PRISON DOES NOT MAKE BAD PEOPLE GOOD
(AND OTHER IMPORTANT THINGS I LEARNED IN PRISON)
By Eric B Hunt
The reality hadn’t quite struck me yet, when the Officer ordered me to face the cement wall while he removed the handcuffs from my wrists. He told me to continue facing the wall and he backed out of the cell. It was cold in the tiny, concrete room but I was still soaked in sweat from the ride in the backseat of the RCMP cruiser. The Officer ordered me to sit on the concrete bench and remove my socks. I did as I was told, and he abruptly slammed the steel door. The sound of the door closing and the magnetic lock fastening itself was exactly like it is in prison movies. It echoed for a long time then the cold, cement room became eerily quiet. The city holding cells are eight feet by twelve feet in size with a steel, seat less toilet in one corner and a concrete slab/bench/bed. There are no bars, just a heavy, solid steel door with a small slot at eye level – to speak through – and another at about knee-height – where they shove your meals through. A large, archaic-looking camera dangles precariously from the ceiling, seemingly pointed in no particular direction yet you can’t help but feel like it is staring at you no matter where you are in the cold room. Prior to being escorted to the holding cell, you are stopped at a desk where a very bored looking man takes a photo of you then orders you to remove your shoes, belt, watch and any jewelry, essentially, anything you might be able to harm yourself with while in the cell. He empties your pockets, stuffs everything carelessly into a large Ziplock bag and has you sign a piece of paper acknowledging the contents of the bag. It’s oddly emaciating to find yourself sitting in a tiny, cold room without your shoes, without your belt; absolutely nothing to occupy your mind except curiosity about what exactly that damn camera is looking at. The quiet is haunting. You sigh a lot, just to break the silence. I felt rather fortunate that I’d spent the previous night painting and making music rather than sleeping at all. I couldn’t be sure of the time of day (some time around three in the afternoon, I guessed) but I found myself dozing off as I sat in the silence. I propped my back against the hard, beige wall and closed my eyes. A loud, sharp sound of scraping steel startled me out of my nap, like a sword being pulled from a scabbard in a movie. It was the knee-high slot in the steel, cell door sliding open. A wool blanket was awkwardly forced through the opening and the tiny, sliding door was slammed shut with unnecessary force. “Hey… Hey, what time is it?”
Silence.
I stood, my hips ached from my uncomfortable slumber on the cold, cement slab. I collected the blanket and pressed my face against the steel door. “Hello? What time is it, please?” Silence. I folded the rough blanket into quarters and used it as a makeshift mattress. I rolled my socks together into a ball for a pillow and pulled my arms into the sleeves of my shirt. Again, I drifted off to sleep surprisingly quickly. This time, I had a dream.
I dreamed about buying an R.V. with my ex-fiancée, Angie. We were in Calgary; it was summer, and we were young. She looked stunning, her Almond hair swaying in the breeze, her azure eyes glistening in the afternoon sun. She was laughing at something I was saying, and it felt wonderful. We were preparing for some sort of trip. It felt incredible to be in love with her again. Then a cloud started to form in the sky, and I saw Angie sitting with a suitcase on her lap. She was crying. I realized at that moment that we were not going on a trip, she was going on a trip, without me. Suddenly, I was alone, standing in an old, run-down motorhome. There was a loud wind, the vehicle began filling with water. I struggled to swim to the door, but the strength of the rushing water pulled me back and started filling my throat. I thrashed violently, trying to stay afloat.
