Animal Companions

James Bauhaus

A friend's friend found a starling chick that its brother had pushed out of the nest. Mark raised it himself, with some "help" from the captive community. As a result, it developed some peculiar habits. Mark was Caucasian of course, as were most of his friends, so the bird, having the benefit of polite, civilized behavior, lost all fear of people. It was hand fed, it grew, and it prospered. It flew at breakneck speed around the buildings at about eye-altitude. Disconcerting and startling as this sometimes was, most of us learned to adapt to it.

The bird, who was somehow never named, would beg for food from anyone. It had been fed by so many of Mark's friends that it considered all people to be the same and equal between one another. It didn't hold this silly notion for very long, however. Like all chicks raised by man, it naturally sought, by instinct, the highest, nearest perch. Like most Caucasians, we would calmly allow it to land on our heads, if only temporarily, and our shoulders, until it shat. Then we would carefully and gently remove it and clean up, or continue feeding it while it perched on our finger or the ground. The Negroes, always keenly observant of Caucasian activity, would, upon seeing the bird defecate on our shoulders, bray insanely with laughter at this, as if it were the amusing event of a lifetime, no matter how many times they observed it. We understood their behavior, and tolerated it too, just as we did the bird's behavior. What was much harder to understand was the Negroes' abject fear, even terror, of this bird trying to land on their heads or shoulders. They would suddenly go nutty as a skittish mare that'd seen a snake! They'd leap about, suddenly flailing excitedly while ducking, running, wheeling, punching, and slapping wildly, until the bird ceased its efforts to land on them. Sometimes, after surviving the ordeal with the bird, they would vend this excuse: "Birds be got lice, fool! Mites and lice!" (Negroes, having spent much of their young lives selling the notion that they are brave, tough, "gangsters" collectively and "thugs" individually, get very angry when people see them terrorized by a mere bird, snake, or insect.) The bird learned to land on the ground in front of people, then gape its beak to begin yapping for food. It liked popcorn, but quickly had us all bringing it insects. Mark taught it where these insects came from, it grew to begin hunting for itself. Eventually it had no use for us and flew into the wild. Its presence was a good learning experience for us all, 

I escaped. I returned twelve years later. This same prison now carried a large percentage of Hispanics where, before Reagan's amnesty, we'd had nearly none. The prison magnates had built "us" a baloney factory too, to use up all the scraps that used to go into animal feed. Intelligent captives would not eat it. Many of the inmates would use it as bait to catch the hordes of housecats-gone-wild who remained, if f they were smart, just out of arm's reach outside the ground-level window-slits of our cages. Others of us tried to get past these garbage-can kitties and feed some real wildlife. Only some birds and three skunks would brave the constant cat patrols. Nothing else came, despite this prison being hidden miles away from the nearest town.

We did these animals a disservice by feeding them because, once again, it proved that the animals inside the cages were far worse in temperament and behavior than the animals outside, in the "wild." One of these skunks, the young, puny-looking one, could not compete effectively even with its fellow skunks for the garbage "meats" we threw out. Also, skunks are nocturnal, meaning that we couldn't stay awake long enough to miss the cats and toss it out in time for the skunks to arrive. Cat-pressure is so intense at this prison that the skunks could often be seen still hunting after dawn, in full daylight, long after they'd normally be back in their burrows, asleep. (Most cats here are infested with one or more of DIFFERENT varieties of worms or protozoan. Some will eat until their bellies drag, so heavy is the load of parasites they carry.)

It was on one of these mornings that I got up to enjoy the serene lack of inane inmate blather that I found this puny skunk hunting inside the compound. Unfortunately, so had three of the Hispanics and their Indian friend. Too bad that skunk could not have suddenly turned into a cat, because they would have tried to pet and hug a cat instead of pelt it with rocks from a safe distance. For about ten minutes these brave vatos, juttoes and Sylvanias had a grand old time, whooping with glee at each throw, bellowing like hyenas at every hit. They bombarded the skunk every way it turned. Before it was able to find a hole and escape the "men" trying to kill it, it was maimed and limping badly. 

The keepers of that zoo then moved me to an even worse zoo. I have far more animal companions here than at the other prisons. This place is where Oklahoma hides the true mix of the criminals it cages. Now the mix is 1/3rd Caucasians, 1/3rd Negroes, and 1/3rd Hispanics. You can really tell the difference, too. Soon as you walk in, you are blasted by the cacophony of shrieks, hoots, bellows, brays and chitters of unnecessary, yet extremely loud noise. Somehow only 200 mouths are able to create a senseless, earsplitting din that would make a hurricane sound weak. While this painful screaming continues, the Negroes and Hispanics creating it cram themselves to the front of the chow line. This mob of greed is determined to be fed before anyone else, because how else can they get back in line before it's over and get fed twice? Most Caucasians don't bother to even try to connive or sneak extra trays; it is beneath us, unless we are very young. These others do it whenever they can, not because they are hungry, but because they crave the desserts and meats, wasting the rest, or leaving it for their "brothers." (Also they have this sense of somehow being "owed" extra everything from everyone else.) All these extra trays pile up since they are too busy getting their "firsts" and their "extras" to put them away. When they need more room, these trays are shoved onto the floor with no more thought than a quick look-around to see if a guard is watching. The chow-hall looks like a monkey cage on both sides, but even more so on the 3rdworlder side. This "decor" fits well with the crash, slam, and shriek, bringing chimpanzees to mind.

Caucasians are not immune, however. The youngest ones who live on the border of the "hood" often absorb this "culture" of the "homies." Sometimes it is amusing to watch them flop around, walk one way while looking intently the other, and "speaking" ghetto and negrito slang. This is mostly tragic though, because they've shed the very thing that made their parents successful-their work ethic and have absorbed "values" that will guarantee them a short life of mediocrity and poverty. Instead of earring respect and prosperity through education and industry, they choose to earn notoriety by acting like obnoxious children, standing in front of the TV, shrieking and banging on their drums. Just like Mark's queer little starling, these homies and their imitators will, hopefully, develop better coping strategies. Shunning education simply because it is too hard, or because it came from a hated, yet very successful, culture is a never a good idea. Neither is laziness, or grabbing your crotch and spitting, or a philosophy of "shuck and jive", vandalism, theft, rape, robbery or murder. The sooner my little animal companions realize this, the sooner they can end their cycles of captivity, momentary respite, and repeated captivity, and get real lives. We just hope that this process of realization occurs in them as efficaciously as it did in Mark's starling.