How Five Years Became Life

Inmate # 98561-768 KahLeef Jenkins

My government name is KahLeef Jenkins, but I go by Leaf. I have been locked-up for two years now. I came to prison on a five-year bid for distribution of a controlled substance. I killed two men about three weeks into my sentence. Now, this will be my home for the rest of my life.

To make a long story short, I have always been exceptional in math and science. I made straight A’s in high school and as a result I got a full scholarship to college. I graduated in three years with a degree in Computer Science. I got a job at Dell as a Web Designer a week after graduation. It didn’t take long for me to rise through the ranks within the organization. All of my hard work in school was paying off. I owned a home, two cars, and I paid off my parent’s mortgage all by the age of twenty-seven years old. Life was great! Things started to change for me around 2002. The dotcom boom was over and the industry was slowing down. The large bonuses that I had grown to depend on to support my lifestyle stopped coming. I got laid off in 2004.

I went to see my old friend Quinten the day after I got laid off. Quinten and I grew up in the same neighborhood. We played sports together from elementary through high school. He went to U of H on a scholarship to play football. Unfortunately he blew out his knee during spring training his freshman year and could not play again. He did not trip though; Quinten just came home and dug into the drug game.

He was sort of leery about my proposition at first, probably because we had not seen each other in years. After I broke it down to him about losing my job and not wanting to give up my lifestyle, he agreed to help me get things going. Within a month’s time I was moving big weight. I had a hard working crew and I did not have to touch any work. Time went on and money was good. Hell, the money was better than when I was working a real job. I had been in the game for about two years and I had over a million dollars hidden in my mother’s house.
Then I got the call from Quinten. He said that he received a call from the Feds about his business dealings. About a week later I was sitting in court with three niggas that were supposed to be down on the team pointing their fingers and running their damn mouths. Quinten ended up with ten years, I got five.

I ran into Chris my first day in the joint. Chris and I used to get pussy together back in the day. His little sister practiced her falatio technique on me everyday after school in junior high. Chris was one of my main hommies before his dad moved them up to Dallas. It just so happened that his cell was on the same block as mine. It was good to have a soldier inside with me, so I thought.
We began to kick it like we did when we were kids. Chris’ cellmate, Smoke, had a connect on drank, so it was an everyday thing for me to go up to their cell and get toasted. We would play chess and tell stories about when we were coming up in the hood. We got drunk every night for three weeks. Then it happened.

One night I went up to Chris and Smoke’s cell after dinner. They had a full cup of drank waiting for me when I came in, but I didn’t think anything of it at the time. We began to drink and toast to our youth. After my first cup was done I felt a little throwed but I poured up another one. I got about two gulps of my second drink down before everything went black.

I woke up on my stomach in my bunk around five in the morning. My asshole felt like it was on fire. I rolled over and sat up and began to vomit all over the floor. After that, I had to take a shit, so I sat down on the toilet. The pain was so intense that I almost passed out. My asshole felt like someone tried to split it with a knife. I could not even wipe my ass when I was through. I got up and before I flushed the toilet I noticed that there was blood all in the bowl. I hobbled back to my bunk and eased down on the side of my hip. The pain was almost unbearable. I began to retrace the night before. I remembered drinking with the fellas and then…that full cup of drank. I thought to myself, “Chris and Smoke put something in my cup!” The anger was so intense that I forgot about the pain in my ass until I jumped up. “Oh shit!!!” It was even worse than before. I could hardly walk. The only thing I could do was lay back down and think about what happened. Unbenounced to me, my cellmate had been watching me the whole time. He jumped off of the top bunk with this fucked up grin on his face. He bent down and said, “Welcome to the club baby…” Then he walked over to the toilet and took a piss.

After a few hours I was able to walk around the cell and hold the pain. I made it through morning check and I skipped breakfast and went to the infirmary. The doctor told me that my ass was torn open and it needed stitches. He said it was a good move on my part to make them wear condoms or I would be a lot worse off. “What the fuck?” It hit me like a freight train. “Those muthafuckas raped me!” They knew that I wasn’t down for none of that “botyboy” shit so they drugged me and raped me. I couldn’t think of anything but death. I asked the doctor if he could give me something for the pain and he gave me some Tylenol. I limped back to my cell and began to plot my move.

I’m a good-sized dude but I knew that I could not take both of them out at the same time. I had to find a way to immobilize one of them from jump, then I could punish the other one. I stayed in my cell all day and through dinner. I began to make my way up to Chris and Smoke’s cell around six. I stopped by this dude named Paco’s cell and gave him a pillowcase containing everything of value that I had except my Tims. In return he gave me two hits of cocaine, a shank, and a razor blade. I snorted the cocaine before I left his cell. It took about two seconds for the pain to disappear. Then I hid the shank in my waistband and put the razor blade in my mouth, like we used to do back on the block. When I got to their cell, they were already drinking. Chris was sitting with his back to the cell door. Smoke saw me come in and pointed at me to get Chris’ attention. Chris turned and smiled at me.
“What up Leaf?” “I see you finally up. I hope you ain’t mad about last night…better us than some nigga you don’t know.”

I looked over at Smoke and he smiled at me and winked his eye. I don’t know what pissed me off more, my poor judgment, or their punk-ass rapist actions. But my rage was almost uncontrollable. I moved to within a step of Chris’ face as tears began to roll down my face. I bent down a little as if I were rubbing my ass; I was really reaching for the shank. Once I had it in a tight grip, Chris and Smoke were as good as dead. In one quick motion I brought the shank from behind my back and buried it in Chris’ eye socket with all of the strength that I had. It happened so fast that Smoke had no time to react. When I moved on him he was watching Chris flop around on the floor. I hit Smoke in the throat with a hard right, then I tried to push his nose into his brain with an open palm as he sat back holding his neck. He was out like a light as he fell to the cold floor. I then moved my attention back to Chris. I walked over to him and began to stomp on his head over and over and over. I stomped until the blood turned grey and his skull was caved in. After that, I walked over to Smoke and gave him the same greeting. By the time the guards got to the cell I had cut their dicks off and flushed them down the toilet. Blood covered me and everything in the cell.

My attorney had me plead temporary insanity. The prosecuting attorney wanted to give me the death penalty but the judge called both attorneys into his chambers and came out with a verdict of life. My attorney told me that the judge said that no one could fault me for my actions after what they had done the night before, but he had to uphold the law.