Jailhouse Work Animals
Tio Mio, Jose, and Reuben
Most people who’ve never been to jail or prison figure that inmates are some of the worst employees imaginable. All they do is procrastinate, cut corners, and hide and steal when the screws aren’t looking. And in truth, many of my crimey buddies answered to that description.
But every so often, I ran into work animals whose performance on the job boggled the mind. I’d simply never seen anybody work like the three prisoners I‘m about to describe.
The first beast of burden was a Puerto Rican man named Jose. “Y” as he was called for what reason I have no idea, was big and strong — and used his size and strength to accomplish all his tasks with a flourish that impressed all who watched.
Rodriguez, one of the kitchen CO’s, used to share the criminal histories of my fellow kitchen workers with me. The familiarity officers and inmates shared might sound strange to some people. But bear in mind, I spent 6 hours a day 7 days a week in the kitchen. And if inmates did their job well, officers gave them due respect and became their friends and almost equals down in the basement.
Y was a gangbanger who Rod reported had turned no fewer than 6 people into Swiss cheese with a handgun. I don’t know if any of them died as a result. But Y had served a lot of time in the process…
