Thursday, May 26, 2016

William Myrl; Letters to No One (51)

Dear One,
When I got back to green and white my spot had been taken, so I was in a new cell with two other people. Being the new man on the block, I got to sleep on the floor. I mentioned the jail was overcrowded. To combat this overcrowding, the uppity ups decided they would transmogrify the two man cells into three man cells by putting three men in all of them. It worked out pretty well for them, being that they could solve a problem without actually doing anything about it. Yay, America.
I'm a bit snarky today, and I'm going to break off from my narrative here a moment to talk about a personal point of vexation.
How many guys do you know who think miscegenation should be a crime? How many do you know who think the greatest threat to america is the Mexicans rising up from the south and muddying our bloodlines? Its like some straight up Harry Potter shit in here sometimes.
It isn't just the racism, that is but one flavor of the mental quidditch cup we've got going on. Have you ever been having a conversation with someone who seemed perfectly reasonable before they told you that cellphones were alien technology the government had been hiding from us since the fifties? Does anyone you share a kitchen with think dinosaurs are a trick of the devil to temp us away form the heavenly light of our creator? My cellmate supports Donald Trump unironically, because the Trump is going to make america great again. 
To clarify, I like being disagreed with, because it gives me an opportunity to disagree in return. Arguing is fun for me, and I have found a few people over the years I can have an enjoyable debate with, even if it isn't productive. For most, however, debate is impossible. I don't argue or contradict, because the moment I do I'm being condescending or trying to make them feel stupid. Instead of contradicting, I make jokes, and divert the conversation. It works, but I can still be labelled condescending because I'm not giving serious answers to their serious questions. Aiyah.
Oh, and all prisons across America are equipped with poison gas in the ventilation systems in case of martial law when we would all be executed as enemies of the state, because that couldn't go wrong for anybody. That's a pervasive one among certain populations. And don't get me started on the homophobia. 
Conspiracies abound.
So we are on lock again, my first in C building. I made it through with a minor loss, my mechanical pencil. Those are hard to come by, and I feel foolish now for begin so frugal with the lead over the last year and a half. I used it for hair, mainly. The rookie who took it came out of my cell holding that and one of my kneadable erasers. He didn't know what the eraser was. I explained that it was for highlights, and lifting graphite. He seemed less than credulous, but he took my word that it had been bought legitimately. My other one was in an unopened package on the desk. He'd searched the desk, and had to have seen it. Nice enough young man. Did he think it was plastic explosives? We'll never know. I'll miss my pencil. 
It had a good life.

Yours, 
William Myrl

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