#ohio penitentiary news

[thebotanicalarcade]

You may sing of the lily of France, England and her pretty red rose, Bonnie Scotland's thistle And the land where the shamrock grows. Ev'ry nation has a flower whose beauty we all adore, But give to me the carnation, The flower McKinley wore

[bookwormscififan]

I (Don't) Wanna Be Free

Read on AO3!

A/N: Was there ever a time before we met him that Yancy wanted to be free? Mayhaps it involved a certain murder man?

--

Dear Y/N,

Have I ever told youse why I didn’t want to be free?

Not the musical, not the song and dance, not the dumb things I said to youse when we first met.

Did I ever tell youse the real reason I didn’t want to be free?

Well, it all started when I first got a new cellmate…

“Hey, Ohio! You’ve got a cellmate,” Murder-Slaughter called, opening the door to Yancy’s cell and ushering someone inside. The prisoner looked up from his book, sizing up the newcomer with a bored gaze.

“My bed’s top bunk,” was all he said that day, watching the new man settle in silently.

“Are you not even going to ask what I did to get in here?”

It had been a week since Yancy had received his new cellmate, who had been respectfully quiet until that moment. Yancy held back an eyeroll, putting his notebook down and leaning his forearm on it.

“Let me guess. Youse murdered someone.” He didn’t suppress his grin at the newcomer’s shocked expression, “They usually try to lump a murderer in my cell with me. Because I killed some people too.”

“I’m Murdock,” the man stated, offering a hand after he’d recovered from his shock. Yancy snorted, taking Murdock’s hand and shaking it firmly.

“I know. And youse know my name too. Yancy.”

“So…” Murdock trailed one night, lying in his bunk, staring at Yancy’s mattress above him and waiting for his cellmate to sigh before continuing, “Who did you kill?”

“My parents. Youse?” Murdock closed his eyes, wishing he had his trademark gloves or glasses to cover his face.

“Many, many people.” He rolled onto his side, yearning for the feeling of his knife in his hand again, listening to Yancy shuffling around above him before falling asleep.

“Hey, Murdock, youse wanna break out with me?” The mass murder frowned into his bowl of slop, looking at Yancy as the musician sat opposite him at the cafeteria table.

“Why would anyone wanna break out?” He mumbled, shovelling another spoonful into his mouth. He paused when Yancy slid an item across the table to him: a pair of black leather gloves, creases showing signs of wear, with a familiar black ‘M’ embossed into the bottom edge.

“Where did you find these?” Murdock whispered, slowly reaching for the gloves as if afraid to touch them, afraid they would disappear.

“I know a lot of secret passages in this place.” There was no denying the smug tone in Yancy’s voice, and Murdock snatched the gloves off the table before he could think twice.

“And if I do agree to break out with you,” he began, voice low, “What’s in it for me?” Yancy grinned, leaning forward on the table and pushing Murdock’s bowl away from him.

“I’ll make sure youse never get caught again.”

It didn’t take long for Murdock to figure out his own escape route. It took even less time for him to devise an escape plan that didn’t involve Yancy, and no time at all for him to execute the plan.

Yancy woke up to find the bunk under him empty. While not an unusual occurrence, this time Yancy had woken earlier than usual, expecting to wake Murdock and drag him out himself.

Instead he found a crumpled piece of paper sitting atop Murdock’s pillow.

Will come back for you.

Yancy held onto that written promise like a lifeline.

He never came back, Y/N.

Never wrote.

Never called.

Disappeared, just like that.

All of my being was waiting for him to come back and get me out of Happy Trails, but he never came back.

It took a lot of time and effort, but eventually I got back on my feet and decided the penitentiary was the place for me. It was better to be somewhere that wanted me, than to be waiting on someone who wasn’t showing.

What’s that song from that band? How’s it go? “Waiting on a train that’ll never come”? That was me and Murdock.

If and when I ever find him again, I’m going to show him what he did.

My review’s coming up soon.

We’ll see if I get parole.

Yancy.

[masterwords]

I am a sucker for stories about characters getting together, mutual pining/ idiots to lovers are the best!

I would love a good story like that with Hotchgan unfortunately there aren't many out there like that.

