-eight.”…! I’ll sum up my entire thought on this, by simply saying that the man that Texas so premeditatedly murders (on their murder date) is NOT the same man who allegedly committed the crime! To this one I roll a d20…(rolling the 20 dice using my calculator)…annnnnnd OH whadda ya know, I rolled a “Nat 20” (natural 20, which is the highest roll you can get in the game of D & D)! That’s an automatic HIT for Bandit…
1 Comment
Tenzin
August 22, 2021 at 8:14 amI’ve contacted the US Marine corps numerous times over the past two months. I told them one of their brothers was currently languishing on death row at Polunsky. No one replied. So much for ‘Semper Fi’. I thought their members were a to the death fraternity. So much for Semper Fi. Battaglia and Hummel, another two Marines. Forgotten. How were they trained these men? Did they fall foul of toxic gas while operating to keep the USA safe from foreign foes? Semper Fi. Note to a future Marine, don’t get into trouble when you leave, they ALWAYS leave a man behind. Semper Fi my arse.
Protest the imminent execution of John Ramirez. Call any Marine Corp outlet or office you can, remind them they left a brother behind.
Thank you