sustained release

andy pink, billerica, ma —

a pale boy — a jail toy — and beyond —

i spent my new years watching what seemed to be nonstop episodes of “lockup” on msnbc. for those who are otherwise engaged on holidays and disparate unscheduled hours of the weekend, the show is a trash documentary of various prisons around the united states — though an international (“global convict diaspora in high-definition telemundo”) version of the show is likely to land ashore this new year. (i am going to guess that i am right: telemundo is owned by universal nbc comcast general electric.) the show ostensibly presents the various stories of violent inmates (more violent in the prisons) and the management of the inmates by a cadre of committed stupids: jailers, sergeants, deputies, social workers, nurses, parole officers, psychiatrists, police officers, wardens, and various — mostly white — managers in an institution of behavioral correction in which the body of the perpetrator is treated as the object of an enflamed bureaucratic lust.

for me, to see naked raw bureaucratic desire on fire on the tube is to be reminded of the damp benign ordinariness of my near-pedophilic interest in 18-21 blond boys. if a deputy but blows sweet air on the raised hairs on a white convict’s bare nipples — such a con man need only parse his red lips and wait for the gold syrup to run down the sides of his mouth, across his jowls, down his chin, collected at the adam’s apple waiting to be scooped up by the silver spoon of the social worker who carefully deposits the wet gold in her pay check — but not before she steals a taste of its purity for her own uncorrected tongue. given that the american prisoner is an update of the persecuted jew, we can substitute out the metaphor of liquid gold with hiv sperm, but you should see the point: value is produced from nothing — ex nihilo, we may say — and money grows on trees if only because the gold standard is mounted on the muscled shoulders of twenty-five to life. the show — at least the spanish language version — is a series of these gold rushes and cum gushes, and the entire conceit of the broadcast for us is the assumption of what could be called a “subject supposed to believe” who watches these shows without the flip of what marx would refer to as the “camera obscura” of a critique of ideology.

i went out for green grapes earlier — freezing, in a mild urban outfitters style fatigue jacket, from my deployment days on the men’s jackets section of their website — and i went to the shaw’s locally and found the boy from starbucks — blond, dirty, facial hair scruff, mid-20s, brooding but sensitive, unsure of himself in the world but comfortable with his body — i found him and he watched me as i bought two bushels of grapes and then soured at the second batch as the bill was too high for an honest man to condone. the boy from the grain looked at me a bit, back and forth we did, he had some kind of black hood on, i wore a pink hat, we will hopefully see each other tomorrow at starbucks. at the old starbucks on the other side i had told him how wonderful he looked one day, over two years ago now. i’m sure he remembers me still, no one says that to anyone in these parts. i would like to hold his hand but i fear that i would faint. i’m wondering if i should move on to a different starbucks, i do have some somatic reactions (other than erections) to beautiful boys in my presence and it can be weirdly painful. it helps to sit down, but if i am forced to look him brown eyes to green eyes and order a medium blond roast without a smile — or worse: with one — i will retreat to dunkin donuts and flirt with lisa whose bosom is old but still welcoming to a lost boy and his forgotten wendy bird.

“lockdown” is clearly a glimpse of a concentration camp. it would be difficult for anyone watching the show not to immediately see that. but the narration and video sets up the opposite: that the guards are defending themselves against violent monsters. i think such editorial orientation is an intentional invitation for the spectator to deploy his sassy and proud hermeneutics to uncover the thinly veiled fascism of the scene. back in the day — quaintly — the nazis couldn’t possibly have known who they were or what they were doing, and it is interesting to watch ordinary unremarkable folks fulfill such a role in a house of terrors. as someone who has spent a good deal of time in mental hospitals (over a year and a half of my adult life) — it is very easy to see the continuity and similarity between an industrial prison (public or private) and a psychiatric treehouse (public or private) — it’s the same basic series of mechanisms, types of gestures, styles of talk, specifications and objectifications, mismanagements and incorrections, corridors and visits, interventions and conversations, and the rest. of course, if these poorly paid lackeys were nazis i suppose it would make me a bit player in “the hunger games,” laying back in front of my television, one hand on the remote and the other hand on my dick — but still: the redemption at the end of each episode is always the germans, to understand liberalism as an updated version — national socialism v 2.0 — of the axis of evil is to reveal multiculturalism for what it is: ethnic cleansing. it makes the holocaust seem simple and boring, a blip on the map of history, and it indicts liberal do-gooders whose righteousness is only outmatched by their ignorance. why care about the trials of black american men when you can simply be fascinated by africa and its various exotic atmospheres?

the “subject supposed to believe” cannot possibly see the underside of the documentary. but the strange truth for all of us is that such a “subject supposed to believe” is to be found nowhere: no one could possibly believe in the violence of monsters who are mistreated by sadistic overlords, no one could possibly believe in the moral righteousness of social workers who shop on the collected digits and decimals of the broken limbs of petty drug offenders, no one could possibly believe in anything other than: mass manufactured death. the purpose of this fictional “subject supposed to be believe” is simply a faith that there is someone — out there, any where, some where — there is someone who does not yet know what we have done. it’s the hope that there is still a child. or it is the hope that the adult is growing.

at what date — specifically: what year, which quarter, how will the weather be? — at what precise clock-out will america evolve to the apex of natural selection such that we will all be living in prisons? how will we — collectively, by ballot box, by referendum or initiative — how will we plot to get ourselves out of here and into there? texas, i read on huffington post, is now locking people up for failing to pay loans which — i can only conclude — is the return of debtor’s prisons which had otherwise mostly been abandoned in the 19th century (except for cases of alimony and child support, contingent on state). the sickest society is yet to come. one with no children. the wager is that the social worker will look at herself in the mirror, take a deep breath and what — smile —

“work will set you free” — not only applies to the mess hall in prison but also to the burger king at the corner. and then it happens: old green eyes and his dirty blond mid-20s confusion looks back at me and says, “your drink is at the bar, sir, yet we are still here.” and for a moment i will see him, barely, to say quietly under my breath: “i should like to own you.” he nods and smiles. and i can only wink: “the trouble is asking permission.”

such are the death throes of freedom in a time of padlocks and boys!

isn’t it sad: i will always owe him one. we can never own each other because we are forced to own ourselves —

andy

were it his favorite post!