#109

Building a Better Prison Cell by Nate A Lindell 3 Dec. 2012
#303724 P.O. Box 9900 Boscobel, WI 53805

A couple days ago I had the displeasure of seeing a motley crew of janitors/maintenance men crawling around the door of the cell across from my doors (both doors open to a tiny, shared vestibule), analyzing the slot on the door that's used to deliver & retrieve food, etc from that box, doing so with all the focus of a bug scientist examining a newly discovered species of ... f-ing something.

Clearly none of them were members of the intelligentsia. One had a huge beard and crazy eyes, as if he was a stereotypical Dead-Head, the day after a concert, coming down from various psychedelics, going back up on meth & unable to find his ride home. Two others, I noticed, were missing several fingers, one was missing every finger on one hand, only little stubs remaining. Yet they used their stubs like mad, unscrewing screws, trying to adjust the door just so. Those fingerless men made me blink, do a double take, wondering if I was the one coming down after a Garcia concert!

"I see you're hard at work trying to build a better prison cell."
The Dead-Head turned & grinned with his wild eyes,
The rest ignored me, except for one - a new guy. Some dusky kinned dude with a puffed out chest (yet no muscle tone nor build) and an arrogant sneer always on his pouty face.

"Yeah," the sneerer said, "We're building a gas chamber. Can't build a better prison cell than that." Then he smiled, losing the my-ass-has-lemon-slices-in-it sneer.

His words & attitude took me by surprise. So I backed away form my door, paced, & pondered his words & demeanor,. A minute or so later, I returned to my cell's door.

"Are you willing to execute someone?> I doubt it. But you're the kind of weasel that would hide behind the state killing someone. Tell me where's the honor in that?" I asked.

He said nothing, just sneered while looking at his comrades working on the door. They were fitting a small metal sided, plexiglass covered box over the slot in the door - meant to enable staff to deliver items to and retrieve them from its captive without him throwing body fluids, meal trays, etc. at the guards.

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"So, if you're not willing to get blood on your own hands, but want prisoners to die, that makes you...a coward, right? You want someone else to do what you don't have the balls to do yourself." He didn't look at me.

"Now, I did kill someone. I'm not bragging. But I did, intentionally, with what I felt was a legitimate reason. You look like he kind of guy who beats his kids & wife." And he did. Besides always sneering, one I saw him pretend to throw a bucket of filthy water (actually the bucket was empty) on no less than a captain (female) who supervises two whole unites in this prison, startling her while he laughed "Scum like you makes murderers like me. And I wouldn't need the state to do my dirty work."

Now he was looking uncomfortable. Good.

Of course his comrades ignored him. They seemed less of the puke that he showed himself to be.

"You don't want any prisoners to die. Hell you'd be out of a job. The truth is that you're like a pimp or crack dealer: you feed off of other peoples' degradation: ours. Were you honorable, you'd seek to eliminate the cause of crime, rather than condone it by feeding off it. Instead, you want to run your mouth, about something you yourself won't do, to me, while a 200 pound steel door separates me from you. You want to build a better prison cell rather than eliminate crime by curing the ills that cause it.

"I'd love to get ahold of you, show you what is real and what isn't. I'll bet you'd scream."

By now he was blanched, as blanched as his tan complexion allowed.

Point made, I eased away from the door.

None of his co-workers said a thing. And I clarified that I wished them no ill, understood that they were, in a way, trapped into their jobs just as I was trapped in my box & my role as a "supercriminal," but they too should know what's what

Hmmph. If the system didn't cage people in boxes - for far longer & in far starker & brutal conditions than they'd cage a dog - those worker ants wouldn't need to build a better prison cell. As you hopefully noticed, I didn't go Mr. Bogeyman on the sneerer until he invited such. I assure you, I'd be nothing but a gentleman to those with gentleness in their hearts.