# Writing > Short Story Sharing >  Tale of the White Elephant

## Steven Hunley

Tale of the White Elephant

The inmates in County Jail called Reception Center West in Chino, the White Elephant. After finding you guilty The System didnt know exactly what to do with you. It depended on what kind of criminal you were. If you were some kind of teeny-timer, for instance, a guy, who for some reason was relatively normal, i.e. not a career criminal, you could probably be counted on not to try to escape, and were in for a treat.

You could get sent to doing time in County Jail or outside in a camp in the mountains, building roads you didnt know where-to, or fighting fires, but only if you were a low-risk prisoner.
To determine your destination, they needed to test you, to see how you ticked. Were you some innocent babe that just this once got caught having some illegal fun? Is that the story youve been handing the judge and the DA? 

Or were you a true gangster, a law-breaker, a scoffer who laughed at the law because youd copped the attitude that whatever the law said, it didnt apply to you? Cutting every corner illegally? No respect for authority figures? Living the Thug Life? The latest Public Enemy Number One? You figure youre a law unto yourself and dont need any stinking badge, is that it?
For this kind of attitude they lock you up in a much safer place, one with a barbed wire, gun towers with a birds eye view of the yard, and a high wall. 

So now Im on a bus and heading up the Five North. We dont need seatbelts on this bus, because were shackled to the seat with a chain and were shackled to each other with another chain. Its like Ben Hur and the galley scene, but theres no aqua-blue Mediterranean horizon and no burly drummer. The closest thing to an ocean is Seaworld and Mission Bay whizzing by on the left. Its summer, and theyre flying Jolly Roger flags. After the dimness of the county jail, the sand and sun make me squint and feel happy. As weird as the destination is, its good to be out and see familiar places and the brighter side of things.

Compared to county jail, this is a field trip. Why, its in the same direction as Disneyland! 

I glanced down when I felt the chain wrapped around both my wrists tighten where it was securely bolted to the floor, and the second one wrapped around my waist, like a hungry anaconda, continued to wrap around the men to my left and right, and all the men on my side of the bus. As varied as we were, I realized we were much the same. We were all grown men, wholly responsible for our present situation, and at the same time reluctant victims of Arethas Chain of Fools. It depressed me to think of the ramifications. The mental ones were bad enough, but the physical ones were more at hand.

I pray I dont have to pee, or anything more substantial.

I looked up and swiveled my head around no problem no bathroom.

So most of the way north I did my best to recreate the drive to Disneyland my parents took me on when I was ten. This was because when I looked out the screened window at the dry golden hills of California rolling off in the distance, with dark scrub oaks in their cracks; they reminded me of turds sticking out of some alcoholics yellowed hepatitis ***. Maybe I was a little depressed even to imagine such an image. So, Id go elsewhere instead.

Id pretend I was in the back seat of my Dads Ford station wagon, my mom riding shotgun as only she could, breathing the fumes of their twin Marlboros as the carcinogenic clouds rushed past me and out through the open window in the back, reading the latest adventures of Donald Duck and Huey Dewey and Louie.

But then the Sheriffs bus to Hell would run over some bump on the freeway and Ill snap back like the elastic on my Haines, and see where I really was.

I was on a bus with a bunch of jolly good fellows, going nowhere we planned to go.

We were going to boarding school,
A college of hard knocks, 
And jolly good felons,
Whatever the effort,
The time,
Or the cost.

Oh, ****! I was thinking in doggerel poetry. I knew I was getting nervous when the Orange County Sign rushed by like a brain-freeze from a frozen Margarita at Mimis.

That Somewhere Nasty Ive Never Been To lies straight up ahead.

I had my doubts it was going to fun. Scary was more like it, as I wasnt planning on being somebodys ***** or dropping the soap either. Not me. No Can Do the Two-Man Rhumba. Ill wear a sign in the shower if I have to, that says, Hands Off and paint artificial pimples all over my butt.

And everywhere else. 

Well, we drop off a couple of kids to California Youth Authority, and some girls to a womens lock up, and now we smell cow poo wherever we go. Its getting real rural out here, lots of grass and cows, telephone poles, barbed wire fences, a couple of farmhouses, barns , weeds, mail boxes on weird angles, and not much else but sky sky sky.

And there it is, like a white mirage shimmering in the blue haze-cow-****-stinking distance, The White Elephant, home of the miraculous 60 day Observation, and my new accommodations, awaited with warm gun towers and sturdy open arms.

Tall white walls, glistening in the noon-day heat, reminded me of Chateaux DIf, in Marseilles harbor, the one from Count of Monte Christo. Had my picture taken there in 1972, while doing the old-school grand-tour thing. Edmund Dantes, when he was falsely imprisoned, found an old timer who taught him how to escape. In the end he became a rich dude. Maybe that will happen to me. Wonder if they have a library.

On the first day the bulls found out Id been to college. One approached me in the yard right after they read us their Riot Act of Rules through a loud speaker. He was tall, wore mirrored aviator sunglasses, so well call him Mr. Big.

Can you type? says Mr. Big, looking down at me.

I see myself in his glasses looking up, and since were standing outside in the yard, the tall white walls standing behind us look like were in the Foreign Legion. It summer, its hot, Im sweating and uncomfortable, and the Algerian desert smells like camel poo. My imagination is starting to get to me. Its the ultimate Conradian dilemma, like in Typhoon and Lord Jim where your imagination first gets to you, then f**** you. But as worried as I am, I keep it on the down-low.

