Unruly (17 page)

As the movie played endlessly in the background of my late-night recording sessions, I got glimpses of it as I worked. The images of the artists and snatches of their dialogues dove into my subconscious. The actors were toying with the big questions that I was pondering, too. The more I watched the film, the harder I worked, tweaking each song as if it were my first. The songs were provocative and somewhat dark. There were titles like “Real Life Fantasy,” “Drown,” “Black Vodka” and “Strange Days.” I worked and worked to make the album exciting and unusual. I wanted the album to be an original. I worked like a mad scientist, knowing this would be my last album for a while.

There was nothing to lose. I no longer had to care about beefs, fans, praise or disses. I was on my way out of the loop and on my way to my artistic self. It's what I had always wanted out of making music but didn't know it.

FIFTEEN

Changing

Lord, can we get a break

We ain't really happy here

When you look into our eyes

You see pain without fear

The inmates had been chanting that shit from my first album. I had written it for them to sing. It killed me that I was in prison with them, chanting my own prophetic words.
Black men singing for freedom.

 

AT MY HOME
in the New Jersey suburbs, “prison” had become a household word. Instead of Aisha feeling ashamed about me being in prison, several women consoled her with the news that their husbands had also gone to prison for white-collar crimes. The white-collar crimes seemed innocent, yet they still equaled time. Everyone in prison had breached the trust of people who had trusted them.

Aisha and the kids adjusted as well as they could, with a lot of tears that I never saw. Every weekend they would drive three hours to see me. I was usually tired on the visits because we were always up late the night before, watching movies, shooting the shit and acting like little kids sneaking around doing shit that we weren't supposed to. My man Smitty played lookout while we blew cigarette smoke into the vents so that the CO wouldn't find out. Q led the bread heists when we would hide bread in our stash box in the chow halls to help us add bread to our mostly meat shipments that we received in the mail. It was really high school shit, which is what we had been reduced to, kids in the playground.

Friday and Saturday nights, we were allowed to stay up until two a.m., looking at each other in disbelief at the bare, smelly rec room's pale cinderblock walls. In the beginning, we all looked forward to the late nights, but after a while, it became a drag. I started leaving the fellas in the rec room and going to bed. We were all devastated at the shittyness of life. To pass time, we would escape with entertainment. We would watch movies that would take us far away from that place.

Fresh haircut, fresh greens and a pair of the new sneakers that Aisha sent me were what I would put on to go down to meet my family in the visitation room, otherwise known as the dance floor. I was glad that a glass divider didn't come between us. As I walked out to see them every week, I would do my best to appear okay. I was dealing with this shit the best I could.

They came every week with rare exceptions. I spoke to the kids almost every day. We tried to keep it as normal as we could. I hoped for them that it just felt like I was away on tour. But I wasn't. Instead of hitting stadiums and stages, I was touring the bowels of America's broken correctional system.

I did not go directly to prison. Like the animal that I was treated like, I was regularly shuttled from prison to prison, bus ride after bus ride; pushed, shoved, insulted and neglected.

My first stop was Rikers for three days. Then I was taken to Ulster Correctional Facility. It was the place they take you before they place you somewhere permanent. Oneida was next. It was eventually shut down due to budget cuts. From there I went to Essex County for almost a month, waiting to be sentenced for tax stuff. While I was being shuttled from Oneida to Essex County, the marshals went right past the exit for my house, the place that Aisha was taking the kids to school, making their meals and paying our bills. I couldn't stand to think about what I was missing.

From the Green Monster I was shipped back to Oneida for a few days before it was closed down. The marshals were cool. They took good care of me while I was in their custody. A few days later I was moved to Mid-State Correctional Facility, where I stayed for the duration of my incarceration. The next stop was Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, which is a holding facility before a federal sentence is decided on, then to Ray Brook in upstate New York, an hour from Canada. By the time I reached Ray Brook, with only a few months to go, I told Aisha not to come visit me anymore, I was sick of the whole fucking thing. We all knew I'd be home
soon.

