by Damon West
Every man I saw greeted me either verbally or with a fist bump. I understood why the white guys were doing this. I had made “our race” look strong yesterday. However, the blacks and Hispanics reacted the same way, too. Carlos made a beeline for me.
“Oeste, mi amigo, you make me proud.” He gave me the customary half-hug.
“I tried to kill him, Carlos,” I told him. “Truly, I did.”
“My friend, your courage was amazing. You showed the entire population you are fluent in the universal language of prison: violence. This, everyone loves. Your tests are over. Respect is yours.” He patted me on the back and took off out of the pod.
I sat at one of the day room tables in my filthy clothes and my unwashed body, thinking about what Carlos just said. God, how I wanted it to be true. I was so tired of fighting.
* * *
I never had to fight another day after that incident with Black Bandit. People treated me differently, even the ones who didn’t like me. They gave me a wider berth with which to navigate prison. Black Bandit would give me vicious looks every now and then, but he never bothered me again. This was the reason why Mr. Jackson said to always fight your fights. Eventually, the predators moved on to the weaker men, easier prey. No sense getting hurt when you could rob or rape someone who won’t hit back. I’d lost most of my fights in prison, but I always fought back. In the end, I won the only one that really mattered.
The fight for my dignity, my life, and my respect.
From that day forward, I worked on myself spiritually, mentally, and physically. In these three areas, I exercised daily. Prison was no longer a punishment, it was my opportunity to be the best human I could be. Only when my life was free from all the drama could I have that conscious contact with God each day. Recovery taught me that I had to surrender each day to my Higher Power. Once that was done, I could be useful instead of useless.
I transformed myself. From then on, I did not merely survive in prison, I thrived. Until that stupid fight I got in about a week ago. At least solitary is providing me some peace and quiet. Honestly, I wouldn’t mind staying back here a few months. Any more than that and I would go nuts from being in a cage too long. I abhor being locked in a cage. Though, as long as my mind and spirit are free, I am good.
CHAPTER 16
Footprints in the Sand
THE MONTHS FOLLOWING THE CAR HEIST out of the Haltom City impound yard saw my life unraveling at an even steadier pace. By May of 2008, Steven and I had stolen several cars from the homes we burglarized. I kept two of them: the luxury car I had been driving and a luxury SUV. Steven kept a few also, although he never again got any cosmetic work done.
On a dope deal, I was able to get an Audi A6, which had been stolen from a car dealership with a plastic valet key. This car was a ticking time bomb, as there was little I could do with it. One May morning, I loaded the trunk with a bunch of stolen identities I was taking to meet the Nigerians. Those guys scared me. I’d met them through a big-time dope dealer in Collin county, north of Dallas, and neither of us had much knowledge of each other. All I knew was they paid cash for identities. This day, I was also hoping to dump off the stolen Audi. I’d decided I was going to give it to them as part of the deal. We were meeting in Carrollton. This meant I could get Gwyn to give me a ride after I made the deal.
She was at a tire shop, getting a new tire when I found her. She immediately lit into me because I had been out of pocket for so long that she’d run out of dope. Having little sympathy for her, and generally not being a very good person, I was rude and made some nasty comment about her being able to get dope anytime she wanted at the strip club where she worked. Then she informed me that she did just that. She had gotten her fix from another dealer. How she paid for it was ambiguous, which infuriated me. We started arguing right there in the tire shop, eventually being asked by the management to step outside.
While outside, as she was getting into her car, I noticed she was wearing a baseball cap of mine and I yanked it off her head. The cap was on tighter than I had anticipated, jerking her head sideways. It was not enough to cause any injury, but it was enough to piss her off severely. A police officer was in the parking lot and she flagged him down, telling him I had assaulted her.
The situation was deteriorating rapidly. The police officer asked for my identification. Not only concerned about my imminent arrest, I was deathly concerned about the stolen Audi with a trunkful of stolen identities from the burglaries I had been committing. Standing by the Audi, the officer took my identification with him across the parking lot to his car with the order, “Stay here.” As soon as he was close to his car, I made a break for the Audi, got in it, and sped off. The police officer, with my driver’s license in his hand, was screaming at me to stop the car.
This was the best bad option I had. If I could outrun the cops, I could ditch the car somewhere and get out of the day with only a warrant for evading arrest and whatever else the Gwyn drama would net me. It beat being caught in a stolen car containing evidence from dozens of burglaries.
I got out onto the street and the cop was in his car, fast on my tail. No way was I going to be able to do this with all these stoplights. To my right was a shopping center. I hopped the curb and turned into it, eventually finding the alley behind it. The cruiser followed closely behind me until the alley. Once in that straightaway, I pushed the Audi to its limit. I was going over a hundred miles an hour. Had a kid, dog, or anything walked out in front of me, I would have killed them and maybe myself. This was insanity. Realizing the threat to safety I was, the officer stopped chasing me. My heart pounding, I found a side street and headed south for Dallas on the Tollway. I parked the Audi in a parking garage in Uptown, rubbed off my prints, got the stolen identities out of it, and never drove it again.
