Free Uncaged by Frank Shamrock, Charles Fleming Page B

couple of guys, but they hurt me back. The guards came and broke it all up.
    I got two months in solitary. I probably could have shortened that, or missed it altogether, if I’d told them what had happened. But you can’t do that in prison. You can’t tell on anybody, ever. So when the guards asked me what happened, I said, “I slipped and fell.” When they asked me about the eight black guys, I said, “They slipped and fell on top of me.”
    The guards were concerned that it was the beginning of some kind of gang war. But I refused to tell them anything, so I got two months in solitary with no release date set. I didn’t have to do more than a month, though, because someone from the dorm, maybe someone from “other,” came forward and told the guards what had really happened. That was good, because I got sent back to the yard. But it was also bad, because it looked like I must have told them what happened. Because the guards figured it was a gang thing, they put me back on the yard and sent all eight of the black guys to different prisons to separate them.
    That was bad. I was in deep shit, and I knew it. A snitch is the lowest thing you can be. It doesn’t matter what color you are or who you roll with. If you’re a snitch in prison, you’re going to get killed.
    I was back working in the kitchen when they came up on me. I was sitting with my book, back to the wall, alone at a table. Fifty guys came into the kitchen. They were black guys and Mexican guys and white guys, all together, and they were pissed. One of them said, “We are going to kill you, you rat.” I put my book down and said, “I’ve never ratted anybody out. I didn’t tell anybody anything. But if you’re here to kill me, we better get going.” I put the book down and stood up.
    For some reason, they changed their mind. They turned around and left. Nobody bothered me after that.
    Time passed. I took my classes. I taught weight training. My body developed. It was something people noticed. Guys asked me about it—”How can I look like that?” I started thinking maybe I could do something with my body when I got out of prison. I didn’t know what, exactly.
    I had always had it in my head that I was going to be some kind of entertainer or showman. But I didn’t have any actual entertainment skills. I wasn’t a singer or an actor or a comedian or anything. But I wanted to entertain. So I thought I’d use my body. I thought I’d be some kind of a male dancer, an exotic dancer or something. Or, if that didn’t work out, some kind of fighter. But I didn’t have any real information about that. I didn’t know any fighters. I hadn’t trained for fighting although I had a childhood fantasy that I was a world-champion boxer. I know some people have said that boxing and martial arts exist so that belligerent, angry guys have someplace to go. I wasn’t one of those guys. I wasn’t looking for a fight or a fight scene. I never equated fighting with anything other than animosity and problems. But I had this body and I was really strong. By the time I got out of prison, I was huge. I was pumped up to about 210 pounds and I looked awesome. It seemed like I could do something with that.
    I had managed to stay out of any more trouble at Jamestown and was eventually invited to be a trainer for the fire crews, convictswho went outside the walls to fight fires. It was a dream job that I was never able to qualify for because of the child support order issued against me. When my time was short, I got sent to Folsom, and I was paroled out of there on April 5, 1994. Of the six years that I had been sentenced to, I had been locked up for three and a half years. The state of California paroled me out into the care of Bob Shamrock.
    Bob had come and visited me in prison. Other than my wife, he was the only one. I hadn’t had any contact at all with my