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I was outside the main entrance of Flamingoes Casino, which is located uptown, canvassing the people going into and coming out of the casino and feeling quite good about myself, because I had already sold four pairs of glasses, had about $150 in my pocket, and I was looking forward, immensely, to going out later on without that niggling feeling lurking somewhere ominously in the background. I was talking to a potential customer when I felt a tap on my shoulder coming from behind me, and I turned around to be confronted by one of the hotel security guards, whilst also catching a fleeting glimse of another guard approaching from the front side of me.

Continued :

The guard that tapped me on the shoulder grasped me tightly by the arm, as the other one fast approached.At this point I thought seriously about head-butting the guard, because I couldn’t see any other way out of the situation, but resolved against it, as I knew, only to well, that these guardians of the peace carried guns and would use them, without the slightest hesitation, at the first sign of trouble.So with that the police were called and I was eventually handcuffed, arrested, and put into the police car, destination “The Downtown State Penitenery”.

To say that I felt a horrible sense of déja vu wouldn’t be doing it justice, as I had thought that I had left all that behind me, after all it had been more than a year since my last incarceration.The old feelings of despair, desperation, isolation and even betrayel came agonisingly to the fore again, and I awaited my faith in a highly disturbed state.

I was shuffled off to the prison court house attached to about seven other convicts by means of a long iron chain, with both our feet and hands in shakles.The famous picture with Steve McQueen “Cool Hand Luke” springs to mind.I was convicted of selling sunglasses illegally which infringed on the copyright status of the various companies involved, and for this crime I was to receive a four week sentence to be served in the Downtown Correctional Facility of the “ Great State of Las Vegas, Nevada ".I was also told, in no uncertain terms, that if I was caught doing the same again that I would receive a minimum of a six month sentence.

I was took out of the court room and processed through the system.For whatever reason, and to this day I still don’t know why, I was put into the mother fucking juvenile wing of the prison, with the average age of my fellow inmates being at best nineteen, and here I am fast approaching my thirty-seventh birthday.I probably did look a bit younger than my age, but twenty years younger, I don’t think so.The fact that I was in with a bunch of juveniles didn’t particularly bother me, but what did cause annoyance was the fact that you couldn’t smoke, because what had helped me in my previous incarcerations was the constant trading of food for cigarettes, and now , even that, was not a fucking option !