My parents owned a big, beautiful home in Saint Charles, IL. This was about 20+ years ago. And I lived there a few times, but I don’t believe I was living with them at this moment I’m referring to. I don’t recall where I was staying, possibly in Chicago, with a friend of mine.
My mom used to say, she only got a good night’s rest when I was in jail or some lockdown facility (I’ve been in all types). So I wasn’t too surprised when the next sequence of events played out.
The Unibomber?
I was getting ready to leave my parents house, after just robbing them for the 3rd(?) time. So I walk out the garage door, about to get into my car but I noticed that my mom and my older (but not oldest) sister were blocking me in, with their car. I don’t recall exactly what happened next, but I think I tried to get out of there in my car by going around them or something, but I then noticed a whole army of police vehicles, police SUV’s, etc all around my parent’s property. My memory of this particular scene might not be perfectly accurate. But I do remember vividly what it felt like (to me); that the police were finally catching the Unibomber, after months of searching. I was handcuffed and thrown in the back of one the squad cars, and taken to jail.
Kane County Jail…
This jail is considered the second “roughest” jail in the area (in Illinois and neighboring states), under Cook County jail. Mainly due to overcrowding and the towns in Kane county were being used when Chicago needed to relocate residents, or if they took a projects building complex down. They generally would relocate people to Aurora, and Elgin, in IL. In those towns and in the Kane county jail, there was a large gang presence (I have no idea if it’s still like this or not).
So that night was my first experience in Kane County jail. I don’t recall how long I spent in there that time. Was a few months I believe? My memory is still slowly coming back to me.
Drug Court
I was charged with three crimes, if I remember correctly. One was felony theft of over $1k, one was felony automobile theft, and I don’t recall what the third one was. And some misdemeanor thefts I think as well.
This wasn’t the first time I had been arrested. This wasn’t the last time either… There was a drug possession charge during my high school years (physically getting arrested in the school), and I think driving without a license, jaywalking… maybe a few other small things. This was the first time I was going to be spending any lengths of time in jail though.
Some background
Again, my memory is really hazy during this period of my life. I was heavily under the influence of heroin, 100% of the time, and many other drugs, here and there. I wasn’t drinking at this point. There were the high school parties where we’d all blackout and just assume we had a good time, and other things like that but once I got involved with heroin, I lost all interest in alcohol (which is fairly common… most junkies don’t drink alcohol till further down their addiction).
This was after I had already been in several rehab centers all over the country. And I had a few more to go still. But by this point, I was stealing, selling things at pawn shops, and going into the west side everyday to buy heroin. I would spend anywhere from $10-$400 per day, each and every single day – and most of those days it was at the higher end of that range. At one point, I was putting $40 worth into each shot. $10 could kill someone if they weren’t used to it.
Drug addict morals
I had stolen from my parents house a few times prior, and even told them where they could get their stuff back if they wanted. Because I was such a good boy… Little did I realize, that’s actually what got me arrested. They had proof (receipts from the pawn shop) showing the value of the items that were stolen. Karma, I suppose …. Nature is self healing, self correcting, and patient. So if you think you got away with something… watch out… One of my favorite truths is: “Life will find a way.” Life always finds a way.
I was reading about Paul Stamets, and one of his Ted talks he speaks about having a carpenter ant problem, and he used some mycelium extract he was working with and the carpenter ant would eat it and die, and then the mycelium would mummify the ant body after awhile, and pretty soon little mushrooms burst out of the ant’s head and also one out of its torso. Life finds a way…
Preparing
So, after robbing them a few times, I assume my family was searching for ways to stop this pattern, and get me more help. So having me arrested seemed logical, especially if you knew I would be put into a drug court program which promises to get the inmate a bed in a local treatment facility. They don’t tell you how long you’ll be waiting in Kane county jail, and that because you don’t have a release date, you don’t have the same privileges as sentenced inmates. Some people were waiting 9 months, 12 months, and so on. You typically don’t serve that much time in county jail unless you’re fighting a case. Because no one wants to.. You don’t see the sun for months. Do you have any idea what that does to someone? If there’s a cloudy day here in San Diego, I loose my shit now. It’s ridiculous….
You really must accessorize!
I got released after a couple months I think, with an ankle bracelet, so I could finish waiting at home, for the treatment bed spot to open up. I think because I was new to the program, they allowed this. It basically means you are allowed to go home, but you are not allowed to leave your home and if you go 50 ft away, they get alerted and show up at your location, and take you back to jail. If you remove this device (it resembles a huge pager attached to your ankle), the same thing happens.
Naturally, I didn’t stay home. That would be silly. I don’t really remember all the details, but let’s assume I got high again, and got caught. Back in jail again…
Playing cards for food
This time it was going to be different. I was reading any books I could get my hand on. I was playing cards with all the gang members because I was better than anyone else there and we played for food. They liked to eat.. The food was horrible though so I didn’t really care about the food we won, I was doing it for protection. No one messed with me, because I was good at cards and friends with the right people. I was friends with the guards too. And actually I got to know a few of them fairly well, and they would ask me accounting questions, and other things.. I was only 22 years old or something.. I was also the only inmate in the jail that received the newspaper every day… and had books mailed to me monthly. When I would come back to visit (I’m totally kidding… I didn’t visit.. however I was brought back several times), all the guards would recognize me, and welcome me back. After the first couple times returning, if they saw me in the booking cell (to get processed into the jail), they would grab me and put me in the front of the line right away.
