People Would Buy Tickets

Aerial View of the Nebraska State Penitentiary “Mom, I work inside a fence with 1,200 kidnappers, murderers, drug-addicts, rapists, and chimos. Perhaps this is not the exact part of the human race we want to join.”

Maybe women should run the world. Men have had their shot, and they are not showing any clear cut dominance or talent for it just yet. After all, women have half the money now, and they have always had all the pussy. If that is not the combination of the two most powerful things on the planet, I do not know what is. The trouble with this line of thinking is that there are many powerfully intelligent women in the world that think the human race can survive without men. Man as a gender or sub-species, might not last long if those women were in power.

What is questionable moral character (QMC)? Do all Marines have it? Does everybody have it? Whose perspective counts? If somebody questions you, does that make you questionable? The individual in question will usually say they do not have QMC. Others may say they do. I guarantee that most folks out there have had somebody question their moral character at one time or another. Hell, folks even questioned Jesus Christ’s moral character. That being the case, who does not have questionable moral character?

My name is Hector Batiste. Daddy said it “Bat,” like the flying mammal and “Teest,” long e in the middle, with the silent e on the end. Friends call me Heck. You might guess from my name that I am of Hispanic descent. You would be right. My father’s father was half Mexican, and that makes me an eighth Hispanic. Do not ask me what the rest is, because I have no fucking clue. I may be part Hispanic, but about the only Spanish I know is Tengo un gato de vente cinco libras en me pantelones. If I said that correctly, I have a 25-pound cat in my pants.

A friend in the Corps gave me my first valuable Spanish lesson; He said to tell the waitress,
“Dos Cervesas, por favor.”
I said, “Hey, doesn’t dos mean two?”
He replied, “Yes, you’re buying me one for the lesson.”
Above all things, I am an Old Corps Marine, and I place tremendous value on honor, integrity, and credibility, even though I sometimes struggle at maintaining them. I was born on April 14^th, the day the Titanic struck the iceberg, the same day President Lincoln was shot, and Pete Rose’s birthday. It is not outside the realm of possibility that I have a dark shadow hanging over my life. I should not be surprised that on the day of my birth, 14 April, 1954, the British Charts had Doris Day’s Secret Love listed as their number one song. Perhaps this was a bad omen.
There are three things I have faith in that I can not see: God, gravity, and electricity. I am a simple guy, and I can live with that. I like money, but I do not want to work very hard for it. I love getting drunk, but I do not like hangovers. I love pussy, but I do not like women. That could be interpreted in a lot of ways. What I really mean is, I do not want them to talk to me or have needs when I am finished. Do not lay with me, do not cuddle, just go away. If you want, you can leave me your number; make me a sandwich or a pot-pie before you go, but go. I have shit to do that does not involve you.
It is unfortunate that this lifestyle is so hard to accomplish. I am a realist. Experience has forced that down my throat. However, in the last few years, despite some difficulties, I have inched a step or two closer. That requires some explanation. Over the last few years, I have experienced some life-changing events. I received a fiveyear suspension from teaching, lost most of an eye in Iraq, and was run out of the local National Guard for questionable moral character (mostly due to the teaching suspension). At the age of 49-ish, I am starting a career in corrections and my soon-to-be-ex-wife is no longer interested in sex. I would say my life is sucking badly. Those of you with thinner skin are probably wondering why I do not just end it all, and kill myself. Well, I might. I have come up from nothing a couple times before, but I have not hit rock bottom yet. Besides, I have attended Thick-Skin 101, and…I have a girlfriend who does not suck badly.
I started “working” in corrections. In reality, I am a grossly overpaid babysitter with a benefit package. I sit on my rather large and growing ass, teasing inmates with my bon-bons for 30K per year. When I took this job, Dad told me I would be working with certifiable dullards. He must have been wrong, because since I have been here, I have met some of the smartest people. What’s that? Oh, maybe he was referring to the staff.
I have this theory about corrections and its relation to how we name our children. If you name your child Shaniqua, Sha-Cole-Slaw, or something else that makes your family tree look like the McDonald’s value menu, you have given them a predisposition for unemployment. I hope you are not named after the special sauce. Please, stop naming your kids after hefty garbage sacks, household products, and tampons. Nobody will hire your daughter if their name is Velveeta, Stay-free, Always, or Freedom. That gives them a predisposition for doing crimes. Then they become single mothers, and have sons who perpetuate the process.
If you are named after a season, a seasoning, precipitation, or a confectionary product, you have a predisposition to be a hooker or a stripper. That does not mean I will not like you, but it does mean you will dance on tables and perhaps stand in line for cheese later in life.
In addition to my full-time work, I collect a nice supplement to my state income from a National Guard unit across the state line in Missouri, and an additional bonus from the Veterans’ Administration for permanent partial disabilities suffered during a sandstorm in the war on terrorism in January of 2004. It is not completely work-free, but it is an arrangement with which I can live comfortably.
The hangover dilemma is not completely fixed yet, but Captain Morgan followed by lots of water and aspirin is very close. If I could just stay away from Anheuser-Busch products, I would have it made. They seem to have the most negative impact on me. But who am I to turn down a free, cold beer? It is, after all, a Marine’s favorite.
Now, if I could just keep supplied with constant “strange” about four or five times a week, I would be Golden. Why, you might ask? Women are interesting. They have more crevices. In fact, the only bad camel toe I have seen was on a camel. For now, I watch a lot of Bang Brothers, wear out penis-pumps, and collect women that settle for 20 to 30 minutes without needing anything further. Needing more than that causes me to invoke the lemon law. You are probably wondering how that is working for me. Not too good at this point. Hey, I am hung like Einstein and smart as a horse. I wish it was the reverse, but I have to live with what I have been given.

