NEW HELL HOLE NEWS
DECEMBER 17, 2008
NEW HELL HOLE NEWS - #5 December 17, 2008 Hey, ya’ll. Here I am again, just before Christmas. It’s been a rough three (3) weeks here, I’m tellin’ you, since my last. I was readin’ over the capital case law opinions out of the CCA to see if anyone won anything and ran across the case of Andre Thomas. This poor fellow is seriously mentally ill, schizophrenic (or however you spell it), suffering hallucinations and delusions. Killed his ex-wife, son and stepdaughter, pulled out their hearts and put them in his pocket and took ‘em home with him, then stabbed himself in the heart too, but did not die – they did open-heart emergency surgery on him and he survived! In the county jail awaiting trial he pulled out his right eye. Just put his finger in there and dug behind it, popped it right out. Said it had a demon in it. Readin’ this I’m shocked beyond comprehension. I tell my neighbor “Whoa! Look at this! Would you not like to talk to him and see what was going through his mind!” Couple days later they locked us all down again – more shakedown, “the chair”, “the wand”, x-ray you…………x-ray all your property and mattress. Fiero is my neighbor, “ol’ el loco grande cabrone” a real nut. Poor fellow, screams and hollers all day, all night. Throws trays and food all over his cell. Beats the table at odd hours. Crazy as a bedbug. Table sounds like a gong. He likes that. Try to talk to him, he just mumbles incoherently. Sometimes he’ll bust out cussin’ in Spanish at the top of his lungs. He affectionately calls me “pinché cabrone”. Ha/ha! The consulate people come to see him. Sometimes he goes out, sometimes not. They always clean him up first. They need to come more often! He don’t smell good. I worry about him. Try to talk to him. He ain’t tryin’ to hear it. So his door wouldn’t close, they move him to 73 cage. Blessed relief! Ha/ha! Nah, not really. He’s AGG but at least he makes noise, lets you know he’s alive over there. 1
Soon after, they move Fiero, I get a new neighbor. A brother, calls himself “Squirrel” only got one eye. Another, even more disturbed soul. One night I’m talkin’ to C-loc “on the phone” (Ha/ha. – in the vent) about the fallen angels and other spiritual matters and beliefs. This dude Squirrel tells me he wants to share some of his knowledge and experience on these subjects and wants to tell me about his case. To make a long story shorter, after he gets about ¾ way through all the blood, gore and saving-the-world-by killing-the- evil tale, he mentions his mother and in 3rd person relating what she said, calls his own name: Andre! That’s when I snap that this is Mr. Thomas, of the news article my pastors wife sent me and the CCA opinion I got from Evelyne! To make a long story shorter still (ha/ha - I keep saying that. You can’t imagine all the little side issues that went with this, like my neighbor knew him too and read the opinion but not as one or the same person). Squirrel is muy suicidal, eh. After he tells me everything I’m tempted to tell him the easiest, most painless, best way to check out - hey, this dude is suffering horribly. But no, I can’t do that. So I try talking to him, to give him some hope and some reassurance, you know. This is a difficult endeavor. To succeed, I have to be able to get into Squirrel’s world, to see things his way. That’s a scary proposition, one thing I learned there. I am not crazy, yet. Squirrel and Andrea Pia Yates would get along good. So I spend time with him, talk to him. I’m constantly thinkin’ “man, what the hell is this dude doing on death row? He doesn’t just fit the legal definition of insanity, no. You look it up, there’s his picture!” He makes two trips to suicide watch. Me and Squirrel have a few things in common. We both got our red wings – hey, I gotta find some common ground, huh? He writes me a song about it and sings it for me. The wild thing – this dude has major talent! If he weren’t crazy he’d be on Top 10 Billboard Pop Hits Chart or SOM! Well, ultimately I failed. On his last trip to suicide watch Squirrel, with only his left eye remaining, right in front of the sergeant, he pulled it out of his head and ate it. Yep, ate it! Swallowed it. So now Squirrel is blind for life. Said it tasted like fish, reportedly. Recently a friend of mine showed me a picture with an article about FBI 2
surveillance on the imprisoned, the picture of naked guy with and eyeball in his butt looking out titled “some asshole is watching you”. I immediately thought of poor Squirrel. Another incident was the end of Mr. Wood. For me, this was a lesson in humanity. He was a real Robocop for years, worked in extortion and terrorized many. I can’t tell how many of his cases I appealed for the guys. The last one I won was for Charles Flores last year or, early this year. I despised Wood. I talked so bad to this man, even I was ashamed of it. Somehow he fell out of favor with the administration and we didn’t see him for awhile. When he worked overtime, they always put him on F-pod. Well, I been on F ten+ years, so you know I never missed Wood. Things finally came to a head. I got too much pressure on me, my case in the 5th Circuit – end of the road, last chance for romance. Wood terrorizing me – no, to hell with that. Luckily, I was in the day room and we just happen to start arguing over policy. Wood was a policy technophobe. He knew every rule, comma, exception, court case, etc. So do I. Wood was retired military. I have a lot of military friends who’re retired but still active in other places like Central America, etc. It’s a small world. So at the end of this head buttin’ contest we got a new respect and understanding of each other. But he’s still a swine. I’m still a prisoner. Anyway, I apologized to him for all the bad things I ever said to him and he said forget it, it’s over. He understood what this place did to people. After that Wood told me one time that before, he couldn’t see the real me for looking at the facade; but now he understood the ‘what for’, etc . He liked what he saw. I thought the same of him. Wood was one of those dudes who loved his honor and had a good heart. He just had trouble expressing it. He told me he was glad he’d got put down here so he could see the reality of “us” – D. R. He said he was glad I’d explained to him my views and how I felt about things, that I’d opened his eyes to a kind of thing he’d never thought of.
