Mere Details
Here’s the drama part of the comic drama that I promised yesterday.
(Note: This was for some reason placed here, although Tank had already departed. My sister was probably posting something because she hadn't received a letter from me that day.)
After repeated requests for a haircut. I found out that no one who is HIV is allowed near the clippers, as the cutter or cuttee. Yes, paranoid ignorance trumps enlightened decency. It is not even a rule from our jailers, but self-imposed from the inmates. And it was not communicated without a fair amount of black humor, which was of course lost on “Tank,” even though it was he who informed me of the regulation. What I mean by that is that once again, I was told that as a white, I was under the protection of the whites and simultaneously that it was only the whites who I needed protection from. Poor, irony-free “Tank.” He’s just being a “good soldier, following orders.” How lucky I am to be under his protection. A few years ago, when he was less enlightened, he would have cracked my head open with a baseball bat, Which would have been far more likely to cause HIV transmission than clippers ever would, but here in topsy-turvy prison world, those are mere details.
Mark