Then, the jailcell wall struck my face, like a fist to my jaw and I awoke. In that moment, everything felt very real. I was sweating and shivering. It was very dark and very quiet. And I was in jail. I held my hands over my face and began sobbing. I pulled my head into my shirt and wept. I had never before felt as alone as I did in that moment. ******************************************************************************************
I have never really been excited by the concept of committing a crime. Something about it always struck me as unappealing. Even as a teen, whatever I happened to be doing at any given time seemed to me to be a lot more fun than whatever the bad kids were up to. Don’t let me fool you, I am no saint and never was. I have done a bunch of things I am not proud of. However, I do tend toward trying my hardest to avoid criminal activity. That being said, the thought of me ever being in prison was, until very recently, simply absurd. To be perfectly honest, I never really thought about it. I mean, sure, we’ve all imagined ourselves in Shawshank and believed we would be as cool as Andy Dufresne. Or daydreamed about being Tango or Cash or both. But I had never really taken any time to wonder what I would actually be like in jail. And, as far as I was concerned, I wouldn’t have to find out in this lifetime. ******************************************************************************************
I didn’t notice that I’d once again fallen asleep until the little steel slot shrieked at me again. This time a brown, paper bag was stuffed through the hole and fell to the floor. Again, the slot was forced shut with vengeance. The paper bag contained a pre-packaged, boiled egg, a children’s juice box (artificial peachflavored, to add insult to injury) and a granola bar. I assumed from the contents that it was breakfast time, I didn’t bother attempting to ask again. I ate slowly, first the granola bar, while I read the nutritional information on the side of the juice. I kept the boiled egg in its plastic wrap and rolled it along the bench. Then I scooped it up and bounced it off the wall. The egg was grey and felt like the rubber center you encounter when you cut through a golf ball with a hack saw. I avoid eating eggs at the best of times however, I was quite happy to have a toy to entertain myself. After a few tosses against the wall, the egg broke into pieces and my game was over. I returned to my wool-blanket-cushion-bed and closed my eyes. Before I managed to fall asleep, that familiar movie-sound of a prison door echoed through my little room. The heavy slab of iron swung open; a grey-haired Constable shook a heavy set of keys at me.
“You’ll see the JP now. Phone-court. Follow me.”
And I did. The Officer walked slowly; I trailed behind. I thought of trying to exchange pleasantries but decided against it. Nothing about the situation was particularly pleasant from my point of view, I couldn’t imagine him thinking much differently. I was led into a little room with a wooden chair and a phone on the wall – just like in the movies when an inmate has a visitor. Except, in my case, on the other side of the glass was a large, flatscreen TV with a webcam mounted to it. As I sat in the little chair, the screen switched on and I was staring into a court room filled with people in suits. A female voice boomed through the phone receiver.
“Can you hear us, Mister Hunt?”
“Loud and clear, Ma’am. I mean, your Honor… Your Worship? Judge?”
“Good, will the Crown Proceed…”
A very business-like Lady in a very business-like suit stood in front of a podium and addressed the court. Her business, it would become evident, was fucking me in the ass, slowly, hard and repeatedly.
“Thank you, Your honor. Mister Hunt is here with us today because, at approximately two pm, yesterday afternoon, RCMP scanned a license plate on a Nissan Rogue and found the description of the Vehicle Owner did not match the Driver. That Officer made the decision to stop the Vehicle where it was then discovered that the driver of the vehicle was Mister Hunt. Mister Hunt is a prohibited driver under section 93 of the motor vehicle act and also has a warrant for failing to appear in court on a previous driving while prohibited charge. Mister Hunt was arrested without incident and indicated that he would not speak to the RCMP until he was provided with a court-appointed Attorney. Mister Hunt also demanded that the RCMP speak to him at all times in French, as it is his right to be served by the RCMP in either of Canada’s Official languages. Constable Rodway does not speak French so they had to wait on scene until a French speaking Officer could attend. During this time, Mister Hunt repeatedly complained about being too hot and said he was passing out. Constable Rodway noted that Mister Hunt was complaining in English to which Mister Hunt replied it was his constitutional right to do so. Mister Hunt has six charges before the court, dating back to May of 2021, all driving while prohibited. He has two warrants, one in Kelowna another in Vernon and was found to be in breach of a court ordered condition to not occupy the driver’s seat of a vehicle. The Crown would like to make a motion that Mister Hunt is not taking these charges seriously and has missed three court appearances. It is the position of the Crown that Mister Hunt will likely not attend court if he is released today. The Crown would like to make a motion to have Mister Hunt detained until he can see a Judge.”
“And what is the Defense’s answer to this?” asked the Judge.
A very distracted looking man in a wrinkled suit switched places with my Rapist at the podium.
“Grant Gray, representing Mister Hunt today, your Honor. Mister Hunt has indicated to me that he understands the charges before the court. With All due respect to My Friend, Judge, Mister Hunt has no criminal history. He was arrested without incident and admitted to the Arresting Officer that he was a Prohib. Defense moves that Mister Hunt be released on a seven-hundred-and-fifty-dollar surety and a promise to appear.”
“The Court tends to lean toward agreeing with Crown on this today. Mister Hunt will be detained in a Provincial Facility until his Court date. Has he set a date, Mister Gray?”
“No, Your Honor.” “Crown is showing an opening on the Twenty-ninth, Judge.”
“Done, Mister Hunt, you will be detained in a medium-security prison until June the Twenty Ninth at Nine am. Thank -You”. The TV screen went blank. What did that mean? The door opened behind me. “All done, here?”
