Fresh Out, The Big Herc Story
Fresh Out, My life story and the penitentiary
As a young man growing up I had many dreams and aspirations, but going to prison was not one of them. I never knew my biological dad, but never gave it much thought either. My mother had me at the tender age of fourteen and no one talked about the circumstances of how I came about. I guess it was some dark family secret, so I just left it alone. Watching my mom go through high school was a trip and I could see how it would be difficult balancing school and a child.
I never experienced love from a black man, so it was easy not to like myself. I spent a lot of time around my grandfather, but he was not the kind of man that ever said, "I love you". The guy my mom married out of highschool was a piece of shit and he let it be known from day one that I was his step son. I vowed to whoop his ass when I got older, but they had already divorced and he was no longer in the picture by the time I came of age. So although I had a loving grandmother and a mom that said she loved me and I always felt like I had something to prove. I never felt like I fit in with my own family, so I would often create my own fantasy world through books and toys. I would play for hours in my room and pray that I would one day be rich so that I could move far away. I refused to accept the cards I had been dealt even at five years of age.
I dreamed of being a successful rapper, entrepreneur or pro skater before there was an X-Games. I wrote songs, played sports in high school and even started my own clothing line with my Asian homie Brotha Lu. With no mentor though, whenever I hit a brick wall I would get frustrated. There was no one in my family I wanted to emulate, so I turned to the hustlers and drug dealers around my neighborhood for inspiration. I refused to settle for the average like many of those around me, so I took chances selling drugs, stealing and jacking.
The first time I got locked up I was for selling crack, I was fifteen years old. Although I was a straight A student, the opportunity to make money seemed like it was worth the risk. I was tired of being the poor kid that ate government cheese and had watered down milk in his cereal. The time I spent in juvenile hall and the boys ranch did little to curtail the fast life I had gotten addicted to. Shortly after I was released from custody mom got married and moved the family out of the hood. We went from North Highlands to Huntington Beach and it was a culture shock.
Trying to adjust to this new environment left me confused and frustrated. My step father was white so I couldn't turn to him for advice on how to conduct myself as a black man and my mom was totally clueless. I went from being that nigga in North Highlands, an outcast among a bunch of white surfer's. Although I was a standout football player, I was forced to sit the bench because of school politics. If I would have had the opportunity to ball and showcase my talent, I'm sure I would have gotten a scholarship to some college and maybe my life would have turned out different. The school only had six black kids and I was the darkest out of the bunch. I had never been educated on being black in white America, so frustration and angry was how I often felt trying to fit in. Spending the majority of my childhood living on a military base I'd never really paid much attention to race. I know the white kids weren't to blame, they didn't know any better. They had only been exposed to the Orange County bubble and it was not diverse with any culture.
I managed to stay out of trouble my junior and senior year of high school, but hightailed it back to Sactown as soon as I graduated. The family was moving to the East coast and I didn't get an invite, so I took that as my que to move on. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no one gave me any sound advice. It didn't take long for me to get back into the thick of things banging the hood, fighting and doing dirt. Getting shot at by an oozie at the Boyz in the Hood movie premier should have been an eye opener, but it only pushed me deeper into that lifestyle.
I was trained to go and taking risk was what I had become accustomed to. When the opportunity presented itself to rob an alleged drug dealer, I jumped at the opportunity not thinking about the consequences. I was enrolled in college, but I felt like I was going to just buy time.. This led to my second incarceration of two years and eight months in California Youth Authority. During this time I would work out, practice my drawing skills and compete in my first bodybuilding competition. There were counselor's you could talk to, but no real mentoring. The dreams I had were beyond the comprehension of most the people I talked to and no one wanted to see you doing better than them. So I stayed to myself for the most part and kept my head in t he books.
Having missed a big sexual gap in my life I figured I could make it up by becoming a big porn star and make lots of money having sex with women. This would mark the beginning of the second chapter of my life. I was banned from Sacramento while on parole so this was all the more reason to get into this new hustle. Upon being released from youth authority I moved back to Orange county and embarked on a career in the porn industry. Twenty-one, horny and in shape, when I got called to do my first scene I killed it. The director was so impressed with my performance I became his go to guy. The riches I thought I would make though still eluded me. Guys in the industry didn't really make a lot of money and if you had a bad day, which meant lack of a good erection, word spread like wildfire. Work was sometimes a hit and a miss, so I bounced at a club on the weekends to make ends meet. When things really slowed up I decided to move back up North and give college another try. Mom's had moved back to the west coast and was living in the Bay area. She had agreed to let me move in and I had agreed to go back to school.