I had a pretty good idea my days were numbered, as the driver’s license the Carrollton police had could lead them right to my door. After first getting high, I began doing an inventory of how much stolen property was in my place. The answer was, too much. That night I moved everything stolen out of my place and into one of my many storage units. It struck me that I could consolidate storage units and not have to deal with security cameras there if I could find a second apartment to rent. I knew just the guy.
Todd was a guy from the meth world who leased apartments for a woman who owned several units in Oak Lawn. I pitched the idea to Todd and he agreed to lease a second place to me. It seemed like the perfect idea, because it was two blocks away from my apartment, on the same street.
Before I could do the deal, I was arrested in North Dallas while breaking into some detached garage units at an apartment complex. I was in a stolen car, the one I found the key to when breaking into it months before in a parking garage. When I was arrested, in its trunk were some stolen items from recent burglaries we committed in the Galleria area. This was toward the end of May 2008. I was in serious trouble now.
Arrested on multiple charges of burglary of a building, possession of stolen property, unauthorized use of a stolen vehicle, and fraudulent use of identification, I had just provided the authorities with the biggest piece of the puzzle to date. Although they didn’t know for sure I was one of the Uptown burglars, they did know I was a burglar. Once in jail, I was also hit with evading arrest from the officer in Carrollton and a misdemeanor charge of assault-family violence, which I got for yanking my hat off Gwyn’s head.
Bonding out was difficult, as evidenced by the fact I was in jail for about a week. My first court appearance brought me face to face with Judge Michael Snipes, formerly known to me as Colonel Snipes. Recognition was instant for both of us. How long had it been since I had seen him? Three or four years since that night at Primos?
Judge Snipes made my conditions of bond contingent on me wearing an ankle monitor, an ankle alcohol monitor, and weekly drug testing. He warned me to stay away from Gwyn, even saying that this was for my own goo
d. I was compliant with anything he said because I wanted out of jail so badly. Nothing but “Yes, sir” from me.
Wendy picked me up from jail, took me home, and we got high. That week in jail was the longest I had been off meth in about three years. My body was drained of all energy, devoid of drive to do anything. Smoking meth out of jail like that was the closest I had ever gotten to experiencing that initial high in the parking garage at UBS four years prior. There was no way I was going to stop smoking meth, drug tests be damned. I already had a “Wizzinator” on the way to pass those tests.
Gwyn had been calling me nonstop. She was apologetic that things had escalated like they did. She’d made that police report out of anger, she said, and vowed to never show up to court for any further prosecutorial action on it. Oh, and by the way, could she get some dope?
Steven and I started planning to move the storages into one apartment. Todd leased us the place in Steven’s name. I distinctly remember telling Steven to burn his copy of the lease agreement. We moved three storage units into that two-bedroom apartment, covering every surface in there, including the kitchen. We dubbed it the Safe House, and agreed to limit the amount of people who knew about the place. It was too enticing a target for other thieves we knew, and too valuable a get-out-of-jail-free card for anyone who got arrested and wanted to cut a deal to get out of their own trouble.
Later that month, I found myself in jail again. This was unexpected, as I was merely showing up for a hearing on the misdemeanor assault charge. Gwyn, as promised, didn’t show up, but the burglary detective from my May arrest did. He came armed with a warrant for another burglary attached to the night I was arrested. Smart play on his part, knowing I would be in court and easy to arrest. With another five thousand dollars in cash and twenty-four more hours, I was on the street again. Had I possessed any sense, I would have listened to my lawyer and stayed in jail. But such a decision would have required a sober outlook on life, which I didn’t possess. I had to get out so I could get high.
Over the July Fourth holiday, Steven and I committed a string of burglaries in Uptown that would tighten the noose around our necks and leave some serious victims in our wake. To say that we pushed our luck would be an understatement. A scared city and an angry police force had finally had enough. If ever there was a time for God to strike us down, it was then. We wouldn’t have to wait long.
The hunt for the Uptown burglars hit a fevered pitch after that holiday crime spree. Every media station, and the Dallas Morning News, carried footage of Steven and me. For the first time, there was a photograph of the two of us together. It came from an elevator camera in the high-rise condo we’d burglarized. Because we had stolen a safe, there was no other option for us than to risk the elevator. Caps down low, we thought we could mask our identities. We were wrong. For anyone who knew us, there was no mistaking who the two guys in the picture were.
In the end, it would be the stolen cars that busted the case wide open. On July 21, an auto theft task force served a warrant on Steven at his Hurst apartment. They were there because of the stolen vehicle he was now driving, but they knew exactly where to look because the authorities impounded a vehicle there a few months prior. Once inside, they found evidence from multiple burglaries in Uptown. They had their man. Wendy saw it on the news and informed me of it. I watched the scene outside his apartment with grim foreboding, thinking that the front of my apartment would soon look the same. It was only a matter of time before they got to me.
I had a terrible, sinking feeling in my stomach. It was from a cryptic text Steven had sent me the night before, when the cops towed his car. It said something to the effect of, “I might as well have had my name on the storage units.” What it meant to me was that there was something inside that stolen car that could tie him to that second apartment. The only thing I could think of was the lease I asked him to destroy. Damn it.
