There are all kinds of reasons to want a pen friend from the free world, some wholesome and some not so wholesome.   Obviously it’s nice to receive mail now and then.  It’s cool to be included.  Most guys receive mail, and it sucks when everyone except you…  okay, ALMOST everyone…  gets word from people that care.

Mail also let’s people know where you are on the proverbial ‘totem pole’.  If you don’t get mail, you most assuredly don’t get money to go to store and don’t get visits. This is also true for phone use.  People that don’t get mail rarely use the phone.

I once built a parole package for a friend, and in return he had his fiancé purchase me a profile online in the hope of correspondence.   For the most part people write and we are friends for a short time before life’s requirements pull them away.

This is a letter I got from Stephanie, a really cool motorcycle-loving cowgirl – she has her own bike.  We wrote back and forth for about four months…

Hi Jeremy,
I read your e-book, ‘The Monster Factory’, and I was touched by your honesty and will to survive.  It brought tears to my eyes and disgust about the people who run such an awful place and the people who are imprisoned.
I sent you some money to help you through your struggles.  Please stay strong!
Happy Holidays,
Stephanie

I enjoy hearing from and reading about my pen pals’ ups and downs.  It’s a vicarious way of living myself, of getting to know people and hearing about activities I can’t experience for myself.   Sometimes these activities are big things, sometimes small, sometimes happy, often sad.  But it’s REAL life, not prison life, and valuable to me because my pen pal has chosen me to share it with.

Every now and then I make a friend that continues to write over a lengthy period of time.  Often my correspondence with them provides strength and hope, but every now and then I get a negative reply – made even more sad to me because it’s justified and true.  And it hurts.

This letter is from… I’ll just call her P.  She was curious and funny.  We wrote back and forth for just a few months. 

Jeremy,
I broke down and read that report.  I don’t understand how you could go along with someone who said that he was going to set fire to a night club when he had no control what his ex-wife was going to do.
Setting fire to a business was stupid.  You’re an idiot for going along with ‘your friend’.  So what if your buddy was fighting over his kid, did he threaten you or twist your arm, saying you have to do this or this is going to happen to you?
There were other ways to get back at her.  Did you know there were three fireman that got hurt that day??
Kevin W. Kulow, 32 years old, died because of you guys.
One captain sustained critical respiratory injuries, he was hospitalized.
Another team captain had sustained serious burns to his face, knees and hand. 
Kevin Kulow was a rookie, seven months on the job, seven months!  He was 32 years old.
Fuck!  All I can say to you guys is, you’re all f&%$ing stupid idiots.  You got what you three deserved.
I hope you ROT IN HELL for all your actions, all three of you!!
DO NOT WRITE TO ME AGAIN.  I DON’T WRITE TO PEOPLE WHO KILL FIREMEN OR POLICE MEN!!!
P.

Don’t judge her letter, she has family that are employed as first responders.  Without P. and Stephanie, and without being able to hear from people in the free world, I would quickly become only aware of this world… 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:  Jeremy Robinson is author of Monstor Factory and also a frequent contributor to WITS and part of our writing family, his work is always heartfelt and honest.
Mr. Robinson lives in a Texas prison and can be contacted at:
Jeremy Robinson #1313930
Michael Unit
2664 FM 2054
Tennessee Colony, TX 75886

There is no way you will believe what I am about to tell you, no way you will believe me when I tell you who I am – unless I prove it. 

Who else but you knows that you broke into a church last year? You were alone, walking, the snow was a couple feet deep everywhere except the roads where the plows had been through and salted.  You cut through the corner lot, saw the empty room at the back and broke in through the window.  We ate some food that was in a break room.  We also stole the money that was in the small wooden box on the stairwell.  Later we spent the money at McDonalds. 

I am sure you remember this because it’s only been a year for you.  You have not told anyone, Jeremy.  I know this – because I am you, and this is just one of the terrible things we’ve done that we have never told anyone.

I am you in 2020.  I’m writing to you from my cell at a maximum security prison in Texas.  I’ve been here over sixteen years.  When I say ‘I’, of course, I mean ‘we’.  You don’t want to end up here, so I’m writing, hoping to help you.

I know there is not a lot you can do right now. You can’t go back to living with Steve and you don’t know where mom moved to so you’re doing your best finding places to sleep where you can and eating whatever you can find. But this will be the beginning of the end for us. Every time you break into a place to sleep or to find money or food, you commit a crime.  You believe it’s a crime of necessity, and it is, but it’s still a crime.  The truth is, if you continue on this path, your – our – life will be full of failures and shame.  A hundred small failures will end in one terrible failure that will leave one man dead and two family’s destroyed. You will kill a man, Jeremy. You won’t do it on purpose, it’ll be completely unintentional, but he will be dead none the less. His two young sons will be forced to grow up without him.  His wife, his mother, his family will grieve for the rest of their lives.  Jeremy, you will lose your own family also, they will turn away from you, ashamed and angry at you.  I know you, and I know how lonely you are and how much it hurts you that you do not have a family.  If you continue on this path, man, you will never have a family.

Turn yourself in to the police.  You will not go to jail or juvy, I promise.  They will put you in a foster home, and you will have a real chance to succeed. Educate yourself, you are intelligent and you deserve an opportunity to go to school. Don’t lie, be yourself, be proud and represent it by being honest.  Cherish your friends, man, and work hard. If you do these things, you will succeed, but more importantly you’ll save countless people from pain.

