Locked Up

[Story] Thread

I grew up playing sports all throughout my childhood and into adulthood.

At an early age, one of my best friends (we will call him Joe) was a teammate of mine.

We quickly became good friends around the age of 10, we hooped together all the time.

Around the age of 12 he started tellin' me about certain drugs and gangs he wanted to get involved with.

I grew up in an *extremely* religious household and all this was completely foreign to me.

It didn't sit well with me.

I felt uncomfortable with it but we continued to hang out, play sports, and shoot the shit with each other.

His involvement with drugs and gangs came rapidly, he began to tell me his dad was a blood and how he had been taking him to some gang meetings to start dealing drugs.

I didn't even know we had gangs in my town.

At about this same time he came over to my house, where I had some cash in a little piggy bank laying around. Probably earned from a little lemonade stand or from raking leaves in the fall.

Anyway, I was proud of those 15-20 $1 bills, they meant a lot to me as a kid.

He and another friend joked about stealing it, grabbing a bill here and there, and laughing about it.

I suggested we go outside to shoot hoops, and we did. Money still in-tact.

After about an hour or two he said "I'm gonna go call my mom to come pick me up"

"Cool", I responded. Not thinking anything of it.

He went in while I kept shooting.

He came back out and hooped until his mom arrived.

Later that day, I went to my room only to find out he had stolen my money.

We never hung out again.

In fact, he and his new possy had sent some death threats my way via MSN Messenger (lol!).

Obviously, I never felt it was serious.

We even got in a fist-fight after school in middle school [I won ;)]

We weren't friends anymore, and neither of us intended on fixing that. We had chosen separate paths.

Fast-forward to high school, he got arrested multiple times for things related to drugs, gangs, and avoiding the cops.

He actually took them on a high-speed chase through my town.

Spent the majority of his teens behind bars.

I went on with my life, not concerned about him.

It was about this time when I had begun to receive scholarship offers to play D-1 baseball and ended up accepting an offer to the University of Kentucky my Jr. year of high school.

Shortly after, there was an article published in our local newspaper my commitment to UK.

About a week or two following this, a random letter arrived at our home from an unknown address.

It was from Joe.

I don't have the letter in front of me, but it was long. And it was heartfelt.

He wrote me saying things like

"I came across your article and it's awesome to see you doing big things"

"Remember when we used to shoot hoops as kids? Crazy to think how worry-free we were"

"My only dream was to play college basketball and here I am stuck behind bars"

"I'm hoping to get out early on good-behavior so I can get my GED in time to walk-on somewhere to play ball".

It made me emotional.

I shared it with my parents and they encouraged me to write back, so I did.

And I offered to grab lunch with him as soon as he is out to see if I can help in any way.

A few months later I found out through a friend that he had gotten out early on good behavior.

I got excited.

Good behavior? He must have turned things around!

I tried to figure out how to contact him - it wasn't so easy back before social media.

He was released on a Wednesday or Thursday.

The following Monday (less than a week) he got arrested again before I could ever get ahold of him.

Same charges.
Same people.
Same gang.

He probably got picked up from jail by the same people that got him there in the first place.

To this day, we have never reconnected since, and at the time I just shook it off; he didn't care.

I don't know Joe well anymore. Many of his closest friends would be able to tell you a lot more about him than I can.

But looking back, I believe that I know his truest intentions better than anyone close to him does.

He's not hard.
He's not a druggy.
He's not a die-hard gang member.

He's a kid (a man now) who hoped to turn his life around but never could, most likely due to the people he was surrounded with, starting with his own Dad.

The moral of the story is this:

1 - Who you spend time with matters.

It's easy to say "You're the average of the 5 people you spend most time with" but it's far more complicated than that.

And for many, it's extremely difficult to execute

2 - Actions don't always accurately display intentions.

Everyone is battling demons.

Joe's actions that got him behind bars aren't an accurate depiction of who Joe is.

I firmly believe that.

I think, because of this experience, I'll be slower to judge and quicker to question.

And I encourage you to do the same.

3 - You never know who you will inspire.

You have big dreams, big accomplishments, big aspirations.

Someone in a jail cell might just read your story

4 - You're lucky

You have a lot to be grateful for.

If you're reading this you probably didn't grow up with a Dad that dragged you to gang meetings at about the same time you started playing pee-wee football.

You're not behind bars.

You're lucky.

Finally, I do have intentions of reaching back out to Joe.

I'm not sure if he's in prison or not.

If he's not, I'll call him.

If he is, I'll write him a letter.

Maybe it will rekindle the emotion he displayed when he wrote me that letter 10 years ago.

Whether or not that happens, it's up to him.

We'll see.