How It Feels to Get Off Parole After Ten Years in the System

Photo via Flickr user Paul Scott

The New York State Parole system is so fucked that I didn’t even know I was off paper—that finally, after a decade, I was free of the government’s fucking shackles—until I looked it up online myself. Not telling me my status had changed was a final act of apathetic dick-fuckery, but why should they stop with the maltreatment now? I gotta admit my parole officer for my final year was a sweetheart who miraculously didn’t bother me or even threaten to lock me, but it wasn’t like she gave me a gracious send off, congratulated me, or informed me of my freedom. I spent January, February, and the first half of March calling her and leaving messages, wondering why she hadn’t stopped by the apartment and asking when I would have to report to splatter my stinky piss in her cup, but I received no answers. But now—hallelujah!

Without a donkey-fisting doubt, the newfound easy-breezy feeling is beyond the beauty of bonerdom. For the past ten years I’ve had to look over my shoulder—I’ve been the property of the state of New York, and that's been beyond nerve-wracking, it’s been nerve-wrecking. I wasn’t allowed to do a lot of routine things like driving or drinking booze, but I did them anyway, so I always felt like a miscreant—and I got into some seriously illegal things on top of that, and came close to catching another felony on several occasions.

A couple times when cops pulled me over, ran my name, and saw on their computer that I was on parole, they set off their cocksucker gene pork chops possess that makes them want to ruin people’s lives so they can get a promotion. Or maybe they really think that by getting drugs off the streets they are doing the right thing. (They searched me sometimes, but I used some devices you can buy at head shops to hide my stash, and I don’t want to go into detail for all kinds of reasons, but those things work.)

Anyhow, here I am, a somewhat normal citizen of society. There are still some restrictions upon me that kinda blow balls: I can’t carry a gun, vote, be a peace officer, obtain certain certificates, and of course there's the most relevant restriction: I can’t peep at strippers munching each other’s kitty-kats in Montreal and Toronto. Canada doesn’t want scum-sucker motherfuckers like me to enter that pristine country, which really is a bummer. I hear that it’s possible to contact the embassy ahead of time and ask for special permission, so maybe I’ll get to see Isabella put in work on Monique’s oiled-up oyster for 15 loonies at Club Super Sex at least one more time.

The type of jobs I’m working right now aren’t affected by my changed legal status, but I feel different. I acted like a serious jerk-off while I was on parole, and I’m still unfortunately on a roll of doing dumb shit now. But it’s amazing not to be getting nervous every time I get a phone call from an unknown number and not to be sharting my drawers when there’s someone at the door ringing the bell. That feeling was so indescribably terrorizing. Plus, I had a number of parole officers over the years who found it necessary to visit at five in the morning. When I lived with other people, I felt awful for them having to put up with that shit.

And goddamned-mothersucking-turd-on-a-stick-in-my-face did I loathe going to the parole office and sitting there for three hours waiting to piss in a cup and lie about my life. Often I was trying to cleanse my system of the drugs I’d been taking, so my bladder was full of liquid and on massive explosion status while I waited. And I knew it was a very real possibility that I wouldn’t come out, ‘cause I did illegal shit every day and there was always a risk my officer would find out.

So no more waiting rooms, obscenely early visits from the Man, pissing in cups, and, most importantly, I can breathe again. I’m still extremely stressed out, but at least I’m just a normal guy without a bullseye on my back. Or at least not a huge one—I’ve just got a little red flag hanging off my arm that they really have to try hard to grab. I’m not a criminal owned by the state of New York anymore, and I’m allowed to travel freely without getting a travel pass, which I will be taking advantage of shortly.

I used to leave the country fairly frequently, but thanks to parole I haven’t gone for the past ten years. I’m saving money to take advantage of that privilege very soon. I’m now engaged to the most bonerablessed babydoll I’ve ever met, and when we get married we can take off and travel to other countries… finally. I’ve been waiting for this for what seems like forever, and now it’s a reality. I’m now basically just your average tax-paying American living life without being supervised by psychopaths. It feels great.

Bert Burykill is the pseudonym of our prison correspondent, who has spent time in a number of prisons in New York State. He tweets here.