"You gave up chocolate for Lent? I bet Jesus is proud. Fuck, open up the pearly gates and let the fat bitch in, she just went 40 days without a Kit-Kat bar."
Card Party
Count and I were invited to a card party in Waverly, just
10 minutes drive east of Lincoln on Cornhusker Highway.
The party was to be held in the Trackside Keno bar. We
gathered around a table waiting for the rest of our party
to arrive. I quickly learned that Count was no stranger to
this place, as a few ladies greeted him. One large gal in
particular sat right next to Count. It might have been more
accurate to say she sat on his lap, but she was not quite
there. She was not all large. From the waist down, she had
nicely tanned and fairly fi rm legs. Her loose short shorts
also revealed that she wore no panties. Her upper body was
very thick, with a nice portion of it in her bra. There was a
lot of leg-to-leg contact, and a great deal of hand to innerthigh
contact.
"Hey Count, what's up?"
"Keep running your hands in there, and you'll fi nd
out."
"Oh yah, are you wearing my favorite boxers tonight?"
"Actually, I'm doing like Tom Petty tonight."
"Huh?"
"You know, Free Ballin'."
"Really? Did you give them up for Lent?"
"No. I didn't give up anything for Lent."
"I think I'll give up wearing bras for Lent."
"Just don't give it up until I get you into bed."
"So you're not wearing any right now?"
"No more than you. Why don't you just let your fi ngers
do the walking, and see if you feel any boxer lines?"
"Oh God, Count, let me get you a drink."
The gal waved her hand, and a Morgan and Diet Coke
appeared almost instantly. From where I was sitting I
proceeded to watch Count get a rub down through his denim
shorts. A wet spot the size of a quarter appeared inside of
two minutes.
"Hey Babe, where can we go to fi nish this off?"
"That depends on how much time you have."
"Well, do you want fi ve minutes now, an hour later, or
both?"
"Both."
"Then the women's bathroom will do for now." I
watched Count follow the lady to the women's bathroom,
enter, and shut the door behind them. Count gave himself
too much credit. He was back to the table in less than four
minutes, and me with no evidence.
Dream Journal
I have always said my brother is a genius. The proof
is in his manipulation of Mom as a youth. He convinced
her that his desire to be an artist required him to practice
drawing naked models. He wound up getting a subscription
to Playboy magazine when he was 12. I guess that's where
it started for me. Two years his junior, I never missed an
issue. The fi rst issue I saw was August, 1974 with Lynnda
Kimball on the cover.
".you know the difference between a hero and a liar;
heroes don't tell the story."
Howard's Day
It was the 2nd of September, 2003. Belau said it was
an inmate holiday called Howard's Day, and the inmate
porters got double pay. He was fucking with me, I was
sure of it. Who in their right minds would create an inmate
holiday? Not that it would break the tax-payers, most of
them only made $1.21 per day, so doubling that would not
make a huge difference. I called Gary Anderson, a Marine,
co-worker and a good litmus test. He said it has something
to do about a guy who started a petition and got rid of the
striped uniform. I called the old salt, Sgt Marshall, and he
said it really is an inmate holiday, "You won't see anything
different. We go about our business the same way we always
have. The only people that need to be aware of it are the
bookkeepers in inmate accounting who fi gure out the pay
for the inmates."
"Do the inmates celebrate in any way?"
"Hell, most of them don't even know. Unless the veteran
inmates tell them and remember the date, none of them will
know shit until it hits their paychecks."
"And by then, it will be over."
"Batiste, you got any problem going on a TO to South
O?"
"Marshall, I'm part Hispanic. My whole life, Blacks and
Hispanics have been my closest friends."
"Yah, but you look white. What if they fuck with
you?"
"I ain't worried about it."
None of Howard's Day mattered for me anyway; I
was on my way to a funeral travel order in South Omaha.
