(7/13) “When I got this job, I started at the bottom. Serving...

(7/13) “When I got this job, I started at the bottom. Serving beers in a beer garden for $10 an hour. But I’m relentless. I did whatever I had to do: show up thirty minutes early, look your best, act your best. Do jobs that aren’t yours. If the table is 95 percent clean, make it 105 percent clean. If the guest wants one thing, bring them three. Say good morning before they do. Say good night before they do. Whatever it takes: to be the most seen, the most heard, to be the best. I’m relentless. Been that way my whole life. In prison I was a store man. It’s like a human bodega. There were seven of them on our compound, but I was the best. I had twenty lockers filled with cokes, candy bars, and potato chips. Each time a new prisoner came off the bus, I’d be there to greet him. I’d give him a care package: shampoo, deodorant, toothpaste. All of it for free. So the next time he needs a store man, he’s coming to me. It’s all about how you make people feel. It applies whether you’re in an upscale restaurant, or whether you’re in prison. I was a model inmate. Never had a single write-up. Not one altercation. And after six years they transferred me to a minimum-security facility in Montgomery, Alabama. It’s what’s known as a ‘camp.’ It had dorms, and a library. I had the best job on the whole compound: mowing the warden’s lawn. Tiny, Napoleon-ass motherfucker. But he had the best-looking lawn in the federal prison system. I made sure of that. I happened to be mowing his lawn on April 23rd, 2014, when I noticed everyone running to the prison yard. I knew there must be a rumor. Cause every time there’s a rumor, everyone runs straight to the yard. Usually the rumor turns out to be bullshit. But this time it was true: The Obama Administration had just announced a clemency program. Every federal inmate could apply for a presidential pardon. There were 200,000 federal inmates. Better odds than a mega millions lottery ticket, but not much better. I found a jailhouse lawyer named Dino, and we got started on my petition that same afternoon. I knew it was going to be the biggest fucking stack of applications in the world. And 56134066 was going to be sitting on the very top.”