Me Share?

By Arthur George Olmos

Read of how a young teenager came about becoming
a gang member in California prisons, also of how
these two gangs problems first started and still exist
today in the Mexican American culture, why the fighting
and killings keep happening. Divide and conquer- I truly
suspect those in power keep fueling the fire. Read this story,
then you will see what I am writing is true. I have lived
my life of becoming this crazy gangster who was always
incarcerated in prisons and deeply involved in one of the
most notorious gangs ever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 29, 2010
• ISBN: 9781453582060

Book preview

Me Share?

Arthur George Olmos

Copyright © 2010 by Arthur George Olmos.

ISBN: Softcover    978-1-4535-8205-3

ISBN: Ebook        978-1-4535-8206-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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I dedicate this book to my children.

My three sons and two daughters, I think of you everyday, I love you.

—Your father

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Glossary

WATCHER

Ahh, decided to pick me out, did ya? Looking to read a good story are ya? Well you came to the right source. I’m probably what you would call the Watcher I float around this world of yours and watch the intresting lives down there. You probably want to read of some great kings and queens heroes and villians. Yes I’ve seen them, and there are to many books on these great characters. But really, they put too much on these stories; for all are people like yourselves, with their hopes and fears, laughter and tears, and the circumstances around them raise them up or down. No more special qualities than most of you have. They were simply at the right place at the right time, is all. No, I am going to take you to a different life that most of you don’t know exists and those that do don’t understand the whys of it? What makes Dartie Ramos, a Chicano (Mexican American) born in the barrio (neighborhood) in the white man’s society (As Dartie would say)to become what he became? Let’s see. Ahh, there he is, in Sacramento California it’s the year 2001 and he’s in Sunnybrook recovery home for recovering addicts a live in program that has group meetings three times a day, and all those other things that are done in such places at the second group of the day, Dartie shared little bit about himself; this little bit shocked the whole group. You see, he said I’m a fifty year old ex-con heroin addict. Why are you in shock? Well Dartie looks like none of that kind! He appears to be a handsome thirty five year old, quite nice person and nothing like he had shared at the end of the second group. So lets join Dartie as he stands in the back yard waiting for the next group of the day that’s ready to start in a few minutes and listen to what he’s thining. This we will do.

Chapter One

Me share? Come on; what could I possibly share with them people in there? They’re a middle class all white group who could never understand the world I live in. I can now picture one of them saying but we all live in the same world.

Do we now? Tell me that when you walk in my shoes a Chicano from the Barrio living in your type of people society growing up in the 50s and 60s. Then you’ll know it’s not really the same world after all!

I saw each one of their faces the last minutes the group when I shared to them I’m Dartie Ramos a fifty year old ex-con heroin addict. Some faces showed disbelief; horror Heroin Addict? Like the drug of their choice (meth, cocaine, alcohol, etc.) is no where close to heroin? Ha! They are here with me in recovery.

I know in this next group one of them is going to ask me what is prison like? and what should I say to them? Prison is different for a Chicano than it is for any other race. We have a stricter code that we’re forced to live with along with the prison life code!

One of them would probably ask me what kind of codes are those? And the best example I can think of quickly is that on the streets your code is you don’t steal, lie, kill, and spit on the sidewalk. To me the prison code is you disrespect me, I stab you. Mess with my cellie I stab you. Mess with my Raza (race) I stab you. Plain and simple everything is up front so I know where I stand.

Your street code of don’t steal, lie, kill, spit on the sidewalk is never followed by you people. You’re stealing, lying, killing, and spitting on the sidewalks every day! How can you possibly know where you stand?

I can picture one of them saying I don’t do any of that!

Really if you endorse your America going to other countries stealing and killing to enforce your America’s policies then even if it’s indirectly the fact that you approve says that if you could you would be there yourselves doing these things! Spit on the sidewalk fool! You’re just as guilty and don’t even know it!

That’s the a difference between us you can’t possibly know where we stand!

No, there is no way I could ever explain prison life the Chicano way to these people. If one asks I’ll share one of my most gruesome experiences and they’ll back off. Yeah that’s what I’ll do. Shit! The group is starting and I got to get to my seat.

There’s Jan, a thirty nine year old alcoholic whose husband left her after twenty years. That was two years ago and she’s been drunk since!

Next to her is Fran a thirty two year old hard drinking woman who doesn’t have that problem. She fucks and leaves husbands every two or four years and been through five already!

