There were so many things to do this week. By the week's end, I had worked a considerably large amount of overtime. I worked so fast and furiously that I wasn't even sure that I had done anything at all. My head was fuzzy from storing too much...it was on overload. It was the kind of week that my arms and brain and fingers all seemed to work outside of myself...they were on some sort of other plain...it was as though they just ran by themselves...and me the soul of me was locked up somewhere else. I dreamed when I slept, but mostly of work and nothing of any consequence worth mentioning. Yeah, it was a long week.
I had dinner with a friend, one evening, at least. She asked for my advice on a couple of points. That always seems a bit funny to me. Me, giving advice. Is that a sound idea? Hard to say. I've seen a lot that's for sure. I done more than I seen, that's for sure, too. But, since I hardly see things as the majority does...is that such a good idea to be asking me about anything? Hard to say. What I did know is that the time we spent together was hardly enough.
I had friends that I should have called this week, but I didn't. Instead, I took cigarette breaks and talked way too much to people that I don't give a shit about. And I really can't say what I'm thinking to them anyway. It would just be bad for them. It would be just too damn hard for them to think outside of the safety of their box.
Finally, Friday did roll around. I was late getting out of work. And if I were to tell the truth, I was still on the phone with work, as I was driving home. It was not until I was actually in my house I shut the phone off and was sort of done for the week. We had a family dinner. After which, while everyone was still there, I feel asleep on the couch. The next morning my child and man left for another town to see a museum exhibit. I had the entire house to myself for about twenty-four hours.
I slept. I slept for most of the entire twenty-four hours. I did get up a couple of times to eat. Mostly whatever was a leftover that I could stick in the microwave. And when those options ran out, I started on anything that was in a box. I let the dogs out when they needed to go. I pissed when I need to go. But, I hardly moved from the couch at all. The television stayed on to keep me company. I only dreamed of the television shows. I did watch a bit of television and smoke most of my boxed cigarettes. Then I started in on the roll your own kind, that I had bought. I was almost too tired to do that. I felt aggravated at having to roll my own cigarettes. And maybe aggravated that I was too tired to drive to the store and buy anything else. I was probably just mad that I wouldn't be using my off time for anything productive for myself. This time that was so precious I would be using to sleep....to regain my energy...just to give it away to a bunch of stuff that wasn't that important to me. What a fucking surprise. Isn't that what we all do? We get up, go to work, do a bunch of bullshit that makes someone else money, then sleep, only to repeat. Yeah, maybe I'm feeling a bit crabby.
And now that's it's Sunday... I'll be getting a move on to do my house stuff that prepares me for the next pile of bullshit. Yep. It's a very exciting life that I lead sometimes.
My friend at dinner reminded me of a letter that I once wrote to Hunter S. Thompson.
It was funny. She had told her friends about it. I never expected an answer from him, and I didn't get one. She was a bit curious if I was going to write someone else.
I thought to myself that I might. Since SpareUs Hilton is on the MS bandwagon and I have MS...maybe I'll write her a note. I thought the other day, as I was in the tobacco shop, I wished she been there to help me. This must have been Tuesday or Wednesday or this week...I can't really recall.
The shop was out of my favorite kind of rolling tobacco. I was standing there in my work clothes, so I wasn't very convincing as a prime customer of a head shop. They weren't taking me very seriously. And I was tired from work, I wanted a smoke, and was annoyed that this was one of the only places that I could go to get a deal. No, I didn't want a small packet of tobacco. I wanted a full tin. I didn't want to have to come back in a few days after my packet ran out...I was just too busy for that nonsense. I asked the boy behind the counter what he would recommend. He tried to give me something that I knew was crap. It was complete crap. Jesus, was it crap.
How did I know it was crap?
Well, I'll explain. I don't really have that much experience with being jailed. I did go once, to city jail for traffic tickets, but that hardly counts as hard time. However, there was a time earlier on, when I was homeless, I did stay in a house full of ex-convicts. I know what you're thinking, they're not supposed to hang out together. But, they did. In fact, they all worked together at the same car wash. No one else wants to hang out with them, and no one wants to hire them. The system is way more flawed than we all suspect.
