November 26th,
2012
I should be able to get
my license back today. There are 2~ 50
dollar reinstatement fees. I have 101. dollars. I also have 9 dollars in one debit card
account, and 1 dollar in another. I
should have 120. Dollars cash coming my way later today or this week towards
bills. I took home a pinch over 800
dollars for a two week pay check just over a week ago. I had to pay New Hampshire 360 dollars, for a
fine. I had to pay my cell phone
bill. I had to get food, and gas. I still have that hundred dollar bill. I’m wondering if the registry will have any
other fees…if they do I probably can’t pay them unless they’re only 5.00 so I
have this fear that even after all this…I still won’t have my license back
today. I need propane, and the electric
bill is growing unpaid because I paid that fine. I’m heating with just scrap wood. Not even cord wood, pallet stock is the only
thing that has raised the temperature of my house this year and It’s almost
December. I was really hoping to buy a
bed this week. I have been sleeping on a
futon mattress for almost 4 months. Yet
it feels inherently irresponsible to buy a mattress set when my electric isn’t
paid yet and the propane tank is empty.
I’ve been looking forward to a real bed for months…but those fines were
so much money. As a punishment for
driving too fast, and driving a car too old to take a sticker that this has
cost me 385.00 to Maine, and 360 to NH…almost 750.00 dollars…Money that could
be keeping me warm, or keeping the lights on, or going towards repairs for my
car…which needs to be registered again…but I only have so much money.
The license has to come
first…I need to get to work, and driving without it…they can take you and lock
you up…they do that, they have and they will again. Then they charge you even more money…My crime
is driving…my punishment is being reminded of exactly how poor I still am. Then I think back…
Walking up to the York
Jail…knowing I would be sleeping there, knowing they were looking for me,
knowing they were in my driveway.
Approaching me like I was dangerous…I suppose I was, but not in the
sense they thought. I don’t own a
gun. The warrant wasn’t even in the
system. Civil Contempt…if I hadn’t had a
copy of the warrant in my pocket they wouldn’t have been able to book me. I helped book myself…it was an odd booking…a
warrant with a sentence. The guard who
took my fingerprints had trained at Cumberland…I had worked a couple pods with
him, and had been in on his first fight.
I knew every phase of the routine.
I got walked down to housing.
Resigned, but closed off. I wasn’t
afraid…I was fully ready to die so there was nothing in that building that I
needed to worry about. I refused
protective custody. Other inmates
recognized me…I was a guard…in orange…it didn’t matter. No one fought me.
The days crawled by. 30 of them…because I refused to pay 435.00 a
week in support. I couldn’t have paid
it, I would have ended up homeless…Knowing I couldn’t do it without suffering
and ultimately failing I didn’t try. I
paid my child support, I looked for leverage, an edge, anything that would get
them to see reason. I filed motions,
begged for help, never paid my spousal support.
I ended up in jail. They have
power you see, they can take whatever they want away. For a while I was resigned to knowing they
would kill me, and that my only solace would be in finding a way to let
everyone know how wrong what they had done was…something big, something that
would make national news…I had a lot of ideas…I’m a thinker. Ultimately I refused to be known as a
nutcase, and couldn’t find a way to adequately shake the pillars without taking
the rap of a madman. What they did was
wrong, I am still recovering. I have an
ability to work, or live…I can’t find a way to do both and am feeling that
now. However that is clearly another
rant. This one is about the system and
what it does to the people who have nothing, but want to get their lives back.
I can barely afford my
bills, when I can’t pay them they get harder to pay, as a penalty for
failing. If you lapse on things they
charge you more. Your cars can’t pass
inspection, and always need work, still you try to get to work, Today is the
second time I have called in sick to work in 8 months. I needed it…there’s something in here that I’m
working out.
It’s been a year and nine
months, since I went to jail. I lost my
job while I was there. When I got out, I
was angry, I was broke. I had unemployment,
but DHS was taking 250 of the 359 a week they gave me. I still had child support to pay. I looked for work as an angry, paranoid
basket case that had just gotten out of jail.
Somehow I still found work. I
worked hard all summer, made adequate money, my anger finally got the better of
me and I quit when faced with attitude from a boss. I bounced and worked, I fought the urge to
die or kill every hour of every day. I
cried, I felt loss, I tried to fuck the state over, they had made me this way,
taken everything, left me as something that wasn’t worthy of love or capable of
work. I feared working, feared them
taking everything again, I applied for disability. I have been working since I was 12 years old…I
was convinced I couldn’t safely do it, either they would take everything or I
would kill someone. I told myself if
that was what it came down to I would rather kill the people I blamed for it
than someone who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I knew I would probably die myself. This was the fall of 2011…I paced the house,
empty when no one else was there, my muscles on fire, my mind racing, violence
coursing through every vein…how dare they take everything from me…There was
only one thing left to give them…whatever was left…all my rage, all my hate…fire,
fists, and pain…I was prepared to level city blocks…that was the magnitude of
my rage. There is also absolutely no exaggeration
in that statement. I know what a propane
tank is capable of doing when it explodes.
I know how much chaos, smoke and fire, and explosions and screams
causes. I know how disorganized
everything will be as people try to figure out what’s going on. At that point I also knew that I wouldn’t
survive it so my tactical options were wide open. But I wanted to last long enough that they
knew WHY it happened. They needed to
know that all of this was because they ruined someone…That if they had shown an
ounce of reservation, fairness, or compassion, that they wouldn’t be dying on
that day, but that they hadn’t that they had instead shown how powerful they
could be and taken everything, daring me to do something about it…I was prepared
to show them what power was…power is the ability to make someone else
afraid. They made me afraid for my life,
they took comfort away from me, as a response I gave up caring about life and
comfort…I refuse to allow anyone to take things I care about…my response is to
care about less…it protects me…if they would hold work, life, and security over
my head I would hold death and pain and fear over theirs.
That took a long time to
get past. Clearly reading my own words
now, I’m not over it, not completely.
However now I’m working, I’ve clawed my way to a raise, and am close to
a living wage with a room mate. I can
feed myself. Now I’m trying to earn
things that make me feel real, a real bed, a license so I don’t fear for my
life every time I get in the car. I’m so
close, yet everything could slip away. I
need to get that license back to protect myself from going back under, yet I
have to give up so much to do it, that it reminds me why I hate them…
I am not a
terrorist. I love the United States very
much, but I now see what it’s like to live at the bottom of a long hill that
plenty of shit rolls down. It has
sullied my taste for what I thought this country was…I have always thought that
if you are willing to try you’d be ok, but sometimes they make it so hard, on
the people who have it hardest. My
inspection sticker runs out in 35 days…I still need to register my car, but
every time I pay a fine or fee, something else has to go unpaid…it could be
electric, or heat, or food, it will probably be cable…cable is a luxury after
all isn’t it…of course my registration will be about 200, and the cable is only
110 with internet…so I will probably also have to eat cheap next week, and I
won’t be getting my bed or another car any time soon…so when my sticker runs
out, and until my registration gets paid…I’ll be walking a line…waiting for the
next fine…hoping I can pay it…somehow.
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