Chapter One: The Rise and Fall of Art Schlichter

art schlichter

Chapter One: The Rise and Fall of Art Schlichter

Art Schlichter’s book, “Busted,” is an unflinching autobiography of a life gut-punched by gambling.

He describes:
*his charmed rise as an athletic icon in Ohio; he was the center of a recruiting competition between Woody Hayes and Bo Schembechler, and later threw the pass that got Hayes fired at Ohio State.
*his father, who lived vicariously through his accomplishments and later committed suicide.
* his harrowing (and sometimes comical) tour of some 40 prisons over a 10-year period.
* his failure as an N.F.L. quarterback.
* his lust for the high of gambling that Schlichter described this way:
“I had, and still have, an addiction. It’s a severe, severe addiction. It’s kind of like crack cocaine in that it takes away your soul and your character.”

He writes: “Some people say to me today, ‘Don’t worry, it’s all behind you.’ ”
“No, it isn’t, because you can’t just walk away from a disease like mine.
“Will I do bad things again that will send me back to prison? I admit the urge is always there.
“Today, I know I’m still only one wrong step away from imprisonment, insanity, or death.”

Schlichter now manages gamblingpreventionawareness.org and is a speaker on the dangers of gambling addiction. The first chapter of the book, which comes out today and which was written with Jeff Snook, is below:

Chapter 1

Locked in “The Shu”

God, I’m tired. I’m tired of prison. I’m tired of being shackled and chained. I’m tired of being told what to do and when to do it. And most of all, I’m tired of not being able to see my daughters, to hold them and hug them and to tell them I love them. Please watch over them God. Take care of them. Help them be happy. Wrap your arms around them and show them the way. Take care of my mom, too. You know she’s a good woman. She’s someone who deserves happiness. You have to keep me from going insane in here. Please help me survive this place. Please keep me from killing myself. I don’t want to go out this way. Please God … please don’t let me unscrew that light bulb.

It’s late January, 2005, and my life has come to this. I’m praying about a light bulb—a stupid, stinking, meaningless 20-watt light bulb.

Hanging over my head, it’s my constant companion. There are days it’s the only light in my life. Other days, I’m sick and tired of staring at it. It just dangles there as if it’s taunting me. Then there are the worst days, the days when the emotional stress of being imprisoned in this hell-on-earth are too painful for me.

Those are the days I want to unscrew it, break it into pieces and use a shard of it to slice my wrist. I know that shattered light bulb could be my deliverance. It could be my only way out of this dungeon. Maybe I’ll bleed to death all over this concrete floor before they can get to me. Then God can take my soul out of here. I can’t walk through those steel bars, but He will take me far away from this miserable existence.

Weeks ago, I was living in a detention camp, the lowest level of incarceration there is in the American correctional system. I had a nice bunk, good food, I worked in the yard, I felt the warmth of the sunshine. Then I bet on an otherwise meaningless college basketball game. I needed one team to beat another by more than 20 points. The team I bet on won the game 80-60. Typical.

I’d lost again, the latest in a lifetime filled with loss.

When the corrections officers discovered I’d gambled again, they chained me, shackled me, and threw me in here, The Hole—solitary confinement. On the inside, we call this horrible place The SHU—Special Housing Unit. This SHU is the absolute most horrible, darkest, dirtiest place I’ve ever seen. The corrections officers, or “hacks” as we call them, tell me I’ll be deadlocked in this dungeon, deep in the bowels of the Indiana Reformatory near the town of Pendleton, for twenty-three hours a day for the next six months. Pendleton’s a depressing concrete compound built in 1923. It once held John Dillinger. I’m housed in the most horrifying wing, locked in a six-by-eight feet cell, shut off from the rest of the prison … and the rest of the world.
I have nothing but a steel toilet, a tiny steel sink, and a wafer-thin pad that separates me from the cold concrete floor.

And my light bulb. I’ve spent ten years of my life in more than forty prisons. I’ve seen the beatings, the rapes, the common atrocities of prison life, but I’ve experienced nothing like this. This place is agony. This place is mental torture. This place will drive me insane if I’m left here for very long.

At night I can hear the rats running through the walls that are covered with messages and pictures drawn by the captives who preceded me here. Someone drew a perfect Jesus, his hands spread wide. I look at Him every day. A naked woman stares from another wall. Gang signs are all around me, but I can’t decipher them.

I’m locked down with no interaction with anyone, other than the inmate to my right. He’s been held in solitary for 17 years and surely is certifiably insane by now, if he wasn’t when he was free. They tell me he killed an entire family years ago and recently stabbed somebody in prison. He’ll never see the outside of this place.

When the hacks walk by his cell, he sometimes throws his own (expletive) on them. On the days he behaves, they allow him outside his cell to roam walkway. Somehow, he’s become a living sports encyclopedia and he knows every statistic from every game ever played. He stops in front of my cell and recites them to me.

I figure he must be about my age, even though he appears to be in his 60s. They tell me he has AIDS. He smells like death, but everyone smells bad in here, including me. The chemical they gave me as deodorant burns my skin, so I never use it. The entire place smells like a mix of feces and body odor.

I don’t experience much physical pain other than intense hunger and thirst. I’ve come to appreciate the slop they slide through the bars to feed me at four in the morning, ten o’clock, and three o’clock. Its arrival is how I tell time. I surely can’t judge time by my stomach because I’m hungry around the clock.

Sometimes I shake involuntarily from the cold. The thin, dusty blanket they give me wouldn’t keep a mouse warm at night. The emotional pain is much worse. It’s so boring in here. Time stands still.

The only thing that keeps me surviving from one day to the next is looking forward to the mail each weekday afternoon. I stash the letters from my mom and my children under my mat—my prized collection of pain and sorrow stuffed into tear-stained envelopes.

I write my mom and my kids almost daily, but there’s never much new to say. It just gives me something to do. In my mind, writing them somehow helps me stay connected to the outside …

Mom, I hope this finds you well. I’m still in the hole. I haven’t left my cell since last Friday for ten minutes to get some soap. They feed me the slop through the hole in the door. It’s pretty primitive. This is my fourth winter without seeing sunshine. I can’t wait for you to bring the girls to see me, but don’t know when they will allow me to have visitors. I can only imagine how
big the girls are getting. Mom, I can’t take much more of this. It’s tough sitting in here thinking about all I have lost. My freedom. My family. My integrity. The money. It all depresses me. I’m mad at myself. I can barely live with myself for doing the things I did. I can’t live with the guilt for all I have done in my life. I worry constantly about you and the girls. I love you Mom. I miss you. Be safe. Love, Art.

I have no real possessions now, other than utter despair. I’ve lost virtually everything in my life and now my hope is slipping away, too. All I have is time, seemingly endless time.
Time to sleep. Time to cry. Time to think of what I did to deserve this the place. When I sleep, I lie on the dirty pad with my head resting on a tiny plastic pillow at the base of the toilet, with my feet toward the steel bars. If I would lie the other way, I’d risk someone reaching through the bars and bashing my head during my sleep.

But when I sleep, I can dream. And when I dream, I’m free. There are times I pray that I wake up and discover this was a just a horrible nightmare. Those prayers never work. Those are the mornings I’m the most depressed. Those are the mornings when I want to unscrew that light bulb.

I never stop wondering, “How did it come to this? What happened to me?”
How did I become known as State of Indiana Inmate 954-154?
If only I could go back forty years to be Art Schlichter, the carefree kid growing up on a farm.

If only I could go back in time to when I had the world at my feet …