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Murdering Malachi: Part 5 - I'm Gonna Scar You For Life
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"Murdering Malachi" is a special limited series by The Redacted Podcast, produced by Matt Bender and Pamela Bender.
In this gripping episode, "Murdering Malachi: Part 5 – I'm Gonna Scar You for Life," we delve into the raw and harrowing experiences of Malachi's time in jail. Through vivid storytelling, Malachi recounts his journey through the Philadelphia County Jail, a place where the noise never stops, the lights never dim, and the violence is unrelenting.
Malachi's narrative is a visceral exploration of survival in an environment where the guards are as brutal as the inmates, and the psychological toll is as damaging as the physical. From the constant noise that led to a psychotic break to the guards' sadistic practices, Malachi's story is a haunting reminder of the human cost of incarceration.
With unflinching honesty, Malachi shares the moments that scarred him for life, both literally and metaphorically. He opens up about the violence he endured and inflicted, the friendships that ended in tragedy, and the fleeting moments of humanity that kept him going. This episode is not just a recounting of events; it's a deep dive into the psyche of a man forever changed by his experiences.
Join us as we navigate this intense and emotional journey, and stay tuned for the next episode, where we confront Malachi with mysterious accusations that could change everything.
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When our skin gets cut or scraped or injured in some way and it starts to heal, something strange happens to the place where that wound occurred. It's a process At first it bleeds. A bleeding wound tells us that there's something obvious that happened there and it needs to be addressed. Everyone can see it, notice and sympathize with a fresh or bleeding wound, like man. How did you do that? After the bleeding stops and the blood clots and a scab starts to form, you're healing. It's better than it was, but maybe still a bit painful and itchy. At some point, when enough time has passed and the body has done its job, the scab falls off and only the scar remains. That scar is the only witness, and maybe sometimes reminder, of the trauma that happened there. That spot on your skin will always look different the rest of your life. The tissue is forever changed and it'll even act differently than the rest of your body if you wound it again. Maybe that's how our mind and emotions work too. We get hurt, stop the bleeding and eventually heal, but always just a little different than we were before, forever changed with invisible scars that no one else can see. Sometimes they make us wiser and stronger and sometimes, well, they make us weaker and sometimes, well, they make us weaker From the Redacted Podcast.
Speaker 1:I'm Matt Bender and this is Murdering Malachi, part 5. I'm gonna scar you for life. If you haven't already figured it out, malachi has been arrested. He's also been to jail. That is, unfortunately, a symptom for many of a life lived through the illness of abuse and addiction. I wanted to hear his full rap sheet, so to speak, and about some of his experiences in jail. Trigger warning for violence in this episode. Also, if you haven't listened to parts one through four, go back and check those out. But without further ado, here's Malachi.
Speaker 2:So what I want to talk about is my time in jail. The main conversation is going to be about the year I spent in Philadelphia, because that is a journey unto itself. But to get there, I just want to give a brief chronology of my interactions with being arrested and jail. Now let's 99.9% of my jail activity was basically just possession. That's pretty much like I wasn't the criminal type.
Speaker 2:Even in my addiction I was a con artist. You know, you gave me money and you thanked me for the opportunity to give me money. I was that guy. I had you pretty good after. You know, you gave me money, but early in, when the addiction was just starting to take over and I was I think I was still working as a stripper, but it was starting to get out of hand and I really it was new to it. So I didn't you know when you knew when it you, you, you kind of fall fast and then you level out Like what kind of addict am I going to be? You know, but in the beginning you kind of do stupid stuff, and so I had taken $20 out of the purse of some girl I was staying with and she tried to stop me. She was like no, you're not going out, whatever, you know, give me my money back. And I pushed her, but not like hard, not not violent, not just more like get off me, girl, I'm going to get you high, kind of thing. And she fell into the bed. I even pushed her because I knew the bed was there. It wasn't like let me push you, and wherever you land you land. It was like oh, there's a bed, let me get her off of me, you know. So she, she was upset, called the cops and so there was a warrant for my arrest for like an aggravated assault. Like I said, I pushed her onto the bed just to get off me. I'm not condoning it, I'm not saying, hey, go around pushing women to get a call from you. I'm just saying that's all it was. So you can look at that however you want to look at it. I own up to what I do.
Speaker 2:So one day I was getting further and further in a mess. I was at a gay bar and I think I pickpocketed some guy who had a wedding ring on. I'm not proud of it. This was the early days of my addiction, where I was sort of figuring out. I don't even know if I was figuring out. I was just kind of crazy. Maybe it was like a six month stint where I was like, oh wow, I really need this drug and I don't know what to do because I really really need it. Let me go out and find a way to get this drug. And as I left the bar he came running. Oh my God, he's got my wallet and my mind is telling me he's in a gay bar and he's married. He's not going to press charges. But he came screaming out and I'm running down the street. Somebody tried to trip me. I hurtled over him. Cops are chasing me. I'm smoking them. They're nowhere near me. I stopped to rest. I hid somewhere. They came caught up and I stupidly got up from where I was hiding, ran some more. They chased me some more. Well, I got tired of running because I was drunk as a dog. Dirt too, that's another part of it. That's another part of it. That's another part of it.
Speaker 2:It was in that first six months where I drank a lot too. That drinking ended very quickly for me because I didn't like hangovers and I didn't like stumbling and like drinking for me. I still drink now, but drinking now is more like a glass of wine with dinner once every five months. You know, maybe I'll have a cocktail at lunch once every four months and don't even finish the cocktail. But back then that was part of the exploration, part of the sort of like, what's going on, what am I doing? And I was stone cold drunk. I finally stopped.
Speaker 2:The cops caught me. I think they put me on the ground, but I don't think they were unduly rough. And then the guy walked up and he refused to press charges, just like I knew he would. You could see him look at it like, oh shit, how am I going to explain this? But they found some coke in my pocket. So they arrested me and I got to the jail and they were like, hey, have you ever heard of this such and such person? And I was like, oh fuck, now what? Because she was actually kind of a loon. And they were like, oh, she's charging you with ABC and D, are you fucking kidding me? So the possession charge. I would have been released that night, but because of her charge they took me to jail. I was only in jail for like a week, if that long.