College life was cool, but I still felt like something was missing from my life. I had almost completed all the prerequisite classes for my AA degree, but was still not sure what I wanted to major in. It wasn't long before I ran into a cat that had a plug on Humbolt green and before I knew it I was back in business slanging weed in Sac. The money was good and I lost interest in college eventually moving from the Bay area with my mom to Sacramento. When the weed was slow I turned to whatever else was available I could make money off of. Slanging meth, coke, robbing niggas, it didn't matter. I was back to my olds ways and caught up in a vicious cycle that seemed to lead to nowhere. Sacramento was the city of wolves. If you flossed too hard or bragged about what you had, you were bound to get robbed.
I'd grown tired of riding around with heaters, always having to look over my back and was ready for a change. I had a new girlfriend and convinced her we should move to Southern California. She was a little high maintenance, but I thought it could work. I lined her up with a job and figured I could get back into the porn industry on the down low and make some money. We struggled for a while, but I eventually started making some decent money slanging the wanker. She had knew about my previous dealings in the adult industry when we met, but we had an unsaid, don't ask and I won't tell policy. Remember, she was high maintenance.
Life was good and I didn't have many complaints outside of the guys I worked with in the porn industry calling my girl when I wasn't around telling her my whereabouts. I forgot to mention she was also a bit crazy. She once threaten to cut my face up so that no one else would want me. That was kind of the turning point when I decided to hatch an exit strategy. I knew an old fashion breakup wasn't going to work with this woman though, I was going to have to disappear into the night on this one. I had a few dollars saved, but not enough to make the kind of moves I needed to make. So when a guy a knew proposed he had a bank robbery lick, it sounded like the opportunity I had been waiting for. I had done licks before, but didn't really know these guys like that. They weren't from my hood, which was warning sign number one and second they weren't from the streets like me which was warning sign number two. You never do dirt with squares no matter how good they talk. I should have backed out on principle.
You can plan things out to the last detail, but it only takes one mistake when you're playing cops and robber's. It was a cold, rainy morning in February of 2000 and my girlfriend had just left for work and had no idea what I had planned that morning. Sitting in fatigues waiting to get picked up by the crew, I got an unexpected call from my mom which should have told me something. She never called that early in the morning and she asked me what I was doing up so early. I lied and told her I was having breakfast and was going to hit the gym. When I got off the phone, I had this gut feeling something wasn't right. This was that sixth sense people talk about that I ignored. It just wasn't in me to bitch out on a job once I gave my word.
The homie pulled up, I jumped in the Ford Escort and we sped off. The burners were in the car and we had a duffle bag filled with ski masks and gloves. They had stashed the get away car not far from the bank the day before and we all had a change of clothes with additional ID's for travel purposes.
The bank had just opened when we pulled up outside and I was the first one out of the car. I had a M-1 carbine and my accomplice had a nine millimeter. As I blazed through the door telling everyone to "Get the Fuck Down," the other robber followed jumping over the counter demanding that the teller fill up the bag with money. As I looked over my shoulder towards the door to check the time, I noticed a sheriff in a raincoat with a shotgun converging on the bank. In the movies ninety seconds seems like a long time, but in real time it's a flash.
By the time we were exiting the bank, the police were already on their way. The silent alarm must have been triggered and we had spent thirty seconds too long grabbing cash. As we pulled out into traffic a police car rammed us from behind. The chase was on. We sped down the street in traffic and turned into a parking lot contemplating our next move. The cop got out of the car with his gun drawn and it appeared to be over before it began. Arguing among ourselves, the driver decided to punch it and we flew by the startled police parking in an adjacent plaza where the get away car had been stashed. Everyone had all stripped out of there robbery clothes at this point we proceeded to ease out of the driveway nonchalantly so we didn't draw attention to ourselves. Three black guys in a Lincoln Navigator, go figure. I knew this was not going to end in our favor.
