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Where There's Smoke
A Thursday Prompt story
© 2021 by Walter Reimer
Prompt: lamp (365-word limit)
________________________________________________________________________________________
The following is a true story, when I had only been working at the county jail for about three years. As a deputy, part of my job was to walk through every dormitory to make sure that our clientele aren’t up to anything stupid.
Stupid? Sure; things like suicide attempts, criminal acts, theft, beating people up, or you know what. I say “you know what” with a tap of my finger against the side of my muzzle. German Shepherds have a lot of muzzle to tap.
Anyway.
I’m walking along, and I smell smoke. It’s neither tobacco or marijuana or catnip, so I go looking while sniffing. My nose leads me into a cell, a standard four-person living space.
They assure me that nothing’s going on, but I hadn’t been born the day before, and I order them out of the cell so I can poke around. I start – and stop almost immediately, looking at one corner near the exterior wall.
There’s a chessboard propped up against the corner, and there’s a glow coming from around it.
May as well have had a huge neon arrow pointing at it, so I ease the chessboard away and find an oil candle.
Oil candle?
Oil candle. A clear plastic fruit cup container, with the lid split to hold a wick made of braided thread, maybe from a towel, and fueled with baby oil.
We hadn’t gone smokeless yet (that would come in 1991), but some people can’t afford matches or a lighter from the commissary. This is contraband, and I can confiscate and destroy it without trouble, but another reason for its existence reveals itself.
The back of the chessboard is covered in soot, which, I knew, could be mixed with shampoo and used as improvised tattoo ink. Nice, huh?
Tattooing or self-mutilation are Not Allowed, and I know that none of the inmates will admit to possessing it. I have to satisfy myself with taking the candle and the chessboard with me, and I leave the dormitory.
I come right back, though; I hadn’t finished looking through the entire housing area yet.
You see, it pays to use all of your senses when looking for things.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
end
A Thursday Prompt story
© 2021 by Walter Reimer
Prompt: lamp (365-word limit)
________________________________________________________________________________________
The following is a true story, when I had only been working at the county jail for about three years. As a deputy, part of my job was to walk through every dormitory to make sure that our clientele aren’t up to anything stupid.
Stupid? Sure; things like suicide attempts, criminal acts, theft, beating people up, or you know what. I say “you know what” with a tap of my finger against the side of my muzzle. German Shepherds have a lot of muzzle to tap.
Anyway.
I’m walking along, and I smell smoke. It’s neither tobacco or marijuana or catnip, so I go looking while sniffing. My nose leads me into a cell, a standard four-person living space.
They assure me that nothing’s going on, but I hadn’t been born the day before, and I order them out of the cell so I can poke around. I start – and stop almost immediately, looking at one corner near the exterior wall.
There’s a chessboard propped up against the corner, and there’s a glow coming from around it.
May as well have had a huge neon arrow pointing at it, so I ease the chessboard away and find an oil candle.
Oil candle?
Oil candle. A clear plastic fruit cup container, with the lid split to hold a wick made of braided thread, maybe from a towel, and fueled with baby oil.
We hadn’t gone smokeless yet (that would come in 1991), but some people can’t afford matches or a lighter from the commissary. This is contraband, and I can confiscate and destroy it without trouble, but another reason for its existence reveals itself.
The back of the chessboard is covered in soot, which, I knew, could be mixed with shampoo and used as improvised tattoo ink. Nice, huh?
Tattooing or self-mutilation are Not Allowed, and I know that none of the inmates will admit to possessing it. I have to satisfy myself with taking the candle and the chessboard with me, and I leave the dormitory.
I come right back, though; I hadn’t finished looking through the entire housing area yet.
You see, it pays to use all of your senses when looking for things.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
end
Category Story / General Furry Art
Species German Shepherd
Size 120 x 92px
File Size 35 kB
Listed in Folders
I never knew that... ink huh?
This also reminded me of when I was on my first ship. Smoking in the berthing area was common place, and one of my co-workers would wake up in the middle of the night just to have a cigarette. They all had butt cans taped to the bunk stanchions too. As you said, we all reeked, but it was equally shared so no one even noticed.
V.
This also reminded me of when I was on my first ship. Smoking in the berthing area was common place, and one of my co-workers would wake up in the middle of the night just to have a cigarette. They all had butt cans taped to the bunk stanchions too. As you said, we all reeked, but it was equally shared so no one even noticed.
V.
Ha. The Air Force was 'smoke outside' by '85, but when I went to work as a civilian for the Navy they still smoked in the offices. No A/C where I was working so the open doors made it not too bad most days. Then they got A/C and didn't want to leave the doors open (too hot/cold/noisy outside you know.) And since the office boss was one of the chain smokers you know I got nowhere with him.
