The Warden has left Biff in charge and she’s ready to make some changes. Will West Texas Correctional Institute ever be the same?
Previously: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5
Lingerie on the Razor-Wire – 6
By Pervert Q. Savant
An Innocent Transsexual’s Quest for Meaning, Commitment, and Gender-Dysphoric Redemption amid the Wormy Venality and Squamous Debauchery of the Worst Hell-Hole in Texas!!
Chapter VI: Enlightened Penology Comes to West Texas Correctional.
In a pensive mood, Senior Prison Guard, Mary “Biff” McGurk, swirled her steaming mug of morning coffee with her pudgy right thumb – a mannerism that she had picked up after watching a documentary on the lives of lumberjacks in the Pacific Northwest. Starting every morning with a cup of java and two or three unfiltered Camels in the prison cafeteria was a long-standing ritual for Biff. It gave the burly lesbian a chance to relax, meditate upon her schedule, and organize her thoughts prior to another day devoted to disciplining cons. For Biff, this particular day promised more responsibilities than usual. Among other things, it was the last day before The Warden’s anticipated return to the prison. Biff wanted everything to be just right on his arrival.
The Warden had been gone from the prison for two weeks, attending an annual educational seminar in Galveston. As Senior Guard at West Texas Correctional (and the only WTC employee possessed of an Associates Degree in “Modern Criminology”), The Warden had left Biff in charge of the institution during his absence.
The importance of her selection was not lost on Biff. She saw it for what it really was — a test.
The last time Biff had been left in charge, there had been an unfortunate inmate knifing. Worse, the institution’s fabled basketball team had abused its gym privileges and effectuated a daring mass escape. The Warden had been displeased with these occurrences and Biff, wrongly blamed, had been in his doghouse for a long time afterwards.
Given a second crack at responsibility, Biff wanted to be “pro-active.” She was determined to use the two weeks to institute several reforms in the prison’s operations. Upon his return, The Warden would find that not only had nothing untoward occurred at WTC, but that Biff’s changes had improved the operation of the place!
Biff’s first innovation involved a much-needed security upgrade. Now, instead of nightsticks, each of WTC’s 57 prison guards carried spanking-new “X-27 Musculo-Electrical Debilitators” in their holsters.
Biff had become aware of the X-27 Musculo-Electrical Debilitator from a promotional video she had cannily retrieved from The Warden’s office wastebasket – where, for some reason, it had apparently been discarded without first even having been viewed. According to the video, the X-27 had the advantage of allowing its users to zap miscreants “musculo-electrically” and “non-lethally.” This had immediate appeal to Biff, who always viewed innovations in police technology with the same sort of respect that a Catholic schoolchild normally reserves for the Pope.
“Damn! That sucker’s just like one of those phasers that Captain Kirk and Spock used to use on Klingons and Romulans!” Biff enthused, raptly watching the X-27’s promo. “It’s like what happens when ya put a phaser in the ‘stun’ position. Ya don’t kill the aliens. They just wish they was dead!” The thought of transferring this new Star Wars-technology to West Texas Correctional, and using it on aliens of the Hispanic variety, immediately occurred to Biff.
There were added selling points. The X-27 came with lots of nifty gadgetry. There was a laser-guided sighting element and an optional mini-video camera that could be rapidly turned on or off with a quick finger flip so as to avoid, if necessary, unpleasant Rodney King-like situations where videotaping would be inappropriate. There was a “Sim Suit” – which looked like something Neil Armstrong wore during his famous moonwalk. The wearer could then be targeted “to allow for safe live-training simulations” and “scenario firing at a ranging dynamic target.” The Taser even came with a fashionable and professional-looking leatherette holster “ideal for rapid extraction by trained law enforcement officials.”
“People like us prison guards, they mean,” Biff translated, nodding her head in emphatic approval.
The Musculo-Electrical Debilitator had the additional advantage of being manufactured by child laborers in grimy sweat shops on the Asian rim, enabling it to retail for 49% less than its closest competitor — the American-made Z-78 “Police-Buddy.” This cost differential was not lost on the always-pragmatic Biff.
But what really “closed the deal” for Biff was the video’s depiction of actual “field use” of the Taser. Here, campus police were shown using the X-27 to administer multiple “musculo-electronic bursts” to the body of a student radical that had been hell-bent on disrupting an otherwise peaceful university lecture.
“Probly a fuckin’ Commie!” Biff noted immediately upon viewing the radical. Biff knew a Red when she saw one.
