The Correctional Officer's Story, Part 3

Ah, those fucking communists, they must hate us. I’m sure they do. Not that I blame them either. I bet I’d hate us too, if I was them.

They have names for us, too, my Grandpa said. And they’re way more racist than us, Gramps said. No one is more racist than some of the Asians, he told me.

Look, bro, he was there. My Gramps fought in Vietnam. He killed like 120 commies. He said in Danang he slipped off one of his socks, jumped outta some bushes, and strangled a commie to death. With the fucking sock. What a way to go out, huh, choked to death by a wet, stinky sock ... Gramps said he was singing the commie a Christmas song, fucking “Jingle Bells” as the commie’s eyes popped out of his little head...

Then they got him, though, caught my Gramps like a bear, in a trap. He was kept as a prisoner of war and tortured. He lived in a fucking tiger cage for 5 months. He had malaria, fucking malaria, bro ... I remember when he was in the hospice, hooked to a ventilator, and he was still cursing the commies. Man was wheezing, coughing up blood, and rambling about how he wished he could kill one last commie before he flew up to the big casino in the sky...

My Gramps, bro, I remember how he walked like a drunk, and I wasn’t sure if it was from wartime injuries or just from the flask he’d always be sipping on. The man stank something fierce of whiskey.

Ah, my Grandpa, bro, he knew things about everything. I wish he was still around. He’d make sense of these crazy times. They ain’t building guys like him no more. They ain’t building guys like John Wayne. Nah, they ain’t. Nowadays, they build fat freaks with man buns. All these fucking pussies crying about their feelings on Twitter. A bunch of...

A bunch of pussies, these kids now. They’re fat and soft. And you can’t even call ‘em fat no more. You can’t even tell a fat fuck he’s a fat fuck no more. You can’t call ‘em a fatty, a lardass, chubbalubbagus, none of that shit. Seriously, how’d we get so soft? A buncha marshmallow people, these days ... For fuck’s sake.

I mean, bro, look, it ain’t racist to call ‘em fat. And it ain’t even racist, calling people slurs. My old man called ‘em that. So I can call ‘em that. It’s just words. As long as it ain’t no hate behind it. There’s nothing racist about it. I don’t hate any of ‘em. Really, I don’t.

Really, I hate people, people in general, human beings. After working as a prison guard, it’s hard not to. What’s that word for a person who hates people? Mapplethorpe? Something like that...

But yeah, it’s just words, bro. It just feels good to say ... or ... It feels good to say it because you’re not supposed to. It’s relieving. Like you finally say it, and it lifts a weight off your chest.

Look, I never told anyone this, but I’ll sometimes go down to the basement, lock the door, make sure all the windows are good and closed, and then I’ll stand there and just yell racial slurs, every single slur I can think of, over and over again, at the top of my lungs, until I’m hoarse ... Ah, bro, it feels so good. Really, it does. And like I says, there ain’t no hate behind it.

Bro, there should be small “safe rooms” in every building, like the size of an airplane bathroom, and people can go in there, lock the door, and scream, shout, holler, howl or whisper whatever words they want. Just go take a load off, you know...