With all of that moving around, every time I went to a new prison, it felt like the first day of high school. Everyone inside has their guard up. I learned early on if you are solid and confident and don't take shit from anyone, no one fucks with you. Once I got cool with everybody, they opened up to me and told me that they were fans of mine. Some of them told me that they thought I would be stuck-up but once they realized that I was a cool dude, it was all good and they could really talk to me.

 

I KNEW THAT AISHA
took her time getting dressed to visit me, not wanting to violate the strict dress code for women. After long drives spent with a car full of somber passengers, she would never risk being turned away. Aisha had seen women being turned away at the security gate, simply for their inappropriate clothes. Visiting women were not permitted to be stylish or provocative. Ish usually wore the same sort of thing every week. Flat leather boots, UGGs or sneakers. She was to wear “clothes that didn't accentuate.” It didn't matter to me what she was wearing, whatever she wore warmed my heart as if it was the first time I saw her in shop class in the eighth grade.

The four-hour visits were pleasant and as unemotional as we could make them. Aisha was mostly all cried out and I didn't cry at all. I had been too busy looking at my life, regretting my choices and understanding why I was there and why I'd never, ever be there again. Our visits reminded me of back in the day when we had been giddy and excited to tell each other entertaining stories that would make us both laugh out loud.

In the visitation room, Ish would hold my hand as she talked about Brittney and her newest teenage dramas. I would then tell her about what was going on with me, which was always much of the same. Aisha and I, as always, could talk about everything under the sun, but we were careful not to get too deep. Everything was already too heavy for us. The laughter was gone.

When the weather was warm, Jeffrey, Jordan and I would often hit the yard and play a couple of games of chess and checkers. I just listened mostly to my boys as they each told me of their elementary and high school adventures. We would talk about sports, and sometimes I would give them some life lessons, especially when Jeff Jr. would ask me questions about prison. I'd always say the same thing,

“You see where I am? This is the place that you
never
want to be. Some people romanticize prison, making it seem like some sort of badge of honor. Prison is not to be proud of. I'm ashamed of it. I should've never been here.”

It was painful to watch them grow from a distance. It was painful to see that they could still grow without me. It felt tragic that I wouldn't be at next week's big football game or able to help Jordan with his book report. I kept smiling and hugging and telling them how much I loved them. I was
missing
so much.

I loved my boys for being with Aisha and helping her through this. The one who didn't visit often was Brittney. There were reasons. She had acting classes on Saturdays and I didn't want her to miss them. I didn't want the kids to miss anything that they had to do to visit me in prison. I also understood that she didn't want to see me like that. Brittney didn't want to be participate in anything that would take two more years out of her life with me.

The fact that we were not separated by a glass wall made the visits even harder. The feel of Ish's warm hand in mine, the feel of her lips when she kissed me goodbye, was tough. Saying goodbye was the worst part of the visit. I never wanted to let them go.

 

MY OLDEST CHILD,
Brittney, is a beautiful, talented young woman who is determined to have her own successes, without my help. I look at her and I see that she's just like me. She has a lot of energy and she wants to be an actor and she will. Brittney and I have a strange and strong relationship. Brittney has endured the majority of my absences throughout her young life because of my career. For her, there have been too many disappointments. Her frustration at my absences can only pale in comparison to my own fury at failing her.

 

AT THIRTEEN YEARS OLD,
my son Jeffrey reminds me of me. He thinks it's cool that Ja Rule is his dad. He's real laid-back and cool most of the time, but his fatal flaw is that he has an explosive temper, just like me. He watches my every move, so I am forced to be a better man. The only way that I can truly be a role model for him is to be the man I want him to become.

I tell my boys: “Don't make the mistakes I've made.” “I went through what I have so you don't have to.” “I had to learn everything the hard way so you don't have to.” I sound like a broken record sometimes, but I'm just making sure that they know how much I care. They are young Black men in America and there's a lot that they need to know. I try to shield them from too many tough conversations, but life continues to bring us the big questions and even tougher answers.

My kids have always gone to school with kids of all cultures. It's more important to me that they become comfortable with all kinds of people because that's the world we live in. Aisha and I share Black history and a Black perspective with our children, as much as we can. The irony of Black success is that no matter how far we climb, we're always reminded of who we are in the eyes of others. I teach them those kinds of lessons, too.

