# 4

"You watchin' this? -?"

"Yeah"

I'm looking at it, 'it' is on, the television, I'm watching "Cops".

His question is of incredulousness.

I can tell by not only his tone but also his raised eyebrows, distended jaw, he just can't believe I'm watchin' "Cops"

"Why, you don't like it?"

"Not bein locked up, I don't. Sure don't"

-shrug-

" Not bein locked up, no sir."

"I don't get the difference, you're locked up out there too."

His eyebrows crunch down like he's trying to catch flies, then spring back up, then make a cartoonish arch with the one and a back-slash with the other.

He leaves the room.

Of course I could have engaged him a little instead of just shutting him down but that's usually not my style. Unless I'm in an engaging mood which, I'm usually not in here.

I would have pointed out, had I felt like it, that every night he checks out of "locked up" to go do his job and "no sir, and sure don't" to whoever usually has to listen to him at work.

Also, I don't have to talk to anyone. Sometimes I'll pretend I don't hear someone. Sometimes I look at them and then look away, this is my response.

The reason is, once you start, you can't stop it. Or you can't stop it without some weirdness or slighted feelings. So I don't start.

If you don't know what I'm getting at in so far as engaging talkative people in certain situations, it probably wouldn't be worth my while to two-finger type an explanation or yours to read it.

What I meant by "locked up out there" was on at least two but maybe three levels.

One being that he's border-line retarded - DD - just this side of slapping himself for a pudding pop. (Not being coarse here, insulting, just factual)

And tard-self-awareness can be debated but a prison you don't know you're in is still a prison.

See below;

The other, concerns all of us in here and out "there" and probably for a large portion of the mid-west whether cognitive of it or not the answer is a stark reality and begs a call to action of those affected and aware and the question is, how free are you in Peoria, Illinois? Just the prevailing "Wisdom" of this town, county, general geographic area, is a fucking prison.

Out-of-towners see following crash course: our sweet, plump children , The outdoor life

scenery

The county fair

The Family Farms

....depression, suicide, etc.

Illinois, the "Come here and die state" or the "you ain't got the right to die until it happens 'naturally' you know, death by corporate toxins and whatter-not state"

Back to-

The "other", other level:

Even when we're out working, we're still locked up - the psychological effects of knowing you're being watched, sometimes followed, sometimes snooked-up-upon, can wear on you.

Short while later "locked up guy" is back, haunching around the room, touchin' base with the fools who've opened the door to him. I want to ask him his "locked up" feeling or opinion concerning the viewing of "the family guy".

But I don't for reasons mentioned above and, also, honestly, I don't want to actually ask him, I only want to hypothetically pose the question in my head and write about it. This is, incidentally, what I prefer to do most of the time in most situations, I'm writing your part in my story.

This may explain my small social circle which, is safe to say, if we want to be blunt and break it down into real terms and why the fuck wouldn't we want to? - my social "circle" barley makes for a ",".

Earlier in the common room:

"Hey, I'm watching that."

Guy came in and sat right in front of the TV, blocking my view. I mean, as far as you are to your screen right now, he was to the TV - the TV sits on a table, it's like a 19" or something, the audio is horrible, no cable, &c. - he turns, looks at me, turns back.

"Hey, Hey I can't see through you."

He turns back after a pause and says, "I heard you the first time." then gets up and walks by me which is when I look up at him and say, "Okay, Alright." as in a tone of "Oh, I thought for a minute you didn't hear me because you didn't fucking move, so I was thinking still, that you were trying to posture, maybe some Big Dog shit or whatever but maybe you're just slow at comprehension, which, ya' know, from where I'm sitting, is totally believable."

What this all is is stupidity.

This is not "The Joint" it's not even jail, it's kinda' jail. But so, here's the thing - if you fuck up in here, and not even majorly so, you roll up your mattress and head to the other side.

The real deal.

 So, have some respect. Eat your cherry Pop-Tarts from the vending machine and shut up.

#6 Aporia in Peoria

A day:
Work

These are the two warehouse guys,

actually the one on the left is gone now, decided he wanted to work a lot harder for a little more.
                 He had it made in the warehouse,  he'd cook up an omelet on a hot plate every morning in his makeshift kitchen complete with mini-fridge. He'd blast music like Tool, death metal,  a little country, whatever. Before he quit smoking pot and chain smoking menthols he did that back in the warehouse too.

He also moonlighted as a College cheer leading coach. Yeah, he was one of the guys who showed the other guys how to hold a 100lb girl in a mini skirt in the palm of your hand up over your head. Said he wasn't into pornography.

A couple of years back I had stopped in to pick up something and he was brooding.

