Prison Guards and the People with Different Brains

left: My room at the hotel mentioned in this post. At $10 a night, it was the swankiest place I stayed in and came complete with a pool, A/C in the rooms, and balconies.

When I was debating whether or not to get a room at the hotel, the man at the front desk said, “We have pool, you see?”

He motioned over his left shoulder. Behind him, through dusty glass windows, I could see a pool in the hotel courtyard complete with a 10 foot long, whiskered wooden dragon perched atop a large stone pillar rising from the middle of the pool. I wiped sweat from my upper lip with the back of my hand. I looked back at the man. He was smiling with his eyebrows raised in a “Nice, huh?” fashion.

“OK, I’ll take a room.”

“Great! Here is key.”

*******

Two white men were floating on their backs in the pool like stripped eucalyptus logs when I flip-flopped around the poolside tiles to a chair. They righted themselves and stood waist deep in the water when they saw me.

One man was baby-tooth-white, short, strong, freckled, and pudgy with a shaved head and an orange-haired, trimmed goatee.

The other was tanned, ogre-like with ambiguous body mass—whether he was strong but also a food lover or once fat but now slightly toned was indiscernible. His eyes looked so tired and weary that if new acquaintances were unaware of his profession (more on this later), they would assume he was stoned.

“Hey, how’s it goin?” the short one asked.

“Good, good. How’s the water?”

“Oh it’s lovely, just perfect really,” the ogre-ish man said with a grin.

I dipped my foot in. The water was Vermont-winter-night cold. The men laughed. I sat down on a beach chair by the edge of the pool and prayed for a thermal vent to rip open under the pool's bottom and spill its warmth.

“We been talkin' about it. I think they might refrigerate the water at night. Or put ice in it or something. They must do something to it,” the pudgy man said with authority.

I looked up at the six-floor, L-shaped hotel that surrounded the pool and shaded it from the hot, Vietnamese sun. Ice or refrigeration on a pool-wide-scale in a land where lucky folks make $10 a day seemed plain silly, but I kept my mouth shut.

“So where are you guys from. England?” I asked, hoping to peg their accents.

“Watch it mate! Watch it! England?! Christ, a question like that is bound to get a man killed where we’re from!” The short man laughed only long enough to show me he was both amused and offended.

“Tasmania,” the tired ogre said.

“Tasmania, huh. I’ve never been there but I once met a logger in Australia who said they have some of the oldest, tallest trees in the world in Tasmania. And some of the roughest seas, too.”

The ogre spoke up, “Well actually Tasmania is Australia, it’s one of the territories. Not many people know that. No different than Queensland.”

“Huh, yeah I didn’t know that.” Pause. “What do you do in Tasmania?”

“We’re both prison guards. I’m at a max prison,” the pudgy one said before turning and pointing toward the ogre, "He's at a minimum security prison." He said it in a My-dick-is-bigger-than-his sort of way.

“Wow, prison guards. I have to say, you might be the first prison guards I’ve ever met while traveling.”

The shorter man raised his eyebrows. “Really, I’m surprised—prison guards have tons of vacation time, I don’t know why you haven’t met more of them. Well, at least in Tasmania that’s the case. We get eight weeks off a year plus national holidays. One month off every five months.”

“Holy shit, that’s amazing! Most people are happy to get two or three weeks in America. Teachers get about eight weeks off, but no one else is so lucky I guess," I said.

The ogre laughed and his eyes lit up a bit, “Oh no. We wouldn’t allow that in Tasmania. If the government ever tried to enforce two or three week vacations, the unions would go crazy. That’s your problem: you Yanks have weak unions.”

“Maybe, I don’t know, that's just the way it’s been. No one knows any different.” Pause. “So do you guys enjoy your jobs? Do you ever form friendships with inmates?”

“Ohhh no. Mate, I’m surrounded by the worst rapists and murderers Tasmania churns out,” the pudgy one answered. “We never establish friendships. We establish what’s called rapport.” He said ‘rapport’ slowly, assuming I had never heard the word before. “Inmates know my role and I know their role. We interact within those restrictions. If you do your job, friendship is impossible really.”

“Huh, interesting. What ethnic groups do you see most in the prisons?”

The tall one answered, “Eh, it depends really. Mostly whites, some Asians. Some Aborigines. I see a lot of guys on ice-related charges. Ice is taking over Tasmania, it’s crazy.”

“Yeah I see all sorts of guys, but mostly whites. Lots of ice users, lots of drunks.”

“Huh. Actually, I’m curious to hear what you guys think about this: I visited Australia a few years ago and hitched around and talked to a bunch of people. Most people I met didn’t really like Aborigines. They thought most of them were drunks who didn’t capitalize on the opportunities the government gives them. How do you guys feel about Aborigines? Am I totally off on that? That’s the impression I got from the people who picked me and talked with me.”

“Hey, you said it right there mate,” the pudgy one said. “I hate to say it, but most Aborigines are drunks and they waste what the government gives them. It ain’t all their fault, though, you know. Scientists have proven that their brains are different from ours. They are uh, what’s the word, pre-dis…predispensed…”

“Predispositioned,” the tall one said.

“Yeah, they are predispositioned to be alcoholics. Their brains are wired up to make ‘em drink. It’s a shame really. But I don’t feel bad for them—I know white alcoholics that hold steady jobs.”

“Yeah, and we have given them so much. They got back all the land they wanted back. The government gives every person who is at least 1/16th Aborigine a free university education. They get tons of benefits, and they still drink and do nothing with their lives,” the ogre added. He said 'we' like the word included him personally.

“Wow, yeah I never heard that before about the brain. Well, what do you think they did before white people arrived and brought the alcohol?” I asked.

For a second, their faces went blank. Then, something flashed in the pudgy one’s mind.

“No no no! They were brewing their own crazy shit before white people got there—you can be sure of that! White people stole land in the beginning, but now we’re trying to help them and they don’t want to be helped. It’s sad honestly.”

Both men were starting to shiver at this point—whether or not from the cold water or the racism pulsing through their bodies I can’t be sure. They got out of the pool, dried off, and we said our good-byes.

I stared at the dragon glaring down at me from the middle of the pool atop his perch. His whiskers had a three foot wingspan. His wooden belly came complete with ribs; he was hungry. I jumped in the water and swam circles around him, teasing him, tempting him to try and strike.

I thought about the dragons of men I had just met: I imagined them in their lookout posts, still and quiet like crocodiles, waiting for the men with dark skins, shackles, and unfortunate brain-wiring to do something reckless, something that would allow the guards to act, to move. I dipped underwater and the cold shocked my mind blank.