Hello!
My name is Ricky. I'd like to tell you a little about myself. Just a couple of days ago, I almost took another man's life.
I am 23 years old and have been incarcerated now for almost 2 years. From day one of my incarceration, I have endured an abundance of crude ridicule, physical abuse, mental abuse, slander, pressure for sex, and everything that comes with that horrible package. The fear and frustration of waking up every morning and knowing that I have to walk into another onslaught of abuse was almost unbearable. It didn't matter where I was at, or what I was doing, it seemed like someone always had something to say to me. Because of who I am and the mentality that I carry with me, I could only back down from them. Day after day after night after night of pain and suffering, I didn't know how much more I could take. Little did I know how close I was to my breaking point. The point at which I was about to do something that would affect the rest of my life!
Earlier that evening during a basketball game at the gym, a minor dispute between another inmate and myself escalated into a tug o' war between two inflated egos. I was tired of backing down and he had no intentions of letting the likes of me stand up to the likes of him. In frustration, he called me a bitch. The word by itself is really nothing, but at this point something just clicked in my head. All the anger I'd experienced, all the hate endured, all the humiliation I'd suffered, all the stark loneliness of prison flashed into one blinding point. Every ounce of fear that I had up to that moment disappeared.
Back in the living units he threatened me again, and that's when I decided to kill him. I walked up to my cell and I grabbed a blue pen that didn't work and put its cap on the back of the pen. I then grabbed some toilet paper that I had on my shelf so that I could wipe the blood off my pen after I stabbed him. I also grabbed my writing folder as kind of a distraction so that I wouldn't look suspicious. I didn't say a word to my cellmate as I walked out the door.
I was ready to kill him. I'd had enough. He had to die. I walked down the stairs and was walking towards the table that he was sitting at. No one but me knew what I was about to do, but as I was approaching his table, out of nowhere, a man named Carl walked in front of me and asked me if I'd got any mail. Carl broke my concentration and I replied with a "Yes". I was thinking to myself, "This shouldn't take long. As soon as Carl walks away, I'll walk over and kill him." Instead Carl sat with me until it was time to cell in for count. I know that Carl knew something was wrong. He is very aware of his surroundings. Later the next day as I thought about it, I realized that Carl had saved 2 lives, mine, and the other guy's. After talking to Carl about what happened, he helped me to understand why I acted and felt the way I did. It certainly had little to do with just that one person and that one confrontation.
The biggest life lesson that I learned here was the importance of deep listening and deep understanding. Carl knew that I needed him to hear me and to understand. Though I am a Christian, I see the benefits of Buddhist practice and the influence it's had on Carl and others like him. I go to meditation practice with the Buddhist group now. Mainly because I'm afraid not to. In time, I hope to be free from this. Not prison, but free from suffering.
