Manager Clerk Kelley A: Fill & Download for Free

I've interviewed and visited people in prison quite a bit for work, but bringing my 14-year old son to visit a high-profile inmate named Danny was ... different.I got to know Danny pretty well a decade ago, during my years covering criminal trials for CBS News’s 48 Hours. I spent more than two years covering his story, trial and conviction and was familiar with his case inside and out. I’ve never believed he was at the scene of the crime, much less guilty of actually committing the murder.After signing in, we take a seat in what looks like a dimmer, sadder DMV waiting room. A television blares “The Price is Right.” A notice on the bulletin board confirms a recent spike in inmate suicides and suicide attempts and urges families to notify prison officials if they see any signs of severe mood changes in their loved ones.Graham asks if Danny is depressed. No, not any more than you’d expect, I tell him, he’s always up for a laugh. (Danny is one of the most consistently entertaining blokes I’ve ever met.) But he did nearly lose it a couple years back when he was put in “the hole” for an entire year, the harshest form of solitary confinement. Most inmates don’t survive a month without becoming a little unhinged.As the minutes tick by, I get the customary prison jitters. Visiting prison is a combination of Murphy’s Law and flying standby. There are lots of things that can and will go wrong and you’re not sure it’s going to work out until it’s actually working out. I go through my checklist.Did Danny add both of us to his prisoner list? One bureaucratic screw-up and game over. Did I remember the note from my doctor? So I don’t have to be strip-searched when my two hip implants set off the metal detectors. Did I bring change for the vending machines? It’s a prisoners only chance to eat non-prison food. Did I remove the underwire from my bra? Otherwise I have to rip it out with my teeth or remove my bra entirely and wear an oversized prison smock on top. Did I bring a photo ID? Yes to all.“Son’s Photo ID?” the guard asks. And there it is. My screw-up.“I didn’t bring his ID,” I tell him, thinking of all the times I’ve flown places with my son without an ID.“Then he can’t visit.” I’m sizing up the guard, planning how I’m going to talk my way out of this one when he sneers, “No way.”“No way” means “Go Fuck Yourself” in prison, I’m pretty sure. Graham is obviously devastated. He doesn’t remember meeting Danny a decade earlier, but he’s gotten to know him over the phone and was dying to see him again. Plus he really wanted to see the inside of a prison.So I’m forced to get creative. I convince Frankie, one of the doormen in my building, to go into my apartment, search my files for Graham’s passport, make a copy and fax it to me at the nearby post office I’ve greased to take anything incoming.The first faxed copy is so dark it’s illegible. We try again. Same thing. I ask Frankie to make a lighter copy of the passport and try that. It’s still too dark. The post office clerk agrees to try one more time, as I slide her another $20 bill. This time it’s a little lighter, but just barely. It’s the best we can do.Two hours later, anxious and stressed, we’re back to present my son’s passport copy to the guards. After some debate, they accept it. I’m genuinely shocked, but don’t want to show it. We’re ready for the high-security walk to the visiting room.The first prison gate slides open and we walk through it. We instinctively try to open the second door, forgetting that every door must close behind you before another one can open… a metaphor for life, perhaps, but a harsh reality in prison.When the first prison gate slams behind us, it’s an auditory cliche so familiar [Cha-CHUNG!] I have to smile. Here we are alone, mother and son, locked in prison, sort of. I glance over at my wide-eyed son and am about to whisper a crack like “College essay material, eh?” when the second metal door makes a loud click and we walk through it.We’re outside again, but now we’re inside the prison’s iconic 3000-foot wall that encloses the entire complex. It makes an impression on Graham. “It’s a constant reminder you can’t get out.” Smooth and unscalable, painted a blinding white, it has to be 3 or 4 stories high.Three prison gates later, we’re in a room not unlike a middle school cafeteria with rows of long tables. Two COs sit on a raised platform overlooking the room. While Graham checks out the vending machines, I tell them our inmate’s last name. One of them grunts two numbers and nods in the direction of our assigned seats. In the “Us vs. Them” world that guards and prisoners perpetuate, I’m a “Them.” They hate me.Visitors sit on one side of the long tables and prisoners on the other. Brief physical contact is allowed at the beginning and end of each visit. “I thought there was going to be a woman sitting in the chair right next to me talking through a glass divider to a big scary tough guy,” Graham says later, “like they show on TV.” (Those are called “no-contact” visits and they’re reserved for inmates in “the box.”)Thirty minutes later, Danny comes around the corner. When he spots us, his whole face busts open into an ear-to-ear, Dennis Quaid-wide grin. His haircut might be the only giveaway he’s in prison. He’s wearing dark green