So strange that Hotchgan get so little notes on AO3 and so much love on tumblr

Hey! I love those types of stories too! I'm going to fully admit right now that I'm not good at writing pining, especially with these two...but I tried. And it got long. The problem is that I'm not sure Hotch really allows himself to pine, and Morgan just kind of...goes for it. So I had to put them in a situation, and it gets kind of ugly but it ends with kisses so HANG IN THERE while you read okay? As far as getting together stories...I do have a number of them, I can definitely link them directly for you if you haven't read them. I've written hundreds of thousands of words about these idiots. (Ignore that if you have.)

Thank you for sending me this request! I'm not home a lot to write lately because I have a passel of kiddos and they're always in sports which means a LOT of traveling, but I had a lot of fun (and agonized a lot over it, not gonna lie) writing this and I just hope you like it!

.........................................................................................................................

Quid Pro Quo

Pairing: Hotch/Morgan

Warnings: divorce, anxiety, carsickness/gagging, Vincent Perotta, implied talk about abuse and other bad Hotch childhood things (brief)

Words: 5.6k

**

In an '82 Dodge Diplomat, they rolled down the deserted highway, dirt kissing the fresh white paint job. Police issue, from the back lot, Derek's favorite place to choose from. Of course they could have had something newer, nicer, preferably an SUV according to Hotch...but this reminded Derek of his dad. No longer silver streaked with bright blue, no longer screaming POLICE, it still had that smell. Some kind of sharp vinyl smell that permeated everything, new car smell but somehow dusty and old at the same time.

“All the cars on the lot,” Hotch muttered, playing around with the loose heat controls. He was freezing. The smell of burning dust was all that wanted to come out of the heating vents. “And you choose this one?”

“Give her a second,” was Derek's reply, his hands running along the smoothed out plastic and metal of the steering wheel. Cars now were so bulky, this one was sleek. “Specs said everything is in perfect condition. She's an old girl, probably needs some time. Tell me you wake up spry and ready to rock firs thing in the morning...”

Hotch grumbled under his breath about how rude that was, but he couldn't deny it. He wasn't getting any younger, and neither was this car. But, it wasn't a lie. Ten minutes later and that heater was about hot enough to melt through the dash, and Hotch had his hands greedily held as close to the vents as he could get. Long before heated seats, this was the best he could do.

“Did your dad drive one of these?” That had to be it, the reason Derek would choose this car out of everything else on the lot. Tons of them, kept in tip top condition, for the times when airline tickets weren't in the cards. They weren't going far enough, they were told, to warrant the cost of an airline ticket plus a rental car, and they certainly weren't going to use the jet for just the two of them. It was only about 330 miles, give or take, to the Ohio State Penitentiary and it was simply not worth the trouble of flying. Still, 300 miles sounded a lot nicer with a newer rig, heated seats, better sound insulation.

Especially when Aaron thought about who they were going to see. Vince Perotta had just been moved from Essex in New Jersey to Ohio State, his lawyers worked out a sweet deal for him. He bounced around every year or so, and as soon as he was settled they came calling on Hotch for a visit. Promising more names, more locations, anything to get him to agree to a face to face. Normally he went on his own, the team didn't even know he did it. Just take a few days, tell everyone it was personal time, and hit the road.

He'd been planning to do the same this time, too, until Haley had him served. Until he held those divorce papers in his hand and felt his entire world burn to ashes. She'd warned him, told him she was going to do it, she wasn't playing...but it didn't feel real until he held them. And now he'd lost whatever confidence he had in going to see a man who took pleasure in picking apart his carcass slow and methodical. That's all these visits really were. Perotta would give, but he would also take. It was the taking that required the extra day of personal time. But he didn't think that would cut it this time, so he asked Derek to come along.

Derek who had a million questions that he knew better than to ask. He just smiled and nodded, loving the car and the simplicity of it. There was something sweetly nostalgic about it, and Aaron could almost feel his sentimentality for this old beast of a car. It soothed his frayed nerves. “Yeah. I rode around in a car like this every day after school. Dad would pick me and my sisters up, take us out for a donut or a soda, tell us not to sass mom and do our homework, then drop us off at home. Same thing every day...” Until it wasn't. Until that ended, but he didn't want to go there. Not now.

