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.

NBA Playoffs - The Month of Screaming

Writing this post as the NBA Playoffs finally wind towards the end in what I’ve taken to calling the “Month of Screaming.”  Inane, insane, incredibly loud and seemingly endless yelling in the TV room, hallways, cubes, chow hall, yard, etc., before, during and after any game.  Warriors, Cavs, Bulls, Lakers, Pistons….  Who’s the greatest:  Jordan, Curry, the King, Durant, Shaq…blah blah blah.  Mind numbing but I also find it funny.  Most of the arguments are nonsensical but pushed with the utmost seriousness and volume, changing on a dime the next day, running in circles and following the usual prison theory that he who shouts loudest is right.

In order to make the most of this experience, one must perfect a TV Room Entrance.  Coming through the door, you must announce yourself with an ear-splitting shout, repeated at increasing volume over and over.  You can yell someone’s name, for instance.  Doesn’t matter if they are in the room or not.  If that doesn’t get a rise from those present, your next step is to shout your own name (Frosty in the House…Frosty the Frost!)  Option Three is a nonsense word or phrase (Yup, yup, Hip Hip!  Yup yup, hip hip!)  Finally, if these don't have the desired effect, shout the name of an NBA player (Durant!  Kevin Durant!  Kevin MF’in’ Durant!)  This is my personal favorite because it never fails to spark a cacaphony of player names from those assembled.  Let me just tell you, IT IS AWESOME!  (Awesomely ludicrous.)  I have not tried to think about it from any sociological or psychological perspective, though you are welcome to do so.  I just sit back and marvel at it all.

One night, you guessed it, I had to try it out for myself.   Understanding that the point of all this posturing is to be seen and heard, to garner attention, my first attempt was to yell a Bobcat Goldthwait (look him up if necessary) sort of garbled, strangled caterwaul upon entering the room.  People just shook their heads.  I then moved on to a few days of random greetings along the lines of, “Good Day, Sir!”  “Cheerio!”  “My Good Man!”  Still not the response I was seeking.  Eventually I guessed that my problem was holding back a little.  To do the TV Room Entry right, you have to be all-in.  Yes, my voice can carry, can even boom, so I decided to unleash the beast.  First I got all hopped up on a few cups of coffee, then selected the NBA Player Name Yell.  I opened the tv room door, quietly set my crocheting down in my chair, and let loose with a bellowing outburst straight up from my toes – “Marc Ivaroni!!”  (Dude was a 76’er in the 80s, a role player who was one of my favorites.)  Finally, the crowd paid attention.  Heads snapped around, the usual din went silent, then one or two guys chuckled, others appeared confused, finally someone asked, “Um, what?”  Then everything went back to normal.  I don’t get it, I mean are these guys all Kurt Rambis fans or something?  Well, I’ve already got a plan for football season.  I've been practicing my shouted “Chuck Muncie!”

Prison Science

Step aside, Bill Nye the Science Guy, for a new installment of Cutting Edge Prison Science.  What you are about to read is agreed upon FACTUAL information as approved by unit consensus:

FACT ONE:  The reason diabetes is so prevalent among African American men is their high rate of unprotected sex.  (How does this matter, you might ask?  And um, what?)  The prison scientist explains that diabetes is actually a sexually transmitted disease initially planted in black women by the Government to weaken their men.

DISCLAIMER:  Please remember, I do not, in fact could not, make this stuff up and I am in no way endorsing these important scientific discoveries.  That said:

FACT TWO:  Sweat is the body’s way of getting rid of disease.  That’s why you should always workout in multiple layers of clothing, no matter how hot it is, so you can “trap” all illness away from your body.

FACT THREE (as shared by two keen prison scientists):

Genius 1:  I hear the flu is going around.

Genius 2:  Yeah, that sh*t is bad, it gets everywhere.

Genius 1:  Yo, you know how that joint got its name?

Genius 2:  No, how?

Genius 1:  ‘Cause them germs can fly, they from birds, so they like flew (flu) from one fool to another!

Genius 2:  Wait, I thought flu and flew spelled different?

Genius 1:  Come on fool (laughing).  You know back in them prehistoric days MFers couldn’t spell!