Sure.

We have a job for you.

I wonder what kind of job it will be. Maybe theyll have me stamping out license plates, like in the movies. 

I ended up being the ducat clerk, a clerk who typed up where every one of those four hundred men would go every day. They would have to test, or take a physical, or take the dreaded test where you had to talk to a psychologist or psychiatrist or someone in charge of your brain, someone whose intent is to probe all your secrets and uncover your true nature.

To be continuedmaybe.

©StevenHunley2018


https://youtu.be/yVPj-2M_CGM PUBLIC ENEMIES - music video(HD)

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## kiz_paws

That was fascinating and so very well written.  :Smile:

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## Harry.South1

Cool story, written very naturally and flows really well.

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## Steven Hunley

Thank you both foer your comments. Around here, comments are rare. This next part is for adult readers.




Sometimes, at night, after Id finished typing the next days assignments, I had free time. On the wall was a binder labeled Irregularity Reports. It seemed like a dull title for a dull subject, but it turned out to be the best read in the Elephant.

If anything unusual happened they had to make a report. Prisons thrive on regularity and order. 

One day they suspected one of the full-timers was selling black tar heroin. They sent him off to see the doctor for a shot for the swine virus, and while he was out of his cell, searched it. They found the dope, but didnt tell him they knew, because they wanted to know where he was getting it. Two days later he was scheduled for a Bone-Yard Visit from Lupita, his main squeeze and pseudo-papered wife, who hed been seeing regularly for over a year. But on the day of the visit, instead of having her see him right off, they took her aside.

You see, there were two kinds of prisoners. Most were only there for the observation, and within a month or so would be gone. But a few were sentenced there, and were doing real time. The Bull needed people who were there year-round to run the place. Raymundo, the dealer, was one of these, and the true prisoners, if you could call them that, got visits in what was called The Bone Yard, trailers used for conjugal visits, which was the states euphemism for the old In and Out.

We got visits too, but only with a phone and through a wire-reinforced glass window in a wall and on a camera. No boning for us. Our 60 day stretches were more like prime rib boneless.

The day they took Raymundos woman aside, one of the Bulls told her she had a choice. If you want to see Raymundo, you have to submit to a search, or you can turn around right now and walk right back out the door.

Lupita feared Ramundo would be Jonesing by now, going through withdrawals, and it scared her. She suspected from his demeanor on her last visit hed been chipping on his own product when he cut the visit short. She suspected he was taking a powder. This thought unbalanced her, and besides, she also thought itd only be a pat-down search, probably by an inexperienced female officer. 

O. K.

Turned out it wasnt just a pat-down, and they brought a registered nurse. After she got naked they noticed a string dangling from her muff. 

Im on my period, she informed them matter-of-factly.

The nurse pulled a pair of blue Nitrile gloves and a gleaming pair of stainless steel forceps out of a bag and gave the string a tug.

Out came the dope.

Eventually, she went out the door all right, but with her hands cuffed behind her back and under arrest. Thats how it works in the real world. Theres only two kinds of thieves and dope dealers, ones that have taken their fall, and ones that have yet to take their fall.

Getting arrested and going to jail comes with the occupation.



©StevenHunley2019

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## MichaelSB

I really enjoyed reading this - your monologue, stream of consciousness opening is style is very effective. Looking forward to reading the next instalment. Thanks for sharing!

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## Steven Hunley

I remember coming up with a plan after lunch, and that was to read a book while the light was still good and take a nap. That way, I figured my time would go faster. Id go the library and read all the Ian Flemings. Funny thing I noticed about James Bond. The bad guys usually catch him, but they dont kill him at first. They make the mistake of locking him up, and he escapes, and brings down the fortress hideout and all the bad guys with him. Then it was the biography of Harry Houdini. Papillion was next.

After a while I noticed I had some kind of escape-dream theme going, and turned to histories and fiction instead. The history was Nikolas and Alexandra, a fat paperback about the Russian revolution. Id tried War and Peace one time, but gave up after a few pages when I couldnt keep the characters names straight.

Nikolas and Alexandra had all the action; inevitable march of history, drama of a novel, and was many times more moving since it was real. After all, its not every day an entire family is murdered, man, wife, four daughters, a little boy. Not every evil villain like Rasputin causes the fall of a dynasty. After a few pages, and after having seen Dr. Shivago, I was hooked.

Id read during the day, and read again at night before lights out. The Revolution even snuck into my dreams.

I find myself in a freezing snowstorm in St. Petersburg, wandering up and down the length of a hoary cobblestone street. I cant see my hand in front of my face, but Im on a mission anyway, one that can change the course of history.

Where is the black wrought-iron gate with the Romanov two-headed eagle, the main gate of the Winter Palace? I can see the fence itself, the pointed wrought-iron spikes on top, standing bleakly against the white snow, but its hundreds of yards long, and the gate must be somewhere, but is it to the right or left? The blinding snow white-outs everything in the distance in both directions as far as I can see.

What to do? What to do?

I must find the Czar and Imperial family, the wife, the daughters, the little-boy bleeder Alexie, and tell them whats about to happen. They can save themselves and get out of Saint Petersburg before all Hell breaks loose and theyre shot.

And only I know. Only I know!

I trod through the blinding snowstorm searching and searching for the gate, hiking back and forth, back and forth, until I fall into a stupor and freeze into a catatonic state.

