Jailed State Senator Jeff Smith Tells Us What a “Prison Wallet” Is

(Photo: Jeff Smith, right, with one of the guys he met in prison I guess…wait, no. It’s Bill Streeter.)

Jeff Smith, the Missouri state senator who was jailed last year after being found that he lied to the feds during questioning about a conspiracy with Voters for Truth to run negative ads against opponent Russ Carnahan, has written a little piece about his time in the clink and in it he answers questions like “What does ‘get chalked’ mean?”, “What’s a prison wallet?”, “Did he stab anyone or become someone’s bitch?” (Answers: “to be murdered”, “your butt” and “inconclusive”)

A guard approached and escorted me to a bathroom without a door. Then another guard appeared. Gruff and morbidly obese, he spoke in a thick Kentucky drawl. “Stree-ip,” he commanded. I stripped.

“Tern’round,” he barked. I turned around.

“Open up yer prison wallet,” he ordered.

I looked at him quizzically.

“Tern’round and open yer butt cheeks.”

I complied.

We saw something like this in a movie once late at night…only it was two chicks and one of them was in prison for banging too many people and the other one had a black dildo instead of a police baton.

When I arrived at my unit, I was the only white person, which immediately made me a source of curiosity.

“White-collar?” one guy asked.

“Yup.”

“What you done did?”

“Lied to the feds.”

“Damn, how they know?” asked another.

“One of my best friends was wired.”

A chorus of “Punk-ass motherfucker!”s rained down.

Then somebody said, “Dude need to get chalked.” That was slang, I realized, describing a body at a crime scene.

The chorus went “Hmm-hmmmmm!”

What’s with the part at the end? “Hmm-hmmmmm!”? Was he in a group with Jackee Harry and whoever this lady is?

You can read the whole story on The Recovering Politican. The story is a lot like American History X except Smith isn’t a Skinhead and he neer mentions working in the laundry room…not sure if the bathroom scene lines up at all with Smith’s experience.

via kottke.org