# 8 Room & Bored

So toss the dirty diaper out of the car and go in and see your "man" via video visitation and fuck it.

Inside it smells like a tanker of semen overturned in the dorms. Must be a new Maxim issue being passed around.
 "The Bleacher" is absent I notice because I haven't heard any ranting about the smell.
Maybe he's protesting.
The "Bleacher" is a fairly restrained moniker for this particular convict.
The bathroom, the odor in particular, is his focus of rage more oft than not.
The last time he had at it with bleach, my eyes burned for three hours.
 He's a maniac.
In the mornings he strolls through with a bottle of Gold Bond medicated powder and locks himself in the stall. I really don't want to think about it, the issue, the GB ritual. It's everyday. Chaffing, no, forget it...

He's bent at the waist 90 degrees when he brushes his teeth. He seems to force his teeth against the brush back and forth instead of using the sane, rational approach most people employ.

He's also a habitual/borderline-obsessive snorter and hocker  upper of  loogies.

If a cup of bleach will do, he's fine with a half gallon.
I think he's working with a 1:1 ratio.

 Rule of thumb is a 1/4 cup to a gallon but you know, not for bad asses who pierce their nasal septum and put a shiny horseshoe shaped whatever fucking thing through it. Like a bull nose-ring but on a really skinny anorexic 5' 7" 'bull'.

"I know it smells strong but it needed it."

Of course. 
You've done all the appropriate clinical/safety trials.
It's a clean that leaves your membranes bleeding, really thorough.
He even wears gloves.

He's also, as it only recently occurred to me, right now, been trying to manipulate the guards into getting rid of the fan. Here's how -

Not too long ago I come in from work and he's hanging around the guard's pod and saying that the fat man and the Mexican (his terms)are fighting over the direction and/or placement of the fan that sits on the floor(I enjoy it for the steady humming noise of the blades) he says he can't take it, doesn't know what he's gonna do, it's driving him crazy.

The guards are amused.
Next day, Adidas says to me, "Hey Lipski, you know what happened to the fan?"

"No, what happened?"

"It's broke"

"Huh."

The plug had been sabotaged by breaking off one of the prongs. This was no accident, I looked at it, it wasn't a wear and tear thing. It didn't occur to me earlier because why should it - usually distracted with anything else.
I'm fairly sure there never was an argument between the fat man and the Mexican over the fan. I think the Bleacher doesn't like the fan because he gets hit with it after it sheers over Adidas and the fan is pulling from the bathroom that Bleacher has been chemically trying to take down since I got here.
So he figures if he breaks it, that's it. There's no budget for new fans, the tiles falling off the walls.

Fat man was persistent and maintenance replaced the plug. 
Fat man 2 - Bleacher 0

There's more but you know...

Also, Bleacher is deeply suspicious of my writing. I'd say he's paranoid that I'm writing about him.

"So, what are you - writing about all the happenings in Peoria County Jail."
 I give him a dismissive laugh and say, "It's not that interesting."

And it's not, (interesting I mean) my whole life is a not very interesting story (heroic struggles? Everest? World Record? TV credit?) but I've always been compelled to narrate or document or compile or whatever-extrapolate meaning from the damn thing.

Call it free-lance. (Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. Those who have 'issues' do neither and call it free-lance.)

I've found that certain behaviors in here can be curtailed simply by picking up a pen and notepad and writing with, what I assume, is a very stern expression on my face (or very amused depending on certain behavior observed).

The pen is sometimes mightier than the bored.