Joe, the mechanic who thought he could stop drinking any time he wants to only to find out one day that’s not so true!

Ray next to him an accountant who says he’s addicted to cocaine. Does a line or two a week if that’s addiction? Then the whole world has his problem. Everybody’s addicted to something with those standards he probably doesn’t want to become addicted. Think he came to the right place? Ha! Let addicts tell him what its like and see their eyes light up when they talk of the drug of their choice! Yea, he came to the right place alright! Ha! Ha!

Frankie, meth head all upset because he’s here. His family threatens to cut him out of money unless he change his evil ways! Ha! Ha! Rich kid is so sad.

Danny, twenty two years old got introduced to crack through his girlfriend and been smoking since.

Patty, nineteen years old another meth head who can’t stay still bouncing up and down in her chair wanting to go but has no where to go!

Nancy, alcoholic I’m not so sure about her. To me she seems lonelier than having a drinking problem. Looking for love in a bar for a twenty nine year old? Good luck!

Mary thirty eight years old with a cocaine habit and a nurse to top it off started making eyes at me until I shared; now her eyes say I’m not so sure. I don’t blame you lady! Wouldn’t touch me with a ten foot pole if I was a woman!

Gary construction worker drinks and beats! His poor woman has her share of drama with the beatings she gets when Gary drinks.

Bobby self-righteous hypocrite and the chairman of our lovely group! He’s starting it now with the usual bullshit. He’s been here four days now and seen nothing that says it could help anyone change anything. I was this and now I’m not! Presto magic! Yeah right unless something rocks your world that you’re standing on will that change come? But no group is going to do it.

Bobby is asking if anyone wishes to share and Nancy speaks Dartie earlier you shared that you’ve been in prison? What was it like?

There it is I knew it. Me share? Shit! If my homies could see me now would be rolling on the floor laughing Go ahead ese, (means this guy or dude) tell those gavachos (white guys) what it was like, ha! Ha!

Why don’t you Nancy tell me what its like to be in a bar night after night with those one night stands waking up to a stranger just to find out it’s another mistake! How many mistakes can a person endure? That’s something I’d like to know?

Well here it goes Prison? What was it like? I guess I could take you to the United States Penitentiary in Atlanta Georgia.

It was 1993. I’d been there a week. Atlanta is built on a hill with the cell blocks six tiers high on top of this hill and when you leave the cell blocks you walk down to the upper deck which is like a sun deck with rails that over looks the lower yard and next to that are concrete bleachers staircase going down to lower yard and next to that is the gym’s second floor with the first floor level to the lower yard. The gym’s second floor has the basketball courts and indoor racquetball courts. first floor has the pool room with twelve pool tables and vending machines sodas candies etc. while in the back is weight room with mirrors all around.

From the sun deck you can look into the lower yard which has a one third mile track and inside that to the far right is the baseball/football field with a covered weight pile and uncovered weight pile next the equipment shed with the bashi courts in front then the tennis and basketball courts and finally the soccer field. Pretty big! Handball courts are on other side of gym and all that is surrounded by a twenty foot wall with gun towers every fifty feet.

It’s like a castle with its walls and a little city inside. Anyways I walk outside to the upper sun deck and saw Henry leaning on the rails. The sun deck is even in height with the 20 foot wall you can look across a field into an apartment project one of Atlanta’s ghettos.

I walked up to Henry what’s up ese?

Without looking at me he said check out the mayate (African American guy) on the soccer field

I looked and said what’s he doing practicing for the soccer team?

Henry said check out what he’s kicking ese!

I replied to him quickly A ball!

Check it out ese!

I looked again and said It’s a chaveta (human head)

Henry yawned and said Yeah his homosexual partner told him she was leaving him last night she’s gone now.

I looked back and he was kicking this head around. I could imagine him saying over and over while crying Why did you have to tell me you were leaving me!

One thing about the guards from Federal at that time didn’t shoot into the yards. Not like the State prison guards. The only time they’ll shoot is if you try to go over the walls! This is good and bad. I saw this gavacho Mike from Califas (California) getting down with his friend Teddy over a dope argument. He was a cool guy for a gavacho he had heart.

He and Teddy were there in the lower yard stabbing each other and then surrounded by twenty guards. The Feds will not try to stop an assault; they simply surround you and wait until your finish not like the State. I guess one reason is that mostly everyone in Atlanta had 50 to 150 year sentences and no death penalty! You think they care if they get more time for stabbing a guard?