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Wood kind of changed after that. He was still swiney, but he started treating people like people, not “offender number _______”. Everybody thought Wood was down here investigating something. Maybe he was. But he never asked me any such questions. All we ever talked about was the humanity still present in death, in war, in capital murder, etc. etc. We talked about the rules, the purpose, enforcement, the need, the reality of existence in here, etc. Wood told me one time that he was always under the impression I was some dope head who thought he was a bad-ass, that I was a con, a shit starter and all this other stuff he went through – “It’s just the beard,” I told him. He said I looked like one of those rag-head terrorists and started calling me “Osama bin Skinner”. He said he thought different when he read some of the grievances I wrote. He said, “You write like some lawyer sometimes and you do know the policy pretty good”. He also told me, “I’m told you get people out there to look after other prisoners. There are people here who think the money is for gambling or dope deals, but I see you been down here all this time feeding guys who don’t have nothing. Lt. Bolton told me a long time ago that’s what you were doing, but I didn’t believe him”. I thought to myself, but didn’t tell Wood, “Yeah, Bolton would know, he used to take my food just like Price’ and Lacox’ sorry asses are doing now”. Zero tolerance policy for “contraband”. : (( Well, again, to make a long story shorter ….. night of December 03rd, Wood was working with Mr. Davidson (I used to despise him too, but Wood talked me out of that). We were laughing over the sorry state of the laundry and necessities when they called Wood to the lieutenant’s office. I told him, “ooo-weee, your ass is in trouble now!” We always tease people who get called out. Usually it’s not trouble, some rank wants to tell ‘em to do, etc. That’s the last thing I said to him. I went to bed. I got up at breakfast and saw Mr. Barron in the picket. Later that day my boy Clacc/Jr. was in the day room, told me Mr. Wood got chewed out for some’ on account of Sgt. Turner, went on break, to the parking lot, got in his truck and blew his brains out. I still ain’t got over this, 4
I doubt I will any time soon. There’s a whole lot of things going through my mind because of this ….. I cannot write about most of it because it’s just too … you wouldn’t understand it. All I can say is, although I really disliked some of the things Wood did in the name of policing and TDCJ, I’m glad I got to apologize to him before he died. I’m glad he cared enough to explain some things to me. I am always in awe of, and amazed by, how ire, emotion and desire to live by your code can get so mixed up by misperception over your perspectives; i.e. you view the same thing 10 different ways from 10 different positions (perspectives) you’ll see 10 different results, depending on how you feel about it at the time. Sometimes it seems that reality is an illusory concept. R.I.P, Mr. Wood. In other matters, while I was writing this we were treated to yet another “raid”, courtesy of Tiny Tim Lester – you’ll remember him. He used to be the Major here. I think he was one of Santa’s Elves in a past life, and before that, Napoleon. I mentioned what Mr. Wood had said for a reason. I’ve been doing this for years and people like Tiny Tim, John Bolton, Shannon Price and Chris Lacox and William Cook been hating on it every chance they get. Sometimes this place brings out the worst in people and here’s an example of it. So I’d managed to collect up some food for a holiday spread for all the guys who ain’t got nothing. This was a real difficult and time consuming endeavor, one item here, another there. So they came stomping through here like a bunch of Nazi storm troopers tearing up everything and ol’ Lt. Halfprice, he’s out there with his black leather drivers’ gloves on, strutting back and forth like a real wheel, posing and posturing. Well Shannon, although I’m not a nobody, I’ve never had to resort to trying to act like I’m something or someone I’m not. They took all our food, coffee, clothes, etc. Just one of those free-for-all cluster f**ks they’re so well known for. So …. I’m sorry guys. There won’t be no Christmas for nobody this year. Zero tolerance policy for contraband, courtesy of ol’ John Whitmire. Ha/ha.
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This is your “behavior modification” here at work - “We don’t like you. We don’t like what you did. Don’t do that no more!” Don’t call no more, Senator Whitmire, bad boy! Merry Christmas. As always, Hank h.w.skinner@gmail.com http://www.hankskinner.org 999143 Polunsky Unit H W Hank Skinner 3872 FM 350 South Livingston TX 77351-8580
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