“My father drove a Caddy,” Hotch offered automatically. He was staring off into the distance, nothing but highway and farmland as far as he could see. There was a big wall of storm clouds gathering on the horizon, thick and gray and ominous. “A big 1968 Cadillac Fleetwood...champagne with these custom white leather seats that scorched your legs in the summertime and never warmed up in winter.”

“You learn to drive in that beast?”

Hotch laughed a joyless laugh. “Are you kidding? My father wouldn't let any of us behind the wheel. He bought my mother this station wagon that was half a block long and almost as wide. Wood paneling on the sides. I learned to drive in that. Took out a few mailboxes before I got a handle on how big it was.”

“What happened to the Caddy when he passed?” Derek asked, hoping it wasn't too forward of him. Aaron made a little huffing noise and shook his head.

“He left it to Sean. You can imagine it didn't last long. He sold it for rent money, so he claims. I have my doubts.”

Derek did too. He knew Sean well enough to know that he wasn't exactly the most trustworthy person. Not exactly responsible. That he and Hotch shared both parents and a genetic pool never ceased to amaze him. Still, he liked Sean. A night out on the town was always more fun when he helped make the plans.

“Hey, that bag on the backseat, can you grab it? I brought a little surprise...”

The minute Hotch lifted it up, he knew what it was. The sound of plastic clacking together, the jagged angles bulging against the thin nylon. He set it on his lap and waited for Derek to invite him to look inside, and what he saw didn't exactly surprise him. “Pick one.”

“Derek, we don't need music...”

“Bullshit. Pick one. They're all classics.”

It was a pile of mixtapes. White covers with meticulously labeled track lists in various colored ball point pen. Definitely Derek's handwriting. “You made all of these?”

“Those go all the way back to high school, man. Seriously, they're all gold.” Now Hotch understood why Derek chose this car. It was more than just nostalgia. He could control the entire musical experience. And, he thought a little suddenly (not even sure where it came from) that Derek might be trying to cheer him up. Or take the edge off of what was going on in his life. The gesture was appreciated.

Hotch sifted through the tapes with thinly veiled fascination. He had a few tapes still in a shoe box somewhere, probably in the storage unit. Nothing this elaborate, and he wondered as he poked through the pile whether Derek had every cassette he'd ever owned. Probably. They would be neatly cataloged, on display, too. A part of him wanted to see it.

The rest of the trip, Derek couldn't be contained. He sang loud like he was in the shower, dancing with his shoulders in his seat, patting and drumming against the steering wheel. There was something almost contagious about it. Hotch even found himself humming along more than once to songs he knew...some Whitney Houson, some Marvin Gaye, even Dwight Yoakam and Elton John. He really did have a little of everything, and he wasn't lying when he said it was all good. Hotch may not have enjoyed the Nas as much as he did the smooth, soft sounds of Lionel Richie, but he found that he couldn't help bopping along with the beat anyway.

By the time they were nearing their motel, Hotch was eagerly reading through the track-listings trying to find a suitable next tape. He almost wanted to just continue to drive...something about getting to know Derek through this felt intimate and like a gift. Better than any amount of talking.

They ordered a pizza and settled into their motel room easily. Two beds, a grainy old television and a coffee machine. Not exactly high-end accommodations, but they were happy to be out of the car and kicked back on lumpy old mattresses watching half an action movie until they passed out. The daunting nature of the following day had Hotch on edge as much as he tried to hide it, and Derek did his best not to bring it up. He didn't need to ask to understand that there was something specific about Vincent Perotta that got deeply under Hotch's skin.

It did his, too. Watching the man garrote his friend, being unable to take the shot, years later it still made him angry. The bruises beneath Hotch's buttoned tight collar were purple black and his voice had been hoarse for nearly a week after. As it slowly went back to normal and the bruises faded to sickly yellow, everyone else seemed to forget but Derek couldn't. He stared at it every time they were in a room together, considering it a failure on his part.

If given the chance to go back, he didn't really think Perotta being alive was terribly important to the investigation or saving Jimmy, they could have figured it out on their own...he'd put that bullet between Perotta's eyes without thinking twice.

