This one goes out to my main man, G Hicks. I have been saving him. You save the good ones.
G showed me the ropes in the Jefferson County Jail. We all need somebody to show us the ropes. Nobody walks into a new place knowing how it works. You can read every rule posted on the wall and still have no idea how the place actually runs. The rules are there for a reason, and I respect that. But rules alone do not get you through. You need a person. You need somebody who has been there, knows the way, and cares enough to walk you through it. G was that person for me. He still is.
I have written in this log about how frightened I was in there. The floor, face to the wall. The fights. The hunger. Being lost to the world. All of that was real. But so was G. In a place where I did not know whom to trust, God put a man beside me who could be trusted. I do not take that lightly. I do not take much lightly anymore, except myself.
G knew how to get things done. He knew how to work the proper channels and take the right things to the right people. He understood how the system worked, and instead of keeping that knowledge to himself, he shared it with me, which in jail is roughly equivalent to sharing a winning lottery ticket.
He told me how to get a new towel. He told me how to get new clothes. Small things, unless you are the one who needs them. When you have almost nothing, a clean towel is a major life event. Fresh clothes are a holiday. They are small reminders that you are still a human being. G understood that, and he made sure I did not go without when there was a proper way to get what I needed. Before G, I had been drying off with optimism.
He would always get to the phone, save my place in line, and hand it to me after him. If you read the entry about the last working phone number in America, you know what that phone meant. It was my one thread to the outside. Billy’s number was in my head, but getting to the phone was a different project entirely, requiring timing, nerve, and a sense of where everybody else was standing. I had none of those. G had all three. He did not have to help. Nobody would have blamed him for looking out only for himself. He looked out for me too.
We always ate together. We exercised together in the mornings. Day after day, he was there. There is something about routine in a place like that. It keeps you steady. Eating with G meant I was not facing the trading floor alone, which, given my record as a trader, was a significant economic advantage. Exercising in the mornings meant the day started with a little discipline and a little company. Those mornings gave me something to hold onto.
Plenty of people know things. Not as many take the time to teach them. G took the time.
G is a strong Christian man. The woman he loved was fighting a brain tumor while he was in there. He was carrying that weight, and he still had room to help me carry mine. Some men carrying that kind of burden would have turned inward, and they would have had every reason to. G turned outward. His own heart was heavy, and he still made room for somebody else’s trouble. I call that the Holy Spirit at work in a man.
Being around him gave me an idea of what real problems look like. I had been treating my situation as the worst thing that had ever happened to anybody, and in my defense, it was the worst thing that had ever happened to me. G put that in perspective without ever saying a word about it. And through all of it, he gave me courage and hope. Courage to get through another day. Hope that there would be days worth getting to on the other side. He handed those to me the same way he handed me the phone. Quietly, steadily, and without expecting anything back.
He is a tough cookie with a soft heart and a smart man with a gentle spirit. You do not find that combination every day. Tough enough to stand up in a hard place, soft enough to care about the man next to him. Smart enough to know how things work, gentle enough to teach it with patience. I am working on all four. Currently I am at about one and a half.
Scripture says iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. That is what G did for me. God puts people in our path at just the right time, even in places we never wanted to be. Sometimes the last place you would expect to find a friend is exactly where God sends one.
Jesus said the greatest among us will be the servant of all. G lived that. He served by showing the way, by sharing what he knew, and by speaking the Word over me when I needed it. I have spent a lot of my life around people who talk about faith. I have been one of them. G is one of the people who showed me what faith looks like when nobody is watching. In a jail there is no audience to impress. Nobody hands out awards for kindness. What you do in there, you do because of who you are. G showed me who he is.
When I think about the Good Samaritan, I think about the man who stopped. Others passed by. They had their reasons. The Samaritan saw someone hurting and crossed the road. G crossed the road for me. In Jefferson County the road was a cell block, and he crossed it every day.
I think we are going to work together someday. Whether we do or not, he will always be my friend. Some friendships are seasonal. They serve a purpose for a while and then fade, and that is all right. This is not one of those. When you have stood beside a man in a place like that, you know what he is made of. And he knows what you are made of too, which in my case was mostly nerves and grits.
G, I am eternally grateful. I hope I can make it up to you, today and every day after. I am praying for you, brother, and for the woman you love. May God give you both strength, peace, and the kind of hope you have always been so quick to give away. He always had a Bible verse that got me going, and he always reminded me that God had plans for me. Here is the one he gave me most.
“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.”
Jeremiah 29:11 (KJV)
— JC
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