My family…
They put me in there, but they didn’t abandon me. Quite the opposite. My mom was there every single chance she could, to visit me, to drop off things, to yell at whoever, to put money on my books. To make sure I was alright. My sisters and my dad (I think?) visited too when they could, but my mom was there every week. Like I said, these were the only times she felt I was safe…
And I robbed that from her…
I couldn’t even let her have those nights. Not for long. Because during the second to last of my stints in Kane county jail, I overdosed and stop breathing for ten minutes, definitely losing oxygen to this brain by this point, and I wasn’t even being taken to a hospital yet. In fact, it took ten minutes for the guards to come back to see what all the ruckus was. The other inmates in my cellblock were throwing anything that wasn’t bolted to the floor (and that was just a couple plastic chairs), against the 1 foot thick bulletproof glass that you couldn’t hear through, to get the guards attention. I had turned completely blue by this point, and one of my lungs was filled with fluid.
My condolences
I don’t remember any of this, because I was close to dead by this point, but as I was being rolled down the hallway on the gurney, my old cellmate, from my previous cell block, saw me through the bulletproof glass and assumed I had passed away. He knew about my history and probably assumed I got my hands on something. We spent months together in the cell together, so naturally he knew a lot about me and felt he knew my family (probably after all the letters written back and forth and whatnot). So he writes my parents a condolence letter.
Doc, please say I’m sick
By this time, I’m in the nearby hospital, handcuffed to a bed again, this time with an armed guard as well, sitting next to me the entire time. I wake up to detectives trying to grill me on how I got my hands on drugs, etc, etc… Most of this experience is fuzzy to me. One thing I do remember, was that my doctor who treated me was awesome. After the cops were done interviewing me, the doctor was telling me what happened, and that I was very lucky to be alive, yadda yadda yadda, the usual stuff. Didn’t have an affect on me again, of course… But I remember pulling him closer to me, because he was about to say that I would be outta there soon (hours). For overdoses, typically they resuscitate you, give you some water, and a pamphlet about what you’re doing to yourself, as if you didn’t know.. and let you on your way.. no big deal… Well not me.. Not this time.. That hospital food was damn good compared to jail food, plus pudding? I begged the doctor to let me stay as long as I could get away with and he took pity on me, seeing that there was a guard sitting there staring at both of us…
Living it up!
What I didn’t realize was that the guard heard me, and was secretly hoping the doctor would also let me stay longer. She told me she loved hospital duty because you just sit there all day, and don’t have to do a thing. So instead of leaving the hospital and being transported back to the jail, I was able to stay in the hospital for three glorious nights. To me, it was like the Four Seasons, or the Ritz… compared to where I had just been for 6 or so months by now. Asking the nurse for pudding felt like I was asking my personal butler for a drink while relaxing at some beach resort. And I had my own personal security too!
It’s in the mail
Despite my parents being listed as my emergency contacts, the jail didn’t think this would classify as an emergency, and they never notified anyone. I’m now doubting they would’ve contacted them had I passed away… but whatever.
So my family had no idea anything happened to me. In fact, I think my mom even tried to visit the jail but they said I wasn’t able to have a visit or something…
When my mom opened a condolence letter from a cellmate of mine, from the jail I was just supposed to be in, saying how sorry he was for her loss, and whatnot.. Well, I’m guessing that day sucked.. And then not being able to contact me to verify anything? Jails don’t have incoming lines we could answer, at least not back then.
New drug charges, yay
They bring me back to jail, and I’m immediately taken to court, and now I have another charge. A new possession charge. Lovely…
So I’m waiting in jail for a few more weeks, and go back to court, and they decide its best if I get a treatment bed as soon as possible. I was out about a month later, in a treatment center in Aurora, IL. This is a whole other crazy story I’ll get to in another post though.
But I still had this new drug charge. Sometime between me getting kicked out of the treatment center in Aurora (I got kicked out of many treatment centers… most actually) and going back to jail again I think(?), I had a court date regarding the new drug charge.
Luckily, I got pneumonia
Due to my lung filling with fluid, I got pneumonia, and had to have lung surgery to remove the now solidified fluid out of my lungs so I could breath.. They cut you open from your back. and cut open your lung and literally scrape the stuff out of your lung. It’s incredibly painful, before and after the surgery.
Seeing as the reason I had such complications after this overdose was because it took the guards 10 minutes to see I wasn’t breathing, in a cell block that is supposed to be monitored 24 hours a day, which caused my lungs to fill with fluid and almost kill me… well, you could say we had some leverage when it came to this new drug charge and they dropped it to avoid a lawsuit…
The trustee dorm had no cells.. It was an open layout, and therefore required security to be watching us at all times. The guards were in the office watching TV while I was dying..
What did I get my hands on?
In this trustee dorm, we had more privileges than typical inmates.. We had jobs, access to more food… even coffee sometimes.. There was one inmate though, the only one in the whole history of the jail I think, he got court ordered methadone. When he was sentenced, he had been on a methadone program and wanted to continue it, naturally. Because it is absolute fucking hell withdrawing from methadone. Anyhow – it was his last night in jail. He was getting released the next day. So I worked out a deal with him and bought his last methadone dose. He was fine with it, because he could go get the real stuff the next day. So when the nurse was passing out the medication for the day, he got his little cup of methadone, pretended to swallow it, but didn’t and spit it in a cup, which I later took. All it cost me was a pillow case full of commissary (food snacks).
It’s all about the dosage…
By now I had been in jail for several months. That means I had been clean for several months (not common for me). That means, when I took this guys methadone dose of 60mg, it was probably at least twice what I could’ve handled with no tolerance… I didn’t have a chance.. I drank it, and didn’t feel anything for an entire hour. I was getting annoyed, and then I remember nothing.. The inmates said they found me on my cot, blue, not breathing and they didn’t know how long I was like that.
Talk about the universe giving me another sign…
