STRIKE THREE YOU'RE OUT
Cornell Red Star
My name is Cornell Red Star, I was born on an Indian reservation in good ole South Dakota. I was an average B-C student in school, but I never finished due to alcohol and drugs. My ability to excel in the education field started to taper off in about the seventh grade because I became disinterested. I did not know this was the beginning of the end for me.
I come from a violent background due to alcohol and drugs, so my life was gradually headed in this direction. It become second nature to be a part of this, and I took this as natural. I've hurt a lot of people in one way or another, whether it be physically, psychologically, or emotionally. I never cared what kind of scars I left in my wake, because I was to busy living up to that bad-boy image. When somebody hurt me in some form. I took revenge in my own time. An eye for eye was my belief. It never dawned on me that I hurt a lot of those that were close to me, and I've had to deal with this. I was the type of teen who listened to nobody because I was out-right rebellious. I was a delinquent in the true sense of the word.
At my parents urging to do something with my life, I decided to enroll in a job corps program to try again to get some education. Little did I know that my life would take a very drastic turn for the worse, which was very ironical. I wasn't there a week when I was confronted by four suited fellows, who surprised the daylight outta me. I felt like I was hit by a force unknown, due to what they had to say to me. I was being arrested for 1st degree murder! I believe that I took this in a negative manner and contributed to my being sent away. At eighteen years old, I was being sent to a federal institution for an assault charge. The crime of murder proved to be untrue, but I was railroaded all the same. I was scared as heck because I knew prison was a bad place. Whatever was coming my way, I had to deal with it like a man. I was being sent to a world I knew nothing about and I had to go it alone. I felt like someone had stepped on my grave and it wasn't funny any more. I have never been slapped so hard with reality and I was hurting inside. I cannot describe what I was feeling, but I knew fear.
That was a beginning of my criminal career, and I've been down twice since. This is my third time down, but due to the grace of God, I'm not out. I'm doing twenty years in prison for having a convict mentality, and I was very fortunate not have received a life sentence. If I was tried for every assault that I ever committed, I would inevitably be serving life.
Reality had been knocking on my door, but I never listened. Now I'm listening because the calendars have fallen by the wayside, wasted, time and again. It gets old after a while , day in -day out, with little importance to break the monotonous existence. There was a time when I felt young and full of life, but I am beginning to feel old in my young age. Perhaps it is the abundance of negativity that fills the atmosphere with consistency; perhaps it is the same-ole-same-ole. I'm very fortunate that I possess what is known as hope, because without it...I would be down for many years to come. I'm also lucky not be in a harsher penitentiary because I can ill-afford to sleep with one eye open twenty four-seven. I've seen the joints where many weak, young, and once macho boys fall prey to the individuals known as "Bubba". It was a sad sight , but it is cold reality of what happens in rough joints. That's why some cons become hardened and oblivious to what happens around them because they weren't sent to the joint to babysit.
© 2001
MITAKUYE OYASIN.
"We are all related"
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