Then Id awake in my bunk with a start that shook me from head to toe, find myself locked up in a joint where they only gate that mattered swung outward to freedom, not inward to a royal palace, and led to San Diego and a way of life I never really appreciated until I lost it.

Then I knew right where I was. Not in a medium security lock-up in southern California that smelled like a dung-hill, but in the overall scheme of things. And I finally knew who had gotten me there.

It wasnt the outlaw biker informant. it was me.

Well, that settled that. You live long enough; you learn to deal with yourself.


©StevenHunley2019

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## Steven Hunley

Irregularity Report #2 and Oh, was it sweet.

Architects wearing Armani suits, in expensive high-rise offices, show off designs of inescapable prisons with building block models resembling Legos gone crazy with design elements that will prove to the world they know what theyre doing, and deserve the fat fees they charge. Every one of these Idiots yearns to be the Frank Lloyd Wright of the Crime and Punishment set. The models look good on paper and even better on a table in the display room with miniature green trees and secure but park-like surroundings.

What they fail to figure is that the setting changes the value of the inescapability factor, a factor that cant be duplicated on their showroom tables over Starbucks coffee and chocolate croissants. 

In The White Elephant they count you. I believe its three times a day. But one day, they sounded the whistle early and we had to return to our cells and sit on our bunk, the only accepted place, so the guard could see you through a window cut out in the center of the big iron door and count your worthless ***. I didnt mind coming in, I could always read another Bond book, since the only reason I was outside was to cop some sunshine, and the day had turned foggy instead, and it was only getting thicker, so no tan for me.

One of the incident reports told me why they had us in for the count. One really foggy day an inmate on the inside maintenance crew noticed you couldnt see either gun tower if you stood half-way between them. Remember, these guys were career criminals, not just there for a short time. Short-timers are less of risk. He borrowed a ladder from a tool shed and carried it to a spot half way between the two towers, and climbed up up and away for an extremely self-satisfying early release. 

I never read anything about more that happened in regards to this incident but Billy told me the bell sending you back to your unit to be counted wasnt used until _after_ this happened.

This is the kind of story that for obvious reasons, never hits the papers. TV coverage would make the corrections people look foolish or short-sighted, as if they had no imagination. And keep in mind I dont make these stories up, I just record them.

Lock up is dull and monotonous, and that just the way the man wants it. No irregularities, nothing unscheduled, and everything in its place. Part of this structure comes from the odd circumstance of all these men being together in such large numbers. Too many men together isnt the normal way of things. For many it makes them growly. They dont have their woman to complain too, to soothe them when theyre frustrated to keep them on the right course. They dont have their women or children to touch. They are emotionally deprived. The loving softness only women and children give, that kind of tenderness, cannot be duplicated in prison. 

For the 60 day Observation Inmates, theres no chance of a touchy-feely visit. The most youre going to get is a glimpse of your significant others face through and piece of glass with wire in it and their tinny voice over a handset. Youre having a visit alright, but though your visitor is only about 24 inches away, there is so much iron and steel and reinforced plate-glass between you and your significant other that the overall feeling is theyre so remote you might as well be in Beau Geste with Gary Cooper.

Its summer, and its hot, youre kind of in this fort, like in the foreign legion, but theres no sand, and the walls are higher, with four manned towers, and your only contact with the outside world besides an occaisonal visit  is mail. Elizabeths letters come with her Apache Rose lipstick print on the back marked SWAK.

The Bulls read all your mail, coming and going. When it comes to writing to Liz, I make the text as juicy as possible, hoping the sensors get turned on while reading it and I tell Liz to make it the same way in her letters to me. After work the Bulls can go home and take it out on their significant otherby making Whoopee.

©StevenHunley2019

https://youtu.be/gQNFCRom7c0 The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989) - Makin' Whoopee Scene (6/11) | Movieclips

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## Steven Hunley

Delete

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## Steven Hunley

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## Steven Hunley

I’ve got Liz to look after the Triumph GT6. She’s putting her heart on hold for me until I get released. Let’s hope we work out. If the judge who reads the report decides to sentence me to local time, I’ll end up in a fire camp or road camp in San Diego County. If it’s to the big house, I don’t know where it will be, maybe Devil’s Island, which I hear we lease from the French. She’s promised to visit me either way.

My only other visitor is Jim, my childhood friend. He’s the kind of guy you can count on, and he doesn’t judge. Seriously, if this guy had ever been into judging me, I’d be in jail for a life sentence by now. 


He’s the closest thing to a brother I’ve got. Seen me through thick and thin. Liz worked for him at the Tux Shop in Hillcrest, and that’s where we met. Oh Jeez, what a guy. We go way back. 

When the non-touchy-feely visits are over, it’s back to the barbed-wire and bricks.

Life behind bars is so regular and boring that any small amusement draws a rabid crowd. One day I was on my way down a stairwell when a couple of dudes on the bottom floor were circling each other, one with a broken glass bottle of Tang in his hand. This Jail-bird could see the whole thing from his perch.

Remember that orange-flavored excuse for Orange juice named Tang? Remember the TV told us the astronauts used it? Was that true? Did we believe that **** only because the TV told us so? I believe we did.

A crowd formed and screamed for blood. When I got to the bottom I gave them room, walked on by and didn’t look back. I didn’t even find bother to find out the results. I’ve never been one to encourage violence, especially in a place where it was already so endemic.


