After dinner we were admitted to a larger “common room”
where we were allowed “free time” for an hour before bed. This room was a large
space lined on one side with our cells and on the other with bars separating us
from a hallway running the length for the guards to pass along. There were a
few long tables, at which various groups of prisoners sat playing games or
talking, and there was a single television which was permanently tuned to
The Cartoon Network and several cons sat watching "Thomas The Trunk Engine" intently. At the far end of
the room, near to the entrance to the showers I noticed one of the two men who
had participated in the pharmaceutical clinical research earlier today. He had
removed all of his clothing and stood naked, rocking back and forth, facing the
wall, showing obvious signs of permanent brain injury.
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| The Effects of Pharmaceutical Brain Injury |
I was beginning to feel depressed. Until now I had run the
gamut of emotions including surprise, confusion, denial, fear, even anger;
having been duped out of both my promised university education AND my insurance
policy; only to be stuck in a private psychiatric hospital within the prison,
and to be submitted to the doctor’s perverted brand of psychiatry which consisted
of pharmaceutical experimentation that consisted of massive, forced doses of female
viagra under the guise of clinical research. He had stolen the money from my
insurance policy to fund his nefarious acts and tried to conceal his true
identity with extensive plastic surgery, and I had seen through his thin
disguise, but there was nothing I could do to stop him. And now, since my
insurance policy had been cashed in, I wasn’t even covered for wrongful death,
which seemed, most likely, was what was to become my fate.
I was really feeling hopeless now. Absolutely down in the
dumps. So when Mickey the Rat approached me and invited me to join him and his
friends at their table I readily complied. I really didn’t want to feel so
alone anymore, so, despite my misgivings, I decided to join in, and found that I was
welcomed with kind faces and open arms.
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| Bright Shining Faces |
Wolf broke the ice and immediately took me under his wing.
“Glad to see ya, brother! Welcome! Have a seat beside me.” He said, patting the
open space on the bench beside him. “Don’t you look so glum, chum! You’re
family now. Join us!”
I reluctantly took the seat offered, nodded briefly at the
faces around me, and demurred silence. I didn’t know what to say to these guys,
they were obviously some sort of gang; but the nature of their club I knew
nothing of. As if he could read my mind, Wolf started to explain; “We here are
just like you, see?” he began, “and in here, we have to stick together. You do
know what I mean, don’t you?”
I didn’t actually, but I tried to pretend like I did. He
continued anyway; “In here, it’s us against them.” The other guys all nodded in
agreement. Wolf was starting to proselytize. “It’s them that’s caused all our
problems in the first place! Them what's put us in here, them what's takes what’s
rightfully ours!” The other guys were nodding angrily, some saying “fuckin’
rights!” and “Amen Brother!” They were getting more and more riled up with his
every word.
“It makes me sick what this great nation has become, good
honest God-fearing white men such as ourselves, locked up and stripped of our
rights, while they take our jobs, fuck our women, turn our own children against
us!” He’s almost shouting now. “It’s all because of THEM!” he turns and looks
over his shoulder, then looks me right in the eye; dead serious. “Lawyers!”
As the word leaves his lips all the other guys spit on the
floor. White Mike slams his fist on the table, and Little Dick screws his face
up with hatred and hisses “Fuckin’ lawyers!” Every one of them looks so angry
they might tear their hair out, if they had any hair, that is.
“I can’t freakin stand ‘em!” Wolf reiterates, “Sub-human
scum!” Then, gaining his composure a little, he goes on to explain further.
“It’s bad enough that we got to be in here with them, eat meals with them, and
breath the same air as them… but some of them even work here!” I’m staring at
his enraged face as his vitriolic diatribe assails me, “That’s right brother!
Even some of the screws is lawyers! Can you believe it?”
As soon as he has said this, as if on cue, bright happy
singing peals out across the room. All of the men at my table sink deeper into
their hatred and disgust, boiling with resentment, and as I look up I see a jovial, pleasant-looking guard enter the room, dancing gaily and singing happy songs from
the vaudeville era. It’s the head screw on this ward. A one ‘Smiling’ Jack McAllister.
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| "Smiling" Jack McAllister |
I don’t know how these guys couldn’t like old Smiling Jack;
he’s the one ray of sunshine in this entire darkened nightmare we live in. A real man of the
people, Smiling Jack always has a song on this lips, and a sympathetic ear to
lend. The convict’s friend; he’s dancing about and serenading some inmates a
couple tables away, stopping to inquire about so-and-so’s ailing mother, and
jovially patting others on the back. This guy’s a real treat, I don’t get it.
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| A "Man of The People" |
Wolf sees the look on my face, the confusion and disbelief.
He leans in on me. “Don’t be fooled by the old song and dance routine my friend.
Smiling Jack is one of them! He’s a fully accredited member of the bar, one of
the top prosecuting attorneys; a real scumbag!” He gives a conspiratorial glare
at the others around us. “He put half of us in here!” They all look at me and
nod in agreement. “Then one day he gets all high and mighty and thinks that
locking us up isn’t good enough! He figures he’s gonna be a real humanitarian and
come and be turn-key down here, help out the little guy.” The one called Little
Dick slams his fist into his open palm, “What a crock! He just wants to be in
our faces and gloat! I ought to go up there right now and shank him!”
Wolf takes charge here, “Now, now Dickie old boy, you just
hold your horses. Now is not the right time! You just be patient, we’re gonna
get ours soon enough, brother.” And again Wolf flashes that sinister grin at me.
“Our day is gonna come!”
I’m struck dumb by this development, to be sure. All I can
think is how lucky it is that I didn’t mention anything about my own desires to
attend university in hopes of attaining a law degree and become a lawyer
myself! I think keeping that one under my hat would be a pretty good insurance
policy for the time being. It still didn’t answer any of my questions about the
doctor, or Wrongful Death Rowan (an attorney himself), their brain injury
inducing take on psychiatry, or the pharmaceutical clinical research they were
conducting in their own private psychiatric hospital in here. I would just keep my
mouth shut though, because these boys were mean, and if they got wind of my
intentions, for sure they would give me a little taste of their own special jail-house
plastic surgery, if you catch my drift. All of them, that is, except the two
skinheads who were necking in the mess hall earlier. They had continued throughout this
conversation, in their loving embrace, ignoring us all along. I guess they both
had had a little too much female viagra!
 |
| Jail-House Romance |