My youngest son, Jordan, is ten, and he's too young to understand most of what has happened to me. Jordan reminds me of myself when I was young. He's never afraid to dance or sing in front of strangers, which is exactly how I was as a kid. That boy is totally animated and creative.

The one thing prison did do for me was to give me some time to rest and reflect on my life. I thought about the many mistakes that I made. Prior to being incarcerated, I was spiraling out of control. I was riding around with a gun. What if I had to use that gun? The twenty months could easily have been twenty years.

I needed this time to think, too. It allowed me the chance to think about how I was living. When I started out in music, I thought I could take everybody with me. But that wasn't the case. Some people are not ready for this journey because the vision is not theirs. I learned that some people can see only what is in front of them, while others have large dreams and a determination to get there. I used to run with twenty, thirty people. I couldn't control them all. This was particularly troubling because what they did would reflect upon me and my image. If someone in my crew did something bad, all the news will report is Ja Rule's entourage did this and that. I'm the one who pays the price for their poor decisions, as well as my own. I had to learn this the hard way.

Prison also gave me the time to learn who I am. I recognized that I have to control my circle and those in it. I realized who my real friends were because they were the ones to visit me in jail. I saw who hung around during the upside and walked away during the downswing. Now people can come, but not necessarily sit at my table.

 

OTHER THAN VISITOR DAYS,
prison days were long and hopeless. Prison was like
Groundhog Day
. Everything was painfully the same. The days stretched out before us like a blank sheet of paper and each of us had to decide how we were going to fill it, but a lot of us didn't know where to start. I had a job. They had me doing lawns and grounds in the morning and porter work in the afternoon. It wasn't bad, it got me out of that filthy cell. It got me outside.

During rec time, I hit the weights. I gained about thirty pounds. People thought I was lifting Toyotas in that bitch. Seriously, working out allowed me to free my mind from everything that was constantly swirling around in my head. It's the only way to do your time. In prison you have to think
inside
the box because you don't want to get yourself reminiscing of things that are outside the box because it hurts too deeply.

Those of us who didn't have jobs would stay as idle inside as they had been outside. Some guys were sleeping late, getting into mischief, fighting with one another or trying to mentally prepare for the day they would be released.

My first few nights in prison, I would have the craziest dreams. I felt like I was seeing demons. It was as if the devil would come into my cell and hold me down. I was seeing evil every night. I would wake up to COs with their flashlights in my face. All I could see of them were shadows. It would take hours for me to fall back to sleep. I would stay up staring out the window and then start writing.

I was so grateful that Aisha was able to send me boxes of food, so I didn't have to eat the chow. Since I was working out and getting healthier than I had ever been in my life, I wanted to eat good food. I was only able to receive thirty-five pounds per month and Aisha would carefully measure and weigh the boxes, sending twenty pounds at the beginning of the month and fifteen towards the end. She would send me sliced fresh meats for sandwiches, green vegetables, organic oatmeal for breakfast and fresh fruits. My ride or die always comes through for me.

One critical memory was that there was a crisis with my oldest son, Jeffrey, while I was away. L'il Rule had a friend from school. He was invited to sleep over at their house with some other boys about a year ago. A few days after the sleepover, the child's father called Aisha saying that his Rolex watch was missing from the house. As much as he told Aisha that he
didn't
think that Jeffrey had taken it,
we
understood why he was calling. . . .
Of course
, blame it on the Black kid. Even if his father is Ja Rule. Even if Jeffrey has always had his own gold and diamond jewelry. . . . It just boils down to the fact that Jeffrey was the
Black kid
at the sleepover, so he was the most likely candidate to have lifted the watch. Aisha was
enraged.

Where was Jeffrey's father when that shit went down? Away in prison, fitting the stereotype, further burying my innocent son in four hundred years of our painful history that never seems to end. The pain of my son even having to deal with that man's suspicion is still more than I can bear. After yelling into the phone with Ish, I punched the four cement walls that held me. My skin crawled with the rage that I wasn't there to set that man straight; man to man, father to father. I wasn't there for that man to see in my eyes that I've been through
too much
to raise a thief. But I wasn't there to defend my son's honor, which pains me to this day.