How the hell could they have me in the same place as this guy? I’d just been on my way to visitation when someone attacked me. And I end up in solitary on some bullshit.
But I was treated just like Brian, stuck in my cell twenty-three hours a day. No windows. One bed. One sink. One toilet. The only light I saw was fluorescent. The air was stale. The only time I was allowed to leave was to use the shower, when I’d get escorted in shackles by a team of armed SWAT-like COs. When I got to use the phone they’d wheel it down on a cart to my cell and put the receiver through the same metal flap in the door that they put my food through. It was so inhumane. I started to lose it.
When I first got charged with the murder, I knew it was going to be a challenge but I also felt at the end of the day there was no way I could be convicted. I knew the facts of the case and that I hadn’t been in the wrong that night. I’d done a lot of dirty, low-down things over the years, but what happened that night wasn’t one of them. That’s just all there was to it.
But the hole started fucking with me. With no human contact the only person I could talk to was myself, and I was saying crazy things, over and over again until I believed them. My thoughts became consumed by how many people had gotten convicted for murders they hadn’t committed. More and more I started thinking that my life could be over. Over what? Nothing. Some song.
I was angry. Directly or indirectly this guy had put me in a situation where I had to fight for my life in the streets, and now I was going to be fighting for my life in the courts. Meanwhile he was out there enjoying all the success of his debut album. As the days turned to weeks and weeks turned to months I sat in solitary, going over how everything had played out. How had this good situation turned out so bad?
The more I thought about it, the more I started thinking maybe he resented me even before I turned Def Jam down. Prior to “So Icy” Jeezy was the new dude in Atlanta. He was riding with Meech and them and they were pulling up to the clubs in Gallardos and Phantoms and Bentleys and spending so much money it was unbelievable. But believe it. All those stories are true. I saw it with my own eyes.
But then here I was, creeping into what he thought was his limelight. I would understand those feelings if it weren’t for the fact that I always thought we were coming from different angles. I wasn’t talking about Lambos and Maybachs. I was rapping for the young boys on the corner with dirty T-shirts on. The ones cooking up in the kitchen. The car thieves. The shooters. The niggas breaking into houses. I was rapping my reality.
And I’d done it independently. I’d had help along the way from partners like Doo Dirty and Jacob and Cat. I’d had people like Clay Evans and DJ Greg Street from V-103 who took an interest in my career and looked out for me. But I hadn’t come out of the major-label system and in a way that had made me the people’s champ.
Maybe that fucked with his ego. Maybe he started viewing me as his competition, a thorn in his side. I’d never viewed him that way. Remember, I’d never even heard of the dude prior to our phone call through Shawty Redd, but he’d sure as hell heard of me. He was in south Georgia listening to “Muscles in My Hand” back in 2002. Maybe because I wasn’t in awe of him, I never put on the shoes that he wanted me to wear. Maybe my keeping “So Icy” for myself was just the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Or maybe being in the hole was just fucking with me.
Nearly three months after being placed in solitary confinement I caught the attention of the warden, who was walking through the wing.
“Can you tell me why y’all still got me in here?” I shouted.
She stopped, turned around, and approached my cell.
“Well, you stabbed your visitation buddy in the face,” she responded.
“I did what?”
I still don’t even understand how this shit happened but apparently I hit this guy so hard that his incisors went through his jaw on both sides of his mouth. When they took him to Grady Hospital he told them the reason he had these holes in his jaw was that I’d stabbed him in the face with a pen.
I explained to the warden that I hadn’t stabbed anyone and she agreed to go back and check the surveillance footage. She returned the next day.
“Well, you’re right,” she told me. “We looked back at the footage and you didn’t stab him. But let me ask you something else. Why were you still hitting him after he was unconscious?”
I didn’t have an answer for that one but I wouldn’t need one. After spending more than three months in solitary I was allowed to return to general protective custody. I had a disheveled Afro and a beard like T. J. Duckett. I was a mess. The hole had broke me down.
It seemed like there was little progress being made on my cases so I fired my attorney. Jacob was telling me that he had taken an aggressive approach with the DA, which had brought things to a standstill. So I hired a new team of lawyers from the law firm that had represented Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis when he’d gotten charged with murder after an incident at a Super Bowl party in Atlanta in 2000. That case was a whole lot more complicated than mine, so I was hoping they’d be able to figure my shit out.
And they did. Things started moving after the new lawyers came aboard. They met with the Fulton County prosecutor and were able to find common ground. As far as the DA was concerned, their plaintiff wasn’t the best victim. They knew this guy was a thief and had been stealing. At this point all he wanted was for his medical bills to be paid for. I was going to have to do some time for the assault, but this was a resolvable case.
But we still had a murder charge to deal with. My attorneys met with the DeKalb County assistant district attorney to review my case. They left that meeting with the understanding that my murder charge was soon going to be dismissed. They didn’t have anything on me because of course they didn’t. There was nothing to have.
The thing was the DA’s office had a bunch of high-profile cases and investigations going on at the time, and because they saw loose connections to mine they didn’t want to drop my charges publicly yet. But off the record, we were told, I’d beaten the murder. This was months before that news became public.
It was relief more than it was happiness. A weight had been lifted off my shoulders, one that I’d forgotten I was carrying because it’d been there so long.
In October I pleaded no contest to my aggravated assault case. I was given a six-month sentence with six and a half years’ probation. I’d already spent three months in Fulton County, so by the top of 2006, I was home.
XII
* * *
THE TRAP