“What did that mean?”
“What’d the Judge tell ya?”
“Something about holding till the twenty-ninth!”
“Means they’re holdin ya till the Twenty-ninth.”
“Here?”
“No, not here” heh heh. “Probably Oliver.”
I was taken back to my cell. Cue Movie-door. And cut. My blanket was missing. And my egg. The Grey-Haired Officer stuffed my shoes through the door-slot and told me to put them on and face the wall. He came in behind me and cuffed my wrists. The cuffs were then locked in an iron box. Leg irons were locked around my ankles.
“Follow that guy.”
Grey-Hair pointed at an Asian Man in a brown uniform. A Sherriff. The Asian Man smiled.
“Hi!” He greeted. “I’m your Chauffer.”
“Great.”
“Let’s go. There’s construction on the highway. Long drive today.”
I was placed in a small, plexiglass cube in the back of a cargo van. It was like a dog-kennel. It smelled like vomit. And sweat. The van lunged forward, I slid off the seat and my chest struck the wall of my plastic cage. As it did, the cuff on my right wrist clicked twice and twisted my arm awkwardly. I guessed that saying anything was useless, the Sheriff probably couldn’t hear me. I put my head down and I cried. I cried hard. I had driven to Oliver a week prior to all of this, it’s one of my favorite stretches of road to travel. It’s gorgeous, the highway is lined on both sides by giant, sprawling orchards. The road follows the lake as it winds through Penticton and Okanagan Falls. It’s like driving through a postcard. In a dog-kennel sized plastic vomit-box, with your hands bound and twisted into a sprain, the event loses some of its charm. It was hot, and slow. All I could hear was the diesel engine echoing off the sides of the otherwise, empty cargo van. I looked toward the front of the vehicle and watched my driver open a can of pop then turn up his radio. And I cried some more. He was right, in the beginning. A massive convoy of trucks was repaving the highway through Summerland, making the trip take an extra hour. I wanted to be annoyed by it, but I supposed I wasn’t really in a rush to get to my destination. I have a lot of friends who are really excellent friends and really horrible people. I’ve heard dozens of stories about prison. About gang violence. About the rules. About the White Supremacists. I had no desire to see it first-hand. We pulled into a van-sized tunnel and stopped. My driver opened my kennel and took me by the arm into a familiar looking cement room. He said nothing, just closed the movie door and left. I began to shake. Uncontrollably. I just stood there, terrified and shaking. Soon the door opened and a female, Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonator grabbed my arm.
“This way.” “
To the chopper?”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
I was told to stand facing a desk that had three other prison guards behind it.
“Strip.”
“Here?”
“Yep. Let’s go!”
I pulled off my shirt and pants. I don’t wear underwear most of the time and I never got my socks back from the other guys. I stood naked facing the guards.
“Squat and spread your cheeks.” “Show me the bottoms of your feet… Open your mouth…. Wider…. Palms of your hands… Spread your fingers…. good.”
The Guards were all busy with some sort of paperwork – everything in our prison system is pen and paper. No computers. No efficiency. I watched them all scribbling away, naked in front of their desk. I couldn’t help wondering what they were writing. Under those circumstances, your gear doesn’t really bring its A-Game for the show. Moderately embarrassing. A fourth Guard appeared out of nowhere and shoved a heavy, mesh bag into my chest hard. I stumbled a bit.
“Clothes are in there along with your bed roll and chow-tray. Laundry is Monday, if you have any special requests, extra socks, sweater, tell ’em on Monday, I don’t care. Dress.”
I was given blue boxer shorts, red pajama pants and a red T-shirt. And blue socks. The bag that the guard assaulted me with was stuffed with seven of everything. I kind of thought that was excessive, seven sets of clothes for a bunch of guys who can’t go outside or do anything. (It was later made very clear to me by my Unit-Mentor that it was mandatory for every inmate to shower and change his clothes every day. Regardless of if you get out of bed that day or not. Hygiene is a big deal inside.) Arnold led me through a labyrinth of stark, white hallways with one of those movie doors about every thirty feet. Every hallway was exactly the same, but they went in four different directions. How anybody ever made it anywhere astounded me. The final Movie-door had LIVING UNIT printed on it in the center of a huge, Orange CW.
“Here’s your new home, Hunt. Charlie West.”