Coincidentally, on Howard's Day, we were taking inmate
Perry Manassero to his grandfather's funeral. Sgt Craig
Lovercheck and I escorted. Perry was a fl ight risk, and
his grandfather, Howard Cotton, was being put to rest in
a "Home Going Celebration." Prior to the beginning of
the ceremony, Lovercheck leans over to me and says, "Hey
Batiste, we're in South Omaha, but have you noticed that we
are the only two white guys in the room?"
"Sarge, you're supposed to be the observant one; you
haven't checked the casket." Sure enough, Howard Cotton
was as white as Lovercheck, and I don't think he just lost his
pigment upon old age. He had just turned 101 last Christmas.
Apparently he was from a long line of Mississippi cotton
farmers and decided to marry one of his laborer's daughters,
who happened to be black. Howard had 12 children who
were all light skinned and very attractive. They all married
black or light-skinned blacks, and their multiple children and
offspring fi lled the church.
"Batiste, did you know it was Howard's Day?"
"Are you referring to the inmate holiday, or to your
grandfather's celebration?"
"That's good, Batiste, but that's just a strange coink-edink."
"I just learned about it this morning. I also learned that
you are a fl ight risk, so don't do anything stupid."
"Aw, c'mon Batiste, I wouldn't run from my own
granddaddy's funeral. My family would never let me hear
the end of that."
"You act like it's never happened before."
"Anyway, back to Howard's Day. What did you learn
about it this morning?"
"Nothing, 'cept that it was today."
"And you got a degree?"
"So does a rectal thermometer."
"You got time to hear about Howard's Day?"
"It's an hour drive. I can give you some of that. Long
as you don't bore me."
"John Howard was born in 1726, 50 years before America
was even a country."
"So all I know now is that he's dead."
"You gonna listen Batiste?"
"All right, Perry, go for it."
"John Howard was a rich man and is considered to
be the father of prison reform, but nobody knows why he
came to make this cause his life's work. At the age of
40, he had experienced prison. An English ship in which
he took passage was captured by the French and he was
imprisoned for two months before he was exchanged with
other prisoners."
"You sound like you are quoting this out of a book. How
do you know all this shit?"
"I'm a legal aide, I study. Now, are you going to listen
or what?"
"Continue."
"At age 50 he was unknown, at age 60 he was an
international hero. Despite his prison experience, the
more critical event for John Howard would seem to have
been his appointment as High Sheriff of Bedfordshire in
1773. It was a political position without qualifi cations and
it came as a surprise when Howard took the responsibilities
of the appointment seriously and began his inspection of
prisons."
"What made him want to inspect prisons?"
"Are you not listening Batiste? Nobody knows. People
were amazed that he took it so seriously. Perhaps he was
bored."
"I can accept that."
"For the next 17 years he was committed to the task,
traveling thousands of miles by horse and carriage not only
throughout Great Britain but including seven trips to the
continent, even to Moscow and Constantinople. He died in
1790, having caught typhus while visiting Russian military
hospitals. He had given his personal fortune, his health and
his safety to the cause of prison reform. On one occasion,
because of the reputation he had with the imprisoned, he
was able single-handedly to intervene and stop a riot in the
Savoy military prison in London."
"One guy stopped a riot?"
"That's right, Batiste. Because he was respected."
"He should have been a warden."
"You still don't get it, do you? He was the top cop. His
book, The State of Prisons in England and Wales, had three
editions in his lifetime. John Howard advocated reform:
clean, healthy accommodation with the provision of adequate
clothing and linen; segregation of prisoners according to sex,
age and nature of offense; and proper health care. These
were his priorities. He decided there should be a Chaplain
service because he was of the age in believing that spiritual
starvation was a major obstacle to reformation of character.
Finally, he was a fi rm believer in the work ethic and the need
for prisoners to be provided with work in order that the sin
of idleness could be combated."
"How come more people don't know about this guy?"
"Cuz nobody celebrates prison reform until it benefi ts
them."