PRISONER EXPRESS

Some like a cigarette after sex. After sex I like more sex, but let's not change the subject. I like to run out into the cool night, fill my lungs and let the sweat dry, then jump back in bed and snuggle up to something warm.

Do you know most people don't use their full lung capacity? There is air that just sits there, like a dead, festering pool. A good run, even a short one, will engage the lungs. Breathe out as deeply as you breathe in. A sneeze helps clear out old air. The best way is to drop into some ice cold water. Keep your head above the surface and don't panic. This will force all of the air out of your lungs and it will be hard to get your next breath. No! You will not die. Get dried off and into something warm-a blanket. Have a cup of hot chocolate and some chicken soup. Have sex by the fireplace. Who cares if the house is full. Fresh air comes in many flavors!

Prison is a place without much fresh air. You have to fight for fresh air in here, and it's more than getting your share of oxygen or other people's odors violating your space. Its people who feel they must hide behind tough words, old malice, and preconceptions. Its people who have put up a false front for so long that they can't let out an honest fart. They are afraid to come out and be real. We have no choice but to share space, and I like to share space. However, sometimes it's like sharing space with the dead. I think at times there is no Â'original Â'person' left behind this or that false front. There is nothing but a set of reactions and emotions dictated by the past or by what is thought to be peer acceptance.

Is this the normal way to react? Says who? It's said "He is this because he did that." No true idea comes out of this, but they can't have an original idea of their own. Someone would call them...a name. They must do what everyone else does, or at least what everyone who looks like them does. They hate because they were told to hate. They blame because they were told Â'they are the ones we blame things on.' They say or act as though Â'I am better than you" or Â'I am not as good as you' because they have heard it and lived it and loved it so long, or it simply makes a good place to hide.

Honesty is fresh air. And if the truth be told, good, clean country air smells like manure-good old horse and cow shit. That's just the thing to make onions, carrots, tomatoes, potatoes, watermelons...grow. Momma used to say "Ya'll don't be stepping in those cow pies. Your feet already grow in faster than we can buy shoes."

We have this thing called political correctness that takes the place of honesty. If it ain't the truth then it must be a _____. We're so full of political correctness these days that you cannot safely wish someone a merry Christmas. I wear a little yellow tag about the size of a playing card. It says in big red and black letters DEAF. This makes it easier for me and everyone else. Then they gave me one that says HEARING DISABLED, and it is about the size of my chest. I asked if we could sew some sleeves onto it and I'd wear it instead of a shirt. I wear the old DEAF and use the new sign for a fan. Politically correct or not, I'm a little person and deaf is only 4 letters and not two thirds of the alphabet. Besides, they don't understand hearing disabled. Everyone knows what deaf means. Political correctness is stale funeral parlor air. It smells like Glade covered in death. I say "Merry Christmas." It's not about you. It's about me. And if it makes you want to jump down my throat, go ahead-I didn't buy you a gift anyway.

I grew up with a very obese companion, my identical twin brother. We were friends and lovers-yes, sexually. We were/are two halves of one person. We were very openly loving, nurturing and romantic. We had every intention to spend our lives as one, the same way as any other couple. We knew how society felt about it, but society was not me and Daniel. As the deaf dwarf twins we were barely accepted as anything more than interesting pets. I call us non-humans. Politically correct? I love Daniel more than any other person I have ever loved, which includes my gorgeous blond bombshell, truck driver wife and she knows it. It is fresh air. To build our lives on something less would be to accept less. Stale air-I'm phobic, you know.

After Daniel died at age 16, and I couldn't, I put myself through school. I had numerous jobs-prostitution, pornography, exotic dance. You might think it naughty of me to be so forward and honest. I am only 4 feet 9 inches tall and 92 lbs. I look like a little boy; I looked even more so then. I made twice as much as the top females in the slave business. That's about four times as much as any preaching political correctness.

Fresh air is a salty sea breeze. Fresh air is a real desert storm-not war. Fresh air is carrying your five year old kid two miles on your shoulders through the brush to get to your favorite fishing hole and then spending most of the day baiting his hook or untangling his line. Fresh air is a shot of tequila, just one. Fresh air is being able to honestly say I love you, even to your red headed sister-in-law, even sober.

I must have fresh air in all flavors.