Later that afternoon, I got a letter from Bill the Tree Trimmer.

Bill, turned out years later, was a cross-dresser. To me he always seemed so macho! Drove race cars on dirt tracks in Mexico, leaving the rest of the crowd in the dust. At first he lived on Texas St in a converted garage for 60 bucks a month, came into Dad’s Shell station for gas. Near the end he lived at the Palms Hotel downtown and worked as a bank guard.

Talked to a cop who interviewed me after they found him dead of a heart attack in his room at the Palms.

“Did he have anyone close to him? Any relatives?”

“Not that I know of.”

“We found women’s clothes in his dresser drawer.”

“He may have mentioned a girl’s name a few weeks ago, maybe they were hers.”

He shook his head. “They were his.”

I raised my eyebrows.

The guy loved baseball and had a New Jersey accent. He never made a move in my direction. He was a 10 years or so older than me, drove a Mustang, and trimmed trees for a living. Had a pair of strap-on spike climbing spurs in the closet, and was in the Navy just before Viet Nam. Smoked frigggen Malborows, like Kristina, both of my parents, and most of the known world.

When Deb was expecting, and we moved to Chamoune St, we had a garage in the alley in back. He was in charge of a truck crew for Goodwill, one of the big second-hand thrift stores. People with old stuff would donate. Bill and two other guys would drive all over San Diego with a big truck and pick up donations. Of course, many good citizens regard such organizations at trash-haulers, and use them to dispose of their unwanted trash. At the end of their working day, they’d stop by and leave us their hand-picked stuff and we’d stash it for them in the garage. Then they’d drive downtown and unload. Bill gave me a small bookcase with sliding glass door, which if it hadn’t broke during an earthquake I’d still have. Thanks Bill, and RIP. Maybe it was better you didn’t let me in on the cross-dressing bit. Nobody wants to find out their Marlboro man wants to dress like a lady. 

I owed Bill. The night I found Kristina dead, I couldn’t go back in the house, so I spent that first long first day after the night of her death with him. Later I moved in with Jim.

Bill lived then in an apartment about a half a block from Morley Field. When I went back a few days later, with sand paper to scratch the burn marks out of the hardwood floor, he was there with me. When they called from Greenwood to tell me they needed a picture because it wasn’t going to be an open casket, he was there, and even answered the door when I was still on the phone, and let in the task force that busted me.

I never blamed him. They were coming in anyway. 

Getting busted reminded me I was nothing special and not half as clandestine as I imagined. Here, in the Elephant’s belly, I’m reminded again. I’m nothing special, just another idiot whose wheels were on fire out in the streets. They put me in here to cool off. Here’s how I look at it now.

You’re not a lion anymore, or even a leopard. You’re just another zebra. If you’re sciatica flares up, you’re an injured zebra who draws unwanted attention, so your ears are fine-tuned and your eyes are scanning the horizon. Anyone creeping up too close, who isn’t recognizable, alerts your system with liquid bolts of cortisol coursing through your veins.

You’re happy you’re only here a short time. “Short Timer” they call you. The real sentencing isn’t imposed yet. That’s what the 90 day observation is for, to inform the judge. He’s the one who determines your time. He’s the one who determines your fate because it’s already been determined you’re guilty as sin.

I’m concerned about the length of the sentence. It could be as short as flash fiction or could be a novelette. Might be a short story. Hope it’s not a novel. I don’t have time for a novel. And even if it is, what’s going to be the setting? After all, I’m not the dangerous type.

https://youtu.be/q5yZC7T3qxA The Dangerous Type The Cars

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## Steven Hunley

Billy Two Shoes, a Black Foot, my senior clerk, was the dangerous type, but it was his kindness that showed me the ropes, even though he was here for robbing supermarkets like Piggly-Wiggly. This fossilized Native American had seen many moons and was getting gray; the wire rimmed glasses balanced precariously on his Indian Head Nickel nose gave you the friendly impression of a scholarly uncle. He wore his salt and pepper hair in braids like Willy Nelson, but hated Country Western music with a passion.

Its too sentimental and whiny for me.

I heard Hank Williams said, We all had a little cry in our voice.

It was the only bit of country western trivia I knew. I really didnt know his favorite music yet, we hadnt talked about it. But you can bond with people over shared hatreds as easily as shared delights anyway. Joseph Goebbels taught me that one. I want to appear cynical; its just that you can learn from both good and evil.

None of the prisoners here seemed evil. Many made rash and ill-informed decisions. Some younger ones stumbled into The System on trails cut by their families generations ago, families ruled by dissention and intimidation, absence, cutoff, and chaos. Love and the true ability to care for each other were shoved out of the frame of those families from substance abuse, mental health issues, poverty, new faces on the block in new colors issues, challenges that only breed contempt from the established classes, who regard them as enemy-others, classes that as far as the new families know, seem to have their **** together and lead well-ordered and productive lives. 

That was their victimless crime, Not Having a Plan B, Falsely Imagining Youve Run out of Options, Lack of Education, the crime against your basic humanity, one that breeds for generations, according to the system. High Tides and Green Grass were beyond their feeble reach. They became marginalized, then Outsiders, and later and irrevocably, Outlaws, Rogues, and Mavericks. That was The Immutable Law of the Concrete Jungle.

