Who Is The Snitch Now?

"What are you talking about.snitching? This isn't some schoolyard game. I could lose my job!"

Who Is The Snitch Now?

I had not thought to collect additional video today, but I watched Count take an abnormal route out of the parking lot. Abruptly, I ended a parking-lot conversation with a coworker and jumped into my car. Count went south and took Warlick toward the Homestead Expressway, highway 77. I followed from a distance.

Count appeared to be taking the long route to his destination, and then I inadvertently discovered why. I approached too closely and discovered that he was on his cell phone, I assumed taking directions. Later, I will wonder if I can use phone records against him as well. Why do I sound like I am beginning to enjoy this? Snitching for money is still snitching. And I am collecting evidence to snitch on a fellow Marine. That does not sound very Marine-like. In fact, it is damn near conduct unbecoming. I should go and have my ass kicked.

Count wound up getting off at the Van Dorn exit heading west. He stayed on it until it turned to gravel. At this time of year, there were not too many leaves on the trees, but this area of the Lincoln outskirts has a great many pines. Visibility was not great. I stayed back and I lost him. I gave up the search and headed back north toward the interstate. It was then that I spotted Count's vehicle in a curved driveway exiting onto both of the crossing gravel roads. I pulled over behind a stand of trees.

Walking down a path with my video camera, I settled into a small clearing. Zooming in as best I could, my lens and I watched as Count climbed into the back of a black Pontiac Trans-am. Anybody who is familiar with 70s Transams knows that there can not possibly be enough room in the back of that car to do anything. With the windows rolled down, there was nothing to fog up. I walked as quietly as possible to get a closer vantage point, to a point where the audio of the event could be recorded.

"Lord use my tongue for worthwhile stuff, and nudge me when I've said enough."

First Call for Medication

"Show some empathy Batiste."
"The word you want is sympathy, but I have none."
"That's cold Batiste, all you gonna do is check my spelling?"
"Its grammar fool, go bother someone else."
"You mother-fucker."
"I'm sure your mother is a very nice person, and I appreciate the offer, but I'm not interested in doing her again."
"Aw shit, you got me so mad I swallowed my gum, and now I'm scared!"
"Of what? That it won't digest before you jam? That's a myth. If you watch closely, you'll fi nd it right next to your corn tomorrow."

Without any training whatsoever, I dispense medications to inmates, which include psych meds and narcotics twice a day. Special medications like those are a hot commodity on the yard, so the pharmacy combats the problem of passing and receiving by crushing the medication; Crushed, on occasion, means broken in two pieces.

I have unintentionally given the wrong meds to the wrong inmate. I have accidentally thrown medication away. I have taken them myself, just to see what they would do to me. Half the time, those stupid blister packs blow up on you when you try to open them, and the crushed meds scatter all over the counter.

During fi rst shift, I dispense medications twice. Once at roughly 0615 hours, for which I prepare upon my arrival, and again at 1045 if it is a weekday. If it is a weekend, the second medication call waits until 1100 count is clear. The best part of dispensing medications is the bits and pieces of stupid conversations you have with inmates and the ridiculous verbal banter on which you can eavesdrop.

"Batiste, have you ever heard that some frogs change gender when there are no opposite genders to mate with." "Are you somehow going to relate this to the correctional environment?"

"Well, I hadn't thought of that, but do you suppose that's why we have so many fuckin' homos here?"
"One could only speculate."

An inmate, William Crisp, had a history of diabetes in his family, but had not yet acquired symptoms or a need to check his blood on the glucometer. Apparently, an inmate who was diabetic had noticed some symptoms he was exhibiting, and showed him how to use the device. His blood sugar level was 357 according to the glucometer. We called the clinic, and they said to watch him and that they would call in a pass to see him as soon as they could fi t him in. When the nurse gave him a tri-fold, illustrated pamphlet to read about diabetes and the advancement in the latest technology to assist diabetics, he said, "This'll keep me busy for a couple days."

One of the inmates takes a medication that looks like Pez, so one day I substituted his med with a Pez candy. "This isn't mine."
"Oh, you're right." I popped it in my mouth and chewed it up. "Must be mine." I mumbled as the bits fl ew from my mouth. I expected him to recognize the Pez for what it was, a gift for being an agreeable inmate. I was hoping he would just take the damn thing and enjoy it, or take it unknowingly. I had not planned for the possibility that he would pay that much attention. Thinking quickly, I just popped it in my mouth for shock value.

"Hey, I'm new."
"I fi gured that; I don't recognize you. What's your name?"
"Smallwood."
"Your name is Smallwood?"
"No cold pills still come yet?"
"It took me exactly two seconds to realize why you are in prison."
"How dat?"
"You can not speak, and your name is Smallwood."

"What did you think of that fi ght last night Batiste?"
"What fi ght was that?"
"You know, the one where that red-headed step-child Barfkneckt jumped on Decabooter."
"How could that be a fi ght, Decabooter is a crippled one-legged man in a wheelchair."
"You shoulda seen it. Booter was busier than a onelegged man in an ass-kickin' contest."
"Has it donned on you that he is a one-legged man, and that he was in an ass-kickin' contest?"
"Oh shit, Batiste, you're right!"
"Is that why Barf went to the hole?"
"Yah, but it should have been the other way 'round."
"Why's that?"
"Booter dropped the atomic nub on his ass!"
"How did it all start?"
"Barf punched a hole in his pisser cause it got Booter a lower bunk."

When I told Sonny Jesus he looked more like Sonny Bono, he said Bono was the second coming, but nobody recognized it. Inmate Sonny Jesus looked just like Sonny Bono. I would have to check the fi les to see if his real fi rst name is Sonny, or if it is a nickname because of who he resembles. I asked him one day, "So, if Bono was the second coming, how come he didn't miss the tree?" "Don't you see how closely that resembles hanging from the cross?"

Esken works for the Prose and Cons Braille Unit, and claims to have invented a device to assist with the aerial inverted skull fuck. He claims to have the device hanging from the ceiling in his garage. During his crime, he gave herpes to his nine month old son. Imagine having to explain that one to your fi rst girlfriend. "I bet you wish you were driving my car right about now."

I tried to ignore him and shut him off, "No."
"My '92 Tercel gets 52 miles to the gallon."
"Dude, you haven't driven it in 10 years. It didn't get 32 when you bought it." I was about to regret engaging this dumbshit. "Sure it did, and it gets 52 now. It's all about compression. I bored down the cylinders. I have a Master's in automotive technology."
"Don't you suppose that Toyota has engineers who could do this if you could?"
"They can, and they have. It's just not conducive to gasoline sales."
"Why would Toyota care about gasoline sales?"
"Don't you know anything about lobbying? They are being paid off to not create cars that get good gas mileage. It's all one big conspiracy."

"Whose meds did you take?"
"Depends on what color?"
"Are you trying to hurt yourself?"
"I'm going down with the squirrels."
"Do you know who the President of The United States is?"
"Yes."
"Well, who is it?"
"I don't fucking care."
"Why did you say yes?"
"Oh fuck, I didn't think you were really going to ask me."

"The Nebraska quarter is brilliant, isn't it?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, you can see the settlers driving their wagon past Chimney Rock, the famous natural rock formation that defi nes our state. You know the one; it's out in the Western sticks, and over 90% of our residents have never seen it. I fi nd it quite humorous that the position of the sun indicates that the settlers are entering the state from the west."
"Are you sure about that?"
"You could argue that perhaps the sun is rising instead of setting, but, if it is, the settlers pictured are leaving this God-forsaken state for Colorado or Wyoming, shitty football teams or not."