So they were telling Mike and Ted "You guys finished yet? Come on! Cut it out! That’s enough lay down your shanks (knives)

I never felt so sorry for these two guys. For twenty minutes they were at it. Neither dared to laid down his shank while the other still had his blood had sunk down to their knees and they were still taking swings at each other until Mike collapsed. Then Ted laid his shank down. Then the guards rushed and handcuffed both guys and took them away. Later Mike and Ted became friends again. Those gavachos had heart.

Anyway back to the mayate on the soccer field he was now surrounded by 20 guards who for 30 minutes watched him kick the head around until he too collapsed to the ground. Then the guards rush in handcuffed him picked up the head and took him to the hoyo (Lock-up/hole)

Henry stretched himself and said What do you feel like doing? Handball weights walk or jog on the track what ese?

Like it was no big thing but another day in Atlanta, and I thought Jesus! Where did they send me? I said to him Lets go play handball.

WATCHER

Ahh Dartie, held back didn’t ya? Took them to the Feds instead of the State where things were a lot bloodier and a bit more exciting for you, wasn’t it? But the night is young and this group has become more fascinated than repelled as you had hoped and you my friend will share more than you ever thought possible from the likes of you. But deep in you are things you need to let go. Fifty years of baggage is more than enough for any man. Ahh, but I forget myself we have a friend here (you the reader) and a group down there who wish to hear more.

Come on Mary, you who thought you could hold this man in your arms and love him? His heart was frozen years ago, to enable him to survive in a world that holds no love (At least between a man and woman. There was the mayate/chaveta type love for a few as we have just learned) and you’re thinking you could still love this man is that the nurse in you? But ask Mary and learn more about this man and his world just ask.

Chapter Two

Yeah! That should do it no more questioning me about prison. Now we can share more important group therapy and listen to Gary saying his wife every now and then needs a knock on her head to bring her back to this world. How is that going to help me? I don’t have to listen to this shit I’ve seen it up close in my face day in day out all my life! How is hearing or sharing in group meetings going to change anything?

Mary is now asking me Dartie was it always like that?

Was it always like that? Yes and no. But how can I explain it to you? Shit! Me share? How did I let myself get talked into this recovery shit?

They had told me You’ll like it. People will share you’ll share and everything will be so lovely I don’t feel so lovely right now.

What the hell! Better than listening to Gary with his wife training or Frankie or all or any of their petty beefs I answered her question and how it was different for me.

Nah, comparing the State to me Atlanta Federal prison felt like being on the streets. Like I said earlier it was like a little city and it had everything going on just like any city has. But to fully understand what I’m saying. We have to have a little history of Atlanta at that time.

If I remembered correctly I think it was President Carter telling Fidel Castro in Cuba to let his people freely come to the good old USA. So Castro and I give him credit. He said Okay you want my people I’ll send you my people and he cleaned out his psyche wards and his worse prisoners and instructed them to say nothing and put them in with some normal people and he sent thousands to the good old USA!

The United States got stuck with the psychos and criminals and they couldn’t possibly be let them out into the streets of the good old USA and Castro refused to take them back. They screened all these Cubans and some slipped through and did the killing here. Like I said you had normal Cubans mixed up with the worst ones so they locked up the ones that were identified in the Feds.

Reminds you if they committed no crimes in the USA. But they were bad. Even I kept a distance from what I called the Boat Cubans. These Boat Cubans were a problem for the Feds. Just like they couldn’t let them out to the streets in USA they also couldn’t let them be around the general population in the prisons to them Americans were killable! They had a deep hatred for the USA. Not sure if that was Castro’s doing or what.

When I met one for the first time the first thing he asked me in Spanish If I was Americano! I at first thought they were saying Mexicano and would say yes and right away I got the vibes! I was the enemy! After a few uncomfortable incidents I checked myself. I learned to say No I’m Mexican! It never before occurred to me that I would be considered American! I’ve always been considered a Chicano! In my family I was called Blackie or Crow my brothers and sister could pass for Caucasians! I couldn’t! So that’s why at first I was caught off guard with the Boat Cubans first question. Me American Ha!

Back to our history. The Feds over the years dealt with this problem! Decided to put most of these boat Cubans in Atlanta prison bad mistake! Thousands of these boat Cubans together in Atlanta wasn’t long before they rioted. Took the guards hostage tortured a few hundred American prisoners and the guards put broom sticks up the asses and all those other nice things they did to these guys