Speaker 2:And then, you know, I had a lot of connections back then, because, like, I know how to live in the big city. I've got an uncle who's a huge lawyer, I've got friends who are judges, because you work out at the same gym. You know, here I am, this kid from the ghetto is getting high and I'm friends with judges, but that's kind of the nature of my life. So you know people making calls and they're calling her. Basically, she refused, she didn't press charges because it was a bullshit case and you know the best you could get I don't even know if you could get a charge out of that I just pushed her off me. Maybe a simple robbery for the 20 bucks, but all in all it was like ain't none of this worth it.
Speaker 2:But they put me on probation for the cocaine. Now I was on probation for a year but I kept fucking up Because that's when I was gone. That's when I was out there just early in my addiction and I was stripping, partying, getting high, and I'd get hot urines. I wouldn't show up. And again I had all of these friends who would call probation officers, like, give him another chance, he's a friend of ours, we, you know. Ah, I don't. You know, we'll call your boss if you don't. All of that, all of that.
Speaker 2:I had three probation officers in one year because they kept quitting. They kept being like yeah, I'm not dealing with this, I can't, my hands are tied If the kid does whatever he wants. You know four or five something. And they were just like he does whatever he wants, we can't punish him, I quit. Finally, two weeks I think it was two weeks before my probation was over I had another hot urine and I had this short, four foot tall jewish probation officer who just was no nonsense whatsoever, and he actually arrested me and I was like what I was supposed to do? A 30-day violation. They sent me to the jail and I ended up doing a year. They wouldn't let me out Because somebody talked to somebody and was like look, if we let this kid out, these are going to do the same old shit. Calls are going to be made. So somehow, some way, 30 days turned into a year. They just left me there. Now, before I talk about that time, I'm going to say I've had multiple charges after that, almost all possessions, almost all. I was released the same day. They were like here's your possession, here's your ticket to go to court, you know, and I'd get either another probation or I'd get a fine.
Speaker 2:Nothing ever came of it, except when I was in LA I got arrested in a drug sting and I actually was with the drug dealer. So the short version is I was facing three years because I got caught with the drug dealer. So I didn't know if McCann's vaping and I told him straight up his drugs. Don't know him, he's the one. Blah, blah, blah, because I'm not doing three years for getting high. And so, yeah, I didn't know the guy.
Speaker 2:So it wasn't any kind of like oh, you're snitching on your. I'm like, fuck that, I don't know this dude. All he is is the guy that gave me crack. I'm doing three years, uh-uh, him, him, him, him, him. And I ended up doing like two months and I got like three years probation, which technically I'm kind of still the one, but that's another story. It's a weird thing. I'm in like this limbo state right now, or if I go to California I might get in trouble, but basically I'm not allowed in California. Like I, I can walk into a police station right now and tell them my name and they're like you're not allowed in California right.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I know they get you right. I know we don't want you, we don't care, no one does. But if you go to California because I never finished the probation Basically what it is I never finished the probation because I was still being a mess up, so that's kind of something that lingers Like I'm not allowed in California but no one else gives a damn about me and so, yeah, that's pretty much that, like you know, been a few years since I've gotten any addiction charges. So that aspect of my life by God's grace is gone, but I want to go back. So all a bunch of possession charges. California was dangerous drugs, so it's kind of like I was with a drug dealer, so it's basically still possession. When I went to Philadelphia jail I had never been in jail before I had not yet come into my manhood, I was a late bloomer.
Speaker 2:because of all the abuse and all the bullying, I kind of knew I was strong, I kind of knew I was capable, but I had no thug in me. Even though I grew up in the ghetto because I hated the thugs, I wanted to be everything I could that wasn't a thug, because to me they were just these filthy human beings that I didn't want anything to do with. To this day I still hate rap music because it represents just everything that bullied and beat and raped and hurt me. So I didn't want to be thugged and that's kind of the worst way to go into jail is not wanting to be thug. So and I was still like kind of afraid of violence.
Speaker 2:Um, I still got sick to my stomach when I saw fights, like I wouldn't throw up if I saw someone fight something. I used to suffer with a lot, especially growing up in the hood, where you see a fight every day and I'm and I'm getting sick to my stomach, and so I was like this is going to be a bad situation. So I was in jail and they put me in a dorm with like 30 guys in one cell.
Speaker 1:And just to, just to paint this. This is is this the County jail?
Speaker 2:This is County jail in Philadelphia. There's like four or five County cells. I think I was in DCC, the detention center, okay, I don't remember all of them, and this is maybe in the early 90s, late 80s something like that Mid-90s, early 90s, I was like 25, 26, somewhere around there, so like mid-90s. Okay, and I was a late bloomer, so like 25, I was just starting 26, somewhere around there, so like mid 90s Okay.
Speaker 2:And I was a late bloomer, so like 25, I was just starting to get into my manhood. I mean, I was fucking everything that walked. You know your wife wanted me more than she wanted you. I was the stripper, so sex I was basically a porn star. But violence and thug and manner and manhood I still hadn't found yet, which is funny because I'm like twice as strong as men, my size. I'm twice as strong as men, twice my size. And come to find out, you know well. No, not come to find out. I mean, I was a wrestler. I made a national team in Sambo, so I knew how to fight.
Speaker 2:I just didn't know I had the right to fight, because all my fights growing up I never was allowed to fight Because it was either me versus three people or me versus four people. It was like because no one wants to lose to the white guy. So the concept of me being allowed to fight, the concept of me not getting hurt in a fight, the concept of me having a fair fight, the whole concept of fighting was foreign to me because it had been put into my head that you're going to lose under any. Whatever circumstances. You're going to lose. We can't let you win and that was beaten into my head so I was afraid to fight. I was 25 years old, strong as a fucking ox skilled fighter, and I was terrified of fighting because it was beaten into my head my whole life. You're going to lose, no matter what we have to do, because we can't let the white guy win, even though I'm biracial. But that's just the way it is. So at 25, I was basically a coward. You know your wife wanted me more than she wanted you, but you could be four feet tall and I'm still scared of you Because I still had this ingrained lesson in my head that I'm going to lose way or another. They're going to make sure I lose.
