Dirty Jobs...

Usually my feet hit the floor and with lightning  speed I cloth my body, dress my hair, grab my lunch and my skillfully made wet mocha cappuccino!  With the care of someone who has dumped coffee on her blouse due to misalignment of tread I screw the lid on. I am out the door and travel about 5 miles to enter through a security gate. We are a gated community. As I pull in through the only way in or out the white buses of offenders clothed in white standard dress from area prisons turns in as well. They too are coming to work. The association of these buses to public school buses is eerie. Same bus, different color.

 I am ready or not for the task at hand. Work. But not just your normal kind of employment. When I turn on my computer and after I put in no less than 3 different passwords, I enter into the world of the Texas Prison System. 

It has been quite an eye opener to witness the world of offense as I have served in a specialized department with at times 60 to now less than 30 other employees. With various duties we deal with the files of every offender that is in the vast Texas prison system.  We are careful to check and double check, and then check again to ensure the record is correct. It is referred to as PATED. Pay Attention To Every Detail.

My eyes scan across the screen at a name, a number and a face and then I click on the prompt and the sordid details unfold. I glance over at my coffee, secure in its metal fortress. My knight in shining armor. I know it is hot and waiting for me while I with my smaller group  proof, correct, an edit for final copy the bad report.

I glance in the mirror at the front of my desk set strategically to know when anyone approaches from behind, plain clothes or white standard dress as the porters make their rounds. There is no makeup on my face, I'm here and have had not so much as a sip of that carefully prepared mocha cappuccino. It is about to get real for the crimes have been perpetrated and I promise you it is worse than you or I could ever have imagined.

What offenders do (a softened term for criminals) is where hate lives embodied in beings we speak of as human. They walk about among us and look like your brother or your sister, your mom or dad and society hasn't a clue what danger lurks at noon day. It is about to get real. I have left the free world and entered the cirque macabre.

ma·ca·bre

məˈkäbrə,məˈkäb/

adjective

adjective: macabre

1. disturbing and horrifying because of involvement with or depiction of death and injury.

   
   

   "a macabre series of murders"

   
   

   gruesome, grisly, grim, gory, morbid, ghastly, unearthly, grotesque, hideous, horrific, shocking, dreadful, loathsome, repugnant, repulsive, sickening More "a macabre ritual"      dark, weird, unhealthy;      informalsick ... Orgin late 19th century: from French macabre, from Danse Macabre ‘dance of death,’ from Old French, perhaps from Macabé ‘a Maccabee,’ with reference to a miracle play depicting the slaughter of the Maccabees.     These describers are real, perfectly portraying what the sick of society consist of. I'm not speaking of a kid who got caught and paid the penalty. I am talking about those who fashion a skewed reality and way of living. What are we going to do I wonder...as a society? This behavior of human species is as old as the word. Even older. We just haven't realized, We have begun to scratch the surface due to world wide media coverage of the morose. We question, "What is the answer?"

I focus on the computer screen for perfection but, I will not find a balanced reality. Instead I find murder before eyelashes and coffee. And even though I had a restful 3 day week-end and woke this Tuesday morning fresh and ready to get back to work. I wonder how 5 o'clock will find me?