So one day I told him I was taking the rest of the day off sick - sick of his smoke. He waved goodbye and good riddance and he thought that was the end of it. That was until later that day when he dropped by QA for something. There he found me (on my own time so he couldn't say shit) and one of the QA guys going through the TOs (Technical Orders) because I knew if the AF had smoking codes then the Navy did too. He left in a hurry without getting whatever he'd come for ...
The very next day a tiny little room was set up as the smoking room (and I was told I had nothing to do with it - yup - not me! )
Only one non-smoker was upset with this change, his reason was found out a few weeks later. You see with less smoke in the offices him stinking of weed was easier to detect ...
So one day I told him I was taking the rest of the day off sick - sick of his smoke. He waved goodbye and good riddance and he thought that was the end of it. That was until later that day when he dropped by QA for something. There he found me (on my own time so he couldn't say shit) and one of the QA guys going through the TOs (Technical Orders) because I knew if the AF had smoking codes then the Navy did too. He left in a hurry without getting whatever he'd come for ...
The very next day a tiny little room was set up as the smoking room (and I was told I had nothing to do with it - yup - not me! )
Only one non-smoker was upset with this change, his reason was found out a few weeks later. You see with less smoke in the offices him stinking of weed was easier to detect ...
On the bangor folk festival, we got a couple gangs of inmates from the local jail to do a bunch of the grunt work. Putting up temporary fences, loading and unloading trucks, etc. The first year was the year of lucky. Lucky was an inmate who had survived more or less impaired being shot several times by the arresting officers. (Being not very smart predated his arrest).
So he had behaved well enough that he was allowed on the work gang. Get outside, fresh air, talk to people who weren't guards or other inmates and earn some commissary money. So we had a bunch of golf carts that we used to ferry stuff around the site, and Lucky and another inmate got set back to our tool trailer to fetch something. The took the scenic route along the river bank, behind the Sea Dog micro brewery. Where they could at least smell the beer brewing.
I guess they got distracted, as they drove the golf cart over the edge into the river. Oops. To give them credit, they went and got a couple more of the inmates and lifted it back up onto the path and it was mostly undamaged. After that, the new rule was inmates couldn't drive the golf carts. Which apparently a few of them took out on Lucky the following year.
So Lucky decided to take off. Fortunately not until the third and last day of the inmates work program, because as soon as they missed Lucky, all work gang labor stopped. We managed to persuade the guards to at least feed them the lunch we had ordered. (Lobster rolls, as it turned out). So the rest of the inmates didn't have their baloney on white bread the prison kitchen sent for their lunch. Meanwhile the whole escaped prisoner rigamarole got going and our site was the center of many state troopers and search dogs for the next while.they did recapture him a day or so later, when he visited his former girlfriends place and the watching officers bagged him.
So he had behaved well enough that he was allowed on the work gang. Get outside, fresh air, talk to people who weren't guards or other inmates and earn some commissary money. So we had a bunch of golf carts that we used to ferry stuff around the site, and Lucky and another inmate got set back to our tool trailer to fetch something. The took the scenic route along the river bank, behind the Sea Dog micro brewery. Where they could at least smell the beer brewing.
I guess they got distracted, as they drove the golf cart over the edge into the river. Oops. To give them credit, they went and got a couple more of the inmates and lifted it back up onto the path and it was mostly undamaged. After that, the new rule was inmates couldn't drive the golf carts. Which apparently a few of them took out on Lucky the following year.
So Lucky decided to take off. Fortunately not until the third and last day of the inmates work program, because as soon as they missed Lucky, all work gang labor stopped. We managed to persuade the guards to at least feed them the lunch we had ordered. (Lobster rolls, as it turned out). So the rest of the inmates didn't have their baloney on white bread the prison kitchen sent for their lunch. Meanwhile the whole escaped prisoner rigamarole got going and our site was the center of many state troopers and search dogs for the next while.they did recapture him a day or so later, when he visited his former girlfriends place and the watching officers bagged him.
Pardon me while I giggle at the last bit. A lot of inmates will do that - bail, and go straight home or to the significant other's house.
We had one escape from a moving bus (at 50 mph, thank you) and break into his mom's house, then called her to let her know he was home. Big mistake; she's a dispatcher for the Sheriff's Office, so she raised the hue and cry on him.
We had one escape from a moving bus (at 50 mph, thank you) and break into his mom's house, then called her to let her know he was home. Big mistake; she's a dispatcher for the Sheriff's Office, so she raised the hue and cry on him.
Yeah. Generally, convicted inmates are not the brightest bulbs in the box. Or they have the emotional age of a child, who doesn't think about the consequences of the act, they just want whatever the immediate treat is, and can expend lots of effort and brain sweat on stealing it. Not expending the smaller amount of effort needed to earn it legitimately. Poor impulse control also plays a part.
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