Speaker 2:So I went to the county jail and let me paint the picture for you. First of all, when I went to LA county jail and with most jails not prison jail, most jails are run by deputies. That's like a rotation. They have to do they get out of the whatever police academy, they have to do like a year in jail, or maybe they have to come back and do I don't know but a lot. They incorporate jail rotations into your duty as a deputy. But the Dallas County Jails don't have deputies. They have strippers and gas station attendants working as the prison guards or the jail guards. I know because one girl they were saying hey, she's a stripper, she works on this place on the weekends. Another guy's like hey, that's my cousin luke. He worked at the gas station last week, now he's a jail guard. They go through some like two weeks of training and they're jail guards. So they they're the most unprofessional, ghetto, broken human being. You think prison guards that you see in those 1940s movies that are just like sadistic and evil and they're nothing compared to Philadelphia jail guards. They get the absolute worst pieces of human garbage you can find and they put a badge on.
Speaker 2:I was in the jail in a dorm and with my PTSD I think I couldn't sleep for like three weeks because of the noise. These 20 year olds, they take shifts. I'm going to stay up all night hollering and screaming. And then you're going to stay up all night hollering and screaming. That's literally what they do. And I had a psychotic break and I almost cut my leg off with a razor blade. Like I cut my leg out four times. I walked downstairs to the towel and I showed somebody else. I'm like, hey, look what I did Like I literally had a psychotic break.
Speaker 2:Not from fear, it wasn't the cowardice, it wasn't the oh my God, this is jail. It was the lack of sleep. It was literally just the noise Jail. That's why I'm terrified of jail now. Not because of fights, not because of stabbings, not because of violence. I mean, I don't want that, but I can handle it. Bring it dog. It was because of the noise. It's the non stop 24 7 noise in jail and, depending on what section you are, the lights don't ever turn off either. So it's nonstop lights, nonstop noise. Your mind can never shut off.
Speaker 2:There was someone with severe PTSD. They ended up strapping me down in a cell in four-point restraints, legs stitched up, so I'm butt naked in four-point restraints, legs stitched up, so I'm butt naked. Four-point restraints in a cell. Inside a cell. I was as locked up as a human being could be, with like 100 stitches in my leg. They sent me to the medical ward where I got a private cell and the medical ward is basically all the transgenders, all the psychopaths, all the senior citizens and all the medical issues are all in one big long room with private cells. So you got the young psychopaths with the 80 year olds. You got the schizophrenics with the heart conditions all in one big room and that's where I spent pretty much the majority of my time. Now I want to tell you about two things. There's a couple things that happen in jail that are really odd to me. One is grown-ass men are addicted to cartoons. Don't ever turn off their cartoons. That's their thing. Dog-ass motherfuckers love cartoons.
Speaker 1:I've never heard that one.
Speaker 2:They love their cartoons. Huh, cartoons and soap operas.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Cartoons and soap operas they're that big and the weird stuff that they do like I'm sitting here watching, and some of this was while I was still in the dorm and some of it if it's specific to the Met unit, I'll say that. But I remember I was in the dorm and the guys were all standing around on TV. Now, fully jailed, you don't have anything. This is jail Jail. The longest you'll stay in jail in Philadelphia is three years. The average stay is a year. Jail is basically is either holding time for you while you're in trial and then you get your sentence, or it's for all the misdemeanors. So you'll get like 30 days in jail. You'll get a year in jail. Anyone who gets more than a year is probably there because they're in the middle of a long trial. So a year is typically the sentence. Anything above a year you're waiting on trial. So two or three years are rare. Those are the people who are fighting, like those are the murder suspects, or those are people who are like fighting for their life and their trial goes on like they're. You know. I mean those are the ones that are in a long-ass battle for their life. The average person in a philadelphia jail is there for between a year and 18 months. I would say the average stays a year. You would think that that wouldn't create certain behaviors, but they're all standing around a tv. You don't get tvs in your cell. You don't get no amenities, no amenities. The only thing you get is there was a catholic guy who'd run around, would walk around, and I know when he met you and he did this. I don't know about the dorms, but I know he would go from cell to cell and ask you what book you'd like and he would go out and they would buy the book for you. They bring it in for you. I mean no Playboy or nothing, but like they would get me, I would ask for Dostoevsky or something like that. I'll explain that one later. That was an interesting story. The guys are standing around and they would have two TVs and they would show two movies a day and the movies would pretty much be the most violent, sex-based movies you could possibly imagine, which was so weird to me. Like they would get the hood movies. They were like drug dealer movies with titties and shooting and killing. These are the movies they would show, which to me was like you're just feeding the beast and that's what they did.
Speaker 2:The guards would arrange fights between inmates, like, like they would literally lock two inmates in a dorm, get everyone out. Be like if y'all want to do this, do this. And the inmates would just beat each other half to death and the guards would stand there watching. The guards would beat you up. The guards would take inmates that did whatever they received as wrong. They did it to me once, but thank god it was only a female guard like I.
Speaker 2:I said something to a female guard who was just a horrible gremlin of a human being I mean, just abusive as hell and I made the mistake of saying something bad to her, and so they escorted me to a cell. She or I think yeah, they put me in a cell and they had me stand against the wall. She came in and she just started slapping the shit out. Now I knew better than to do anything, because I saw the big manly, big angry gorilla looking motherfucker standing behind her like, yeah, go ahead, try something. And they had this thing called rotation. If they this one kid actually hit the female guard and they beat him so bad that he was busted open and bleeding. So they hit him in the system. They had this thing called I forget the phrase for a bit they would hide you, they would transfer you from jail to jail, to jail to jail, so your family can't find you until your wounds heal. So they bust, they, they like, smash his head into the bar, split his head open, beat him down, and then they transferred him from jail to jail, to jail for like a few weeks until his wounds healed enough and he understood the assignment, which is to say that another inmate did it. So his family didn't see him for like a month or two. And that's what they would do if they beat you too badly.
Speaker 2:Some kid stole potato chips. I remember I was sitting in a medical unit that was a famous place for them to do it. That was their hiding spot and you saw like these three, four guards just calmly walking down the aisle. There was an inmate in between them and he's just calmly walking. You know no drama, no, nothing. He knew the assignment. He walks into the cell Pat, pat, pat, pat, pat, pat, pat, pat. He only stole some tater chips, so it wasn't like a deadly beating, and then they just walked back and they all just walked out. That was a common occurrence to see the walk.
Speaker 2:Now I was in the cell and we had this one guy who was this black guy nicest guy in the world, but he was like 400 pounds of all muscle. I mean this dude looked like Brian Shaw, like one of the world's strongest men, black guy. And I remember they did the same thing to him. They just walked him into the cell and all you heard sounded like the guns were going off because they got the biggest guards they could possibly find and they did like no damage to him because like two minutes later he's standing at the cell door hollering yeah, you ain't do nothing to me, but the sound of the blows were like a fucking nuclear explosion. They tried their damnedest to hurt this guy and they couldn't. I mean the guy was a man-mountain, but that's what they did. They walked into the cell, beat him up, came out. That was a common occurrence in a fully jail is is either you're fighting other prisoners or you know the guards are beating you up.
Speaker 2:I got into a few fights myself. I was purposely watch fights cause I had to get out my tolerance, I had to get rid of this weakness I had. And I remember one specific none of my fights really went too far. They were all broken up, except for this one had and I remember one specific none of my fights really went too far. They were all broken up, except for this one fight. And and I found out something about myself that I realized I I've done my whole life there was this guy who was, who was about the same size as me, wasn't particularly great fighter.
Speaker 2:I really had no interest in fighting him, like I don't even know how we got to this point. But he came into my cell and pretty much was like let's fight, and I don't even, I don't know, just let's fight. So we started fighting and I got him on the ground. His head is stuck under the toilet and I'm punching away on his face and I'm yelling for the guards. I'm like CO his face and I'm yelling for the guards. I'm like CO, co, co because I hadn't. I hadn't, like, I had no desire to hurt this kid. I wasn't angry at him. I don't even know why I was fighting him, like why the fuck are we fighting? You know, like what is the point of all of this? But I'm pounding away on him, I'm calling for the COs and the. The COs. They come to the door, they start laughing and they walk away and something in me snapped and I hate that phrase, but it did and I went back to when I the first time I ever fought.
Speaker 2:I was a kid and this is one of the reasons that I was a coward for so long. My very first fight was against three kids. I was like 12 years old, 12 or 13 years old. Very first fight was against three kids. I was like 12 years old, 12 or 13 years old. One of the kids was supposedly my friend, but he did like I said. He joined the group and I had to fight three kids and I beat the living hell out of them. I beat them so bad that I had one, but two of them ended up running away. I had one on the ground now scraping his arm on the concrete. There was something in me and said you're making me fight. I'm gonna scar you for life for this shit.
Speaker 2:As a 12 year old, I was like you're making me fight and there's something about making me fight when that's the last thing on this planet I want to do. You're going to suffer. And I was scraping his arm across the concrete and his parents had to pull a bunch of adults. They pulled me off because of course I was winning. You know it was the other way around. We know how that goes, but the guy who looks white was winning in the hood. We can't have that. So back to jail.
Speaker 2:When the guards walked away, leaving me in there fighting this guy, it was the same feeling. Everybody is making me fight. And I just like saying now, when I dug it into his face and raked down as hard as I could, it's actually so bad that someone came a couple kids or men, not kids came to me later and asked me why I stabbed him. Like, why'd you stab that guy? You ain't have to stab him. I'm like I didn't stab him. That was me, because, again, everyone made me. Even the guards made me fight. You know, I guess they had never seen someone winning calling for help, because in their world, if you're winning you don't call for help, you ask people to go away so you could finish killing somebody. I didn't want to hurt him, I didn't even want to fight him, but they made me someone had to pay. So yeah, there, yeah, there's that.
Speaker 2:Now there was a few other fights. There was just a lot of violence. There's just so much violence. I mean, there was just so, but there was no stabbings. There was only one hit with a broomstick, but there was no weapons. I don't know how that managed to happen, but they didn't do the weapons thing. It was just a lot of physical beatdowns. There was a lot of one-on-ones. There wasn't too much jumping, except the guards. The guards are the only ones that jump people. The prisoners actually did manage to at least do one-on-ones, I'll give them that much. There wasn't a lot of jumping. There was a lot of unfair one-on-ones Like why are you fighting that dude? Like dude can't even fight back and you're beating him up. There was a lot of that, but again, at least it was only one guy beating up the dude that like dude, what the fuck are you? You know he's helpless. Why are you beating him up? A lot of that. A lot of cowards, a lot of fucking cowards, a lot of cowards. In jail there was a few big guys, but they typically avoided fighting each other because no one actually wanted to take a chance at taking a loss.
Speaker 2:There was also, though I'm going to tell you that I had probably the funniest I don't even know what it was, but the biggest laugh I've ever had was in jail. I was sitting at the table with the old heads, the guys who were 60, 70, who you knew spent their entire life in and out of jail. Like those are who they were. They didn't know anything else and so nothing bothered them. They didn't fuck with the young boys because they knew young guys were crazy, trying to prove something. They just sat at the table playing spades all day, every day, and coming up with some of the funniest jokes. Coming up with some of the funniest jokes. Coming up with some of the. I remember one time I don't even know what the joke was, but we just all we were on the floor, almost passed out, stomachs hurting. There were like bodies of senior citizens laying on the floor gasping for breath because that was all they had. That, that laughter, that moment of peace. It's the only joy they ever had. The only peace they ever had was sitting at a metal table in a jail playing cards, laughing.
Speaker 2:I do remember one. It's not going to seem that funny to you or anyone. You kind of had to be there, but I remember there was this one, there were two of them. There was one guy who had just kind of got dumped by his boyfriend or whatever in the medical unit and I think he said to himself he was like how pathetic am I? I can't even keep a faggot in jail. We all, we all lost it. On that one, like that's pretty fucking pathetic.
Speaker 2:And I think the other one was the guy had gotten a blowjob from one of the trannies and people were ribbing on him. They were like dude, you know it's a dude, yeah, it looks like a girl, but it's still a dude. Blah, blah, blah, everybody's ribbing on him. They were like dude, you know it's a dude. Yeah, it looks like a girl, but it's still a dude. Blah, blah, blah, blah, everybody's ribbing on him. And the guy goes you don't understand, man, I've been locked down. It's been a minute. I needed that man. That ain't you know. That's jail, which is a whole other conversation. That's a whole other conversation. That's a whole other conversation. But he was like you know, and one dude looked at him. This might have been the one where we fell down, I'm not sure, but one dude looked at him stone cold, as he's in the middle of this five-minute rant about how desperate he is, how long it's been he's locked down. It ain't gay, it's jail. The guy looks at me and says, dude, you've only been here a week.
Speaker 1:Was it true? It was true, oh shit.
Speaker 2:We all know because we forgot.
Speaker 1:People come in and out, so we forgot, and then it dawned on us like holy shit, he hasn't even been here a week.
Speaker 2:Man. What's going to happen after a month and a year? He's gonna be the one with the lipstick. You know like, yeah, that shit was like motherfucker. He's been here a week and he saw him out. It ain't gay, it's chill. I'm desperate, like okay, it's a week, dog, uh, I'm going longer, not jerking off. I mean, come on now. You know, speaking of that, so there was a couple of guards that were really sexy. There's one Indian, she's Native American or something gorgeous. There's another guard it's a black chick. She was sexy too.
Speaker 2:One day she's making rounds, we're on lockdown and I'm I think I just finished showering and I'm standing in my towel she comes to my cell and I hear it. I kind of turn, I look at her, cause you always got to make eye contact. You got to see that like you're alive, even if you're standing. You got to make eye contact. So I turned and look at her and then she's still standing there and I'm like huh. And then she looks down in my crotch area while I'm in my towel and she's just standing there. So I'm like okay. So I kind of like motion, like I don't want to get beat up for this. So I'm kind of motion, like you want to see this. And she's just like so now my towel is gonna start shaking my shit and she's just standing there smiling like okay, and she walks away.
Speaker 2:Um, the next day some male guard comes to me and he's like uh, was such and such, was there guard at your cell last night? Now, mind you, I'm not saying shit because obviously here he heard part of the story. Obviously she went and told her friends hey, I got a dick on you. But I'm not saying no, I don't know what you're talking about. When I guarded my cell last night, because either she's gonna get her friends to beat my ass for telling or he's going to get his friends to beat my ass for being jealous that this sexy-ass guard wanted to see my dick. But that's how that went. So, yeah, I'm giving strip shows. Now I want to talk about the suicide.
Speaker 2:There was this little and I kind of gave away the ending but there was this little Irish kid that came in. Not kid, he was like my age, 20-something, mid twenties, short, ugly, weird looking dude and like he was just out of place, and not that I was Mr Cool, but I'd been in there for a minute. So I kind of you know, learned a thing or two and I kind of befriended him because I felt sorry for him. I felt sorry for him the way he looked, like wow, life's so rough on you as it is. Then I felt sorry for him for his size and being in jail and being white didn't help because Philadelphia is a chocolate city. So I hate to say this, but any jail is going to be a chocolate city, just the reality. But especially in a chocolate city, you know the jail is going to be a chocolate city, just just the reality. But especially in a chocolate city, you know the jail is going to be a chocolate city. So being a white guy in jail already puts you at a disadvantage.
Speaker 2:Um, and being small and ugly, I just felt bad for him. So I befriended him and we played cards and one day he got points on me or something. I hit him in the leg and I didn't mean to hit him that hard but I realized like more came out of me than it should have and he was like that really hurt and I was just like fuck and I like I really felt bad, I really felt like shit. I didn't mean to hit him that hard, like I could tell there was more coming out of me than it should have been, just like, oh man, you got that point. You know that really hurt. And I apologized profusely like man, I'm so fucking sorry, I didn't mean to do that, like I, I don't, you know, I think a day later he came to me with some fresh laundry, which is, you know a big deal in jail, and I said, well, because he's working in laundry, I was like, well, what's this?
Speaker 2:He's like no, all right, man, I just like looking out for you. And of course, you know, I felt like the size of a tank. You know what I mean. Here I am fucking up hitting him hard and I didn't mean to, but it just happened. And he's bringing me laundry, talking, while I just like looking source of sanity, you know. And so I felt like an ant, of course, as any halfway decent human being would. But, you know, I thanked him like you know shit.
Speaker 2:And then the next day after that, somebody came to me and was like yo, you hear about your boy? And I was like no, so, yeah, killed himself. Like what? Yeah, he. And I was like no, so, yeah, killed himself. Like what, yeah, he killed himself. Then the guy walked away, I found out that he had gotten his verdict it was like three years in prison or something because he like pushed his girlfriend or something. I can see him doing the same thing to her.
Speaker 2:I did to him, like probably not meaning to be overly aggressive, but being it because you're holding so much shit in and you've been bullied, you've been hurt and and you kind of like don't realize, oh fuck, that was a little harder than it should have been, and I think that's what happened with him and her. Like you know, he like oh fuck, I didn't mean to do it. I think they explained it to me too, that that it was something similar to that. Like I didn't mean you. And again, I'm not excusing it, I'm just saying that there are reasons for things where they aren't always just fuck it. I did this because it's bad. Like there are sometimes extenuating circumstances where, even though you did something bad, it wasn't as the intent wasn't to be as bad as the result. That that's a good explanation, doesn't excuse it, but does make it a little less bad. You know what I mean. Like if I push you, you get hit by a car. I wasn't trying to murder you. I shouldn't have pushed you. I'm still liable for that but I really wasn't trying to see you get hit by a car and die, so that's kind of what I mean. So he got sentenced and he killed himself. He hung himself in the cell, in the waiting cell at the court And've always felt bad like that made that punch even worse. Like you know, I tore myself up over that. I'm just, I'm so grateful to god that I had a chance to apologize and he forgave me, because if that had been the last thing that happened and this poor kid killed himself, like you, I would have carried that like like fuck.
Speaker 2:Not long after that I was, I was in, I was in a medical unit and there was this old guy, like 80 years old, shriveled up, little black guy, maybe six feet tall, 120 pounds. I mean he's maybe not that small, but close to it. I mean just bony, looking like a walking skeleton, just old, wrinkled, tired, and I don't know if people did. I'm sure at least one or two people did. I wasn't the only human being in there, there weren't a whole lot, but I wasn't the only one. There were some human beings in there. But I know that I would sometimes go down and check on him. You know I'm not really a caretaker, that's just not who I am. But you know he was on the first floor, I was on like the second and I knew on occasion I would go down. But hey, pops, you're all right, need anything introduce? You know, I mean just being a decent human being.
Speaker 2:And one night I went in and I checked on, like hey, we're about to go, you know we're about to go lock down. You need anything before we lock down? You know, you're all right, just just the basic. He's like man, I don't feel right, man, I, man, I don't feel right, man, I need the doctor, something don't feel right. But I got you, I got you.
Speaker 2:I go up to the guards and they're like we just took him to the doctor, he's fine, go away. So I go back down. I'm like, well, they said they just took you to the doctor. He's like yeah, but something ain't right, man, something ain't right, something ain't right Like, please help me, please help me.
Speaker 2:So I go back up to the guards and I'm like hey, he said get the fuck away from here, or you're just going to be something, which basically meant leave now, or we're going to take you in a cell and beat your ass. That's just the bottom line. We don't, don't, don't bother us with this shit again. Or you know, you're going to get a beatdown and you're taking a risk of getting a broken jaw, a broken arm, a busted head or just a light beatdown. But even a light beatdown who wants to get beatdown? You know, even if it's a light one? But yeah, I don't mind a few punches to the face, you know, for no reason at all, because it's not going to accomplish anything.
Speaker 2:So I was like, I went down to him and I was like, I explained it, like they said like leave now or it's going to be something. And he's like and he's been around long enough where he knew what that meant and he just looked at me like thank you, thank you for trying, man, I understand, you know. It's like don't, don't be upset at yourself. I get it. I woke up the next morning. He was dead. What happened he died in, he died overnight. Whatever it was that he was saying wasn't right, actually wasn't right. An old man died in a jail cell alone, begging for help.
Speaker 1:I carried that one that's such a sad thought I carried that one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, again, this is god's mercy in my life. I know it's not about me, but I'm living my life. So god's mercy in my life. I know it's not about me, but I'm living my life. So God's mercy in my life that I at least tried. I can't force the guards. I got to the point of almost getting my ass whipped and the ass whipping would have still accomplished nothing. I'm not going to get my ass whipped for no purpose. Let me go get my ass whipped and still accomplish nothing. You know what I mean. So I mean if it was like, let me go get my ass whipped and still accomplish nothing.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean yeah so I mean, if it was like, hey, we'll whip your ass, if you, let us whip your ass, we'll go get him help, maybe I might have considered that. How bad ass whipping are we talking about? You know what I mean? Like, like, I might have considered that. Like, are we talking like injury? Or we just talking about a sore jaw for a couple days, bruised ribs, ribs or broken ribs? There's a big difference between bruised and broken. You know, I might have considered that, I might have weighed my options. But if we're talking about let's whip your ass and then still ignore him sorry, dad, I did what I could. But that one I had to stay myself for the day because I was ready to murder a guard, I was ready. That hurt that one day because because I was ready to murder a guard I was, I was ready, I was that. That hurt that. That. That one was rough. So it's a suicide. The one person I befriended killed himself. The other person I befriended and tried to look out for died. So yeah, that wasn't, that wasn't, that wasn't easy.
Speaker 2:So I would share two, two other quick little stories, one of, I guess, hope and one of despair. The Catholic guys would come around and they would bring books and I asked for a book or a textbook on microbiology and he was like, no, that's a bit too much, which I get now, because I'm like textbooks are like 200 fucking dollars. He's talking about a paperback from Barnes and Noble. There's a difference here. I get it now, but back then I wasn't thinking. But I ended up on Dostoevsky and I was reading Dostoevsky's House of the Dead. Dostoevsky's House of the Dead was.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you know the story of Fido Dostoevsky. I'll tell you very, very quickly. So he was a writer, a newspaper man or whatever. He wrote some article that somebody didn't like and they sentenced him to death. This is just how it was. Back then he wrote an article. Somebody was like, oh, he did this that they sentenced him to death and they had him with the firing squad. They pulled the guns out and they said, ready, aim psych, firing squad. They pulled the guns out and they said, ready, aim, psych. And they sentenced him to like four years in siberia work camp.
Speaker 1:You talk about a mind fuck yeah, yeah, he was ready to die right.