Between quaffing Captains, I have seven very inconsistent “booty calls” I can make. Most of them are heavier than the norm, but heavy girls like me, and I like them. You might say, “I’m down with the thickness.”
One of them lives in New Orleans, and only works out about four times a year when she is home visiting family. The last time I was down there to see her was prior to Katrina and the Waves coming to town (oh did they bring the house down). She is so hot if she had a dick I would suck it. Her specialty is head in the front seat. I would get a hotel, but my Calvinist upbringing prohibits me from throwing away money. She even has cute feet.
Another piece is local, but works out only about once a month. She sucks like a Royals’ relief pitcher. I have concerns about her because I am relatively certain that I am not the only one puttin’ the wood to her. Let us just say that I know she could take a transplant, because her body has not rejected an organ in ten years.
Two others work about once a week, but one of them is really high maintenance. She makes incredible efforts to remain attractive…going to the spa, the gym, and makeup/hair-removal artists frequently. Like Ann Margaret in Grumpy Old Men, they spackled her good. The other weekly could ruin a marriage…or save it, depending on your perspective. She is so hot the Rice Krispies are speechless. As Dr. Phil would say, “She was as handy as a pocket on a shirt.”
The fifth is head-over-heels in love, and unfortunately I have verbally reciprocated. I would cut her loose, but, she has DSLs and these giant titties, and I guess I love pussy more than I want to protect anybody’s feelings. She is Irish, and awfully proud of it. You would think that she is a direct descendant of St. Fucking Patrick. Any in depth conversation with her includes the statement, “Freud said that the Irish are the only people that are impervious to psychoanalysis.”
I always reply, “They can’t even rule their own fucking island.” That probably makes me an asshole, but I can live with that.
Six and seven are my Missouri strange connection when I attend my monthly Air National Guard drills in St. Joe. One of them, Lori, is a funeral director from St. Joseph, and the other, Amber (I call her Amber the Tight), is worth the drive to Chillicothe. Amber and I met in the strangest way. I had just dropped off a guy from my shop that lived on the outskirts of Chillicothe. On my way out of town, this young girl was sitting on the side of the road on the hood of her car. I am not usually helpful, but she was just as cute as a speckled pup. I pulled in behind her and started walking toward her car. She saw the uniform and just started dripping. Do not ask me how she did it. Amber claims she felt like she had a flat, so she pulled over to check it. Much to her relief, the tires were all fine. Returning to her driver’s side door, she found the car to be locked, with the keys inside. When I got close to her, she almost whispered, “You get me out of this…I’ll suck your dick for a week.” It does not take much more incentive than that. I took a wire hangar out of my uniform bag, and in less than two minutes had manipulated its old shape into a Slim Jim. Five minutes after that, well, it started off to be a great week. Amber is so flexible, she can almost lick my nuts from the reverse cowboy position. It does not hurt that she is barely twenty. We are not going to the bar anyway. I know, I know. I might get herpes just from writing this.
Back in the day when I had thoughts about marriage, I had compared theories regarding what to look for in a marriage partner. The Old School went something like this: Find somebody with conversation skills because when the desire or ability to screw fades, you will need it. I call bullshit. Find someone who likes to screw. If you do not, by the time you get to the point where your erogenous zones are non-existent, you will not want to talk to them anyway. Finding someone cute, who likes to shag will keep you happy now, and allow you time to learn to love your partner. By the time you are in your 50s or 60s, you will have loved and gained a relationship you can talk about. You will also know where the elusive G-spot is located. Why Ernst Grafenberg did not just tell us all a long friggin’ time ago is the biggest mystery. I fell for the marriage thing once, and as soon as she crossed the threshold as Mrs. Batiste, the campaign started for me to change.
Ambitious thoughts are gravitating toward how easy and enjoyable I can make this life, and no, I am not assuming there is another. Achievement and accomplishment are great. I have achieved, and I have accomplished. Now I want to do something else. I want to think, or not. I want to sleep a lot. I want to watch TV (Mostly sports). What I do not want is to be bothered. Call me lazy, I do not care. Waste your life criticizing mine. Do what you have to do. I am not sure there is anything left to accomplish before settling in for the big dirt nap.
