Forgive Me For I Know Not What I Do...

Matthew Davis                                                                         Stateville Correctional Center

This is a strange time of year for me. February 29th marked the 12th anniversary of my arrest for murder. Something strange happens to me around this time every year and for the longest time I didn't even know it was happening. What happens is that I lose interest in almost everything positive in my life and I fall into melancholy. In these weeks I feel the full weight of my guilt, I feel like, due to my unforgivable mistake, I do not deserve to have anything good in my life so I unconsciously become lax in anything positive I've got going on. My loved ones usually suffer the effects the most by my unexplained distance.
It's only been the last couple of years that  I've actually been able to put a label on what I feel. Guilt. I don't like feeling this way even though I know I SHOULD. Guilt. Shame. Overwhelming sadness. Confusion. Regret above all. I think about all I've gone through these past twelve years...the torture, beatings, and other indignities at the hands of the police...The years of isolation... My child knowing another man as "dad"... The pain I see on my families face...The horrible things I've witnessed... It's all taken a toll. I know that to some people all of that is not enough pain or punishment and in fact, NO amount of pain or punishment will ever be enough. I wonder what's the point? If no amount of suffering is enough to atone, will anything be enough?
I wonder... If I had not been caught... If I had been so affected by what happened that I spent the next 50 years, the rest of my life, working with children, the homeless, at risk youths, anything, just giving of myself without gain or expectation, would that be enough? If I then confessed on my deathbed, would I be viewed as evil, unworthy of love or happiness?
I say all of this because I am surrounded by wasted human lives. I live in a cesspool of suffering and NO GOOD COMES FROM IT! Longer, tougher sentences do not deter or reduce crime. Making someone suffer every indignity known does not bring anyone back to life. It does not make society better or safer. It does not make anyone truly feel better. BUT what if I was given the opportunity to actually serve society?
I'm not suggesting that I be let out of prison tomorrow or even ten years from now. I need to be punished for my reckless actions. I abused drugs and alcohol and the worst happened. I took a life. I SHOULD be punished. I SHOULD suffer. I SHOULD feel guilt and shame. But I should feel all of that for a PURPOSE. My purpose in life has become to use all I've suffered to keep the next person from making the same mistakes.
That is the future I dream of when my guilt and shame force me into submission. That thought gives me the hope to push through and FIGHT towards my purpose.

Matt

Acid Chronicles~~Volume 1

The room is impossibly small. Four bare blindingly bright white walls and a couch. The light from the bare fluorescent bulb in the ceiling is enough to burn my retinas right out of my eyes. I'm crammed onto the couch with 5 other teenagers. All our eyes are bulging, dilated and wondering. Our teeth grind loudly, involuntarily. There were more of us, where they went I couldn't fathom a guess. I feel my insides flip as I ride the peak wave of the LSD saturating my mind. About 45 minutes earlier I had taken a four way of some extremely potent acid called Charlie Brown. About 15 minutes ago I couldn't stop giggling. Now I just wish the damn light wasn't so bright. I wouldn't mind if the walls would stop wiggling like jello and I really wish I wasn't crammed on this little ass couch like a sardine. I really need to get up. I can hear my mind telling my legs to move. I can feel the message travel from nerve ending to nerve ending all the way down my spine. My legs don't move. Far from panic, I am intrigued by the sensation. I close my eyes and concentrate. I feel the sensation, feel it reach my feet. I open my eyes I see my feet moving. Why can't I get up? Then I notice the closed in feeling. I'm sandwiched, wedged really, between a cute redhead staring intently at the palms of her hands on my left and a heavy set kid with acne frantically picking at his clothes on my right. I realize I can also feel their energy. Like vibrations from a speaker. It's too much. Too much energy. Too much to process. I gotta get up. Near panic I shoulder them aside and jumped to my feet. Free of the confines of the overcrowded couch I feel very large and expanding. Like if I don't hold myself together I will fly apart. I look up and the ceiling is almost touching my head. A piece drops onto my shoulder. I taste it. It's sour, but good. I reach for the ceiling only to have it retract from my touch. The energy changes. The room hates me. The light is blinding. I shouldn't have tasted it. I'm filled with regret. Blind I stumble into a kitchen. Everything is white, blinding lights. I find my way to a bathroom. My eyes close in relief as I open the door, slide inside, and close it behind me. I open my eyes to see a tiny bathroom full of people. I found the rest of us. They don't even notice when I enter, as they are staring intently at the wall. As my eyes adjust I can't believe what I see. Black ink swirling around the walls. I reach out to touch it and it sticks to my finger, covers it quickly and begins to crawl up my arm. Shit! I shake my arm slinging black ink all over. It splatters on the wall and resumes its lazy swirl. I stumble from the bathroom. I can feel it creeping up on me. A bad trip. Once the thought invades my mind it quickly consumes me. I'm not new to this. Acid trips are good or bad depending on your mood and mindset. I needed to leave the place, these crazy people and quickly. I wander back to the hateful sour room with the tiny body filled couch. I see a face I recognize and feel a little relief. “Bro, you gotta take me home, please.” I beg him. He looks at me like he doesn't recognize me and says “we are home.” Shit!! I gotta get home. I need to be in a place I know. A place I'm comfortable. A safe place. And I need to get there soon or this is gonna suck real bad. I notice that the ceiling is drooping again and I want to sit down. The couch is uninviting, just a pink blob with arms and legs sticking out at impossible angles. So I sit on the floor. I can feel the crowded energy from the mass of bodies on the couch and suddenly my clothes are extremely tight. I can barely breathe or move. I need to take them off. I quickly strip down to my boxers only to find the very air oppressing. No matter how I move or position myself the constriction is suffocating. I lay still, trying to breathe. The carpet is like a bed of nails on my flesh. The ceiling pressing me into it. I'm going to explode. I open my eyes and see clearly. I see my friend on the couch. “Bro I'm about to have a bad one. I gotta go home. Take me now.” It must have been the look on my face, or the fact that he just watched my skinny, twitching body flop around on the floor for thirty minutes, or maybe he needed a break too. At any rate, he agreed to take me home. I don't remember the ride home. All I know is that once in my home and in my room and in comfortable clothes and Jim Morrison soothing me with talk of how strange people are, I felt at peace and the peak of the trip hit once again as I lay in bed bathed in the purple fluorescent glow of a black light. It all made sense. I have never felt more comfortable and one with the universe as I did in that moment. I could feel myself dissolve into particles and float like dust on the invisible currents of wind. I blended with all of the earth. Everything made sense. The only point to life is to be life and that was just fine with me. I had been listening to Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon on repeat for God only knows how long when the phone rang. It was my friends asking why I left the party and was I ok. I was feeling exceptional. So good in fact that I totally forgot about that evil apartment that tried to snuff me from existence, so naturally I agreed to return. It was about midnight and I had a good 3 or 4 hours left on this trip so why not go back to the party. Without asking for an address I quickly hung up, changed clothes and jumped into my Malibu without a care in the world.

