“Peg Leg
Pete” – not his real name, which is “Tony” – is a third time in prison
meth-head. Crackheads and meth-heads are unique people in a very tragic way.
When you get that hooked on something that you give up your self-respect, you
know you’re in a bad way. And, that describes meth and crackheads; they just do
their bids waiting to get out and get high again. While they’re in here, they
don’t take care of themselves; many of them won’t even regularly shower or
brush their teeth. You see them all over the place, dirty junkies.
The other
day, Peg Leg Pete (he walks with a pronounced limp and has no teeth though he’s
only 31) clutched his chest and collapsed in his bunk. They called a medical
emergency, took him out and rushed him to the local hospital. “They thought it
was a heart attack,” Old Peg Leg told anyone who would listen, “but it wasn’t.”
What it was
had to do with him lighting rolled up cigarettes off urinals covered in
cleaning spray. He had a lung infection. So what does he do when he gets back
from his near-death experience at the local hospital? He goes out on the rec
yard and pays a guy $10 in commissary for two roll ups; then, he heads right
back into the urinals.
That’s the
junkie mentality, the junkie lifestyle. And there aren’t any drug rehab
programs in here that effectively combat that which means Peg Leg will either
come back to prison or die trying.
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