Police station was the first stop in the morning for a short seminar, as Jason used to call them. Rossi just told them that while they were on the road, they may as well stop by and poke their heads in. Especially since they now held a prolific serial killer in their jurisdiction and he was a doozy. Hotch didn't mind the short distraction. They had some basic information to present but it was more of a conversation that they wanted to center around Vincent Perotta. A Q&A session with cops who weren't usually terribly receptive to what they did. Derek always made it easier, having been a cop himself. It was like an instant kinship. He would walk in and they could just tell by the way he walked, the way he carried himself. He was one of them, and Hotch was an outsider. He tried too hard to combat that, be friendly instead of putting up his usual shield of armor...usually it worked after a while. They either respected him or took pity on him, either way they usually warmed up but not today. Today it was one knock down after another until he found himself retreating to the silent shadows beside the power point on screen and let Derek take lead on their session. It would be over soon. He wasn't there to rile them up, and Derek had it under control.

Afterward, the Sheriff apologized to Hotch and he figured that was about the best he could have hoped for...but Derek, he had them on board with what he was saying.

“You could have done that on your own,” Aaron said, lugging the bag of equipment over his shoulder. “I was only in the way today.”

Derek regarded him sadly and shrugged. “You're just off your game. It's understandable, man. But I was talking to one of the guys afterward, while you were with the Sheriff. Guess they've been burned a few times lately by Feds jumping into their business...it's not you. Don't take it personally.”

“They called me a pencil pusher,” Hotch muttered, throwing the bag into the backseat with a huff. Derek laughed.

“Well shit, they're calling you worse now that you're not in the building.”

Hotch stopped and held his hand up over his eyes to shield them from the sun while he stared at Derek more than a little incredulously. “Like what?”

“Oh you know...cop things...” Derek's voice was sly, mischievous, and his smile said he wasn't about to tell Hotch exactly what he knew. “Things my mama would tan my hide over if I repeated them. You're better off not knowing.”

“That isn't true. My imagination can fill in the blanks. Just tell me.”

“Not a chance, Hotchner. Your mind isn't nearly filthy enough to come up with half the shit they'll say just at the coffee maker, let alone at the bar after their shifts are over...pick a tape so we can drive to the prison and get this over with.”

The prison was Hotch's place. Being a cop didn't help you there, but being a former prosecutor helped. He knew the walk, the sign in, the way to interact with the guards. Derek fell in line, followed Hotch's lead, knowing that his expertise stopped at booking these guys into the county jail, once that transport bus came he was out of their lives. And he was fine with that. These custodial interviews made him nervous...prisons weren't kind to ex-cops, for starters. Hotch could fool everyone into thinking he was just a lawyer, just a pencil pusher, but Derek, he gave off the vibes of I put you here you asshole. These guys fed on it. He'd done a few custodials on his own and preferred to have someone with him if at all possible, though he'd never say it aloud. He could never admit that.

He had his suspicions that Hotch knew, though, because he never sent Derek alone. Not once. Gideon had, Rossi had, but Hotch always went with him or gave him a partner.

“You don't have to do anything in here, just...” Hotch paused, searching for a way to make this as painless as possible. “I couldn't do this one alone. Whatever you hear in there doesn't leave this prison.” Derek didn't have a chance to reply before the guard let them into the little room set up for them. Derek just nodded his understanding, as nonchalant as he could, even though he felt the rock settle in in the pit of his stomach. He was more than a little uneasy, this wasn't going to be pretty. If it had Hotch nervous...hell he didn't think he'd ever seen Hotch nervous.

Perotta was already seated at the small metal table. He looked like a giant, his meaty fists chained to a metal hoop in the center of the table. Hotch eyed the chains and considered his options. He swallowed and there was an audible click in his throat as he did so.

“Agent Hotchner,” Perotta said in his cool, slow voice. “You brought us a guest.”

“Yes,” Hotch replied quickly. He tried to come up with a lie, a reason, something to give Perotta but he was sure by now that the man could smell the lie he was cooking up. “I thought it best I didn't come alone today.”

“Oh? You sound different, Aaron. Have you been sleeping?”

Hotch sighed and led Derek around to the other side of the room, cautiously giving Perotta a wide berth. He wouldn't sit too close, either. That chain looked tight but Perotta was strong. Involuntarily he gulped and felt that phantom barbed wire feeling. “Does that count as your first question, Vincent?”

Perotta smiled his feline smile, bearing his teeth. “Sure. I'd love to know what's keeping you up at night these days.” Almost instinctively, Perotta's gaze drifted from Hotch's face to his hands as he pulled out his file and pen, and then his smile widened. “Where's your wedding ring?”