At any rate, after repeated beatings from their wooden truncheons had failed to totally silence the stubborn radical, two of the alert campus police shown in the video began blasting away at him with their X-27s. The effect was immediate and telling. Upon “musculo-electrical” impact, their target was left twitching violently on the floor of the university lecture hall, completely immobilized and at last susceptible to expert handcuffing by the alert campus deputies. Viewing all this left Biff entranced.
“They shoulda just zapped him right away and not bothered with their nightsticks!” Biff exclaimed, grinning happily as she watched the electrified pinko flop about like a spastic chicken. “We gotta get those things issued to every guard in this place. Mark my words, that baby’s gonna revolutionize prison discipline!”
Aside from its obvious utility in dispatching students, Biff’s agile mind readily conjured up other potentially useful prison applications for the X-27. Biff envisioned herself using judicious bursts of the X-27’s high-amperage firepower on inmates handcuffed to chairs, thereby ferreting out secret escape plans, clandestine marijuana rings; and cleverly hidden pornography stashes.
“Hell, I bet some of the bozos here that are always trying to kill themselves would think twice about it if I zapped ‘em a few times!” Biff mused. The potential “non-lethal” uses of the X-27 at West Texas Correctional did, indeed, seem endless. Therefore, using her authority as “Temporary Warden,” Biff wasted no time in placing the necessary order and insisting on expedited delivery of the fantastic new weapon.
To help pay the $30,723.00 cost of arming each of the prison’s guards with the X-27, Biff implemented another long-needed change at West Texas Correctional — the installation of a souvenir stand bearing the wholesome name of “Ye Olde Prison Gift Shoppe.”
The thought of establishing a gift shop at WTC had been percolating in murky areas of Biff’s cerebrum for a long time. It strongly appealed to her mercantile instincts. Relatives and loved ones usually arrived at West Texas Correctional on their visiting days empty -handed. Most had learned from prior visits that all gifts or packages intended for cons were seized and subjected to thorough searches by WTC’s ever-vigilant coterie of guards. Furthermore, following such searches, no visitor was ever permitted to give anything directly to a WTC inmate. Instead all deliveries were made by WTC’s turnkeys.
“Leave it with me, Ma’am. I’ll see that he gets it!” was a public pronouncement solemnly made by solicitous guards to every tender-hearted donor bringing a package from home intended for a con. “Leave it with me, Ma’am, I’ll see that he gets it!” was also a statement certain to generate peals of private laughter among WTC’s bevy of jovial and fun-loving guards, who after mouthing it, invariably confiscated anything of any potential worth or value. Biff had personally obtained a dandy set of Ray-Bans, as well as a regular supply of homemade cookies and several appealing nude photos of prisoners’ wives through her participation in WTC’s inspection and delivery process.
Thus, to Biff’s way of thinking, “Ye Olde Prison Gift Shoppe” made a lot of sense. For one thing, it was a lucrative way of profiteering on visitors’ well-intentioned impulses to give incarcerated loved ones pre-approved tokens of their affection. For another, the same visitors could buy a little souvenir of their own – like a key chain or an ashtray – that would suitably memorialize their own happy visit to the penitentiary.
“Hell, this way we’ll get ‘em coming and goin’!” Biff grinned, as she shared her “Gift Shoppe idea" idea with Tansy Delgado, The Warden’s Tex-Mex secretary.
Tansy did not share Biff’s enthusiasm. “I dunno, Beef,” Tansy responded. “I yam steel kinda wooried bout alla thoze Tazeer theengs you buy. Now yoo wanna do thees. Maybe yoo be better wait an’ ask The Warden wen he come back foorst. The State maybe haf a law or sometheeng ginst all thees.”
“Don’t you worry about the State, Tansy. I already checked the regs,” Biff responded. "There ain’t nothin’ about no gift shops in any o’ them books one way or t’other. I’m a-doin’ it! I gotta pay fer them Tasers some kinda way and this here’s a sure-as-shit money-maker! Get me the phone number fer Hallmark Cards!”
Biff’s resultant brainchild — “Ye Olde Prison Gift Shoppe” — was strategically placed next to the Visitor’s Entrance to the prison – just past the institution’s row of metal detectors. On opening, the emporium featured a display area containing a festive assortment of trinkets, high calorie comestibles, and items of cheap clothing. Cards, coffee mugs, candy-bars, ashtrays and T-shirts were all on prominent display.
Biff was particularly proud of the gift cards and T-shirts.
The cards were specially ordered by Biff to be “Prison-Specific.” The delivered product featured poignant thoughts like: “To My Darling Husband in Prison”; “My Heart’s There With You in Jail, Honey”; and “I’m Still Waiting For You Here Beside the Old Oak Tree“(opening up to an arboreal feast of gnarly trees festooned with yellow ribbons).
