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tolerating, and I couldn’t handle it at work. Racism and intolerance aren’t things a person just accepts over time. The frustration and the anger never leave, and you can’t just start a fistfight with every person who says something disrespectful. I left mid-shift. Sure, I could have knocked some guy out on my way out the door or told the woman in the hall what I thought of her and her opinions just to prove a point, but it wouldn’t have changed anything. I think, looking back, that I just felt tired–tired of fighting for
everything
all the time.
    A few weeks later, I met a woman named Myra. Myra gets credit for being the person who turned me on to smoking cocaine. My profession, yet again, was stealing and reselling scrap materials to recycling companies. Ironically, during all this time (from 1985 to 1990), I collected Social Security checks because doctors trying to find
some
reason for why I couldn’t be straight, said I was manic-depressive and schizophrenic.
    Some people might say a good hustler learns to fake all kinds of mental illnesses to get Social Security disability diagnoses. Honestly, if you aren’t what society dictates you’re
supposed
to be, they are usually willing to diagnose you with anything to help “explain it.” Not to mention, when you’re taking any drug that comes your way, it’s easy to seem schizophrenic, or act like you’ve lost contact with reality, having hallucinations, or a split personality.
    Regardless of my Social Security or my reselling scrap, my lifestyle was more than I could afford. My cocaine habit was costing me four to five hundred dollars a
day
. I was quickly coming to the end of my rope…
    …I just didn’t know it yet.
    Once again, I went back to a hospital, this time Northwest General Hospital in Milwaukee, for a month for drug and alcohol treatment. A few days after I was finished with the treatment, I went to the Fashionation women’s clothing store in Greenfield, Wisconsin, at eleven in the morning, snatched ten women’s suits, and ran out the door. The clerk got my license plate and told police that I had robbed her at gunpoint, which, for the record, was not true. I don’t mind taking responsibility for things I’ve done wrong, but I didn’t even have a gun.
    The cops caught me that same day and charged me with armed robbery. Because I was still on probation, I was sent to the county jail and then transferred to Dodge Correctional facility in Waupun, where I remained from August 1988 until February 14, 1989. After that, I transferred to the Milwaukee County Jail to await hearing until March 1989.
    I got out on bail in March and started a home-improvement business in June. It was great while it lasted, but in February 1990, I went to trial and was found guilty for the armed-robbery charge. On February 16, 1990, Judge Laurence C. Gram Jr. sentenced me to ten years in the Wisconsin state prison system for armed robbery. Coincidentally, this same judge later sentenced Jeffrey Dahmer to sixteen consecutive life sentences.
    On February 19, 1990, officials drove me to the Dodge Correctional Institution and put me in the “SMURF” unit. “SMURF” stands for Special Management Unit.
    I had never experienced anything like this. I had been to
jail
countless times, but
prison
was different. Prison meant no freedom and no easy way out. My lifestyle had finally cost me everything.

Three
A New Life Begins
    When someone becomes a Christian, he becomes a brand new person inside. He is not the same any more. A new life has begun! (II Corinthians 5:17
, TLB)
    During the ten days where I sat at the Milwaukee County Jail to await my sentencing, I met another prisoner named Levy. Meeting him changed my life.
    The first day after my trial, I wasn’t really in the mood for talking; honestly, who would be? I really wasn’t in the mood for doing much of anything. I was depressed and, despite knowing I was responsible for all this, I felt sorry for myself. This Levy