Biily and his crew carried heat and had a shootout with the cops. To intimidate the manager/gentleman in charge of the safe, they carried a beautiful shotgun, obtained from an associates robbery of a house in Pacific Palisades, a rare Holland and Holland over and under. The silver scrollwork on the side was chased with sweeping meadows of Edelweiss, and the stock was hand-checkered rosewood from Brazil, graced by the image of a mighty Black Forest stag in all his wild-animal glory.

It was so beautiful and threatening we never had to use it. At least until the night were confronted by the LAPD. Some passing patrol car saw us through a window.

Just like that?

They called in the whole militia and surrounded the store.

He took out his regulation handkerchief from his back pocket and blew his nose. I had one too, but wore it tied around my neck like Yves Montand in Wages of Fear just to be different. 

It was sacrilege, cutting off that barrel, he sniffed, while his chestnut eyes grew misty You should have seen the scrollwork. But we had to make it fit under my coat.

I shook my head, I dont like it when vandals deface art. Vandalism cost the city millions every year.

I cost me _my third strike_ and _seven years._ Thats what pissed them off. It wasnt the money. It was _the threat of bodily harm._

That makes sense. Their job is _to protect and serve._

Thats true, and theres the rub.


©StevenHunley2019

https://youtu.be/cmToeytaVoc Wages of Fear

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## Steven Hunley

dupicate post

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## Steven Hunley

Billy glanced up the big clock on the wall looming over us. It never seems to move, he muttered. Not the big hand. Not the one that counts.

Late at night was quiet and there werent any windows. The neon lights cast a greenish light that flickered on and off when I typed up the reports for the next day. Theyd hooked up one of those office fans on top of a file cabinet where it revolved back and forth by itself. There were a couple of strands of red cellophane flapping in its breeze, left over from the watch captains birthday party. Must have been wild. Heard they ate cake.

Time moved slowly if you werent fully engaged in the moment. In stir you were never fully engaged in the moment, your head was usually engaged somewhere else, a more private place, one of your choosing, not theirs. If you didnt have that private sanctuary every once in a while, you were really in trouble.

So they could rule and regulate your body from the outside, but they couldnt rule or regulate your mind. But sometimes, even the regulating your body was enough to shake you up, like the time I stepped outside after lights out.

Although lights were out at nine, I didnt get off until ten. Id have to call up to the gun tower and let them know I was going across the yard back to my unit, since no one else was supposed to be there, not even the guards, without warning the gun towers first. After all, it was dark. 

One night I forgot to make the call. I was so sleepy I just walked out the door and started crossing the open space. 

Suddenly the six dazzling lights ignited, flooding the entire field with a blast of illumination from so many angles I didnt leave a shadow. Overhead, elephant- speakers from the heavens bellowed downward with metallic thunder,

Man on the yard, *halt*, or you _will_ be shot.

Threat of bodily harm never fails to wake me up, and I understand why I was still shaking twenty minutes later sitting on the edge of my bunk.

Terror ensued when I realized it wasnt a threat, it was simply someones _procedure_ and their job, therefore their family was threatened if they didnt _carry out that procedure_, and failed to _bring home the bacon to the wife and kids_.

If theres one thing I learned from Mahmood, the skinny but fashionable Afghan hound who lived with me once upon a time. Never get between a dog and his food. 


©StevenHunley2019


https://youtu.be/KIjcNDiaPoM Bringing Home the Bacon Procol Harum

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## edwardwilson

Really Amazing, Keep up the awesome work!

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## Steven Hunley

> Really Amazing, Keep up the awesome work!


Thank you, Edward Wilson. And so...


With all this time on my hands, and my inborn inflated sense of grandiosity, I compare myself with others, and come to the conclusion that as bad as I imagined being locked up could be, there are parts of it that have merit, one of them being, you have time to think. Plenty of others have taken advantage of being jailed or imprisoned. Which others?

These others:

Ken Keysey, Bill Burroughs, Dostoyevsky, Mallory, Jean Genet, Oscar Wilde, Verlaine, Solzhenitsyn, Voltaire, Cervantes, O. Henry, Trotsky, M.L. King, Thoreau, Malcom X, John McCain, Marco Polo, Nelson Mandela, Jack London, and two of the Marx brothers. Don't laugh.


Being locked up, away from the hurly-burly outside, gives you time to reflect. How you got here, what changes you must make to your life to insure this never happens again. Youre alone and in charge of your fate, you reckon, not when this short observation time in prison ends, but when you finish your sentence.

This 90 day observation is only the preview, I tell myself. The main attraction will last longer. Right now I dont know how long, but Ill be sentenced, and then start the real time, wherever they send me.

For once in my life I decide to take responsibility for myself. Its a first step for me, one of the dregs of society at this point, to make positive changes my life. Wipe the slate clean and start over. Society will give me another chanceI hope, since Ill be an X-con to them. X-con is a label I wont care to wear, I wont like the fit. X-con or Angel, which will it be?

©StevenHunley2019

https://youtu.be/gFflgIlutmA Gregg Allman LIVE - "I'm No Angel" | Back to Macon, GA

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## Steven Hunley

> Really Amazing, Keep up the awesome work!


Thank you, Edward Wilson. And so...


With all this time on my hands, and my inborn inflated sense of grandiosity, I compare myself with others, and come to the conclusion that as bad as I imagined being locked up could be, there are parts of it that have merit, one of them being, you have time to think. Plenty of others have taken advantage of being jailed or imprisoned. Which others?

