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of experience in the criminal world, stealing stuff, selling stuff, doing drugs, and making trouble. I could pass for a fairly experienced criminal. And I was near the top of the age range. Though some kids were going to stay at CYA until they were twenty-five, most of them were my age or younger.
    But this was a seriously bad environment. I came from fucked-up shit; this was a whole new level. There was heavy gangbanging here. There were serious politics. I was out of my element. I thought I was a man, with a wife and a child. I felt like a grown-up. But now I had thirteen-year-old kids, really
hard
kids, coming up on me and saying, “Where you from, holmes? Who you roll with?”
    â€œUh, nobody. I’m from Anderson.”
    I understood right away that I had to get out. I knew that if I stayed I was going to be in CYA for a long, long time. I’d just get sucked in. I felt like I was past that kind of behavior, in terms of who I was and where I was in my life. In jail, I had begun a new relationship with my wife, and things had changed.
    When Christy was first pregnant and then when our son was born, I did everything I could to avoid being involved. I didn’t want to feel responsible and I couldn’t stop doing drugs. I was high all the time. I was in jail half the time. But now I had this new experience where I was sober for the first time in a long, long time. Everything felt so clear once the drug haze wore off. I felt a new responsibility to my son and to my wife. Christy was writing me letters. I was committed to becoming a real husband and father. When I got out, we could be a real family.
    But I knew as long as I was in CYA, I couldn’t help her and my son. There were no jobs, which meant you couldn’t make money, which meant you couldn’t send money. There was no visitation. I couldn’t be a dad to my son locked up in that place.
    So I went to the counselor and asked him what my options were. He said that because I was over eighteen I could ask to be classified as an adult and sentenced to an adult facility. He tried to scare me off that. The counselor said, “You think you’re all hard, and you want to go where the real criminals are. But you’re a good-looking kid, and you’re young …”
    He was probably right. He was trying to protect me. It was outside the norm for a youth offender to ask to be reclassified as an adult. He warned me that there would be no coming back. I wouldn’t be able to change my mind. But I knew I wasn’t going to make it at CYA. My only goal was to get out, be a father andhusband, and move on with my life. In the CYA system you can be held until you are twenty-five years old, even if your sentence is less. Unlike in the adult system, where you get a day off your sentence for every good day you produce, in CYA you are subject to periodic reviews by your counselors. They can add what they think you “need” to behave. I was a youth offender. I had a long rap sheet. They might feel like they needed to keep me a while to help me get over that. That might mean staying the full six years. Plus I knew from what I could see around me that I was going to have to fight. If I had to fight, I was going to get more time added to my sentence.
    I had already had one incident. It was just after I arrived at Lassen County Jail in Susanville. It was dinnertime, and it was chili night. I had already heard about chili night; the old-timers had warned me about it. The old-timers said it hurt their stomach. But I was hungry, and I had a strong stomach. The chili was served in bowls at the tables. I sat down and started to reach for my bowl of chili.
    A big, bearded biker dude, way bigger than me, sat across from me. He looked like he had just came down from the mountains. When I reached over to pick up a bowl of chili, the biker dude grabbed the bowl and said, “That’s mine.” I apologized and reached for a different bowl.