There was about a half dozen police cars on the street by this time and when we rolled by and they made eye contact it was on. The Navigator swerved in and out of traffic like a fat man dancing and by the time we hit the freeway the ghetto bird was on us. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. I knew that his was going to be the last time I would see the free world for some time, but wasn't ready to just throw in the towel. The heavy rain made vision damn near impossible, so by the time we saw the spike strip it was too late. The tires blew out and we were rolling on rims. The Navigator has lost all its mojo and our ride was at its end. When the driver finally stopped the SUV, I wasted no time jumping out of the passenger seat. I hopped the freeway center divider and shot through traffic like a running back. I managed to make it up the overpass and to the beach before I was finally apprehended on the sand. The cop that arrested me laughed after I was cuffed and sai that we had made the morning interesting.
Getting caught in a high speed chase within an hour after robbing the bank left little room for a defense although they couldn't see our faces. Low and behold though, the guy that had ran into the bank with me spilled the beans as soon as he hit the back seat of the cop car. He told the whole story on how we met, what my nick name was and even asked for some tea afterwards. When we were all placed in the holding cell he swore he had kept his mouth shut. Looking back over the chain of events it all seemed like a bad dream that I couldn't wake up from. I wasn't crying though, I knew I was going to have to do some time, it was just what I did with my time that was going to determine how I bounced back from this setback.
I was sentenced to one hundred and twenty months in Federal custody and was sent to Lompoc USP at the age of twenty-five to start my time. Although I knew that I had been caught red handed, I decided to spend my time in the law library researching cases to see if there was a possible loophole that would allow me to get out early. Most of the guys at Lompoc were doing an average of twenty years or more and had already been down at least a decade. An altercation could quickly escalate into a stabbing at a moments notice and riots kicked off on a regular.
It was at Lompoc where I realized my true potential as a man and found my first real mentor's. One was an old white ex-vietnam veteran that laced me up on the law and the monetary system and the second was an older black gentleman from Los Angeles that put me up on spirituality and self worth. Both were equally impactful on my character as a man and under the tutelage I grew to become a confident, well rounded individual. I spent two years under their guidance and would remain in contact with the both of them throughout my bit.
From Lompoc I was transferred to Sheridan FCI where I continued to study the law making it a source of income for me. I would help guys file their habeas corpus, challenge priors and do other legal proceedings. I soon had a team of guys of all races I worked with researching and networking. In most institutions it would have been unheard of to see Caucasian, Black, Korean, Belizean, and Mexican inmates studying together, but we were on different time. We garnered a certain level of respect among prison staff and fellow inmates. It also gave our time a purpose. Any given day we felt that we could get called for immediate release based on a motion we had filed in court. This helped our time go by and gave us something to look forward to. When you got comfortable and accepted your surroundings is when you became institutionalized.
I was detained at Sheridan roughly three years then was transferred to Herlong FCI where I finished up my time. It was at Herlong where I came up with the show concept for "Fresh Out Life After the Penitentiary". I had been down already half a decade and seen guys get out and come back on new charges or violate probation for stupid shit. I knew when I got out I didn't want to go through the humiliation of trying to fill out job applications and explain where I had been for the last decade. I still had dreams of being successful and having nice things and there was no reason for me to settle for anything less in spite of my shortcomings. I figured all this time had not been in vain and there was a blessing waiting for me on the other side of them gates. There was value in having gone through these life lessons, so why not capitalize on it.
I was released to the halfway house in South Central Los Angeles on October 2008 having done eight years and eight months without a family visit. I could have wallowed in my own pity, but instead decided to use the resentment I'd built up to fuel the fire I needed to by succeed. Failure was not an option. I had seen guys in prison that were pieces of shit get visits and yet no one took the time to see if I had toilet paper to wipe my ass with. What did this say about me as a person? It made me think twice about what I valued in the free world.
I met my business partner that helped me start Fresh Out while working out at the gym and he believed in my idea when I didn't have a pot to piss in. Neither one of us had any formal training producing shows or directing, but we had a vision and four years later we have the most informative show on Youtube showing life after prison. Most people have no clue what an ex-con goes through on a day to day basis trying to transition back into society making amends. Paying for your mistakes doesn't just end when you walk outside those prison gates, you are still judged for your wrongs although you have paid your debt to society. You can have a successful life after prison. It's about hard work and applying your street hustle to a legal hustle.