Everybody that has ever wanted me to do or be something did so for their own agenda. Bless their hearts, my folks wanted somebody to brag about. The soon-to-be-ex-wife wanted a breadwinner (I am talking about a great deal of bread here). Maybe I learned something from my kids. Just be happy. Try to keep happy those for whom you are responsible, and then do what you have to in order to be happy yourself. Do not care who it impresses or does not impress.
Other than permanently earning the title, “United States Marine” back in 1972, my greatest accomplishment was being the 99^th Knight to be knighted in the Lords and Ladies Pub in Kailua, Hawaii. It would take me 13 weeks to describe boot camp, and there are multiple movies produced and books written about it already, so you will get no boot camp history lesson from me (I recommend the movie, Full Metal Jacket, and any book by W.E.B. Griffin.).
Briefly, to be knighted in the Lords and Ladies Pub, you needed to pass the test, or the rites of Knighthood. This task was considerably more difficult than what Sir Paul McCartney or Sir Tom Jones might have gone through. The sole criterion was that you consumed 99 different alcoholic beverages on the premises, in a period of one week, and you would be timed to the minute. Not too tough, some of you might say, after the quick public math tells you it is a little over 14 beers a day. Now consider that they were all of the imported variety. Remember, domestic means tame. If that still does not appear too daunting a task, I am worried about you.
It was not that I wanted to upstage my Knighthood. I did not even set out to accomplish anything. I just had an interest in being a Private Investigator. The version of PI that I had previously seen on the tube intrigued me. Magnum was cool, and he got a ton of strange cooze. It was a sexy occupation. After completing the 15-week, on-line training, and license application through the state, I sent off for the badge, via FedEx overnight. It was actually a bi-fold wallet with a built-in badge that you could flip open to really impress the chicks. Too bad I could not afford the red Ferrari (not even the rental).
I knew there was not much demand for Private Investigators in Lincoln, Nebraska, so I continued to serve my country in an Air National Guard unit across the line in Mo. St. Jo, and I kept the state job as a security guard at the State Penitentiary. In the beginning, I took a few jobs helping out some insurance company. They had a hunch that some of their clients had lied about disability claims, and they wanted me to catch them scooping snow, or carrying a piano. Many things in life are indelible; becoming a priest, for example. You are a priest forever, because of the holy orders. When you are baptized, you are forever a Christian. When you graduate MCRD, you are forever a Marine. Perhaps the best example is this: People are cheaters, and they will cheat the system.
Surveillance became pretty boring stuff. Spending hours peering through the end of a video camera lens was not what I had imagined. It was not adding to my collection of strange either.
Enough about me. This story is not about me. It is about my friend…uh…acquaintance, Charlie Mount. I guess it would not be so bad to continue calling Charlie my friend, but the idea of distancing myself from him is better for now.
We started calling him Count years ago, and I can not remember exactly why. It might have had something to do with counting inmates at the correctional facility, or it might have been a Dracula-like costume he wore for a Halloween party. Those choices would be too clever. More than likely, somebody fat-fingered his last name while typing, or mispronounced it in roll-call and the moniker stuck.
Count and I have a lot in common, and perhaps that is the reason we began to hang out together. There is considerable difference in our ages, almost 10 years, but not in our collective experiences. We are both prior service Marines, and we both currently serve in the National Guard, albeit in different states. In addition, we both work for the Department of Corrections. The odds against that would appear pretty high to an outsider, but they are not if you consider a few things. Count’s local Army National Guard unit is a Huey-helicopter maintenance outfit composed of about 15% prior service Marines. My previously mentioned unit in the Air National Guard is also close, with an equally high percentage of Marines. This may be because former Marines in the Lincoln area do not have many reserve options when they leave active duty. The closest Marine reserve unit is in Omaha, and it would seem from insiders that their primary mission is running the state’s Toys For Tots Campaign. Do not misunderstand me, Toys For Tots is a worthy idea, but it should not be the primary responsibility of a Marine Corps unit that should be preparing for war. In addition to that, the Omaha unit has nothing to do with aviation. Marine Air-Wingers that return to Lincoln typically change branches, if and when they enter the reserves.
