The Art of Bantering with Guards

These are actual conversations with guards over the past few days: 

As I'm leaving the Chow Hall with an empty water bottle:

Guard – What’s in your hand?

Me – A water bottle?

Guard – Why?

Me – It doesn’t fit in my pocket.

Guard – Why do you have it?

Me – I am heading to Rec and am aware of the dangers of dehydration.

Guard – Do you know it’s against the rules to bring it into Chow Hall because guys fill them up and steal.

Me – Yes, but it’s empty (holding it up) and I was leaving.  And I wasn’t trying to hide it.

Guard – I could take it.

Me – Yes you could.

Guard – (Staring at me.)  Well?

Me – (Handing him the bottle.)  Okay.

Guard – Keep it.  Just letting you know I could take it.

Me – Duly noted.

Guard – What?

Me – I am aware.

Guard – Of what?

Me – Your ability to take the water bottle.

Guard – Oh, okay, good.

Me – Is that all?

Guard – Yes.

Lesson here:  Be polite and concrete.  Answer exactly what you are asked and no more.  And don’t argue.  If you do that, they have no idea what to do.

Walking down steps after being called to my job as Baseball Commissioner:

Guard – (Standing at bottom of steps)  Why you coming down them steps?

Me – It’s safer than jumping.

Guard – Where are you going?

Me – After I get to the bottom?

Guard – Yes.

Me – Recreation.

Guard – Why?

Me – I was paged on the intercom.

Guard – Why?

Me – I guess because Officer ____ wants to speak with me.

Guard – Why he need you?

Me – I don’t know, most likely about softball.

Guard – Does he need you now?

Me – Well, he called me now.

Guard – Name?

Me – (I tell him my name.)

Guard -  (Now calls on the radio to Recreation to check this out.)  You better get going, he called you five minutes ago, he wants to know where you been?

Me – Talking to you.

Guard – Umm, okay.  Go.

After translating a question that an Hispanic prisoner wants to ask a guard:

Guard – Are you Puerto Rican?

Me – No.

Guard – Are you from Puerto Rico?

Me – No.

Guard – Where are you from?

Me – (I state the state I’m from.)

Guard – When did you come to the United States?

Me – (I tell him my birth year.)

Guard – Is that when you learned American?

Me – Yeah, but I already knew English, so it was easy.

Guard – Then why do you speak Spanish, or was that Mexican?

Me – Both, and because I like it.

Guard – Damn, I’ll never figure you people out.

To me all this feels like an old episode of Candid Camera or Punk’d but unfortunately these are typical exchanges in here.  Main rules:  I am never rude, never cuss, answer all questions, nothing more and nothing less.  I also choose my words wisely.  It would not do to banter with some guards at all.  Most important thing:  Keep a straight face, something I’m getting good at – in English, American, Spanish or Mexican!

The Honey Bear Incident

Warning:  This post is off-color.  Skip it if you’re easily offended or weirded out by human behavior outside the norm.

The prison library where I work has a two-stall toilet that is poorly ventilated and stuffy, but for some reason the preferred choice of many, so our workday is permeated with a malodorous assault, a barnyard stench, that has resisted all deodorization efforts by our orderly (he even came up with his own cleaning concoction, but only succeeded in adding a chemical waft to the general stink).  Of course, being guys all locked up in a confined space, we end up making a joke of the situation, competing for the most creative ways to warn all of an impending noxious cloud.  My own reviews typically involve creatures that may have crawled up someone’s butt and died, etc.  Or recipes such as:  take the worst baby diaper you have ever run across, mix in some rotten eggs, a dead squirrel and a hot day at a swamp and you are a tenth of the way there.  We worry sometimes, too, that the odorific molecules will make us sick or that they will burrow into our flesh, so that when we finally leave prison that smell will forever emanate from our skin and our breath – scary thought!

Okay, so now that you have the background, here’s The Honey Bear Incident.  This is one of those tales where you think it can’t get any worse until it does.  One day the usual stench in the library cranked up past eleven.  We just stood there looking at each other, horrified that this new layer of stink had come out of a human being.  I mean it was both concerning and sort of awe-inspiring.  Whoever had dealt it must truly be shitting his insides out.  So while lobbying for HAZMAT suits and masks for library workers, we set out looking for the culprit of these new bio-terror attacks.  Our investigation was made easier when the horrible new smell went away for a couple days.  Like a Sherlock Holmes Brigade of the Toilet, we systematically eliminated possibilities:  The daily library regulars?  All present.  Guys in ESL class?  No change.  Users of the computer?  Check.  GED students?  Ah ha!  That’s it!  A quiet 55-year old in the GED class had been taken to the hospital for stomach pain and, yes!  Abnormal stools! (Tell us something we didn’t know.)

Then we learned that he would not be returning to the unit.  We felt bad for the guy, of course, but breathed a cautious sigh of relief that he would no longer be contributing his stink bombs to the sewage treatment plant aroma of the library.  And wondered how sick he must be if he wasn’t coming back.  And then we learned the truth of it, directly from the Lt’s. mouth.  Now, don’t get me wrong.  It is a breach of protocol and totally inappropriate to share medical information about an inmate, but in this case the weirdness of the situation must have warranted a waiver.  We learned that the guy was rushed to surgery to extract a Honey Bear bottle from his rectum!  Let that sink in for a moment (pun intended).  Yes, that cute little plastic bear guy full of honey that you probably have on your kitchen counter (I apologize if you now will need to switch brands).  They said it was up inside him for at least two weeks!

Um, how?  Um, why?  You can imagine the speculations.  I’ll go with that of his cellie, who thinks it may have been an attempt at a homemade colonic.  Okay, whatever, freak accident, but then you don’t go to Medical immediately?  You haul this bottle around in your butt for two weeks?  I mean, it must have hurt like hell, not to mention the outrageously horrible-smelling stuff that did come out!  But then maybe he hoped it would pass and he wouldn’t have to tell anybody?  Maybe he hoped it would dissolve or something?  After all, to go up to the triage nurse and when she asked, “What is the nature of the problem?” could you just sweetly reply, “I have a Honey Bear stuck up my ass?”  I think the trick would be to play it cool, like it’s no big deal, an everyday common cold kind of thing.  Then when she did her double-take and asked, “How in hell did that happen?” you’d mildly reply, “Oh, I tripped and fell on it and it just went straight up in there, strangest thing.”  Or maybe a smarter move would be just to write the complaint down as a note and slip it to her, pretending to laryngitis at the same time.  So yes, embarrassing to go to Medical, but dude, do anything but leave that bottle in there!  Okay?

All this being said, word is he’s doing well.  He probably won’t be returning to us to answer our many questions about his misadventure (and to deal with his new nickname).  And we can rest easy with just the everyday stench that I’ll probably associate with books and libraries for the rest of my life.