TV TIME

  I was more than a little put off by the ideas my new friends were pushing at me. I had no grudge against lawyers, in fact I wished to attend university in hopes of becoming one, but this fact I managed to keep secret. These guys had a positively murderous attitude towards the legal profession, and showed no degree of tolerance what so ever towards anyone holding a doctorate of law. In fact they were hinting at criminal acts directed towards our chief warder “Smiling Jack” McAllister, who had at one time himself been a prominent attorney. They wished him grievous bodily harm, serious brain injury, even wrongful death, and it looked like they sort of expected me to do something about it! I don’t know why, all I wanted was to do my time in peace, attend university or one of the colleges with their PhD programs and attain my doctorate of law degree so I could become one of their despised lawyers and put all my legal woes right again and go back to my life as a free man on the outside.

Starting to get me down!

   I had all sorts of dreams of what I was going to do as soon as I was a free man again. First on the list was to go on a nice relaxing vacation. What I needed after all the trauma and horror of prison was a royal cruise, maybe one of the Disney Cruises, or one of the Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. Something sumptuous and luxurious, where my every whim would be attended to and I could forget about all my anxiety related to criminal lawyers and the doctor, experimental psychiatry and monsters like “Wrongful Death” Rowan!

Dreams of Freedom

    But no sooner had I drifted off into reveries of being pampered on Disney Cruises, and eating grapes out of the cleavage of naked 18 year old ship’s attendants on the Royal Caribbean Cruise Line, was I rudely pulled back to earth by the insistence of Mickey The Rat that I get my ass IMMEDIATELY to the TV area, and in no uncertain terms was I expected to get there with no small degree of haste and alacrity!

TV Party Tonight!

    Not knowing what exactly was going on, I jumped up and ran straight there, only to find that all the other inmates had gathered to watch their favorite show. Here I thought the prison was burning down, or aliens had landed, but no! They were all simply gathering to watch an episode of Austin DWI, a fairly weak action-drama program from the 80’s featuring the adventures of a Houston criminal attorney, Garret Austin, who was a DWI attorney in the bustling Texas metropolis. It was a stupid show, in my opinion, following this schmuck car accident lawyer around Houston, defending drunk drivers and inevitably uncovering much larger and more serious crimes, then, through much “fast-paced car action” and “action-packed” gun battles he would inevitably put everything right again. It was about as believable as Magnum PI or Quincy, but only contained about one-third the charm and humor. I never liked it when it was on TV, and still was not sure how it managed to survive in syndication. 

High Art for Low IQ's

    Apparently though, the inmates here worshipped this show. Absolutely every single man on the ward was present to see tonight’s episode of Austin DWI, even the naked guy with the permanent brain injury was there, bobbing and drooling along. There was much nervous anticipation and anxious banter as the program was about to begin… but as soon as the first notes of the very recognizable theme to Austin DWI pealed out… absolute silence befell the crowd and there was total concentration on the proceedings of this fictional Houston criminal attorney.

  I found this perplexing for two reasons. First; Austin DWI was probably one of the stupidest shows of its kind, existing in the same universe as Murder She Wrote, and Diagnosis Murder, and made by the same production company, it was not nearly a fraction as good. This putz car accident lawyer looked awful and couldn’t act. He appeared as if he had won in an Accutane class action lawsuit and then spent all the money getting some questionable Beverly Hills plastic surgery and wound up resembling some uglier version of Burt Reynolds. He was a real dick, somersaulting over the hood of his car dramatically, or dashing off on Royal Caribbean Cruises to nab international jewel thieves or some other such far-fetched non-sense. It was maybe interesting to half-witted 4 year olds and blind/deaf shut ins, but beyond that, Austin DWI was a jalopy!

  The second thing that disturbed me was the fact that a population of inmates, who had informed me (with a great degree of seriousness too I might add) that they absolutely HATED attorneys, criminal lawyers and all members of the legal profession, yet they would instantly drop the entire facade to cheer on the actions of an attorney himself. Yes, of course; Austin DWI was a fictional car accident lawyer, and yes; the adventures of this TV criminal attorney were obviously fantasies (however simplistic they might appear) but he was still a lawyer. And they all hated lawyers! It made no sense. I knew full well that 99% of the guys in here, like in every prison everywhere, were basically retards, but this was too glaring to be a mere oversight on their parts.

  I was turning around, looking over the crowd, and not the TV, when I was violently shoved from behind. When I looked to see who did it, I found Tony the Shirt, glaring at me, more menacingly than usual. He hissed “Show some respect!” then he jabbed his finger at the screen, still scowling. “Watch!”

TO BE CONTINUED…