John Teller’s Manuscript

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF SAM CROW.
HOW THE SONS OF ANARCHY LOST THEIR WAY.

BY JOHN THOMAS TELLER

Known as the John Teller’s manuscript/journal, “The Life and Death of Sam Crow” is the reason why Jax Teller wanted to honour his father’s dream for SAMCRO and not a club doing a gun running operation.

It was written after the death of John Teller’s youngest son, Thomas Teller, and finished on March 15, 1993. Its main theme is John’s regrets about what SAMCRO had become, what his original idea for the club was and how it went wrong.

The manuscript appeared on the first season of the show when Jax found it in storage, but Gemma took the original manuscript and burn it to keep Jax from knowing the truth behind his father’s death. But at the end of the season Jax was given a copy by Piermont ‘Piney’ Winston at Donna Winston’s funeral. In Season 2 Jax gives the book to Tara and Opie to read. During Season 5, Jax was seen starting to write his own manuscript in a book, but was interrupted by Tig and Chibs. At the end of the series, he’s seen burning all copies of both his father’s and his manuscripts, a move to break the cycle for the sake of his sons.

These below are excerpts of pages that Jax read from the manuscript during some of the episodes.

(1×01 Pilot)

Introduction

For my sons. Thomas, who is already at peace. And Jackson, may he never know this life of chaos.

Sometimes things start with a good idea. You realize there is a need and you come up with an answer to that need. Other times things just begin. The Sons of Anarchy was the name I came up with in 8th grade for me and my best friends. We were going to change the world. What we really did was do the things that most kids do in a small groups, raised a little hell, drank a few six packs and drove cars didn’t belong to us. We loved cars and motorcycles, we called ourselves motorheads even though none of us knew what that meant.

(1×02 “Seeds”)

Most of us were not violent by nature.
We all had our problems with authority, but none of us were sociopaths.
We came to realize that when you move your life off the social grid, you give up on the safety that society provides. On the fringe, blood and bullets are the rule of law
and if you’re a man with convictions,
violence is inevitable.

(1×03 “Fun Town”)

When we take action to avenge the ones we love,
personal justice collides with social and divine justice.
We become judge, jury and god.
With that choice comes daunting responsibility.
Some men cave under that weight, others abuse the momentum.
The true outlaw finds the balance between the passion in his heart and the reason in his mind.
The solution is always an equal mix of might and right.

 

(1×04 “Patch Over”)

The first time I read Emma Goldman, it wasn’t in a book.
I was 16. I was hiking near the Nevada border.
The quote was painted on a wall in red.
When I saw those words, it was like someone ripped them from the inside of my head.

“Anarchism stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion and liberation of the human body from the coercion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraint of government. It stands for a social order based on the free grouping of individuals.”

The concept was pure, simple, true.
It inspired me. Lit a rebellious fire.
But ultimately I learned a lesson that Goldman, Proudhon, and the others learned:
That true freedom requires sacrifice and pain.
Most human beings only think they want freedom.
In truth, they yearn for the bondage of social order, rigid laws, materialism.
The only freedom man really wants is the freedom to be comfortable.

 

(1×06 “AK-51”)

The older I get the more I realize that age doesn’t bring wisdom. Tt only brings weary.
I’m not any smarter than i was 30 years ago.
I’ve just grown too tired to juggle the lies and hide the fears.
Self-awareness doesn’t reveal my indiscretions…
exhaustion does.

 

(1×07 “Old Bones”)

Inside the club there to be truth.
Our word was our honor.
But outside…it was all about deception.
Lies were our defense, our default.
To survive you had to master the art of perjury.
The lie and the truth had to feel the same.
But once you learn that skill nobody knows the truth
in or outside the club…especially you.

 

(1×08 “The Pull)

Einstein said that any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex and more violent. But it takes a touch of genius and lots of courage to move something in the opposite direction.
I’m realizing that my touch of genius and my courage are coming too little, too late…
and I fear that for SAMCRO there may be no opposite direction.

 

(1×09 “Hell Followed”)

I never made a conscious decision to have the club become one thing or another.
It just happened… before my eyes.
Each savage event was a catalyst for the next
and by the time the violence reached epic proportion,
I couldn’t see it.
Blood was every color.

 

(1×13 “The Revelator”)

[Piney has just revealed his copy of John Teller’s manuscript. There is a short note attached and addressed to Piney.]

To my oldest, dearest, and wisest friend,

What we started, you and I, was a good thing, for a good reason.
What we’ve become is a different thing, for reasons
I no longer understand.
I feel angry winds at my back and I’m not sure how
much time I have left in this cut I love so much.
This book is for all the things we wanted.
And for all the things we still can be.

I love you, brother.
(J.T.)

 

(2.05 “Smite”)

I realized that in my downward spiral of hopelessness, I was actually falling into
the huge hole created by my absence of basic human graces.
The most obvious was forgiveness.
If I was wronged, by anyone, in or out of the club, I had to be compensated,
money or blood.
There was no turning the other cheek.
When relationships become a ledger of profit and loss,
you have no friends, no loved ones…
just pluses and minuses.
You are absolutely alone.

 

(2×10 “Balm”)

I found myself lost in my own club.
I trusted few, feared most.
Nomad offered escape and exile.
I didn’t know if leaving would cure or kill this thing we created.
I didn’t know if it was an act of strength or cowardice.
I didn’t know…so I stayed.
I stayed because in the end, the only way I could hold this up was to suffer under the weight of it.

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