The Department of Corrections nation-wide employs a large percentage of prior service military people because the nature of the business is security and managing prisoners. Hell, the most important part of the interview is when they ask, “Can you shoot a person?” Perhaps that is why the department attracts a large percentage of Marines and soldiers. In spite of my answer, “Where do you want him shot?” they hired me anyway.
Other than our Marine Corps backgrounds, Count and I are very different individuals, and have no grounds on which to base our friendship. We were tight during the first several years, but ironically, Count’s inability to grow out of the juvenile behavior that humored him, caused me to lose respect. We kept in touch, but drifted apart. Our correspondence dwindled to an annual Marine Corps reunion during the second week of November and a handful of forwarded email jokes.
This story reveals how I realized that there is a huge difference between real friends and drinking buddies, even if they are my Marine brothers.
Count served in the United States Marine Corps as an Avionics Technician on the CH-46E Sea Knight helicopter. That much I know to be true. What follows is neither true nor false, but what I have been told. He claims to have been trained as a door-gunner, and to have invaded the small country of Grenada in late October of 1983, shortly after his 19^th birthday. I have caught him claiming many things that he had no involvement with over the past few years of “bar stories” so I would not bet my paycheck on any of his proclamations. In fact, on occasion, I have heard him tell stories that sounded remarkably like stories I had previously told him. Most of the stories were lies when they came out of my mouth, so I can not be terribly critical.
Count has more problems in his life than normal. He has made some shady investment deals, and I have dipped into some conversations he has had at work. After sharing some of his financial woes with the inmates, they have quietly offered some money-making opportunities to him. I suspect that he may be trafficking tobacco to the inmates. I am not too sure that Count will not be an inmate soon, but for now, he just works there with me.
Count’s worst problem came up just recently, and he does not even know about it yet. I was contacted a few months ago by a Mrs. Claire Mount, Count’s wife. Claire is an oxymoron. I should say her appearance represents one. If you do not know what an oxymoron is, the best way I can describe it is a term where words are used to describe something contradictory or just the opposite of the root word. I am not even sure my definition helps. Perhaps the best way to explain it since I do not have a Webster handy is to provide you with examples. For example: jumbo-shrimp, military intelligence, or she’s pretty ugly.
Claire Mount’s oxymoronic nomenclature: Petite Bohemian. Claire was about 5’ 110 lbs. You could not tell by looking at her, but she worked her ass off (literally) to keep the weight off. If anybody had a genetic predisposition to be heavy, she did.
More than anything, Claire wanted her husband’s love. The trouble was, she had no earthly idea how to show him that. For now, Claire wanted her husband investigated, and she was not aware that I knew her husband. For all she knew, I was a full-time Private Investigator. Had she known I was an employee of the Department of Corrections, and a prior service Marine, she would have definitely shied away from using my services. You have learned enough about me to know that cash is King. Claire paid me nicely, and I think if I play my cards right, I may be able to add her to the list of 20-minute shags in the future if I prove her theory.
There is no “going-rate” for investigative services in Lincoln, Nebraska, so I could charge just about any reasonable amount. Mrs. Mount suspected that her husband was cheating on her. I could have told Claire that Charlie was cheating prior to being hired, but that might be detrimental to my financial outcome, and I was not sure just yet if I could be a snitch. My first real case as a private investigator would be easy. The difficulty would be deciding who to tell, and what to tell, and when or if I could tell at all.

