Antonio Delapaz

Warning! Be advised!

If you’re not looking for someone who can make you laugh and truly hear you out, then click the next profile. But if you want to laugh and actually be understood, then look no further.

My friends say I have an old soul, which is strange because I’m only 27 years old. Okay, okay, they may say so because one of my favorite movies, if not favorite, is Grease. Watching Grease as a kid made me wonder how cool it would have been to grow up in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Am I the only one?

Being from the South, you can say I’m your modern Southern gentleman. Sorry, no cowboy! 🙂 But I wouldn’t mind wearing a nice pair of boots, with a cowboy hat, though I prefer a pair of J’s or ’90 and ’95 Nike Air Maxs. My taste for music is no different either- it’s a concoction of Drake, Old Dominion, Taylor Swift, and Beethoven. -lol-

I read nearly everything and anything. My favorite book is “The Count of Monte Cristo.” The main character, Edmond Dantès, resonates with me deeply and profoundly, because though Dantès seeks to revenge himself from those who plotted against him, destroying his most cherished hopes, he discovers in the process of avenging himself the power of forgiveness. What’s your favorite book? If you’d like to read a book and discuss it, then you found yourself a reading partner.

One of my dreams is to become a writer. I’ve been practicing with the short story. My current project is about a Texas Ranger who investigates a crime at the border. I’m eager and willing to learn. Are you working on a poem, essay, memoir, blog, or simply journaling? If you are, don’t hesitate to share.

Your ideas, joys, scars, pains, thoughts, are all welcomed. This is a no judging zone, so be you! 🙂 That’s who I want to meet.

Antonio

PS: If you use JPay, please leave your mailing address. I can only respond via snail mail.

Not in Texas!

“Texas is last for everything.” I’ve been hearing this since I entered the system at 16. At that time, I didn’t quite understand why this statement was so common and bitterly expressed by fellow prisoners every time rumors of possible new items, like MP3 players, being sold on commissary. My naiveté only made me that much more curious to find out why. But my first experiences in prison quickly informed me that something in here was off.

Transferred in a white van, handcuffed to another kid, headed toward the backwoods of Texas, I wondered how it would be, stepping into prison for the first time. “Would I have to fight, join a gang, or commit a crime to survive?”

As the van began slowing down, I just knew we were near, so I looked out the window and noticed an old dilapidated red brick building that was probably built more than a century ago. It seemed as if we traveled back in time. The creepy building, the guards in grey uniforms, the handcuffs on my wrists, and my dingy white uniform transported me to a different reality. I entered into an invisible yet tangible bubble, a culture hidden from the eyes of Texas, an incubator that holds the past and present compactly and chaotically together like a huge machine, cold and uncaring.

With men (and women) who have been locked up 10, 20, and 30 plus years, the only world they know is the one they left behind. The summer of 2010 was the world I left behind. Bruno Mars had emerged on the music scene with his song “Billionaire”; skinny jeans were worn by punk rockers and skateboarders; starch jeans and grillz were still the thing; iPhone 3s flooded the market; the movie “Grown ups” was playing in theaters.

But I saw a disconnect between the reality of society and the reality of prison. A week in this machine, some guys told me about the newly installed prison phones. I couldn’t believe they were newly installed and that only landlines could be activated. My family, by this time, had opted for cellphones. “By 2011, who really had landlines? Businesses?” The prison phones looked worse than payphones on a random street. The TVs also were fat black ’90 models.

Two years later, having acclimated as best as I could, I would hear and read how other States allowed prisoners to have MP3 tablets, care packages, and even conjugal visits. I was in disbelief. “Why can’t we have this in Texas?” What my eyes saw inculcated the reality of how far behind prisons in Texas are from those in other States.

I’m 27 years old now and the rumors continue. The overly optimistic fall prey. Yet they persist and have recently spread a rumor that we might get tablets (of course, without internet access). They told me they knew someone who was at a prison that already had tablets. Whether they’re right or falling prey again, I simply reply, “not in Texas!”

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• Incarcerated Since: 2010
• Sentence Received: 30 years to life
• Earliest Release: 2040

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