Parthian Shot

A Thursday Prompt story
© 2019 by Walter Reimer


Prompt: closer


When one’s worked at a county jail since Reagan’s second term, as I did, one accumulates a number of interesting stories. Here’s one of them.

I will pause as everyone absorbs the stereotype of a German Shepherd in law enforcement. Police dog, get it, hurr hurr hurr.

Among our clientele are juveniles who have been deemed by the court system to be bad enough to warrant adult sanctions. Some of them are genuinely innocent, having made poor choices despite their parenting or education – you can tell I’m trying to be fair here. Some of them, though, are not very good at all.

This leads me to this encounter I had with a seventeen-year-old miscreant. He was in the isolation area after he and two of his mates nearly killed a fourth juvenile who was in the cell with them. The victim spent a while in the hospital, while this kid and his fellows were given additional charges of attempted murder.

Part of my job as a supervisor is to inspect the housing areas twice each shift to make sure that things are okay, and I was on night shift at the time. So I breeze on into the juvenile housing’s isolation area, and look into each of the four cells. The Kid, which is what I shall call him, is in the last cell. He’s feline, and looks almost too young to be in jail.

Almost.

The Kid’s standing at the door and he grins at me. "I got three questions for you."

I’m game. Besides, I’m required to talk to the inmates and listen to their concerns, if any. "Go ahead,” I say. “What are your questions?"

He grins. "If I go to Hell, will I bust Hell wide open?"

Oh, it’s going to be one those conversations. I bestow upon him a minor smirk and reply, "No."

This doesn’t seem to faze The Kid, so he carries on. "Okay, second question. What's hard and got a head on it?"

I try to suppress a sigh, and only just succeed. “A nail,” I say, with a slight smile, and he gets this adorably confused look on his face. You may note at this juncture, that I’m not dealing with the sharpest tack on the bulletin board.

"Third question: If you're sucking my dick - "

And that’ll be enough of that. I smirk at him and walk away to study the area activity log.

The Kid calls out, "You gonna answer my question?"

I decide to go Bartleby on him. "I choose not to consider it."

"Why you talk like that?" he asks.

"Like what?"

"You talk so proper." His exact words, dear readers. I blame the local school system.

I finish signing my name on the activity log in red ink and reply, “It's how I was taught to speak."

"You think you're better than me?" he asks.

Gracious, I think it’s finally dawning on him. I smile slightly. "No, I don't think I'm better than you,” I say, with a very slight stress on the word 'think.' Whereupon I walked out of the isolation area, leaving behind one baffled would-be gangbanger.


end