These others:

Ken Keysey, Bill Burroughs, Dostoyevsky, Mallory, Jean Genet, Oscar Wilde, Verlaine, Solzhenitsyn, Voltaire, Cervantes, O. Henry, Trotsky, M.L. King, Thoreau, Malcom X, John McCain, Marco Polo, Nelson Mandela, Jack London, and two of the Marx brothers. Don't laugh.


Being locked up, away from the hurly-burly outside, gives you time to reflect. How you got here, what changes you must make to your life to insure this never happens again. Youre alone and in charge of your fate, you reckon, not when this short observation time in prison ends, but when you finish your sentence.

This 90 day observation is only the preview, I tell myself. The main attraction will last longer. Right now I dont know how long, but Ill be sentenced, and then start the real time, wherever they send me.

For once in my life I decide to take responsibility for myself. Its a first step for me, one of the dregs of society at this point, to make positive changes in my life. Wipe the slate clean and start over. Society will give me another chanceI hope, since Ill be an X-con to them. X-con is a label I wont care to wear, I wont like the fit. X-con or Angel, which will it be?

©StevenHunley2019

https://youtu.be/gFflgIlutmA Gregg Allman LIVE - "I'm No Angel" | Back to Macon, GA

----------


## Steven Hunley

So thats in the future, but _when i_n the future? That will be up to my new daddy, the judge. Hope he likes my report card from this marvelous institution. Maybe Judge Daddy will let me pass to the next grade and matriculate in San Diego. If not, Ill probably stay in LA County and rot here instead. Learning uncomfortable life-lessons has never been easy for me, a man of little self-examination. You must know your own materials with certainty, your strengths, your weaknesses, before you can forge them together to make substantial changes. With a proper set of tools and resources, a man can set out to explore new horizons, make new discoveries, even discoveries about the deepest recesses of his hidden interior.

Myself is the unknown land, the blackest spot on the map, the darkest corner of my being, the one Ive never probed. Why are the places closest up the last to be explored? Is it because we think we already know them? How wrong can we be about ourselves? 

Like Huck Finn, I figure its time I lit out to explore the wandering river that is me and come up with some answers, and if not answers, questions worth asking.
And then theres Divine Power to consider. Is it with me on this one? If not, can I do it on my own? Im humbled by the idea of Divine Intervention, but feel responsible for my own course and destination, barring nature itself, and its random interventions. Freewill puts us in charge. We are all handed trials and tribulations, but its how you handle them that counts.

In the end I didnt find out anything about the report they sent back to San Diego, whether it was good or bad or ugly. But the results were reflected in the sentencing, its length, and where I would be sent. Later I would dream about what happened in court in my typical twisted fashion, and along with that, the sleepy night-night dream version of the bust that led up to it. 

*The Bust*

And you take your time
And you do your crime
Well you made your bed
I made mine. Lil Wayne

Two loud knocks were heard on my door. Bill the Tree-trimmer answered, and not one or two, but seven men pushed past him in a hurry, all total strangers. The only one that talked to me directly was busy reciting something. Id heard this piece before on Dragnet. It was the Miranda Act. It started with, "You have the right to remain silent," and went on from there. I suspected I might be in trouble.

Two men were F.B.I. Two worked narcotics. Two were sheriffs and the other bozo was there, as he explained later just for fun. From the other room he heard one of them, the Bozo that was there 'just for fun', shout, "Bingo!"

I suspected I was in worse trouble.

When they put me in the back of the car I had a sneaking suspicion my world was about to change in a big way. For once in my life I was right.

I was mad, sad, and disappointed. All this trouble and they never even took out their big bad guns.

Six months later I was sent up.

The courtroom, when I got to the courtroom, was like every other courtroom. That is to say; dull. So Ill waste no words to describe it. They led me in wearing my county blue jumpsuit and on my wrists were gun-metal blue bracelets, a matching pair, attached to each other so I couldnt lose them, and you had to notice that they perfectly matched my eyes. They insisted I wear them not for fashion, but to prevent me leaving the proceedings if things got too dull, or if I decided to bolt, which is much the same thing.

The judge was a woman judge so Ill say nothing about that other than I got on with women but we already know that. She found me guilty, of that fact she had not the slightest doubt. So that just left the sentencing.

I find you guilty as sin, she announced from on high, and remand you to the custody of the California State Department of Corrections for here she hesitated, and I took up the slack.

If it please, Your Honor, Give me a break.

I will give you a break, and enough time to consider your collection of exotic mind-altering substances and where they brought you. You stand before me as if I were your Mother. Our society and legal system have placed you and I in these rolls, but at the same time you expect me to be impartial. Moms are never impartial. Other countries have different laws than in the United States. Those substances are illegal here. Its as simple as that. 

Nine months.

Bap, Bap, went the Tough Love Gavel in her murderous hand. You could hear it all the way out in the hall.

***
continuedmaybe.

©StevenHunley2019

https://youtu.be/u0n4eMGXAyk Kevin Rudolf - Let It Rock ft. Lil Wayne

----------


## Steven Hunley

So thats in the future, but _when i_n the future? That will be up to my new daddy, the judge. Hope he likes my report card from this marvelous institution. Maybe Judge Daddy will let me pass to the next grade and matriculate in San Diego. If not, Ill probably stay in LA County and rot here instead. Learning uncomfortable life-lessons has never been easy for me, a man of little self-examination. You must know your own materials with certainty, your strengths, your weaknesses, before you can forge them together to make substantial changes. With a proper set of tools and resources, a man can set out to explore new horizons, make new discoveries, even discoveries about the deepest recesses of his hidden interior.