Fuck it, I was not Andy Dufresne! Not Tango! Not Cash! Not the dudes in All the Pretty Horses! Not even the dudes in the shit Eddie Murphy/Martin Lawrence movie! I started bawling. And shaking.
“It’s a good unit, Hunt. You’ll be okay.”
Arnold said with a surprisingly comforting smile. She motioned like she was going to pat me on the back, I appreciated the gesture. Instead, she shoved me hard through the doorway and slammed the steel slab with such force, the real Terminator would have been proud. I entered the unit with my shoulders hung low and my face swollen from crying. There was no point in trying to hide it. It was mealtime, a couple of guys looked up as I slumped to the Guard’s desk but mostly, all the inmates were busy filling their faces. The Guard at the desk was an Indian guy (Dots, not Feathers). His uniform was stretched over his massive chest and complimented terrifyingly by a pristinely wrapped, black turban. He was a monster; his arms were as thick as my thighs. He said nothing to me, just waved at one of the inmates. That was Abbas – the Unit Mentor. He was a Palestinian guy about my age, serving a six-year sentence for car-theft and kidnapping. He recognized me as soon as he saw me, I had no idea who he was.
“You unlock I-phones.” He said as he approached, not as if he was explaining how he knew me but more like he was educating me.
*****************************************************************************************
I have a talent for getting around passwords and device locks on mobile phones. A skill I picked up living on the street in Vancouver. It’s a fantastic way to earn a lot of money without robbing anybody. (Alright, alright. Most of the time I was employed by people who had recently robbed somebody, I know this. But I did not do any robbing.) About a year earlier, a friend of mine sent me to Abbas’s house to unlock a bunch of phones for him. He had a dozen that had to be done urgently and he offered me sixty bucks each. Certain Iphones can’t be hacked without a computer. More precisely, only the I-phone X. Most devices just require you to enter a couple of codes or go in through a back-door and change a password or two. They take seconds to break. The I-phone X requires a particular software program to jailbreak. I have never met a Hacker who is able to do it without. Abbas is not a nice person. He is also not a patient person. When I was sent to work for him, he was strung out on meth and incredibly paranoid. I sat on his couch – the only piece of furniture I saw in a two thousand square-foot, three-bedroom apartment – he handed me a laundry basket filled with phones and I got to work.
“Buddy told me you had some important ones you wanted done first.” I explained as I busted a couple of Samsungs with my eyes closed. The very high, very scary Palestinian looked impressed as he watched me work.
“Ya,” he said and started rifling through the laundry basket like he was trying to save a drowning Puppy. “These ones.” (Anybody who knows anything about my life knows exactly what I am about to tell you. But bear with me on behalf of the uninitiated.) Abbas proceeded to pull twelve I-phone X’s out of the basket and pile them in my lap. Fuck. Stay calm. At the time it was more likely that you would spot a sasquatch in the city than spot me without my Lenovo laptop. I dragged it everywhere with me for occasions such as this. However, Abbas couldn’t comprehend why the Samsung Galaxies had been so quick and easy and now I was taking so much time. I explained, in the simplest terms I could that All cell phones use different software. I-phone operating systems are hyper-focused on encryption making them difficult to hack. Android phones are produced with varying types of software and also manufactured by various companies. Two identical Samsung phones may be equipped with completely different parts and programming. This makes it impossible for them to utilize one type of encryption, so they simply throw in whatever is available. It’s like having a bunch of really good safes but not enough combinations to lock them. I might as well have told him all this in Korean. Abbas had no idea what I was telling him. Making the whole situation worse, the Wi-Fi in his apartment was awful and I was struggling to stay online. I cracked two phones in about three hours and gave up. I apologized and tried to excuse myself. Abbas reached into a kitchen cupboard and pulled out a sawed-off shot gun. He started scratching his temple with the barrel and tilting his head from side to side. His eyes were bloodshot and wild.
“So, what you are telling me is that you cannot unlock these phones?” He pointed the gun at me and waited for me to speak.
“No, no. Not at all. I can do them. But I need a lot more time and a better Wi-fi connection.”
“Just do them like the others!” He bellowed, waving his shot gun around like a child trying to hit a piñata.