prison pants partially disguised by the store-bought maroon button-down he’s allowed to wear. He swallows Graham in a bear hug so tight it looks painful. “He almost crushed me,” Graham says later, smiling. “He was patting me on the back so hard it felt like he was trying to hit me!” I figure that’s the hug of someone who hasn’t had physical contact with anyone, even his own three children, in almost two years.After we explain our two-hour delay, Danny tells Graham about prison life. He’s allowed out of his cell for 3 hours a day: one is spent outside in “the yard” and the other two are spent inside a small caged area where inmates can play cards, talk on the phone or take the occasional shower. Danny spends all of his free time waiting for a phone or talking on one. He’s a talker and talking is his survival.The other 21 hours a day, Danny’s locked in a 6x9 cell and, he explains, it’s getting smaller every year. “See I have boxes filled with all my court transcripts and legal documents that take up all the space on the floor up to the ceiling. So I can’t move around. And when I stand up in the middle of my cell and stretch out both arms, I can touch the sides. There’s a bed, a sink and a toilet. My TV is hung by rope over my bed,” Danny says, grinning. “The best way to imagine it is to imagine spending one day in a locked bathroom with nothing to do. It’s the boredom and the total loss of control that gets to you.”“What about television?” Graham asks.“They sell them at the commissary for under $200. But when guys get out of prison, they leave them behind. So there’s a black market for old TVs. They trade for 3 to 10 packs of Newports, depending on the model — but every six months they get confiscated when the COs do a shakedown of everyone’s cells. They’re the first to go.”Danny explains that he gets eight channels, which are mostly news, reality programming and channels like truTV. When he and Graham discover their shared passion for the program Impractical Jokers, it verges on becoming a moment.But then Danny says something that changes Graham’s standpoint of “doing hard time” in an instant. “So you can watch TV … all day if you want?” Graham repeats, as though it’s too good to be true.I can almost see his reverence for prison survival fly out the window. “It’s the easy life,” I say to Graham, reading his mind. “You don’t have to study, or brush your teeth or write thank-you letters either.”“Yeah, but I do have to make my bed and clean up my room,” he responds, cracking himself up. “Oh, and some inmates make TV remotes so they don’t have to waste any energy getting up to change the channel. All you need is a pen attached to a headphone wire that connects to the TV. And clicking the pen changes the channel.”We hear Danny’s last name called, signaling it’s our turn for photographs. At the far end of the room, a dilapidated backdrop of a waterfall scene hangs from the yellow prison wall. We pose a few times in front of it and the guard gives us the wet Polaroids to bring back to our seats. When they’re developed, we see that the backdrop doesn’t come close to filling the whole frame of the photograph. They’re perfect.When Graham asks about the correctional officers (COs), Danny lowers his voice and leans in. “You gotta understand where they’re coming from. They’re all from rural towns with high unemployment. They might’ve been managing a fast food restaurant or selling shoes before this. Or, they’re just following in their daddy’s footsteps and going into the family business. And so when they get a little power over the badass boys from the big city, some of them go a little overboard with the power. They like it.“Like how?” I ask, thinking of all the stories I’ve read where COs are accused of beating the shit out of inmates, usually out of camera range.He looks at me, a slow smile appearing. “Next question!”“Oh come on.”“Hey, it’s a two-way street,” Danny continues diplomatically. “A lot of the mentals throw their feces at the guards or piss on them when they walk by.”I’ve talked to enough prisoners to understand Danny’s reticence. Prisons are full of secrets and inmates know better than to spill them. “COs don’t rat each other out and survive. Just like the inmates,” an inmate once told me. So if a CO really wanted to mess with an inmate, according to this guy, he could easily make up a reason to throw him in solitary. “Maybe they plant a shank in his cell or, during a drug test, they switch his clean urine with another inmate’s dirty urine.”Danny lowers his voice to a whisper and we lean in to listen. He tells Graham how he knows a guy who witnessed four guards kill a prisoner and then was transferred to another prison the next day. He says that’s just the way it goes and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.By now all the prisoners seem to be set up with a smorgasbord of microwaved specialities like dried-out chimichangas, patty-cake-thin hamburgers and cardboard soups and sandwiches — except Danny. “Surprise me,” he says when we ask what he wants. Too much pressure, I tell him. “Okay. Two burgers, stacked, heated 2 minutes. An egg and cheese sandwich. Heated for a minute-fifteen. Don’t forget ketchup packets, napkins and I’ll take a Dr. Pepper.” He’s done this before.Prison food has gone from bad to worse. After years of inmates