Myself is the unknown land, the blackest spot on the map, the darkest corner of my being, the one Ive never probed. Why are the places closest up the last to be explored? Is it because we think we already know them? How wrong can we be about ourselves? 

Like Huck Finn, I figure its time I lit out to explore the wandering river that is me and come up with some answers, and if not answers, questions worth asking.
And then theres Divine Power to consider. Is it with me on this one? If not, can I do it on my own? Im humbled by the idea of Divine Intervention, but feel responsible for my own course and destination, barring nature itself, and its random interventions. Freewill puts us in charge. We are all handed trials and tribulations, but its how you handle them that counts.

In the end I didnt find out anything about the report they sent back to San Diego, whether it was good or bad or ugly. But the results were reflected in the sentencing, its length, and where I would be sent. Later I would dream about what happened in court in my typical twisted fashion, and along with that, the sleepy night-night dream version of the bust that led up to it. 

*The Bust*

And you take your time
And you do your crime
Well you made your bed
I made mine. Lil Wayne

Two loud knocks were heard on my door. Bill the Tree-trimmer answered, and not one or two, but seven men pushed past him in a hurry, all total strangers. The only one that talked to me directly was busy reciting something. Id heard this piece before on Dragnet. It was the Miranda Act. It started with, "You have the right to remain silent," and went on from there. I suspected I might be in trouble.

Two men were F.B.I. Two worked narcotics. Two were sheriffs and the other bozo was there, as he explained later just for fun. From the other room I heard one of them, the Bozo that was there 'just for fun', shout, "Bingo!"

I suspected I was in worse trouble.

When they put me in the back of the car I had a sneaking suspicion my world was about to change in a big way. For once in my life I was right.

I was mad, sad, and disappointed. All this trouble and they never even took out their big bad guns.

Six months later I was sent up.

The courtroom, when I got to the courtroom, was like every other courtroom. That is to say; dull. So Ill waste no words to describe it. They led me in wearing my county blue jumpsuit and on my wrists were gun-metal blue bracelets, a matching pair, attached to each other so I couldnt lose them, and you had to notice that they perfectly matched my eyes. They insisted I wear them not for fashion, but to prevent me leaving the proceedings if things got too dull, or if I decided to bolt, which is much the same thing.

The judge was a woman judge so Ill say nothing about that other than I got on with women but we already know that. She found me guilty, of that fact she had not the slightest doubt. So that just left the sentencing.

I find you guilty as sin, she announced from on high, and remand you to the custody of the California State Department of Corrections for here she hesitated, and I took up the slack.

If it please, Your Honor, Give me a break.

I will give you a break, and enough time to consider your collection of exotic mind-altering substances and where they brought you. You stand before me as if I were your Mother. Our society and legal system have placed you and I in these rolls, but at the same time you expect me to be impartial. Moms are never impartial. Other countries have different laws than in the United States. Those substances are illegal here. Its as simple as that. 

Nine months.

Bap, Bap, went the Tough Love Gavel in her murderous hand. You could hear it all the way out in the hall.

***
continuedmaybe.

©StevenHunley2019

https://youtu.be/u0n4eMGXAyk Kevin Rudolf - Let It Rock ft. Lil Wayne

----------


## Steven Hunley

Looking back at it now, the reason I probably picked a fire camp instead of a road camp was because I imagined I could save something or someone to make up for the one person I lost.




*Fire Camp*

Camp Morena was no joke. It was formerly constructed to inter the Japanese in WW2. The work was hard work and for that they fed you better than in county. There was no fence, and if you wanted, you could always take a late-night hike back to civilization. Most of the men didnt though. They were low-risk prisoners. It just wasnt worth the risk.

The daily routine was this:

Youd wake up and go eat. Because you were working theyd feed you pretty good. That was a plus. Plus being out in the open was good too, even if you were on a work crew. Even if it was one hundred and two in the shade, it beat sitting around in county. Then the crew formed up and you would put on work clothes and boots and jump on a green forestry bus, which was run by a ranger from the Department of Forestry. The corrections officers would stay behind in the camp. Then youd go out and work on a road, or practice cutting line to get in shape for when there was a fire. In California during the summer there are plenty of fires.

But before the fires they worked on the international firebreak. As they wound up the mountain behind Mount San Miguel they could see the skyline of San Diego in the distance. The paved road took about an hour to get there. After that was a fire road that was nothing but dirt. That took longer as it wound up and around. When they reached the top they got out and grabbed their tools. Then, when their canteens were filled, they started cutting brush. The blazing sun baked them mercilessly, while sweat trickled down their dust-covered faces leaving brown lines. After a while,

When are we getting a break? Raymundo asked me.

Right before lunch maybe.

The crew kept working. More sweat was required.

Its hot, one said.

No ****. said another. Cussing is common among men working, or working men, either one. 

I looked up and saw a red-tailed hawk circling in the thermals looking for food. White puffs of cumulus appeared over the mountains to the south. They were Mexican clouds. Carlos took a time out and leaned on his Pulaski, a cutting tool. He looked down at San Diego in the azure fairytale distance.

Look there, he said grinning, Fun City.

Ill be there in a month.

Me too.

We should meet and have a few Coronas.

Yeah Homie, that would be good. Well do that.