“That's two questions, Vincent. Do you expect me to answer both of them? You're going to have me out of her faster than usual at this rate.”

Perotta glanced at Derek briefly, and then back at Hotch. Derek almost thought he could see Perotta's gears turning and he didn't like what he was seeing. Still, he waited. The silence ate away at their hour and he would be glad to let it.

“I knew she'd leave you. Was it a shock to you?”

Hotch remained silent, no longer wanting to play Perotta's little game of cat and mouse. “I'd like you to answer that one question. I know you're not sleeping because she left, that no longer interests me. I'd like to know if you were surprised that she left you.”

Hotch held Perotta's intense gaze. “I suppose. When she took our son and left, I thought she might still come back. I shouldn't have been surprised when she had me served, she gave me ample warning, but I was anyway.”

Derek couldn't believe the honesty that Hotch was affording this man chained to the table. He wondered if he could have gotten such brutal honesty out of Hotch if he'd asked. Maybe he would, he hadn't ever really tried...he rarely tried to get Hotch to talk because he knew it made the other man uncomfortable.

It was a peculiar back and forth. Perotta had a slew of questions prepared, and to Derek's constant amazement, Hotch answered him honestly each time. He worried his thumb over the inside of his ring finger, right where that wedding ring no longer sat, and stared hard at Perotta. Hotch answered questions about his childhood, about his father, about things Derek didn't know. It was almost like walking into a movie that was already half over, a continuation of previous conversations. Perotta asked, but he never had a response and his face stayed stony and unreadable. He took careful mental notes, cataloging every syllable. And yet he could tell Hotch was withholding as much as he thought he could get away with. These stories were honest, but threadbare. Perotta wouldn't know his tells the way Derek did. Maybe he could tell an outright lie, but he wouldn't see through the minor infractions. Careful guarding of information that was too deeply personal, too well buried, to speak into the world.

“You've got two questions left,” Hotch said, clearing his throat. It wasn't any worse saying those things in front of Derek than he thought it would be, it was only as bad as he imagined. That was a relief. If he had to bare his soul in front of anyone, he couldn't ask for anyone better.

“I'd like to ask Agent Morgan a question,” Perotta said after a long, pointed silence. He'd been weighing his odds, studying the two men. “May I? I'll forfeit my final question.”

“That's up to Agent Morgan,” Hotch answered quietly, before turning to Derek. “You don't have to say yes.”

Derek squared his shoulders and stepped forward from where he'd been standing a few feet behind Hotch, just a casual observer. “You can ask, but I'm not promising I'll answer.”

“No,” Perotta oozed, smiling. Realizing he once again had the upper hand after only a momentary lapse. “That isn't the deal. But I'll work with you. I ask you the question, and if you're not comfortable answering, I get to ask Aaron two more anyway.”

Derek hated the sound of that. If he thought the question he was asked was too personal, too much, the focus would shift back to Hotch who had already answered such deeply personal questions that Derek felt sick on his behalf. Hotch didn't look too bad off, all things considered. He'd looked worse before they came in. It had obviously been eating at him, the anticipation of this conversation. The fact that Hotch hadn't told him about any of this, hadn't shared with him what was about to happen, was gnawing at him.

“Fine. What do you want to know?”

Perotta grinned. There was nothing endearing or sweet in his smile, it was as near as Derek thought he'd ever seen to real evil. “Did you know you were in love with Aaron before you aimed your gun at my head, or was it my garrote around his neck that did it?”

Derek cleared his throat nervously and balled up his fists to hide the tremor. “That sounds like two questions...” His voice was frail and he found that he couldn't look at Hotch. Bright spots clouded his vision. Perotta shrugged lackadaisically.

“I suppose it is. You can't blame me for my interest?”

“You don't have to answer that.” Hotch's voice sounded far away to Derek's ears and he sat down on the bench beside his friend. Sat hard, before he passed out. He wasn't sure why he was reacting this way, really. It wasn't like he'd never been put on the spot before, he did this shit for a living. And it also wasn't like he hadn't ever confessed love to someone who didn't want to hear it...you don't get to his age without a few broken hearts. But something about this felt so much bigger. So much worse.

He had more to lose this time.

“Come on, