Option one: I'm bored. Sitting, probably, in a comfy chair or what they call "chaise lounge" drinking some bullcrap and enjoying it while writing down things I think someone will find enlightening someday in the incredibly near future. It's possible.
Option two: I'm about to do something incredibly foolish that's guaranteed to wind up in a very bloody death. Possibly mine. Also good.
As I see it, those are the only two reasons for writing something first person. So let's get it on. Long story long; here's the backdrop. Here's the Backstory. The Backthen. The Then and there. The who the – cares? I'll tell you this, Baby's got it.
I was at a Giant's game (is that libel if it's true?), with my girlfriend and everything was great. Moe was striking 'em out like a zapper gets flies, Flathead Fred Wilkins just hit in two RBIs, and I had a coupon for a free beer. I know what your asking, how'd you get a coupon for a free beer at a baseball game. That's another story…. Anyway, it wasn't even the stretch. The game was going good.
Sometimes, when people are gathered around a diamond, you find a group of folks in the seats you bought. I say folks but I mean bastards. That's right, dirty stinky jerkhole bastards with no teeth and no soul. Well, these folks have been drinking long since the time you arrive—so you let 'em be. Even if you'd walked in when the gates opened, they'd already be there. That's just how folksy they are. But it's all good. It's no biggie. Everything's fine until someone else shows up and wants the seats you took from them.
It's a vicious cycle. My girlfriend and I got bumped.
"Hey guys, I think you're in our seats." Said a dude with some folks, other twenty somethings, later than us because they've been drinking elsewhere.
Lindsay, my girlfriend, got up so I did too. We both stood with sincere apologies. And the both of us went to our seats, three rows down. But surprise, the reason we were in someone else's butt holders was because ours had a group of people in them. A group of eight. I remember that I wondered to myself where the other six people were that got bumped by these folks.
"Hi guys," I said, using the line that was used on me, "I think you're in our seats." One of the bigger dudes, short hair up on top, long hair all over the arms, big smile and a fat red face, "You think or you know?" A couple of his friends laughed. It wasn't funny. Obviously it's not as easy to move eight as it is to move one.
"Come on," Lindsay says to me, "It's no big deal." I mean two.
"It is a big deal." I say to her. We've been moved, they're gonna move. It's a good game. There are three more innings at least, plus I'm stubborn. So I ignore her.
"I know. You know. Everybody knows." I say to them. I don't know exactly what I'm referring to, maybe it's the drill that I'm referring to. But since I can't exactly recall I add at the end "Just move over a few seats."
It looks like they might. Just for a moment. Three of the girls look like they're going to be willing to move, and one of the guys puts his hands up like all's fair, you caught me, good job. Unfortunately, for him (zing!), baldy big arms speaks up.
"Yeah right. You're going to move eight people."
Now, I got nothing against alcohol. But big people and alcohol are dangerous. And so are stupid people. And alcohol makes smart people stupid. Ok, you know what? It's all good if you can drink responsibly. But usually, people don't. Stupid alcohol. Stupid people. The only smart people are the ones making the alcohol, and everyone else is stupid, stupid, stupid. Perhaps, independent of alcohol, that's my view on people generally. Perhaps. "Actually," I said. "I hoped you'd move yourselves."
His laugh kept everyone in their seats. "All seats up here are the same."
Now I'm not going to get started on how all seats up here are not the same. They're not the same here, there or anywhere in a stadium. This is obvious true. OBVIOUSLY! If all seats were the same, I'd be ok sitting anywhere, and his entourage wouldn't have joined him with eager red faces sitting on my butt plastic a row up from the safety rails on the upper deck. Great seats. Great price. Unbeatable.
"Let's go," Lindsay said, as she tugged my arm.
I ignored her again, like some men do. Ok, like all men do. We all ignore them. Sometimes more than others.
"Please," I was saying please to the red cheeked baldy big armed man. Plus, saying please doesn't work the way they tell you it should in kindergarten. At least, not when you wish it would.
"Here kid. These are cause I like your pants." He passed a beer down the line. The girl who handed it to me shrugged an apology. Incidentally, at the time, the motto of the Giants involved orange and I was clad in orange cargo pants. I loved them. I wonder where they are now. Anyway, I shook my head and declined the beer. This left shruggy shoulders big breasts white T shirt in windy San Francisco weather with a pouty face. In fairness to Lindsay, shruggy shoulders big breasts white T shirt in windy San Francisco weather had nothing on Lindsay. But that doesn't matter anymore. "I don't drink," I said. This was not entirely true. I love alcohol and barenaked ladies and the classic song Alcohol. I can't remember who wrote it, but I love it.
So obviously by this point baldy was done tip-toeing around me. He stood up, which I give him credit for, and made it all the way down the line, squeezing past his fellow folks and muttering his I'm sorry's and I gots this-es and I know I knows. What it was he knew I will never know. But whatever.
"Look kid," he said, looking two inches down at my eyes. Also, he took the cup from shruggy shoulder big breasts white T shirt in windy San Fransico weather. Then apparently he immediately forgot he was holding a plastic cup filled with distilled grain, because he pointed at me.
Stupid thing to do. Now, I was covered in booze.
"Oh shit," he said. "I'm sorry about that. Really, I am." He smiled his stupid grin. "Here," he said. And then, then… then.
Then he put his hands on my chest and tried to wrap them around my shoulders and hug me. But I wouldn't have it. You wouldn't either.
I took his hands off me and pushed him back.
In my head I pulled an arm around his back, wrapped one of my legs around his leg and tucked it up, throwing him off balance while throwing both of us to the ground. I landed on top and whispered something into his ear. Some great line. Something totally awesome. Something worthy of Flint Westwood's worst nightmares. I don't know what it is now, but I said it in my head.
Sadly, back in reality, I pushed him. The push was enough to throw him off balance and since we were two steps from the safety bar and because he was tall and also possibly because he couldn't totally plant his feet on the ground solidly and maybe also because I had just ignored Lindsay and knew it and knew that even if I won this confrontation there'd be no sex tonight so maybe I pushed a little harder than was necessary. But only maybe. But not maybe he fell.
Over the safety bar.
Onto two dads and their daughter.
And died.
Also the two dads and daughter died.
Also Lindsay left me.
Also the paper headline the next day was "Giant Homicide!" Which, in my opinion could mean many, many things.
Preposterous as it may seem, that is the back story. And it mostly explains why I'm in prison. I forgot to mention in the beginning that I'm in prison. Because I'm not actually in prison now, but the circumstances that got me into prison will be important later. It's kind of important to reiterate for perspective's sake that I'm not in prison. So there. I did it again for perspective's sake. What's important is that I wanted to write how and why I got into prison so that I could tell you how and why I broke out of prison. So that's next. But if you think about it, and you might, you don't really know a lot about me. If you had read the papers at the time, you would have gotten a small idea.
The baldy big arms dude who died was not so well connected, though perhaps he thought he was. The dads, though they were dead and no longer had use for their connections, were well connected. And thus, I didn't get manslaughter. I got Murder One.
Yeah, that's right. Murder One. That's the twist. The preposterous backstory is mostly bull. The Murder One is the important twist. The dads that died knew the man that ran the company that runs the internet. You know the one. You know both the man and the company. Well, the dads were, believe it or not, his dad too. Well, one of them was. Dad had a kid with a woman and then divorced and remarried. Don't judge dad. This was when gay wasn't chic. This was when gay could get you killed.
Internet man, we'll call him Bob to keep things simple as we tumble down the rabbit hole, he wasn't happy when Daddy died. So I got smeared. My past surfaced. The press ate it. I was labeled a gay hater. Which totally blew my mind because when I grew up everyone made fun of me for being gay. "No one's sassier than Jasper!" They'd say. "Sassy Jazzy!!" They'd yell. "Teague, Teague out of his league, go home Teague you fag!" The last one was the best. At least Sassy and Jazzy were kind of close. But nothing rhymes with Teague. What folks. Stupid as*hole kids. Adults are no better. I used to laugh at them to myself for being so stupid when I wasn't crying silently in my room. I hate kids. Maybe that's why Lindsay left me.
One good thing that came out of the "Agent Orange" episode (they had some BAD headlines then) that I can still be thankful for is the press I gave men who dance ballet in the US. We're murdering psychobitches. That's the motto. That's the label I gave us. We're not gay. We're not straight. We're not weak. We're not tightasses. We don't wear your stupid wet dream tuled up tutus. We can kick your ass, we just don't because all day we're touching women who are practically naked. Woah. It just occurred to me that perhaps everyone else is jealous of boys who do ballet. Nah. They just jerks.
Anyway, before I got to prison, I danced ballet. I was classically trained.
So that's the baby's got it. The press made me out into this elitist snobby connected premeditator. That was a total crock. I have zero connections. I wished I did. But I don't. Jerkwad Bob, how I loathe him.
So now I'm sitting in a cell. Or was. I was sitting in a cell. That's the next part. Me getting out of a cell. That's where I want to start story I want to tell. Jasper Teague and Loony Jake. Ha. You'll get a kick out of that. It's next.