The Gift Shoppe’s specially designed souvenir T-shirts were in red and blue. The fronts of each depicted, in white, the silhouette of the prison’s guard towers as seen from a distance in the moonlight. Their reverses offered several lettered options: “I’m the Proud Parent of a WTC Inmate”; “My Husband’s a Model Prisoner at West Texas Correctional”; or “My Loved One’s Getting His Mind Right at WTC.”
Biff provided a cash register for the Shoppe and installed a Trustee to oversee its activities. A large sign behind the counter read: “GIVE THE PRISONER YOU LOVE A THOUGHTFUL GIFT! – WE ACCEPT ALL MAJOR CREDIT CARDS! SE HABLA ESPAÑOL!”
Uncertain whether “Ye Olde Prison Gift Shoppe” alone would generate sufficient revenues to pay for her much-needed X-27s, Biff had presciently hedged her Gift Shoppe bet by administering another imaginative tweak to the prison’s commercial affairs.
The Warden’s long-standing policy at WTC had been to charge $6.50 per minute for all collect outside telephone calls placed by inmates to their loved ones and attorneys. Trading on her own recent small business experience as a phone sex operator, Biff saw no reason why The Warden had chosen to be so conservative. Using a calculator, Biff quickly determined that at $13.00 per minute, 42 inmate telephone minutes alone would nearly cover the cost of one of her new “Musculo-Electrical Debilitators.”
“Hell, The Warden thinks small. I think big!” Biff chortled. “I’m doubling the per-minute price!”
Still contemplating her many reforms, Biff swallowed the last of her coffee. A glance at the clock on the wall near the exit indicated that it was nearly time for her to go on duty. There was still some unfinished work that needed to be done before The Warden returned. For one thing, Biff had to put the finishing touches on a lecture she was preparing.”
The “Biff McGurk Prison Lecture Series” was the last reform that Biff had implemented. The “Lecture Series” was a concept that owed its origins to the extensive training in criminology that Biff had received at Amarillo State Junior College. That training had taught Biff that prison life could sometimes be stultifying and boring for the cons. Keeping prisoners’ minds active and focused on mentally enriching and educational endeavors served to advance the criminal justice system’s avowed rehabilitative goals. Hence, the “Biff McGurk Prison Lecture Series.”
As implemented, Biff’s “Lecture Series” was to be a weekly affair with attendance made mandatory for all of WTC’s inmates. Biff delivered each address personally. She would come up with an appropriate topic – always something stimulating and educational — and then be responsible for the content. It was a lot extra work for Biff, but she figured it was worth it. It would certainly impress The Warden and it would also help the cons to reassimilate into polite society.
Biff’s first lecture was a controversial ethnographic jeremiad entitled “The Latino Threat to American Culture.” It featured 90 minutes of Biff’s own insightful commentary supplemented by selected excerpts Biff had videotaped from episodes of CNN’s “Lou Dobbs Tonight” show.”
Sadly, her lecture had not been very well received. The prison’s Hispanic element was particularly disapproving – hissing and booing whenever Biff darkened the auditorium’s lights to run the taped excerpts from Lou Dobbs. Despite this inauspicious opening, the Lecture did have some positive aspects. For one thing, it gave Biff the opportunity to satisfactorily test the efficacy of her new X-27 on one particularly vocal Mexican prisoner.
Biff had higher hopes for her second offering — a slide show with commentary that she had elected to call “The Many Benefits of Travel.” Although still in outline form, Biff had decided to build her second lecture around photographs she had taken during her recent visit to Amarillo’s famous “Outhouse Museum” (an edifice chronicling Texas defecation architecture from its early adobe days during the time of the Spanish Conquistadors on down through to the present). Biff’s mother, who was the Museum’s curator, had supplied Biff with plenty of color brochures providing in depth descriptions of some of the more fascinating exhibits. Biff hoped to distribute these to the cons as supplements to her lecture. She wanted to have her finished presentation available and ready for airing upon The Warden’s return.
“Yes, it sure has been a busy two weeks, “ Biff thought to herself as she pushed her paunch away from her table in the cafeteria. “But I guess it’s time I get my ass to work!”
The first item of the day on Biff’s agenda was a short visit to the prison’s infirmary.
“I better check the status of that goddamned Mexican I zapped at the Lecture,” Biff muttered, with evident irritation. “How the hell was I supposed to know the asshole was on a Pacemaker?”