"Man, my cat, Fish, died."

That's the way I heard it - My cat Fish - I thought he'd done it (named his cat "Fish") to be funny.
 As he continued I realized he meant Catfish and then I thought it was kind of ridiculous, to be that upset over a fish.
 I don't think I have to explain to you the limitations of a Mans-Best-Fish relationship.

But okay so this is the guy who was almost giddy because he'd scored tickets to a Dave Mathews concert in Wisconsin a couple of months back, he's got a soft side (and a high-tolerance for nauseating 'entertainment' in my opinion, a DM song here and there, uh...but a whole concert of that shit? ).

Then he says he's so distraught and teetering on rage at the death of mortal-beloved-aquatic that he felt like, quote- "I want to smash the next niggers head that comes digging in our dumpster for scraps"- unquote. And not in a jokey way like some folks would.

He's gone now as I mentioned earlier but before he'd left and after I was hired on as an employee he pulled me aside and said, "Hey, is it okay if we give you the nickname K2, you know, just between us in the warehouse?"

I said, Haven't you already? , and then he laughed that huge guttural laugh he always did - you know, the kind of guy who almost always follows up a comment with a huge wind-blowing guttural stink laugh in your face -
So after a week of incessant call outs of "K2!" - (to give you an idea of the sheer volume of call outs, I started avoiding the warehouse or at least the main entry doors in fact I would walk out the front door walk along the grass between the building and the highway to the regular emergency exit door which was always open, for ventilation purposes I guess, located at the very back in opposite to the very front I'd originated from just to get something I needed off a shelf that was just the other side of one of the showroom walls towards the back, where I had been when I realized I needed this something and could have just made two-three steps through the double swinging doors to the warehouse but because I was overloading on "K2!"'s and really needed to not get fired I would avoid being detected in this way.




AA
Suzanne, crazy, volume-control-gone-haywire, Suzanne.

Now she's chairing the Friday 6 o'clock, now she's in control.


Suzanne does her reading and then she 'asks' if she can go first knowing (and that's what I hate is when someone says, "Does anybody mind if...?" when they know no one is going to say they mind.
Maybe, to be fair, no one will actually mind but they don't give a fuck - it's passive aggressive line cutting. It's bullshit.  Also; "Can I ask a rhetorical question?" they're rhetorically asking to ask a rhetorical question, they [rhetorical question askers et al] do not expect nor will there be an real chance of an interjection denying them their rhetorical question opportunity. And, to point out the obvious: "Can I ask two rhetorical questions?" would be accur - no wait, that makes it three) that she'll be allowed to drag us through her Burlington story one more time.


One guy is staring at the inside of his hat.

Another is staring at red-piercing hate. I can just sense it.

Several exchanges of the usual and then over to me.

"I don't have anything sad or depressing to report and I'm feeling pretty good for the moment so, I'm going to pass."
                           
 - Long Silence

Suzanne, unsteady, is bobble-heading at me.

"So, back to you, Suzanne." - in a not too shabby local news anchor impression.
Not really any discernable appreciation for my efforts.


Home 

(Peoria County Jail)

In the common room.

Was probably going to be obvious but...
black guy says, "Somebody, gonna be trouble. Yes, sir."

Why?

"Sign right there say 'Do not close blinds'." (blinds are closed but the sign clearly reads, Do not open blinds. I can't figure how he went wrong there. I just walk back out of the room.)

Dinner: 

                   I call him Adidas, Because, not very interestingly,  he wears an Adidas sport shirt, jacket, shorts and when he's not wearing his Adidas shoes he's wearing his obvious-brand sandals.

Adidas guy, better than "New Fat Guy" or NFG as I had been referring to him in my notes.
He sits before a 'dinner' tray hunched over the thing , legs bouncing up and down giving the impression he's about to tackle the tray - looks like that football player warm up thing they do when they run in place furiously - nkind of hunched over with their hands out in front of them air-tickling like  hulking pedophiles outside a boy-whore* house in Tapei at the fore-start of a 'backdoor buster sale' The passion runs high.
He goes through the local rag, eyebrows gesticulating wildly as his eyes jump from picture to picture. Then he hits the bunk after a trip to the bathroom and probably a self-burping.

Baby go poop and take nappy now.

Walking by guy with earbuds listening to music he says, not sings, "...Somethings gotta turn out right." and it's that thing where the faint 'noise' suddenly reveals itself by additional clue that it's a familiar tune you happen to like and so I say to him, "Alice in Chains" and he says, "I don't have any change." and I repeat louder and he pulls out one ear bud and says, "I'm listening to Alice in Chains."
No shit. Disengage.
*credit to Sean Rouse