Anyway, the point is, I learned what they smoke in prison, and what they smoked out of prison, and I knew what this guy was giving me was prison swag. In prison you're poor and take what you can get or steal, and out of prison you're were poor, and you take what you can get or steal. I had worked too long and too hard to smoke prison swag. Once I made that point to him...another helper came up and moved him out of the way to offer his assistance. I wasn't being loud or rude, just making a point. But, it was as though I had said some magic words to make the understanding that I was a connoisseur of tobacco that should be handled with some thought and discretion. Or, maybe, I said the magic words, that scared them into thinking that I was some bad mother fucker, and I should be handled with discretion and care. I didn't care, either way, I just didn't want crappy tobacco. So, whatever works. The new guy brought out something else, and explained to me that if I hated it, I could bring it back, no problems. Great, I said, and I bought it.
How I did wish SpareUs was there. Her recent incarceration might have given her some incite into which tobacco product I should have bought. Could have saved me some time. I might include that in my letter. Hard to say. I don't really think that I would like her as a person, so what if she responded? Then I just be stuck talking to another person I didn't really care about. I'm going to put this on the back burner for more thought.
I got in my nice car, cranked up the AC, rolled my cigarette and lit it. I took a long drag before putting my car in reverse to turn to make my drive home. A brain will recall things, long forgotten, at the strangest moments. It's not exactly the transport back to that moment, just the passing thoughts of how I react to certain things from other things I learned and stored.
I paused to wonder how it was that I survived that period of my life. Those men, in that house, were hardened beyond belief. I can't recall everything that all of them had been in prison for. And it is a long story how I ended up there in the first place, and an even longer story as to how I got out. I can't even recall most of their names.
I did have my own bedroom at the house. And I was more of a little sister, and more of a mother to them. I was never really in any danger. Which should surprise you, it surprises me. To be a female around those men, in such close quarters, one would think that something horrible would happen. But, it didn't, not to me. Later in life, it would be a rich, frat boy that would rape me in a drunken blur. He wouldn't see any prison, and would go on to lead a gifted life. Funny the different levels of respect that come from different subsections of humanity.
Some people were in danger in this house though. Mostly it was dangerous when the guys were drunk together and playing Spades. It's so odd that a card game should mean so much, but it did.
I remember one young guy that had just gotten out of prison came over to play Spades. He had too much of a ego. You didn't want to have too much bravado around the guys that had done more time or had done bigger crimes. It wasn't a smart move on his part. He messed up playing Spades, he ruined the hand for his partner. He talked to much. And even though his partner was the friend who brought him over to the game in the first place, it was his friend that would help in teaching him a lesson about being to much of a loudmouth.
The entire group ended up taking him outside and beating the shit out of him. It was a circle that he was in. The closed fists and knuckles that collided with his body to bruise it and make it bleed. He was, at first, ready to take them all on, then at some point he realized that this was what had gotten him in trouble in the first place. You could see the idea resonated in his head, he understood, but it was too late to put that experience into action.
He resided to take his beating, it would be over faster that way. Everything like this goes in slow motion. Maybe due to the shock. Eventually, it looked as though he seemed to only be held up by the fists that continuously hitting his body. When the men were exhausted or thought he had enough, they stopped. I'm not sure what the signal is that someones had enough. They all stopped hitting him at the same time. The guy with his eyes bruised shut, on the ground on all fours, was puking and spitting up blood. Then they picked him up, like brothers would, and brought him into the house and cleaned him up and got him ice and a drink. He wasn't completely scorned, just had to be taught a lesson. They all raised shots of crappy whiskey and drank. They mocked the blood that had soaked the front of his face, shirt and pants like it was an honor. They played Spades without him. He just sat on the couch recovering and keeping his head down.
He survived, but didn't come around so much after that. Maybe he was scared straight. I hoped so. He did have a big mouth.
