YOU PEOPLE UP THERE

Around the time that Ross Perot bowed out of the presidential race because of perceived threats to his family, Sergeant McCallister had accused me of racism. It’s not so much the accusation that pissed me off; in fact, I can handle controversy, but I did not like how he went about the whole situation. You see, in Corrections, if you don’t like something then you need to speak up.

We had argued about four tickets I had written on different prisoners. I had trekked over to the administration building and delivered the tickets to the Control Center on the second floor. I had done my duty. It was custody staff’s job (mainly the sergeant's) to review the tickets and deliver them to the inmates within a 24-hour period from the date and time I inked onto the forms.

Sergeant McCallister phoned me the next day. He wanted me to rewrite the tickets. Although he didn’t give me an explanation, I understood the reasoning behind his request. By doing the rewrites, I’m giving him a fresh 24-hours to deliver the documents to each prisoner.

Again, I felt I had done my part. Besides, the infractions were “036 Out of Place/ Out of Bounds/ AWOL” which really meant that these pumpkin heads (hollow on the inside) skipped school. Big deal. I’d have plenty of opportunities to hammer them next time. “Look,” I said, “You have two choices: Accept the tickets as is, or throw them out.”

He told me that I would have to rewrite the tickets, in fact, he demanded it. An argument ensued. I said, “You people up there need to get your shit together.”

He hung up. I thought to myself, that went rather well, until a week later when I got called into my boss’s office. She had me read a memorandum addressed to her from Sergeant McCallister accusing me of racism. In all fairness, his description of our conversation was 95% accurate. He had misquoted me, but not by much. This is what he said that I said: You people need to get your shit together.

My boss wanted to give me time to refute the claim. I told her all I needed was “right now.” I explained to her that Sergeant McCallister left out the prepositional phrase “up there,” meaning all of the Control Center staff (White, Black, Hispanic, you name it—hey, why not offend everyone?) and that if he had a problem with something I said, then he should’ve confronted me instead of hanging up the phone. As an added measure, knowing that I’m vertically challenged, knowing that Sergeant McCallister is even more vertically challenged, I said, “Plus, he has a little man’s complex.”