Genius 2:  (Nods head.)  You right.

FACT FOUR:  Trump’s border wall will definitely work, because everyone knows that “Mexicans hate to climb!”  (I don’t even know where to go with that one; that statement is crazy in so many ways.)

And my favorite Scientific Prison Fact, are you ready?

FACT FIVE:  Asians are good at math because they are so little!  (Not a person in this conversation skipped a beat at this obvious truth, despite all being basketball fiends who no doubt have heard of 7’6” Yao Ming formerly of the Houston Rockets.  No, this is an iron-clad fact not to be disputed, period.)

You know, this would make a good tv show.  Fake News is popular now, what about a show on Fake Science?  We could start by debunking the Global Warming Hoax (clearly a government plot to take away our cars), move on to the President’s discovery that we are all born with a finite amount of energy that is dispersed by too much exercise, and move right into my collection of prison science factoids.  Anyone interested?  We could get rich!

Crazy, Crazier, Craziest

I’m on a mission to come up with the ultimate life in prison slogan, the one true phrase, a clear concise statement that will summarize the essential situation, the massive totality of the experience.  This may be impossible, but I pursue it with the tenacity of Sisyphus, the old Greek king of myth condemned to push a rock up a mountain only to see it roll back down again.

I have tried out “In Prison What’s Up is Down and What’s Down is Up” (as compared to the outside world).  Evidence for this Opposite World claim includes the many terms in use to characterize incidents that do not make any sense.  Like the Inuit’s having so many words for snow, in here that sort of creativity is reserved for variations on “crazy.”  For instance:

C-r-a-a-a-a-a-z-y!

That’s sh*t’s ridiculous!

That sh*t don’t make no sense!

Dat N___er’s Craaazy! (Used only by black guys)

That man is burnt (for the behavior of someone who has been in prison so long (18, 19, 20 years) that they make no sense at all).

That sh*t is twisted!

That’s some bullsh*t.

Basically you can start with “That’s some….” Or “That sh*t’s….” and finish the sentence with almost anything.  I’m trying to popularize a few of my own, such as:

That’s some gobbledygook!

That’s some poppycock!

That sh*t’s incomprehensible!

That sh*t’s apocryphal!

And my favorite, based on the unwritten prison rule that curse words must be included in any exclamation, thus improving the import of the message:

That sh*t’s some sh*tty sh*t!

To my great disappointment, so far my additions to the crazy lexicon do not seem to have caught on.  But each day seems to offer new opportunities to try them out.  For instance, the administration has just announced that we will no longer be allowed to have Sharpie pens.  Why?  Were people graffiti-scrawling the walls?  Nope.  Were they being used for some other illicit purpose?  Possibly, I guess, but wrong again.  We were told that some people had begun labeling their possessions with their real names and that sort of behavior must be discouraged.  What behavior, exactly?  Acting to protect your belongings?   Please choose any of the above listed phrases re this new rule (as we have).

Trick is not to give it too much thought, or you’ll go crazy too, and then they’ll have to come up with a phrase to describe you!  Instead, I’ll keep looking for that perfect one sentence prison description.  After all, the rock won’t push itself, and the mountain just keeps getting steeper!

Transgender Politics

"She" is a very innocuous word out in the world, as we call life beyond the fence.  In a men's prison, things are different and that word can mean a number of things that at times can get confusing.  Forgive my slang, it's how we talk in here, but you have the Queens who refer to each other as she but are cool with everyone else referring to them with the masculine pronoun.  Then you have the homophobes who can't deal with that concept, but this being an easy-going (relatively speaking) low security prison, they have learned to co-exist.  Some guys, however, insist on everyone calling them by feminine names and pronouns, and that pushes the envelope a little, so you'll hear some harsh words.  For example, Hater Dude pushes through a crowd, grumbling, "Move over, Joe."  Joe, who insists on being called Jane, ignores him and the next thing you know the names being used are things like b__ch and d__khead.  Usually it's just posturing.  We all live on a tightrope, trying not to fall off.