I believe that my trip allowed me to become connected in some way with the universe enough so that I was able to exert my will upon my immediate surroundings. That may sound strange but it is the only way that the following events are possible and my only explanation for how I'm still alive.

As I pulled out of my driveway it began to rain. By the end of my street it was a downpour. I drove the next 10 miles in the pouring rain with only a vague idea of where I was going. Not that that mattered much. I pay little, if any, attention to the road. I was mesmerized by the rain on the windshield. The way the water whipped back and forth. The way the rivulets changed direction with my speed. I was jolted out of my hypnotic state as my car hit something and I was thrown against the steering wheel. I looked into a wall of water as my car died. After the wipers cleared my view I could see that I was sitting in the middle of the intersection leading directly into the apartment complex from earlier. I tried to no avail to start my car. I opened the door and water rushed into my car. I stepped out, knee deep in water, into the downpour. I looked around. Nothing. No one to be found. I thought I could push my car through the intersection but that didn't work. Dejected, I got back in and tried the ignition one more time. To my surprise the engine sputtered to life. I only had to drive about 30 feet into the entrance to the apartment complex. I was looking upon about 500 identical apartment. I had no idea which one held my friends, so I picked one at random. I knocked. Waited. Knocked again. The door swung open a couple seconds later and instead of a familiar face I was confronted with an angry old man in his dirty whitey tighties. Without saying a word I ran back to my car resigned to return home. Again the car wouldn't start. Sometimes when under the influence of LSD dumb ideas seem completely logical. So, I decided to walk home. Ten miles away. In the pouring rain at 1:30 in the morning. I only made it about 50 feet when a car pulled up next to me. As a window rolled down I saw a familiar face. I was a manager at a gas station and I had hired a 16 year old kid just 2 days ago. I got into his car and he asked me what was wrong with me. I offered the obvious lie that I was drunk and my car wouldn't start. He took me back to my car in awkward silence and told me I should try it one more time. I complied and to my amazement, it started. It even ran a little better. I thank him and hightailed it for home. I don't remember this ride home either. In fact I don't remember much else from that night.

The next afternoon I woke up feeling that “morning after an intense trip” feeling. Sore muscles, fuzzy head and a vague feeling of not rightness. I had to be at work at noon so I got myself together and headed out. Again my car wouldn't start. The events of the night before, while fuzzy, came slowly back. I popped the hood and saw the muddy water all over the engine. I pulled the cap off the distributor and water poured out. The distributor houses the electric points for the ignition. A drop of water will disable it. There was a pint of water. My car shouldn't have gotten me home. I wonder to this day how that car was running. Maybe I willed it to run.