requesting special dietary needs and protein substitutes, prison officials came up with the perfect solution: a nutritionally-sound alternative to meat that’s cheap and doesn’t discriminate against anyone — or discriminates against everyone equally. Soy. Not the good stuff. That’s tofu. This is soy byproducts dried out into sheets that are folded over and over until they form a chunk. So hot dogs are really soy dogs, hamburgers are really soyburgers, and so on as it applies to lasagna, meatballs and the like.The one topic all inmates say they’re asked most about is rape. So Danny doesn’t wait to be asked. “Inmates have sex with inmates, some consensual, some not. And you hear about guards forcing inmates to have sex with them,” Danny starts in, when I give him a “TMI” glare.I switch the topic to all the contraband in prison, which the prison proudly displays in its “Prison Museum.” “As every inmate learns his first week, you make a shank by melting the end of a toothbrush over a homemade burner until it’s a sharp point. To make a burner, you have to buy a hot pot from the commissary which has a heating element that’s wired to shut off before it reaches the boiling point. So guys will disassemble the whole unit and hard wire the heating element so it reaches 300 degrees. Then they use a coffee can to heat up the water or food. Voila.”Then he tells us what some inmates, a lot of gang members, use to really do some real damage. “They’ll get ahold of the top of a coffee tin, fold it in half, hide it in the palm of their hand and then slash an inmates’s face with it — and it kills like a motherfucker cause they rub garlic on the blade beforehand.” Another method — splashing scalding hot oil on an enemy — takes more planning because someone has to have access to cooking oil. Then Danny pulls down his lower lip to show us how gang members carry mini razors into the visiting room and, instead of slashing an inmate for revenge, they’ll slash an inmate’s visitor. “These are the guys who just don’t give a shit because they’re doing life anyway.”I’m already prepared to throw Graham under the table if another inmate gets within 5 feet of us, but with this new information, I take the chance to get a lay of the land. Chalk it up to responsible parenting. Most inmates look to be in their 30s. Many of them have female visitors that appear mismatched by age, size or race. These are the mostly white woman who fall in love with prisoners, Danny explains. Many are noticeably heavier or noticeably skinnier than the rest of the world. They share hair and dental challenges. For inmates, it’s a business transaction. The women do whatever the inmates want — send food packages, clothing and money and, in rare cases, even smuggle in drugs — all in exchange for false promises of lifelong love.“And some are men!” Danny says, cracking himself up again. “A couple years ago I got a letter from this gay guy who wanted to get to know me better … and as I was laughing about it to this other inmate, he goes ‘hey give it to me and I’ll write him’. So I did. And next thing we all know this inmate — who’s very straight — has extra cash in his commissary account and is getting these packages full of food and stuff — from a guy in frickin’ Ohio that he’s never met! And when the guy shows up for a visit, he pretends to be a homo with this guy, holding his hands and shit.”Danny wants to hear about Graham’s soccer team and other boy stuff. Convinced this is knowledge I’ll never use, I get up to use the bathroom. I walk slowly, thinking of all the women who’ve made this trip to the bathroom before me, their hearts racing, knowing they’re about to remove heroin balloons from their vaginas, wash them off in the sink, hide them in a corner of their mouths, and then pass them to their inmates in a deep farewell kiss — all the while knowing they’ll get prison time if they get caught.When I come back, Danny is teaching Graham how to punch someone in the face and knock them out cold. Convinced this is knowledge I could use, I join in.Danny tells us about his own experience on the soccer field. He was around Graham’s age and his family had just moved from Queens — where all sports are played on blacktop, i.e. the streets — to Long Island, where kids played soccer on grass. Somehow his new school stuck him in a soccer match, even though he’d never played before. “So this guy comes running with a ball and it goes by me, so I stop it, figuring that’s what you’re supposed to do. I’d never even seen a soccer match on TV. Next thing I know this guy kicks me in the shins trying to get the ball from me and then keeps going with the ball. I go after him — not even noticing that he scored a goal and the crowd is now cheering, and ask, “Who you kicking?” — and I punch him in the fucking mouth! Danny is cracking himself up again. “I got kicked out of school for that and never played soccer again.”I try flattening my fist for maximum surface area, as Danny and Graham are showing me, until I notice the guards all laughing at us. I imagine punching one of them in the face, then wonder where that came from.It’s time to say goodbye. Graham and I have some Six Flags thrill rides waiting for us. And that’s where two paths diverge in a wood. Danny has a CO waiting for him to strip, bend over, spread his butt cheeks and