“My friend, they don’t work that way. Cannot be done. Let me take these ones to the library. I can have them done by morning. No charge.” Trying to convince an enraged, middle Eastern man on a week-long meth binge to let you take his stolen property for the night feels very much the way I imagine trying to ask a shark not to bite you feels. Or pleading with a volcano to not erupt. Or so many other things that can’t understand you and don’t care and cause pain for their amusement. By the grace of God, as Abbas contemplated all the different ways he wanted to end my life, his girlfriend woke up in one of the furniture less bedrooms and instantly began screaming as if her hair was on fire. Abbas threw the shotgun across the apartment, into the kitchen sink, and took off like he was stealing second base. The commotion that began as soon as he entered the bedroom was a very good indicator of why Middle Eastern countries are in such fantastic condition all the time. I didn’t miss a beat. I grabbed my laptop, a nice shard of meth as a gratuity and ran from Orchard Park mall to Downtown Kelowna in about four minutes*.
*That is a distance of 4.2 kilometers. To run it in four minutes would have required me to be travelling at more than double the maximum speed a human being can conceivably run. Sometimes, I hyperbolize, get over it. ***************************************************************************************** Abbas approached the Guard’s desk and immediately put his arm around my shoulder.
“Why are you here?”
“Car trouble. You?”
“Kidnapping, unlawful confinement, auto -theft and possession of an automatic weapon.”
“Oh, so kinda the same!” I joked.
“Six years, Bro. If I’m lucky.”
As I understood it at that time, I was being held until June Twenty-ninth. It was June Twenty-seventh when I arrived. I kept this fact to myself while Abbas proceeded to take me on a tour of our home. I’d either sound like I was bragging or like I was the biggest pussy in the history of crime, blubbering over two days to a guy staring at the business end of half-a-decade.
Charlie West is one of four units at the Okanagan Correctional Center, a big, cement octagon – three stories high -lined on three sides with rows of those movie-doors. It seriously looked like a movie. Each floor had a payphone at either end. And a set of metal shower stalls in the center. There is a kitchen on the first floor, next to a small library. Next to that is the imposing Guard Station. On the other side is a gym and the door to the yard. In the center of it all sits six metal picnic tables with five metal seats – like the ones you see in fast-food joints. At the back of the room is a long table lined on both sides with reclining lounge chairs. That is where the Back table Boys eat. These are the Heavies. Mostly gang members or affiliates. I was told all the guys in OCC are Red Scorpions (the gang founded by BC’ Celebrity Biker-Murderers, the Bacon Brothers.). The system tries their best to send rival gangs to different prisons these days.
“Don’t take anything off that table, Bro. It’s not for you. You need something you come to me.”
“Gotchya.”
“You listening, Bro? You need something, you don’t go talkin to the screws, understand? You talk to me.”
“Sure, ya.”
“Don’t talk to the screws about nuthin. They don’t got no balls.”
Abbas was telling me not to speak to the Guards.
“And don’t use the phones or showers on this tier. They’re Back Table’s.”
Nobody calls their cell, their cell. It’s your house. Or your room. Or whatever. Nobody has a cell. My room was on the second tier, 211. It looked very different from the tank at the RCMP detachment. There were cement bunkbeds against the back wall, each with a tiny window that looked onto a wide acreage of neglected, wild grass. There was a steel desk and a stool screwed to the floor and beside the desk, a steel toilet with no seat. Where the tank is on a regular toilet, was a sink and drinking fountain. On the other wall, a crudely welded box with a plexiglass face held a small, flat-screen TV. The most wonderful words Abbas could have spoken to me ever came next.
“We only got like thirty of us on the unit, so everybody has their own room.”
Cue the Church choir…HALLELUJAH!
“You shower today?”
“Naw, I was in the tank in Kelowna all night.”
“Kay, you missed lunch so go take a shower now. And change your reds.”
“I put these on like ten minutes ago.”
“Bro, change your reds when you shower! I’m telling you. Every day! We don’t need the unit stinkin like swass! Go shower!”
I witnessed two subsequent Newcomers get dragged into the prison yard and punched by a semi-circle of inmates until their faces bled because they were not given the same advice when they arrived. I was grateful that Abbas, both recognized me and, apparently, didn’t recall that our business on the outside had been a tremendous failure on my part.