“Do you know why I’m here? Do you?”
“Did a flare gun go off in your locker, or did you tape someone’s butt cheeks together?”

The day after Memorial Day, Tuesday, May 27, 2003, I began my career in corrections. I walked into a room of over 40 people that I had never met before. Lincoln is not that large of a city, at almost a quarter-million. The chances of not knowing a single individual out of 40 is something I can not figure out by performing basic math. I took the first empty seat I could find about half-way back into the classroom. Glancing around the room made me think about what I was getting myself into. About half a dozen gals, clearly nurses and secretaries, were part of the group. Office staff, mental health professionals, and caseworkers would make up another small group. A large majority of the remaining people, including me, would be correctional officers.

Christian Leuenberger occupied the seat next to me on my left. Barely 19 years of age, Leu (Lou) measured about 6’4” and all of 300 lbs. He was right out of high school, with all the weight-lifting records intact. His smile was the only part of him that did not move fast. I naturally started talking to him, and discovered that we were natives of the same home town. Leu wound up being my partner for a class called Pressure Point Control Tactics (PPCT). Age forty-nine was just six weeks behind me, and I was learning tactics to control inmates. The young Grizzly Adams replica basically kicked the shit out of me for a week. Imagine a combination of Tigger grabbing his toes and bouncin’ on his ass and Clifford (The Big Red Dog) rolling in the grass. That was Leu. My career was just beginning. If we had done PPCT for another week, it would have just ended.

Every person hired by the state that will have contact with inmates must attend training at the Staff Training Academy. The state of Nebraska purchased and renovated Whitehall Elementary School at 56^th and Walker for that purpose. What do all Nebraska Correctional Employees have in common? Well, we all went to the same Elementary School…

The Department of Correctional Services Staff Training Academy, located at Whitehall School at the corner of 56^th and Walker Street.

While I had no intention of ever working this career field, the thought of being a correctional employee is not entirely foreign to me. I have had dreams in the past about working in corrections.

Realistically, binding female prisoners is not something I could really do, but the concept was fun to fantasize about in my youth. Those fantasies resulted in a great many nocturnal emissions. I would not be the ideal warden at the Penitentiary for Women, unless it became legal to have sex with an incarcerated person. Perhaps it is a good thing I do not work in a female prison. I might get a ton of pussy up until the point one of them wanted me in jail for something else I would not give them. It is currently a felony to have sex with an inmate in the state of Nebraska, even if they consent. I figure I would last about two days, maybe a week tops. That time frame is my prediction regarding when I would get caught, not when I would get started after the box.

“You can tell he’s new, because he swears up and down that he doesn’t masturbate, and will never go down on a woman.”

