DannyBoyinExile

They moved a new guy onto my wing yesterday, and he made quite a first impression on us… We were all in the dayroom, hustling and bustling, watching TV, talking, arguing, playing dominoes – and just being inmates in general. This guy walks to the front of the dayroom (under the TV), puts his hands in front of his chest – and starts bouncing up and down, as if he’s riding a horse.
When you stand beneath the TV, you are basically the focal point of everyone’s attention in the dayroom. That’s precisely where someone would stand, for example, if they were making a public announcement to the whole dayroom – and quite a few fights have occurred there – so so you can’t just overlook someone standing there. ESPECIALLY if he’s doing the best imitation I’ve ever seen, of… well… someone riding a horse.
A guy at my table even made a joke about it: “Does this dude think he’s a horse jockey or something?” That’s EXACTLY what he looked like! Some time goes by, and he’s just staring off into space, riding his horse (the guy under the TV, not the guy at my table), until everyone in the dayroom has nudged each other, and pointed out this idiot under the TV. How can you even WATCH TV, with some guy in the corner of your eye, bouncing up and down on his “horse”? Without a doubt, that was the strangest thing I’ve seen in quite some time. (The crazy guy, I mean, not the show on TV). After a while his legs must’ve started to hurt, because his face broke out in a sweat, but he kept this up for HOURS!
This guy may have been new to our wing, but the situation isn’t new at all. It’s a fact of life that there are quite a few ” crazy” people in prison, and every unit has a psych department with a full caseload of people on various psychotropic medications. We all know (or have known) people who are seriously disturbed – who you don’t even want to BE around. But they’re inmates like the rest of us, so they have to live somewhere.
Our first instinct was to ask who the poor guy was, who had to live in a CELL with him! Could YOU sleep at night, with a guy like that right below you? I hate to be “bossy”, or try to tell anyone what to do in the cell – but I think I’d have to absolutely forbid my cellie to ride his horse all night, while I’m trying to sleep!
Many of us have had bad experiences with living in a cell with someone like that. I had one cellie who was recently promoted from Ad-Seg – and extremely paranoid, like many people are when they get out of seg. I knew something wasn’t right when he accused me of “popping my pimples in his mirror, and not wiping it off.” I’m like, “WHAT pimples? I don’t even HAVE any pimples!” Sadly, I ignored the warning signs, and things deteriorated to the point that I ended up getting into a huge altercation with him – and I went to High Security for a year and a half, for “fighting with a weapon.” I hate that I had to get in trouble – but I was literally defending myself – by going proactive on his ass…
In retrospect, I should have handled the situation differently. If they were to even TRY to put someone like that in a cell with me now, I wouldn’t allow them to. One way or another, one of us would have to get moved, because I can’t take the risk of someone doing something to me while I’m asleep or whatever. Besides – living with someone like that might drive ME even crazier!
We can usually talk to the rank when we find ourselves living with someone we are incompatible with, and they will often move one of you to a different cell, to avoid an altercation. But not always. I’ve seen many of them refuse to move people, UNLESS they’ve been in a fight. And there are still plenty of guys who live by the old “code”, where you don’t handle your problems by going to the rank. You either make the other guy leave, or do whatever you have to do, to come to an understanding with him.Times are changing, though, and there is less of a stigma about it now. (Getting yourself moved, I mean, not riding your horse in the cell!) As for me, I’ve reacted badly to situations enough times, and been in enough trouble for it, that I don’t have to prove anything to anybody. If they try to put the horse jockey in MY cell – one of us is getting moved, right away, for both of our best interests. If the next guy doesn’t agree with it – let them move the horse jockey in HIS cell, and he just may change his mind about it. So says DannyBoy.