Breakfast is at 7:45 am for an hour. After that, you are locked in your room until 9:45. Then you’re let out for two hours, to go to the library or the weight room. Locked down again for Guard Breaks, then out for lunch. Then, after lunch, you’re locked in your room until dinner at 4:45. You’re let out two more times after dinner, then locked in your room at 9:45 pm until breakfast. I haven’t watched an entire television show since May 2018. That was the last time I owned a TV. Not for any particular reason, it simply doesn’t interest me. I prefer to be doing something or learning something in my free time. It was incredibly irritating not to have a computer. But after a few minutes, I found a channel that exclusively showed the A&E Biographies of WWE Legends. It must have been the same feeling Tom Hanks got when he finally made fire in Castaway. For the rest of that day, I stayed in my room. I didn’t feel like socializing and was waiting for Back-to-back Rowdy Roddie Piper and Macho Man Randy Savage biographies. Two fascinating men. Very disciplined and dedicated to their craft while also finding time to be Sociopathic, drug-crazed, abusive husbands. The depth of layers in the Professional Wrestler Psyche is almost limitless. (In case you’re not sure, that last line was sarcastic. Every single Professional Wrestling Superstar worth mentioning was very disciplined and dedicated and drug-addicted and crazy, psycho-scary to their multiple wives until they died in their early forties in either a dangerous stunt gone wrong, a fiery crash in a recently purchased car or steroids exploding their hearts. That’s the only ways Wrestlers can be killed. And the reason you never see Vince McMahon in a stunt or near an expensive car. But one of these days, his heart is going to explode, and it is going to be tv magic! ( I imagine it will look just like the scene on that beach in Nova Scotia in the Seventies when the Fishermen filled the beached whale with dynamite and blew it up! Google it! Seriously!) In the morning, I joined the guys at my table for breakfast. There were two Justins, a Tyler and a guy who, after nearly three full minutes of waiting (no hyperbole, this time) I finally named Mumbles. Mumbles was the senior guy at the table (determined by sentence-length, not age) so he brought all of our meals out from the kitchen each mealtime. Prison meals are served on compartmentalized trays where everything is separated. If lunch is a tuna sandwich, one day, the tuna is in one compartment, the bread in another, Mayo or whatever in another. Nothing ever touches until you put it together. This breakfast consisted of scrambled eggs, sausage, hashbrowns and a bran muffin. All tucked neatly in their compartments. Mumbles stacked all of our trays and carried them to the table, the bran muffin on each tray stuck to the underside of the tray on top of it and fell to the floor as he passed them out. For whatever reason, he handed me the first tray, from the top of the stack. I was the only guy at the table with his muffin intact. The Justins didn’t speak to me for the rest of the meal. Tyler was really cool. I didn’t ask why he was at OCC but understood he was serving the second half of about six months there. My throat dried up as he said that. I was beginning the first of two days at Charlie West and already trying to put together a crew to attempt an escape. Suddenly, I felt very claustrophobic. I ran to my tier to phone anybody and everybody I could think of to brainstorm how to get my sentence cut in half.
Two very real, twenty-first century problems presented themselves immediately. First, I had not thought to carry money for a pay phone since around Y2K. Second, I hadn’t committed a phone number to memory since about roughly the same time. The jail phone allows you to make a one-minute, free call to anybody you want. One time. If the person answers, you cannot call that number for free again. I had three numbers in my cranium. The first was Gord, my best friend and podcast co-host for four years. We recorded the first two and a half seasons of our show over the phone. That was a no-brainer. Also, my older Brother – in the top three most important people in the universe and also happens to have a very simple-to remember-number. Finally, my on-again, off-again, recently divorced, chronically depressed girlfriend, because, well, you know.
The plethora of complications in my plan grew exponentially as I repeated my name and location into the receiver a dozen times. We’re so you spoke too quickly…please say your name and the full name of your facility… Eric Hunt. OCC. We’re sorry, that was too quiet… please say your full name and the name of your facility… Eric Hunt. OCC. We’re sorry, the system does not recognize your i.d. Goodbye.
“GODDAMMIT!”
“Is there a problem, Hunt?!” The Giant Indian guard asked.
His name was Chib, and he spoke with no accent whatsoever. Born in Toronto, visited India once for his honeymoon and possessed no desire to return.
“Sorry, Chib.”
Volume is a big issue on the unit. The mounting cornucopia of delights I faced if I ever managed to make a call seemed never ending. Gord was recovering from Prostate Cancer and hadn’t answered his phone in weeks. My Brother works and then, after work, for fun, he works more. Also, in his spare time, he likes to work. And then, the Girl. If she did put down the crazy long enough to pick up her phone, how was I going to get her to shut up about her stupid ex-husband for sixty seconds to tell her where I was? A robotic, recorded voice barked from a speaker above the phone. Ten minutes to lock up…all units, ten minutes to lock up.
“GODDAMMIT!”
“Hunt!”
“Sorry Chib.”
We’re sorry, the system does not recognize that i.d. Goodbye.
(To Be Continued…)
Autobiography
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