Ricky, Satan, and Marilyn

A Letter from an Appalachian Jail:  The Culture Clash

It was an excruciatingly hot day in July of 1997 so tensions were already high in an overcrowded county jail with no air conditioning. This jail was built in the early 20th century before federal and state guidelines mandated certain living standards for inmates. In a seven-bed bullpen, there'd usually be sixteen men crammed into this 15x30 foot space. Not exactly a conducive environment for minding your own business.

Somehow I wound up with a fairly recent copy of Rolling Stone magazine. When I finished with it I handed it to one of my cellmates and said "Here you go Satan, they've got a pretty long interview in here with your hero, Marilyn Manson."

I never knew what Satan's real name was. I gave him that name because he truly looked demonic. Satan was a pale, six foot tall, skinny-fat middleweight with long, stringy, platinum blonde hair that hung halfway down his back. He had close-set, beady eyes, a pointed nose, was missing a front tooth, and had pentagrams and snakes tattooed up and down his arms. He was all into that shock rock garbage that was popular with the youth in the late 90s, so I figured he'd want to read the Marilyn Manson article.

Sitting beside Satan at the stainless steel eating table we all shared was a guy named Ricky Barnwell. I'd known Ricky about all my life. He was a half-raised, mouthy piece of shit in Kindergarten and by the time I was reunited with him in jail as a young adult, he'd fully lived up to the expectations I'd had for him. Ricky was about a 5'10" welterweight with the typical wiry body of a crackhead who'd sculpted a fairly decent physique from foraging for whatever scraps he could pillage from honest, hard working people. Although it was the late 90s, Ricky was still sporting a pretty impressive mullet and despite being in jail for several months, he still had a tan. This was undoubtedly caused by the fact that he'd been smoking cigarettes since he was seven years old and his alcoholic mother threw him out of the house to live outdoors every chance she got.

Satan got about halfway through the Marilyn Manson article and said "Huh-huh, cool, Marilyn says he's gonna have one boob surgically implanted in the middle of his chest. That'd be awesome!"

I looked over at Ricky and he suddenly got this disgusted look on his face and said to Satan "How bout I surgically implant my nuts to your chin you sick, freak faggot motherfucker!"

Trouble had already been brewing for a few weeks with Satan and Ricky because there was such a culture clash between them. Ricky was your standard redneck crackhead and Satan was part of this new mutated breed of outcasts.

Ricky's insult was the last straw for Satan. He'd had enough. Satan immediately jumped up and went after Ricky. They locked in a clinch with Satan grabbing Ricky's throat with one hand and his mullet with the other hand. In response, Ricky also grabbed ahold of Satan's throat and his long blond mane. They wrestled around for what seemed like an eternity without a single clean punch being thrown. Both men finally gassed out from exhaustion. The worst battle wound was a scratch on Satan's neck. It was the most pathetic fight I've ever seen in my life as far as action goes, but the buildup was one of the funniest things I've ever witnessed.

So if you ever see a long haired freak and a mulleted crackhead start to fight, just save yourself some agony and go home and listen to a David Allan Coe record or something...

(c) 2017 John Paul Barber