Monday, May 30, 2011

A Very Long Day

Today was longer than I thought it would be. If I would have called in nobody would have thought twice about it. But then I would have had to fight myself to come in the next day and that would have been even harder.

The day was interminable. I thought it would never end. Not that anything bad happened, it was just my mood. Dark and gloomy and kind of depressed.

We spent the last couple of days talking about BG, of course. Remembering things he did and said that made him so special.

Ms. Archer called me yesterday morning and reminded me of one day down in the Hive (of course) when some knucklehead was pretending to be unconscious in his cell. We all just stood around in a little knot outside the cell waiting for the nurse to get there and tell us yes, he was faking it, so we could write him up and go on our way.

As we stood there waiting, BG suddenly piped up and said "We should get together like this more often!"

I laughed so hard I almost fell over the rail.

That was him, all right. He rarely said anything in front of a group of people, but when he did, it was always a gem.

I remember the first time I went down to the Hive to do rec. I walked in there and someone said "Oh, you have to work with BG! You probably won't like it. He's pretty strange." And someone else said "Yeah, if he says anything, let me know. I'm not even sure he can talk!"

They had me a little worried, then this mountain of a guy came through the door and grabbed up the rec list. Giving me little more than a glance he said "Ready?"

Yeah..... I suppose so....

He didn't talk to me at first. Not really. He just asked the inmates if they were going. If one said yes, he'd point and say "Him."

Once we got them out on the rec yard and we got to sit down I tried a few different ploys to open up a conversation and didn't get much more than single syllable answers.

Then I mentioned something about going to a yard sale.

And the flood gates opened.

Once we got back into the house one of the guys asked me "Did he say anything?"

To which I replied "Yeah. Now how do I get him to shut up again?"

Tomorrow is the visitation, which is going to be hard. And the next day is the funeral which will probably be harder.

Not sure if I'll write about it or not. I guess we'll see.

Tuesday will be National Macaroon Day. It will also be What You Think Upon Grows Day (okey dokey) and World No Tobacco Day. Yeah, good luck with that. Talk about an apocalypse....

5 comments:

  1. That was the one thing that sucked about working security, never getting the holidays off. But crime never takes a vacation, as I'm sure...someone must have said. Or in your case, the criminals are on a long cruise vacation, but you can never be sure when one of them is going to take a dump in the pool or dive overboard and try to swim for land. Maybe one of them might try to skewer the other players on the shuffleboard court. In other words, unfortunately, you can't lock them all up in a big vault in the cargo hold, and tell them "We're going to picnic to have some baked beans and hot dogs. Tap on the porthole if you need anything."

    Also, I don't know who named those last two holidays, but they need a "Learn You Grammar Lots Talk You Right So You Can Some Day" Day.

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  2. Visitation and funeral. Ugh. I went through all that for my sister in law a year ago May. It sucks. Focusing on shared good memories helps some, but really, it just sucks. You just have to get through it. Then it sucks some more, until one day it sucks just a little bit less. That's how grief goes. Take care.

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  3. Why would an inmate fake being unconscious? What could that possibly accomplish?

    I think that if everyone observed no tobacco day there would be an awful lot of angry smokers walking around thinking about their next fix.

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  4. There are so many stories about BG. I remember when I first started working the hive with you guys and I kept opening the wrong doors. The last thing I wanted to do was make you and BG mad and for the first two weeks I am sure that is what I did! I am just glad he is in a better place that he doesn't have to worry about poo covered cells and endless TASC days.

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  5. Bryan- Yeah. Unfortunately we never really get a day off. But as long as there are knuckleheads, I will be employed. It's a good thing, I guess.

    Lolamouse- It just keeps sucking for now. Hope it will get easier soon.

    Chanel- They do that for the attention. So somebody will at least appear to feel sorry for them. Or they do it to try and assault whoever gets close enough. That happens too. If they tried to take my smokes I would be one cranky mo-fo.

    FlyinMonkey- You did fine. Better than most did on their first few days. You were one of the best we had up there, dude.

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