Thursday, October 31, 2013

I was thinking about the dumb things prisoners have said to me over the years.   They always thought they could shock me easily because of how I look.  One young black guy said to me in front of four or five other prisoners, "Have you ever slept with a black man?"  Several answers slithered through my brain, none of which I could really say.  Somebody had to remain dignified in the situation.  My first thought was, "no, I'm a virgin".  Then I thought "No, I'm a lesbian" would be an even better answer.  Best of all, I decided was "no, I'm a lesbian virgin".  I just looked at him, thinking, "Really?  that's the best  you've got?" and walked out of the room.
There were other prisoners who weren't trying to embarrass me.  Some of them, a very small number I'm sure, just liked me or had a crush on me.  An officer told me one time, that one of the guys in the mental health unit where he worked would get misconduct reports just so he could come up and see me.  There were a couple of other ones like that.  One guy in the low security unit was always taking apart radios and tvs.  He kept getting caught with boxes of parts.  Prisoners are not supposed to alter anything like that.  He made extra "money" repairing radios, tvs, etc. for other prisoners.  I convinced that he liked me.    
There was a porter who used to work the segregation unit.  Since there were a lot of guys getting in fights, and doing assaults, etc., at that time, I used to see him fairly often.  I had to go to the segregation unit to do hearings on prisoners there.  This young porter came into my hearing room one day and shut the door.  That is a big mistake.  There is no way I wanted to be in a windowless room with the door shut with a prisoner.  I told him to open the door, now.  He said he just wanted to talk to me.  I said to open the door first.  He did.  Then he said he just wanted to tell me he thought I was attractive.  I could see he was going somewhere I did not want him to go, so I told him, "You don't want to go there".  He repeated himself so I told him more emphatically, "I mean it.  You REALLY do not want to go there."  He wasn't getting it so I changed tactics and asked him, "How old are you?"  He said he was 26.  I said, "oh, two years older than my son."  He got this really funny look on his face.  Then he said, "Ok, well have a nice day", and he got up and left.
 

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