Before my first day of work at the Diagnostic and Evaluation Center, still during my pre-service time, we had a week of On-The-Job Training (OJT). I was taken on a tour of some of the other facilities in the Department with a small handful of other new-hires. We started at the flagship, The Nebraska State Penitentiary. The electric chair looked so fucking deadly it made me giggle and blush! I quickly learned that the word describing our department and what we supposedly do, Corrections, is a misnomer. We do not correct anybody. Perhaps small factions of us make an attempt. Penitentiary is close, because inmates do penance, even if they are not penitent. That concept is close to showing respect without having any. It would not be right to call it a human storage facility, but that would be the most accurate terminology. Not that the department is looking to rename itself, but perhaps human life-delaying facility or some form of that could be the new term for Corrections.

When I finally arrived at my permanent facility, the Diagnostic and Evaluation Center, I was still nervous. The place was a fucking shit-hole. You could probably file for a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) when you leave because everything here is an assault on your senses. I wanted to make a good impression, but I knew I would get fucked with. I imagined it would be a lot like being the new guy (FNG) in a Marine Corps unit. My trainer, Fred (nickname), was a veteran of Corrections, but a lovely young lady nonetheless. She was hot, and her father was a hero of the department, having survived a brutal attack from two inmates many years ago. She had a potty-mouth, but I enjoyed being around her anyway. Mostly because she was hot. She had plenty of knowledge to share, but did not share much. She had a real bad attitude. I still liked her. Did I mention that she was hot?

My training did not last long. There is not much to teach when it comes to running a control station. Most of it you get by experience. The post I was watching was a control station where I operated the doors electronically for two units via touch-screen. One of the units was out in their yard area, and the other was in the gymnasium. I was alone and I needed to take a piss. My post had a bathroom, but closing the door to it meant you took your eyes off of the post that you were supposed to keep in constant view. The radio code at our facility for a bathroom break was 10-100, but I had no radio. Most of you are thinking, “What could happen?” In hindsight, probably not much, but nevertheless my condition did not change, and I was not going to quit my post without proper relief (General Order #5, for you non-Marines.).

I began to consider my options. The radios were taken by the floor corporals that accompanied their units to their current locations. All I had was a phone. I called master control to page a utility, but they informed me that there were only two on duty, and it was not likely that they could come for me. I could break the rules, and just use the dang bathroom. Hell, it was four feet away. I could leave the door open and hear if anything happened. I could use my water bottle. I could line the trash can with paper towels and piss in there. I could piss my pants, but I had grown out of that thrill. I began to restock supplies and clean the control station to take my mind off of the pressure. What would the consequences be if I got caught in the bathroom? I called my trainer at another post and asked her what to do.

“Are you somehow impaired? Just go!” Word got around that I was acting way too paranoid and new for a veteran Marine. I received some other phone calls.

“Hey retard, did you forget your helmet today?” “Ya want me to 54 your back-door?”
“I bet the slick people in your family already own their

“You pussy, you can’t pee anyway with your dick in your wife’s purse!”
“You’re no more daring than eating an apple in the dark!”
Officer Mike Jepsen called me and finally talked me into using the bathroom. It was not so much the “What’s the worst thing that could happen?” comment but probably the “I bet you gotta pee worse than a three-cunted caribou on a bamboo bridge.” That made me have to pee. I just could not hold it anymore. If I did not use the bathroom, I would have unwillingly used my pants.

The electric chair at the Nebraska State Penitentiary.

“If you keep fucking with me, the next time the deputy warden comes out here, I’m throwing everybody under the bus.”

There are many things you can not do within the confines of the Department of Corrections, but one stands out above all. You can not tell a secret and expect it to remain one. Confidentiality does not exist. You can not tell a story to anybody, not inmate or staff. There can be a benefit to this. If there is some news that you want to get out, or a rumor that you want to spread, the grapevine will ensure that it happens instantaneously.

That said, I have to tell you about the exception. There is an exception to every rule. Greg Radden (Why yes, he is a Marine as well.) or, by his nick-name, G-Rad, will keep your secrets, and it