Of course we were both lying. It was what we did to pass the time. Wed made plans on how wed meet when we were on the outs

The rangers bullhorn sounded announcing lunch. The crew let their tools lie where they were, in the dirt.

When the forestry ranger did the count, two men were missing. Two Mexicans. You could see Mexico from the firebreak. Thats why they called it the international firebreak. It split the land between the two countries. Dude remembered at breakfast that the two Mexicans, who had been sitting together, were laughing when the assignment was announced. And when the canteens were being filled, they were careful to get their fill. Obviously they had taken a hike. I knew the ranger had figured it out when I heard him say, F***.

The ranger went into the bus and got on the radio to the camp. An exercise in futility was what it smelt like to him. There was no way in Hell the correctional officers could do anything about it. The paved highway was an hour away, and the dirt road another. The two Amigos had taken a hike home. But what was worse, theyd taken upon themselves the responsibility to release themselves from custody. I guess they figured today was their release date. Its said that Mayans were great mathematicians and Aztecs had their own calendars. Maybe it was just a bad translation of their calendar into ours. The last thing I heard the ranger say when he got out of the truck was,

Damn Mexicans. Those two banditos got no respect for the law.

The only thing I could think of was that line Alfredo Bedoya gave Humphrey Bogart in the movie Treasure of Sierra Madre.

Badges? We aint got no badges. We dont need no badges! I dont need to show you any stinking badges!

Maybe the Mexicans had seen the movie too. That night there was no desert after dinner. 

Go figure.


continuedmaybe.

©StevenHunley2019

https://youtu.be/4OcM23Hbs5U The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (6/10) Movie CLIP - No Stinking Badges (1948) HD

----------


## Steven Hunley

Looking back at it now, the reason I probably picked a fire camp instead of a road camp was because I imagined I could save something or someone to make up for the one person I lost.




*Fire Camp*

Camp Morena was no joke. It was formerly constructed to inter the Japanese in WW2. The work was hard work and for that they fed you better than in county. There was no fence, and if you wanted, you could always take a late-night hike back to civilization. Most of the men didnt though. They were low-risk prisoners. It just wasnt worth the risk.

The daily routine was this:

Youd wake up and go eat. Because you were working theyd feed you pretty good. That was a plus. Plus being out in the open was good too, even if you were on a work crew. Even if it was one hundred and two in the shade, it beat sitting around in county. Then the crew formed up and you would put on work clothes and boots and jump on a green forestry bus, which was run by a ranger from the Department of Forestry. The corrections officers would stay behind in the camp. Then youd go out and work on a road, or practice cutting line to get in shape for when there was a fire. In California during the summer there are plenty of fires.

But before the fires we worked on the international firebreak. As we wound up the mountain behind Mount San Miguel we had a beautiful view of the skyline of San Diego in the distance. The paved road took about an hour to get there. After that was a fire road that was nothing but dirt. That took longer as it wound up and around. When we reached the top we got out and grabbed our tools. Then, when our canteens were filled, we started cutting brush. The blazing sun baked us mercilessly, while sweat trickled down our dust-covered faces leaving brown lines. After a while,

When are we getting a break? Raymundo asked me.

Right before lunch maybe.

The crew kept working. More sweat was required.

Its hot, one said.

No ****. said another. Cussing is common among men working, or working men, either one. 

I looked up and saw a red-tailed hawk circling in the thermals looking for food. White puffs of cumulus appeared over the mountains to the south. They were Mexican clouds. Carlos took a time out and leaned on his Pulaski, a cutting tool. He looked down at San Diego in the azure fairytale distance.

Look there, he said grinning, Fun City.

Ill be there in a month.

Me too.

We should meet and have a few Coronas.

Yeah Homie, that would be good. Well do that.

Of course we were both lying. It was what we did to pass the time. Wed made plans on how wed meet when we were on the outs

The rangers bullhorn sounded announcing lunch. The crew let their tools lie where they were, in the dirt.

When the forestry ranger did the count, two men were missing. Two Mexicans. You could see Mexico from the firebreak. Thats why they called it the international firebreak. It split the land between the two countries. Dude remembered at breakfast that the two Mexicans, who had been sitting together, were laughing when the assignment was announced. And when the canteens were being filled, they were careful to get their fill. Obviously they had taken a hike. I knew the ranger had figured it out when I heard him say, F***.

The ranger went into the bus and got on the radio to the camp. An exercise in futility was what it smelt like to him. There was no way in Hell the correctional officers could do anything about it. The paved highway was an hour away, and the dirt road another. The two Amigos had taken a hike home. But what was worse, theyd taken upon themselves the responsibility to release themselves from custody. I guess they figured today was their release date. Its said that Mayans were great mathematicians and Aztecs had their own calendars. Maybe it was just a bad translation of their calendar into ours. The last thing I heard the ranger say when he got out of the truck was,

Damn Mexicans. Those two banditos got no respect for the law.

The only thing I could think of was that line Alfredo Bedoya gave Humphrey Bogart in the movie Treasure of Sierra Madre.

Badges? We aint got no badges. We dont need no badges! I dont need to show you any stinking badges!

Maybe the Mexicans had seen the movie too. That night there was no desert after dinner. 

Go figure.


continuedmaybe.

©StevenHunley2019

https://youtu.be/4OcM23Hbs5U The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (6/10) Movie CLIP - No Stinking Badges (1948) HD

----------