And you know us, there’s no way I’d write to me in 1985 from 2020 without telling you that when a small internet company called Amazon starts up in 1995, you need to invest in it, as much as you can for as long as you can.  If you do all these things, you’ll be a much better ‘us’ in 2020 and rather than having lived a shameful life, you’ll be in position to help others that need help.  I love you, man.  Please don’t let us down.

Jeremy…

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:  I’m happy to say, Jeremy Robinson is the winner of our summer writing contest. He continues to write, and I hope we hear more from him here. Mr. Robinson lives in a Texas prison and can be contacted at:
Jeremy Robinson #1313930
Michael Unit
2664 FM 2054
Tennessee Colony, TX 75886

I should say, ‘All we got for Christmas,’ because it was actually for every TDCJ prisoner.  The new medical and dental copay is now $13.55 per visit.  That is an enormous savings for us, actually manageable.  Many prisoners who couldn’t, will now seek treatment.

The copay used to be $100 and forced prisoners to choose between medical care and having money to purchase necessities.  A prisoner that received $30 a month would have to pay that entire $30 towards the $100 the day of a doctor visit, and every month thereafter, TDCJ would take half of the prisoner’s monthly $30 until the $100 copay was paid off. This would leave the prisoner $15 towards his monthly necessities. Consider this list of supplies:

1 x Colgate toothpaste $2.75

1 x deodorant $2.50

15 x small bars Dial soap $3.00

1 x writing paper $2.00

10 x postage stamps $5.50

20 x envelopes $.60

Total is $16.35 – too much!!  The prisoner would be forced to remove some vital item(s) to get the list under $15.00, and forget about food to supplement the meager TDCJ meals.  No coffee.  No Christmas cards for loved ones.  All because they had to pay a $100 copay after they caught the flu or got bit by a spider (which happens with disturbing frequency).

A $13.55 copay!   A gift from the Texas legislature, but really from the public and the friends and families of prisoners. Those are the ones that pressured the legislature.  So, thank you all for your effort. The next time I need medical care I can get it without ruining any chance I have of keeping my head above water. 

Merry Christmas!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:  Jeremy Robinson is author of The Monster Factory, which he is currently revising. Mr. Robinson lives in a Texas prison and can be contacted at:
Jeremy Robinson #1313930
Polunsky Unit
3872 South FM 350
Livingston, TX 77351

I was almost eleven years old and had lived in Lake Tahoe for under a year, a beautiful place and my personal favorite city.  My mother brought the three of us there after fleeing the big pink house in Oak Park, a house full of anger and physical abuse.  The abuse had risen to a new high.  My stepfather, her husband, had previously restricted the physical violence to just my mother and I, leaving both of his ‘real’ children alone.  When, for the first time, he beat my little brother and broke his arm, it seemed to be the final straw for my mother and she fled. 

For years, my mom and I had been the focus of anger and frustration, and I had several trips to the E.R. under my belt by the time I was ten.  There was the time I was pushed from the top of the house for ‘playing on the roof’, dislocating my hip and cracking my tailbone.  When my face was shoved through a dresser, I’d broken the bone in the orbit of my eye and had some facial lacerations.  One time, after being punched and force fed jalapenos, I received a concussion and damage to my lips and throat – it was punishment for lying. 

While I had not escaped my mother’s beatings with the move, I had escaped the worst of the violence, and for two months stayed with her ‘friend’, a man named Steve Jones.  He was kind and generous, and my life improved. 

I was out one afternoon, running through the trees and collecting tree seeds. I had discovered them one day when one landed on my face.  Looking up, I saw that every couple of minutes, they would fall from the trees, spiraling down slowly and landing on the ground. They reminded me of the little toy army men with parachutes on four thin strings, the ones meant to be thrown into the air so the parachute would deploy, and the little man would float to the ground.  They never seemed to work well, not like the seeds that floated in their super thin leaf like covering.  These would spin and spin, floating safely to the ground.  I took to throwing rocks into the trees to shake the limbs and dislodge them in hopes of seeing them fall. The seeds themselves were encased in a bean like shell that, once cracked open, offered up the meat much like a sunflower seed.  I loved to collect and eat them.

Steve’s apartment was on the end of the building, and when I got back to his apartment that day I was not visible to him and my mother when I approached.  As I got close to turning the corner, I heard what sounded like an argument and slowed. It was always wise to measure my mother’s mood before entering a room, and I could hear that she was angry.

“I have enough to move, but you said ten!  You still owe me seven!”

“I know, and I will pay you, Sue. It’s just taking longer than I thought.”

“You keep saying that, but if you don’t have it before I move, I’m taking him with me!”

“I’ll have it.”

They were still talking loudly when I walked away. They both smoked, and it was as gross to me then as it is now.  He smoked Camels, no filter, and she the Salem ultra light something or other. When they finished talking, they went back inside the apartment, and I came in a few minutes later.  They seemed happy to see me.

My mother moved about a month later.  She took my brother and sister to wherever she went and left me with Steve.  It wasn’t until much later and after much pain that I understood that my mother had sold me to her ‘friend’ – a pedophile.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:  The above is an excerpt from Jeremy Robinson’s, The Monster Factory, which he is currently revising. Jeremy can be contacted at:
Jeremy Robinson #1313930
Polunsky Unit
3872 South FM 350
Livingston, TX 77351