About a month ago something happened that made the tightrope bounce.  This will forever be known as T-Day or Tranny Arrival Day.  The BOP announced its official policy on transgender inmates, granting them protection as a minority.  As a result, we now have four card-carrying transgender prisoners.  I do mean -- literally -- card-carrying.  They were issued a special identification card that allows them to receive hormone therapy to help them assume a feminine shape, wear bras and panties as underwear, and style their hair long.  But think about this for a moment.  In a men's prison, we now have four inmates who not only identify as women but who clearly look the part and have the BOP's official permission to do so.

I'm sure you can imagine how this has blown up our world.  Guys are fawning all over the ladies.  Alpha Male chest-puffery has gone off the chain.  Other guys storm up and down the block raging over this "abomination" as an offense to God that should be punished.  Most, myself included, take a live-and-let-live approach.  Except for the both scary and welcome disruption to our dreary routine, we could care less.  The problem, as with most things in life, is that those with the loudest voices get the most attention.  So at any time of the day or night, the Haters and the guys now being called Tranny Lovers can fall into some very loud arguments.

Then as you'd expect, the number of late night bathroom trysts has increased, primarily attributed to one of the transgender inmates behaving, well, like a kid in a candy shop.  The prison authorities have tried to discourage this behavior -- we all need our sleep, they say -- but what I want to ask them is one simple question:  "What did you think would happen?"  You drop people who look more or less like women, who identify as women and act like women, in an all-male population?  You publish a policy that backs their female identity, and then you act all surprised when some guys actually treat them as women?  The guards have actually begun to punish guys who become romantically interested in the transgender group.  But the authorities started this, dropping the fox in the hen house.  No, I guess it's the hen in the fox house, but you get my drift.

I don't have an answer.  Seems to me that a person who is going through gender re-assignment medications and all that in order to have the woman's body to go with her woman's identity should be in a woman's prison.  Or maybe in a special prison called, maybe, Alcatrans?  Okay, bad joke.  I was distracted for a moment by the stream of guys heading down the hall to talk up our newest inmate, Miss Tasha.  Just a friendly hello, offering to help in any way possible.  Something tells me this will not end well.  I'll keep you posted.

Shower Curtains

In preparation for an inspection by ACA (an independent, non-BOP organization) -- that had been expected for over a year -- our fearless jailers suddenly leaped into action.  Spray fresh paint over mold, check.  Problem guests shipped elsewhere, check.  The proverbial lipstick on a pig approach.  But no single effort garnered as much attention as the surprising addition of shower curtains.  We all thought, whoah, a truly private shower!  What a concept!

As I believe I’ve mentioned before, we’re fortunate that we don’t have to shower in a big open room, like you see on tv prisons.  We do have these rectangular stalls, sort of like the toilet stalls in public restrooms, but with a shower nozzle on the wall.  Dividers go from floor to about 6 feet high.  But they’re open, no door, so a curtain would be awesome!

The inspectors, we’ learned, insist on curtains because we have three official card-carrying transgender inmates (yes, the BOP issues an ID card for that).  Legally, they must be afforded a private shower experience, so the simplest solution (so you’d think) is to put up shower curtains on every stall.  Big deal, right?  How could anybody screw that up?  Well, let me count the ways:

1.     They never ordered the curtains, so they had to…

2.     Make them here, but…

3.     They didn’t want to spend the money to do it right, so…

4.     They cut pieces of vinyl and stapled (yes, stapled!) Velcro tabs to the sides and…

5.     Screwed the Velcro pieces to the wall of the shower, but…

6.     The Velcro was immediately swiped by inmates and…

7.     The curtains are hard to keep clean, because…

8.     We aren’t allowed to spray them down, and…

9.     THE KICKER FOR THOSE OF US NOT OVER 6 FOOT 6 INCHES TALL, the curtains are located halfway down the length of the stall, so you have this little 3 foot by 3 foot space to shower in and the nozzle is not adjustable, so if you’re my size or thereabouts when you turn on the water you get blasted with an industrial strength fire hose of water directly in the face.  Move back and you run into the curtain (yuck!), move forward and you hit the wall.  It’s like getting water-boarded or pressure-washed in the skull!

So, basically, I’m done with the curtain fiasco.  We had such high hopes, too.  As I write this, I’m listening to two guys discuss what “dat good vinyl can be used for….”  After all, incarceration is the mother of invention!