Native American Political Prisoner and Spiritual Activist
Rehabilitation Marion Style
The fresh-fish guard sez: "We'll drag him from the shower and beat the shit out of him, but there's only five of us so I better get on the phone and call for reinforcements!" His rosy cheeks were flush with excitement and the anticipation, odd as it seems, already started the faintest hint of an erection at the thought of beating the naked prisoner into a quivering mass of jelly.
The senior guard over segregation was an old lieutenant whose only dream was to make it to pension time in order that he might wither away his few remaining years in obscurity until he could fall to the ground like an overripe persimmon and go splat-t-t.
The old lieutenant turned to the new-boy guard who had the hard-on and said, "Let's leave him alone, son." The old man's voice was as quiet as mosquitoes scampering across a field of marshmallows but it oozed and dripped with authority born of many years of stomping testicles, using clubs, tear-gas, mace and shields on the front lines of combat with the children of the poor. When he spoke, his words wore the badge of finality.
When the prisoner finished his shower the old guard handed him a clean towel in exchange for the two-week-old filthy rag the prisoner had complained about.
The new-boy guard seethed in impotent fury as he watched the prisoner's rippling muscles as he dried his naked body. Standing lithe as a jungle cat on the stone gray tier, the callouses on the sides of the prisoner's hands gleamed like cauliflowers on black velvet. Each perfectly coordinated movement seemed to insolently mock the pot-bellied new-boy guard who was ten years the prisoner's junior.
"Wait till that old namby-pamby son-of-a-bitch retires and we get Lt. Steele up here in the Control Unit," he thought. "It won't be much longer now... then I'll have some fun. I'll teach that scumbag motherfucker how to ask for a towel with respect."
The prisoner cast a casual sidelong glance at the five guards until his eyes locked with the new-boy guard's. With great effort he stifled the smile that was in his heart as he thought, "Wait until ole Johnson retires next month and I can get my hands on that bastard Steele. If only I can hold out that long I think I'll eat the new-boy guard's eyeballs as I tear Steele's throat out!" The thought of it sent chills of pleasure exploding like rockets in his brain. Something for his rage to feed on. A reason to go to bed.
Back in his cage the prisoner thought about the new-boy guard. "Some people want to commit suicide," he thought, "but they don't have the balls so they need a fall partner. They hire out as mercenaries and hold the key to freedom over other people's heads. They say unconsciously by their actions, 'Please kill me...please put me out of my misery.' Any prisoner will do, so they play the fool to them all until they ring the right chime."
He wondered why some guards are happy just to make it through the day with life and limb intact. On November 11, 1980, five guards at Brushy Mountain, Tennessee, would have been glad if they just hadn't made it to work that day. Some folks learned from the 43 dead at Attica that the state will kill its own without a whim. Marin County Courthouse, August 7, 1970, should have shown them how little value functionaries within the apparatus have. The uprisings of McAlester (Oklahoma), New Mexico, and Idaho taught them nothing. The three dead guards at Pontiac should have told them something but it didn't. Some folks learned from the death of hanging judge John H. Woods Jr. (who gasped out the last of his stinking breath on the Texas ground after being hit in the spine by a .243 with a sniper scope mounted) that they bleed and die just like us.
Convulsions of the spine for "Maximum John" just like a dog hit by a speeding car. Prior to his date with justice he delighted in the sobriquet "Maximum John" because he always gave the maximum sentence to the children of the poor unfortunate enough to come before his bench. He won't do that no more! It might not have changed a thing, but it did change the consciousness of "Maximum John," which all the rhetoric and correct theoreticians could not or would not do. Carlos sez: "You do things with bullets because bullets are real." Could be Carlos was onto something.
In the meantime I will sit in my cage and wonder when will the Maximum Johns and the new-boy guards of this world learn that a prisoner with 1,500 years and 5 lives to do, for some reason, just don't give a fuck.
Next month! the prisoner in our story thought with a smile. "Next month!" he answered himself out loud.
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