There was another guy, his name I remember, Johnnie. He was small, and quick, and had been in prison for stealing cars. He had been made someones bitch in prison. He only talked to me about it in small doses. That experience did make him not steal cars anymore...but, that experience also made him feel like he wasn't worth anything to anyone either. He felt like he was damaged goods, so to speak. Rape in any form does that to women, but to men, too. Maybe worse for men, since women have been dealing with that issue since the beginning of time, it's at least more open and the options for help are greater. For men, I'm not convinced we've done such a good job.
There came a time for him when the guy who had been raping him, pimped Johnny out to cover some drugs that he hadn't been able to pay for. Johnny knew that it was coming, he just did know when and how. The marker took weeks to call in. And he was teased everyday about it.
Johnnie almost had to kill a man to prevent being gang raped in prison. He was on mop duty when the men he'd been promised to, surrounded him. They teased him as they were closing in. Johnnie raised the mop and put his back against a cool tiled wall. He told me that he closed his eyes and swung the mop with everything he had for fear of his life.
Luckily, if one can say luckily, Johnnie's aim was true. He hit one of the men in the head so hard that the mop broke. The man fell to the floor unconcious. As a second man came closer to grab him, Johnnie ran him through with the splintery, broken mop base. At this time, before Johnnie could make a run for it, or grab the other part of the broken mop, the guards came in and the crowd dissipated. Johnnie was put in solitary. And, since this was in self defense, he was not given any extra time for the stabbing and assault. He finished his sentence in solitaire. So, even though he wasn't given extra time...he was in solitare, which is like a slow death, but he wasn't having any guy's dick up his ass anymore.
Johnnie hung out with me quite a bit. He talked to me quite a bit. He was so young to have been put in prison. And he reminded me of an ally cat. He flinched and ran if you got too close. He looked down a lot, but his senses were always on...as though, at any minute the sky would be falling and he have to hide or would make his move for a weapon that would just be made of anything that he could grab.
If you were to look at him on the street, maybe you would miss all of this. Maybe he would look like any other young man that had hopes and dreams about the life in front of him. But, he wasn't that young man. I wasn't sure how a person comes back from that experience.
The time came when I had to leave that house very quickly. The house was owned by this elderly woman. She had given it to her son, the ex-convict, and his friends to stay there, in exchange for the free rent, they were supposed to be fixing up the house. They never did.
The son wasn't very bright. He was kind of stupid really. Not just uneducated, but clumsy with his brain. Maybe it was damaged, or too many drugs, I don't know. I didn't really care. But, it was the son decided at some point that he fancied me. It was clumsy and with plastic flowers when he shared his feeling with me, and I was smarter than he was, and was able to get out of the situation without any major incident. Whoa to the woman he wooed with the plastic flowers, and a prayer for all of us if they reproduced. I can't even think of that.
However, when I didn't respond the way he wanted I was told that I had to get out of the house. Ok, whatever, it was ok. The other men put of a big fuss about it...they would have to cook and clean for themselves. And it was the other men that protected me from incident from the loverboy. I knew that he was afraid of them all, so I used them to cover my own hide while trying to move on. I had picked up a thing or to from living with them... much like Jane Goodall did with the chimpanzees. But, the chimps were way cooler, I'm sure.
It was Johnnie that would help me find a new and better squat to live in.
I didn't see Johnnie much after that. I hoped that he didn't go back to jail. I didn't really think he had it in him. I did not think he would make it. But, I wasn't sure he had it in him or would make it on the outside either. Both ways seemed to have a doom of some sort for him.
Our system isn't all that it's cracked up to be. It doesn't always serve it's purpose. And it certainly doesn't always protect us by teaching people a lesson. They do not come out with less baggage and more desire to become better citizens. We have created a machine that pumps out more dangerous people that when they went in.
The brain remembers. I knew that I didn't want to smoke prison swag. And that I needed to sleep and not think about anything for at least twenty-four hours straight before putting my suit on and going back to the same old shit. I was a long way from that place now, sitting in my underwear, rolling my fine tobacco, the t.v. on, with empty potato chip wrappers around me. Yep, a long way away from there.
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