cough.We exchange polar-sized bear hugs and, as Danny turns the corner, wave our final goodbyes. We stop at the mail room on our way out because Danny says he left something there for me. After some confusion, the attendant hands me a large, heavy package which I wait until we’re outside to open.In the fresh air of freedom, I wonder if the whole prison visit idea was a mistake. It’s one thing to expose your son to fictionalized violence on TV and in movies, but is it another, far more terrible thing to expose him to the darkest underbelly of society? And did I really hear Danny tell Graham about how a guy who tried to cut his dick off with a razor?I open Danny’s package to find the legal-bound manuscript I thought I’d never live to see. It’s Danny’s appeal. His appeal and so much more. It’s his life, really.Graham is ahead of me, walking to the car. I still have an inch on him, but he’s well on his way to becoming his own person. He’s still naive in many ways, but he’s a NYC kid so he’s seen a lot. Still, I wonder. When is it age-appropriate for a kid to learn about real evil and real injustice? Did I screw-up here?I have my answer soon enough. On the car ride to Six Flags, Graham tells me he thought it was really fun to see Danny but “the stories about murders, rapes and beatings scared me. It really changes what you think about the goodness of people. Also because the guards can be just as bad as the prisoners.” That’s a lousy life lesson mom, I think to myself.But what happens next makes up for it. My son is vowing to never ever do anything wrong, as long as he lives, forever. “I’m not even going to lie ever again. There’s just no way I’m ever going to prison,” he’s telling me and I think he’s joking at first because no teenager talks this way, do they?He’s gazing out the window, ponderous, as he says to himself, “I’m never going to do anything, an-y-thing, ever for the rest of my life…”It’s the sound of a teenage boy being scared straight.And I know it’s not going to last long, but I figure it might buy me another year of good behavior.

Well, this depends on whether he managed to steal the $100 bill from the cash register or from a person in the store (be it customer or employee).Let's say he did manage to snag said money from the cash register. It doesn't matter what he buys, really, they lose $100. He bought $70 in merchandise with the store’s money, so now that's $70 in merchandise and $30 in cash. They still lost $100.Now, if he stole that money from someone else, then the store didn't lose any money at all. Some poor sucker just got burnt for $100.

I haven't bought a new vehicle with cash, but one of my brothers buys a brand new vehicle every couple of years, in full amount with a personal check!I was visiting home one summer when my brother asked if I wanted to tag along while he looked a new truck. I agreed and off we went.At the dealership he made a beeline to a shiny red 4x4 Dodge truck. A salesman quickly came out and started his spiel, to which my brother said, “stop talking and get the paperwork started, I'm going to buy this truck today, and you will get the easiest sale ever.”The salesman kinda looked confused, stammering something about a trade in, to which my brother said he was not trading in his current truck, he would be paying cash, in full for the new truck.This got the salesman practically tripping over his own feet as he ran inside the showroom to start the necessary paperwork and title for the new truck.With the paperwork nearly completed the salesman asked for the cash to seal the deal. My Brother took the checkbook from the back pocket of his Levi jeans and began filling out a check.This brought a quick look of dismay and a bit of anger to the salesman. He abruptly said “wait a minute, you said you were paying in cash, that's a check, we will never accept that as payment in full, especially for a brand new $30k truck!”My Brother calmly kept writing the check without looking and said “get the manager over here.”After a few minutes the manager came and when he saw it was my brother, who not only is his friend, but a repeat customer many times over, he said something to the effect that the current truck my brother drove must be close to 10k miles on it or he would not be at the dealership to buy another.While the manager was catching up with my brother, he told the now embarrassed salesman to call my brothers bank for “giggles and grins” to verify that he actually had enough money in his account to cover the purchase.The bank clerk indeed verified that my brother had enough money to cover the new truck purchase and then many more trucks if he so chose.Apparently the salesman was new to the dealership and to the area, so he did not believe that some guy wearing blue jeans and trying to buy a new truck, without so much as a test drive could afford to outright buy a truck, especially with no trade in.The entire time this transaction took was less than thirty minutes. It would have taken less time than that had the manager of the dealership saw my brother first.The best part of that day was my brother tossed me the keys to his new truck to drive home, while he drove his old one. He sold the “two year old truck” to a coworker who needed a reliable ride, for the Kelley blue book price, I was told later.Much aloha to you all…