Monday, December 28, 2015

The Flight Path

“I left some underwater stripes.”

“Call Walker’s rules. You don’t have to scrub if the stripes are under water.”

The ultimate show of respect amongst co-workers is to warn them and allow them to use the bathroom (urination purposes only) first because you plan to blow it up. This respectful event occurs rarely amongst correctional employees. For starters, most that think far ahead enough are too intelligent to work in such a place. Secondly, most correctional officers that I know would take great pleasure and find tremendous humor in going in first so they could share the anal trauma and the aroma. This type, which is plentiful in my department, will not even turn on a fan or prop open a door. I know a few who will not even flush, and one who will not even wipe.

The external housing units were meant for housing minimum custody inmates, and were designed similar to squad-bays in that they were large rooms filled with bunk beds with the capacity for 98 inmates per bay. A control station sat in the middle of two bays to make up a housing unit. The control station was raised slightly, and had a decent view of the majority of the unit. Blind spots were inevitable. A hatch, or slot was built into each side of the station so correspondence and other assorted items could be passed through between the inmates and the staff. The air-handling units that moved heated or conditioned air through the unit created a constant draft from the B-bay to the A-bay. If you laid a piece of paper on the ledge of the B-bay hatch, you had to hold it until the inmate accepted it. If you did not, the breeze would blow it back in toward you. If you laid the same paper on the ledge of the A-bay hatch, it would get sucked right out, making inmates think we were throwing things at them.

On many occasion, inmates thought I was fucking with them, either pulling things back from them, or throwing them in their faces. Any “gas” dropped from within the control station, or bubble, as it was frequently referred to, would quickly destroy the air quality just outside the hatch on the A-bay side. Many a fart would be saved until a particularly dreaded inmate approached that spot.
Consequently, it did not take long for the B-bay inmates to discover that their foul odors dropped near the hatch on their side would quickly become part of our lives, sending into the confined control station a smell not unlike that of the entrails of a rat floating in a sewer, if only momentarily before they moved through the flight path and into the A-bay.

The minimum-custody bays were an ideal place to work if you did not mind that inmates had more access to you. That said, there are two kinds of inmates that I particularly despise: Those who cause harm to children; and faggot pukes who cry that they have something coming. Inmate Skinner was both. I was shaking down his locker while he was on bunk restriction. I found love notes. That needs further explanation. The notes were not the type of note you might send in the mail to a loved one. These were written by Skinner on large pieces of toilet-paper wrappings in large block letters so they could easily be read from a distance. The notes were apparently shown through his window to his current inmate lover who anxiously awaited him on the yard when he could come out to play.

With the notes secured in my pocket, I made a trip to the bathroom to flush them. The wrappings that come with the toilet paper must be flushed or carried completely out of the institution. The thin design of the paper makes them ideal for wrapping other things, like tobacco, potato peelings, and whatever else they intend to smoke.

Upon bathroom entry, I realized that somebody had recently really polluted things. It was definitely a “Code Brown.” The walls should be bleeding. I quickly sat down, and added to the stench. Before it touched water, I remembered the notes in my pocket. It was at that point I realized my mistake. I should have flushed the notes before I took a dump. Now the only way to get rid of the notes would be to also get rid of the fresh poo. Nobody got to enjoy it. By the time it touched water and I pinched it off, I had flushed twice. Once to suck the turd down, and another for the polluted air and love notes.

Breathing under water is easy to explain, but hard to comprehend. It was not at all like having gills. No water entered my mouth. There was no invisible fi lter covering my face. I just breathed normally, and I got air. I would watch the girls swim by, always falling out of their suits. Diver after diver would constantly have tops and/or bottoms disappear. Of course, swimming after the pieces would force their feet and knees as far apart as my imagination could make possible. The closer I got, the more frequently I would get kicked in the face or the junk. Eventually, I would reach for the feet fi rst before burying my face or pecker in their furry boxes.

“We can’t control anything but our crosshairs. This is why you must know the dime group as you once knew your mother’s nipples.”

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