I’ve mentioned in the past that prison affords you plenty of opportunity to improve yourself and work on how you react to others, especially when they’re shitheads. I watched the new PBS documentary on Ben Franklin the other day. When he was young, he constantly tried to improve himself and he kept track of his failings; he also came up with four principles to guide his behavior. The last one was “Speak no ill of other men.” Coincidentally, that’s the exact thing I’ve been working on personally.
Gossiping is for bitches, and i don’t mean women. You can get in fights for talking about another’s inmate’s business, so there’s definitely a self preservation angle to refraining. I read an article about the difference in behavior between rich and poor people, and the rates at which the two groups engaged in gossip were larger than any other behavioral difference. The wealthy rarely did it (only 6% did); the lower classes almost all partook (i forget the exact percentage but it was like 70 something percent).
Now that Ive got that self-righteous preamble outta the way, lemme shit on another prisoner who locked up awhile back. (I’m a writer after all, I need to get my material somewhere.)
Tyson was one of those rare breeds in the world all too common in the joint: all muscle and mental illness. He was also a hopeless dope fiend who had no business doing drugs. Like, he once “OD’ed” on a drug I didnt even know it was possible to overdose on. He was a bodybuilder whose arms were as big as my thighs, but was soft as Charmin. He was almost certainly on the down low, which he covered up by always talking about his ex-gf, in an obviously overcompensating way.
When I mean no business doing drugs, I mean they literally fried the wires in his brain. He’d do meth and then immediately go chat up the CO’s, talking a million words a minute, not letting them get a word in edgewise. Not only was he dry snitching like a motherfucker, but he really thought he was a smooth operator, throwing the CO’s off his scent. If anything, he confirmed all their suspicions.
I wont lie, thought, he was entertaining to watch from afar. In what became a frequent occurrence near the end of his time here, he’d smoke a piece of “tunechi” (no one really knows what it is exactly but it’s supposed to be spice), and then dance like he took some pure MDMA. Not privately, in his cube or anything, but as publicly as possible, in line for chow or right in front of the unit. He’d moonwalk right in front of the officer’s station, and then later go talk to them as if he was a model prisoner. Smh.
Easy Trouble 