Todd lived a few blocks away on the same street. I ran to his house with a bag of dope and a burner phone in one pocket, a stolen identity in the other. When he answered the door, I said, out of breath, “Todd, have you seen the news tonight? Steven was arrested at his apartment in Hurst.”
His eyes got big. “Oh, no. You don’t think he’ll tell the police about the other apartment, do you?”
“I don’t think he’ll have to.” I shared with him the terrible feeling I had after Steven’s cryptic text. If he never threw away the lease, it would bring the police right to the front door of the Safe House. “Like a treasure map. ‘X’ marks the spot.”
The gravity of my comments hit Todd and he paled. “What are we going to do? They could be watching the place right now.”
Telling Todd I had no doubt they were watching the Safe House, I ruled out any efforts to remove stolen stuff filling a two-bedroom apartment. I told him I needed to buy some time. Pulling a stolen identity out of my pocket with one hand, and a bag of meth with the other, I pitched him my idea. “Come on, Todd, let’s go smoke this and do some paperwork.”
With no other options, Todd reluctantly agreed to draw up a new lease in the name of one of my burglary victims. This one would supersede the lease Steven signed. Wearing latex gloves and using my left hand, I provided a signature and the phone number from my burner phone in my pocket. The phone had never been used and would never be used to call any other number. No way was I going to have any other numbers tied to this one. In actuality, this was going to be the last phone I used before the cops caught up with me. New lease signed, I burned my copy in Todd’s living room.
It was a Band-Aid on a broken leg. My options were limited, especially with the ankle monitor on me. I had to get it off. But how? Turning to the internet, I learned about my particular ankle monitor. The diagram showed about half-dozen wires that wrapped around the ankle, meeting in the big core of the device that housed the monitoring system. It resembled a small pager. I removed the rubber bracelet with heat from a torch lighter, leaving the wires exposed. Nothing fancy about the wires. The trick, it turned out, was to jump the wires together with a wire clip and snip the wires in the middle. If I was reading it wrong, I was screwed and could expect the cops any minute.
It’s shocking the courage that comes from being desperate. No amount of arm twisting was necessary for me to commit a felony by snipping those wires. In my addicted logic, I simply had no choice. Wires cut, I looked at the monitor box in my living room. Nothing. All systems normal. I had removed the one thing grounding me to the apartment after 10 p.m. each night.
Setting the bracelet on the living room box, I went out into the night to score more dope and talk to a few of the other people involved with the burglaries. I asked everyone to lie low. No worries about that because no one from the burglaries wanted me anywhere around them. Could I blame them? I was a dead man walking.
Within a few days of Steven’s arrest, the burner phone tied to the fake identity on the new lease rang. I didn’t recognize the number, but I knew who it was: the Dallas Police Department. A detective said he was with the fire department and wanted to get in to check the sprinklers in my apartment. I told him I would be home to move in within two weeks and he could check them when I returned. The agitation in his voice was detectable; his dissatisfaction at both my answer and knowing, but not being able to prove, he was talking to the other half of the Uptown burglars was measurably tense. I was sweating and holding my breath when the phone call ended with him hanging up on me.
Later, when the cops were gone, Todd called me. He described the scene as intense. They had shown up with a warrant to search Steven’s place, just like I’d said they would. When he showed them Steven’s name was no longer on the lease, they freaked out. He was terrified.
They’d grilled him for over an hour. Finally, he said, they called the number on the lease and spoke with me. Dozens of cops, in dozens of vehicles, went home empty-handed.
“They’re coming for you, Damon.”
My time was limited. I asked Todd, “If you only had a few days of freedom left, how would you spend it?”
Without hesitation, he said, “I would get as high as I possibly could.”
I nodded, even though he couldn’t see my gesture through the phone. “That’s pretty much what I was thinking.”
I told him his best bet was to stay clear of my place, and then I thanked him for all his help. “I promise I will not snitch on you when they catch me,” I said before I hung up.
My final few days of freedom were spent bouncing around from dope dealer to Gwyn’s place to my apartment. I warned Wendy of the impending doom. She stayed surprisingly level-headed throughout that last week. We checked that there was nothing stolen in our apartment. Squeaky clean, except for meth and about ten thousand dollars under my bed in a shoebox.
People on meth are generally paranoid. Well, I was most of the time. During this period, I was hyper-aware of everything going on in my neighborhood. Lots of traffic and “suspicious”-looking vehicles. Anytime I left the apartment, I rode with someone else. Scared doesn’t even begin to describe my mental state. The neighborhood was hot, and they were getting closer to me. I could feel it. I knew there was no way I could live like this for long.
Shortly after 1 a.m. on July 30, 2008, I had Gwyn pick me up. We went to her place and performed our usual ritual of getting high and having sex. Around 11 a.m., she took me home. The first thing I checked was my dope stash. It was low. I placed a call to one of my dealers, a guy named Tex. He said he would be over in an hour or so. Not having slept in over forty-eight hours, I fired up my bong and got high.