Jail Tales: Nose Candy

It's a hotly contested race for the title of, "Second Worst Element," inside a jail between all of the elements.  No unpleasantness, however, can match the unyielding pulses of unbearable human interaction.  The walls, constructed of cinder blocks, painted elementary-school-taupe, and covered in the dried ejaculate of the degenerate who preceded you may sound like walls that enclose a lonely place... if only.

It's impossible to avoid everyone all the time so people look to bond with one another based on shared perspectives.  Seems normal, we befriend the people in real life that we, "get," and that, "get," us.  The trouble with doing this in jail is that nobody, "gets," anybody because nobody knows anybody.  Everyone puffs their chest and saunters around like some disturbed, sociopathic, tropical bird.  Since there's no possibility for legitimate friendship (a stunningly frighting prospect) everyone seems to default to the assumed shared grievances:

Those "bitch ass COs" (I see you 2pac)
A race that doesn't match your own
Day-to-day discomforts - The Food, The Bedding, The Clothes

Or the big one...
"Child Molesters."

Listen, I'm not a child molester apologist by any means, but the reaction you get from your average prisoner is just a little bit much.  Give a person 10 minutes of silence in close proximity and I promise you that person will begin to tell you how disgusting they find child molestation to be.  They will tell you how they would be some kind of shining white knight of vigilante justice if they found out anyone on the block was a toucher.  They might say something like, "Ifs I hurd that one these muhfuckas in here was all up on a kid like woo woo woo den I'd have to crack'em, I keep dat shit one-hun-ed, ya hear me dog?"  And then I might say, "Yeah bro, you don't like child molesters, I'm having a hard enough time figuring out what Melville means by 'circumambulate the city of a  dreamy Sabbath afternoon' without having to formulate a plan about how to delicately manage your egregious reaction formation."  Then, of course, we fist fight, then wrestle and end up kissing.

I suppose what I find so upsetting about this phenomenon is that they put themselves on a higher level than that type of criminal.  The 19 year old who had sex with his 15 year old girlfriend when he was 17 is somehow now the most heinous monster in the eyes of the 30 year old man who bit off his girlfriend's nose over a dispute about a television set.  That's not me spinning a good yarn there, that's a real life example.  This lunatic was shoved by his girlfriend and then he held her down and bit off her nose.  Traumatizing.

"Oh hey babe, so glad to be home... what's for dinner?  WHAT?!  Spaghetti?  Fuck that... you know what's for dinner now?  YOUR FACE!!"

There is, of course, nothing to be done about this, if you try to explain it you may be in line for... you know, "woo woo woo" or whatever the fuck.  Even in the extremely remote circumstance that you get through the explanation there is no chance that it would be either efficacious or understood.

There are so many, irresistible opportunities to open your mouth in jail and shit out hilarious perfection... you can't though boo, the price is too high.  If you're ever in jail, stifle your mouth shit.

Ty