Speaker 2:And then they said psych at the last minute, you can research it. I'm not making this up I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've heard of it, yeah so he wrote a book called, uh, the house of the dead, which was a semi-automatic biographical. Of course he was the hero, because we're always the hero in our own story, you know that. But he wrote a semi-autobiographical book about his time in siberian work camp. And I'm reading this book and I'm enthralled. I'm like, oh shit, damn, shit, damn, fuck, wow. And there's another guy reading like some James Bond book or something. And he's, um, he asked me, he's like, well, what are you reading? Like I said, I wasn't the only human being in there, we were, we were few and far between, but there were others. And he's like, well, what are you reading? And I'm explaining to my mom reading this book about the Siberian prison. This guy's ready, you know, ready, psych, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 2:I'm like dude, how the fuck are you eating that You're in jail. And I explained to him at the time now it might be different, because I'm so exhausted of all of that that it might be a little different. I might be where he's at now what I mean? I still have more ahead of me than I do behind me. So I was preparing for the ahead. And so he said well, why do you ask? I do, I'm on here for a short time. I mean I, they can't keep me here. It's jail, it's not prison, it's not like you know. I can be sentenced. It's fucking jail. Even if I max out, I'm doing a year, you know. So it is what it is.
Speaker 2:And I say you read your book. Right, we read what? Two hours a day, most, before your eyes start to hurt. You can't concentrate. You know two hours straight on average, something like that. He said yeah, and I said and?
Speaker 2:So when you're reading, you're the hero. You got the naked women, you got the guns, you're jumping off of rooftops and celebrating, getting celebrated by M17 and the Queen All these other years, like this Superman. He said yeah, man, it's fun. I said what happens if you put a book down and you look around and you can see. He thought about that for a minute and I was like what happens to the other 18 hours? I guess you're awake for like 16 hours a day or something 18 hours. So what happens to the other 16 hours a day? And I said, dude, when I'm reading about these guys' toes falling off and them eating one potato a day, when I put this book down I'm like fuck, I can't wait till dinner gets here. You're looking at dinner like this garbage. I'm looking at it like fuck, wow, food, thank God. So for me I was finding a way to appreciate what I had, because I knew it was temporary, so the suffering was temporary, so I could actually look at a worse situation and I could be like this food now looks good.
Speaker 1:Reading about somebody else's horrors, somebody else's struggles, somebody else's horrors, somebody else's struggle, somebody else's troubles that were worse than yours, made you feel better.
Speaker 2:Because I knew mine was temporary. Now, if they were permanent or if they were longer, then I couldn't. Then then you're stacking. Yeah, it's like you're stacking, but if they're temporary it's like I can. I can, I can use this to give me strength to get through a temporary burden. I think the other thing. So you know, you've got the deaths, you've got the suicides, you've got the beatdowns by the jail guards, you've got the dick show for the female guard. You've got the guards. I mean, yeah, they would just pull prisoners to the side and just let them fight. You know, you've got the guard leaving letting me fight the guy I had to stab with my finger.
Speaker 1:Was there and I know this is just something everybody always asks about and thinks about and it's one of those things that just kind of baked into I guess american jail and prison culture was there. Was there rapes in jail?
Speaker 2:this was just jail. So I don't think anybody besides the guy who was only there for one week I don't think anyone there was hard up enough to rape. That's something that comes after you haven't had pussy for 15 years. So on this journey of my time in Philadelphia jail, now I just want to segue real quick and say that LA jail was different because it was run by shell staff. They didn't put up with any of that nonsense because they didn't want to lose their careers. So it was a lot cleaner, a lot more controlled, just so it was.
Speaker 2:You think you hear of the horrors of LA jails, but the reality is, if they do exist, it's when the guards aren't around. The guards did not play that because they were deputies who invest their whole life in being deputies, so they weren't risking it for dumb shit. Put it off. The guards didn't care. It was a job to them. If they get fired as a guard, they go back to stripping. The next week they go back to working at Walmart. They really didn't give a hell.
Speaker 2:But now this is one last. I want to leave this, one last image which really made me understand where I was Like everything I went through this one simple. It may not have the same effect on others, but it had the effect on me and I remember thinking this is where I am like, this is it, this is where I am. There was a white guy who muscular, guy, strong, um, you know, you think of like these different variations of white people, and he was like the white person that was kind of not trying to be black, but kind of like that same sort of ghetto, low budget, you know, and I don't know how to explain it, not redneck, but just that kind of you could see hanging, like if you see a bunch of black guys and there's this one white guy, a shaved head, the wife beater, you know, kind of a Kensington person, if you know Kensington, philadelphia, or maybe if you see those. But yeah, just kind of hoodish, but not trying to be black, just white hood, and he was muscular, strong, healthy, and he was in there for some short time and you know he'd been there before, because he says like I've been here before and you know I've learned my lesson, I'm tired of this routine and you know he's got the whole story down pat when I get out. I don't know if he had a new baby or not, but I think it's like I'll be my girl or baby, a kid or whatever and get a job. And he was just for like two weeks straight telling all the good things. And, like I said, he's young, built, strong.
Speaker 2:I mean, worst case scenario can go out, work, demolition, make some money, learn a trade, hang around a construction site for a year. By the time you're done, you're freaking an apprentice carpenter. You know, you don't even have to go to fucking school, just hang around a construction site taking out the trash and watch the carpenters. Hey, can you teach me what you? Let me watch you for half an hour a day. You know what I mean. You can build a life just taking out trash. You know, all the opportunity was there.
Speaker 2:So some people started believing him and when he left, there was all he was like, like I said, he was ghetto. So he fit in, he was one of the boys and when he left, there was a couple people who were like, yeah, whatever, you know, we'll see him soon, he'll come back, blah, blah, blah. And the other ones like, yeah, it's your chance, bro, we believe you, we got you back, man, right as when you know, blah, blah, blah. And so he left one morning. Motherfucker came walking back in the door later that night later that fucking night.
Speaker 2:Here he come walking in with a sack. Sack is their bed and the toiletries. He come walk in with a sack under his arm and I just saw that my heart just I don't know if I believed him or wanted to. I was just sort of like a non emotionally committed observer, but when he came walking in, it just dawned like that was the moment it dawned on me. This is where I am see. One thing about jail while it's comfortable for people, it's like schrodinger, wow, it really is. Oh fuck, I'm about to do something you've never seen, you've never heard before. You know what jail is. No, jail really is for. Oh fuck, I'm about to do something you've never heard before. You know what jail is. You know what jail really is for a lot of people. What's that Showed in your box? For humans, everything is possible until you actually get released from jail.
