17 Jun 04

Frankie’s Proposal

On Friday morning, the guards thwarted an escape attempt by two inmates, and the jail administration decided to punish everyone. We were placed on security override for four days, confined to our cells, unable to shower, make phone calls, dispose of our trash and dinner trays. Soaring temperatures and a purposefully low trickle of swamp-cooled air quickly caused us to reek like wet dogs. Our cell soon stunk like a cheap restaurant's dumpster on a hot day. The filthy conditions were received enthusiastically by las cucarachas. They launched their most aggressive offensive yet. Around the clock, they plundered the red death Mark had left. At night, they crunched under my shower sandles when I visited the toilet.

The lockdown and AK’s bop-bop-bopping undoubtedly contributed to the nervous breakdown of Eric (AK’s fifty-year-old cellmate).
Early Monday morning, Eric yelled, “Get me outta here!" repeatedly for fifteen minutes. His voice inflection ranged from that of a demonically-possessed man - worse than something from The Exorcist - to that of a sobbing child. The guards removed Eric from AK's cell, and after undergoing a psychiatric evaluation, he was moved in with Blueberry.

On Wednesday morning, I was summoned to the Medical Unit. I had entered a Correctional Health Services Inmate Medical Request on the 1st of June:
“Blisters have formed on the bedsore on my left buttock. Requesting cream.”

Due to the amount of bedsores I've had while jailed, the medical staff regularly inspect my behind. But Wednesday morning's encounter with the new Filipino doctor was somewhat disturbing. After dropping my pants, the doctor perused my foresty posterior and stated, “You have scaling on both left and right sides.”
I thought the exam was over, but the doctor said, “How about the front?”
”The front?” I asked.
“Yes, the front. Just turn around,” he said, his eyes animating.
Wondering, Who am I to question a professional? I turned around. I was expecting a positive comment on the health of my reproductives, but he suddenly lunged forward as if to grab my them. I automatically jerked backwards. To fend him off, I grabbed and raised my scrotum. Shaking it at him, I yelled, “Look! The front's fine!”
”Yes. They look quite OK to me,” he replied, softening his voice.
I emerged from the doctor's with Clotrimazole Anti-Fungal Cream.
After seeing the doctor, the next patient returned to the Medical Unit holding cell and blurted out, “That doctor just grabbed my dick without any gloves on!"
”He tried to do the same to me,” I said.
The rest of the inmates either sniggered or exchanged nervous looks as the prospect of receiving the same treatment dawned on them.

On Wednesday night, Frankie peeped through my cell window when I was rubbing the anti-fungal cream on my left buttock. His eyes smouldered with desire. I received a love letter from him the next morning: "...looking forward to our upcoming gay marriage in San Francisco, and shampooing your hairy ass on our honeymoon.”

Frankie was delighted that the solitary witness in his double-homicide case was recently deemed "mentally incompetent" causing his proposed sentencing range to drop from twenty-five years to life, to six to ten years.