Speaker 1:Lots of dreams, lots of plans.
Speaker 2:Everything's possible.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And some people actually find more comfort in jail, because in jail everything's possible, because you don't actually have to do it. The cat is dead and alive at the same time. When you're sitting in jail it's a good way to put that.
Speaker 1:It's like Shawshank you get institutionalized.
Speaker 2:But just, I mean, that's part of the institutionalization that I don't think, at least I don't know that. I've looked at it that way before. Actually I didn't put the correlation of Schrodinger, but I've definitely looked at it before that. While you're in there, the dreaming is the life you look forward to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what keeps you going and then, when the fucking time comes, nope.
Speaker 2:You don't know what you lost.
Speaker 1:You don't want to or you don't want to do the work, or, now that it's not a fantasy, it doesn't seem that attractive, maybe it seems uncomfortable.
Speaker 2:The problem with a lot of humanity, with a lot of humanity and this is across the board, and I think a lot of a lot of people don't really think about this. All the conversation has been had when it comes to love and marriage. A lot of people talked about this when it comes to love and marriage, but they haven't talked about it when it comes to the rest of life, too. A lot of people want but don't actually want to have, they want to chase it.
Speaker 1:You think they?
Speaker 2:the feeling of wanting it, like you think the feeling of wanting it like? Give an example. I talk about a marriage. People say they look forward to the wedding but not the marriage. They, they, they romanticize love but not the actual work that goes into it. Every other weekend they're in love with someone new. Yeah, now put that in the rest of life. I want this, I want the wanting, but I don't want the having. Is in a lot of parts of life, a lot of aspects of life. I want the wanting. If we get money, then they spend it all. They wanted the money. Then it's actually more comfortable being broke because then they can once again. They want the job. They don't want to actually do the work.
Speaker 2:They want the wanting yeah, being hungry, you know that, that hunger hemingway said that hunger was good discipline you know, and he was, he was talking about actual hunger, he wasn't even being metaphorical, yeah, but people fool themselves into believing they actually want to be full, and so they keep themselves hungry at all costs, while complaining about how much they want to be full. Yeah, I mean, the love is a perfect example. I want someone to love me. So bad, so bad. I want to be in love. But then when they get it, it's like oh, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like you finally got that beautiful bird and you put it in a cage.
Speaker 2:There it is, yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's not so beautiful anymore that it's not wild, now that you have it. What do you do now?
Speaker 2:okay, so much of life is actually that yeah people have conditioned themselves to want the wanting but they don't actually want the having. The jail is pretty much a microcosm of that a whole society built upon wanting but not not wanting to have. Yeah, the man lasted one day. Two weeks, of all the goonie, goo, goo, beautiful, perfect shakespearean just soliloquies of what his life is going to be, he didn't last one day yeah, it's like.
Speaker 1:What would they do without hope, though you know because, that that place would be miserable without some kind of hope, wouldn't it be? Is it? Is it really hope though?
Speaker 2:yeah, that's the dream, a fantasy but listen, hope is based upon the, the, the understanding or the prerequisite of actually wanting to have it Like I hope to find love means I actually do want love, so is it really hope?
Speaker 1:Well is that like we don't know what we got till it's gone and we don't know what we want until we have it. So it's like one of those just human nature things.
Speaker 2:I think it's the antithesis of hope. I think it's just one big empty lie to ourselves. I'm not really hoping for this, because I don't really want it. Yeah, I don't really actually want it. So is that hope? When it's something you don't actually want? What would that be then?
Speaker 1:I don't know. Know, I'm trying to think of a, a word, a common word for that, a good way to, and I am too, and I'm pretty, I'm pretty, I'm pretty darn good with my wordage yeah, yeah, I speak pretty sometimes yeah yeah, how the fuck you actually knew that I do that to me.
Speaker 2:Knew that Me talk pretty one day Me talk pretty one day.
Speaker 1:That's what he said.
Speaker 2:I do that to you all the time, don't I?
Speaker 1:He's one of my favorites. I loved him. He was great.
Speaker 2:I love that. What the fuck that was like your friend with the air traffic controllers. How the fuck do you know that?
Speaker 1:You're a bit like me you know a whole lot about nothing.
Speaker 2:No, but the difference is you're successful. I'm a pathetic fucking loser. So you know, you're big, tall, dark, handsome, with the beautiful life and the beautiful wife and the successful life, with the beautiful life and the beautiful wife and the successful life. And here I am with a psychotic landlord and I'm about to move out of my little trailer that they're going to repossess in a few months because I can't afford it.
Speaker 1:So yeah, you and I are quite different but probably a lot more similar than you'd think it's.
Speaker 2:It's kind of weird, though, sometimes, looking at me, like I'm that one, that there's something missing and with every gift that god could give a man except height, every gift humanly possible except height, and I'm at the very bottom of existence. It's like what piece is missing? You know, it's too late, I'm never going to get much more, but I look at that sometimes and I wonder like what piece was missing that this man, who was born with literally every single gift a human being can ask for in abundance? Yeah, except height, and I'm barely existing?
Speaker 1:On the next episode we finally confront Malachi and we get to the bottom of those mysterious accusations that a listener emailed into our show. Spoiler alert he's not too happy about it.
Speaker 2:Like you're going to destroy my life on the lie with a sex charge. A sex charge Do you know what that does to a man? Like seriously, if I did it, I'd own it. Fuck that. This bitch has been stalking me ever since.
Speaker 1:You won't want to miss it. The Redacted Podcast is produced by myself, matt Bender, and my wife, pamela Bender. Make sure to go out there and give us a like, a share, share it with your friends, rate us. Every little bit helps. Thanks for tuning in. Thank you.
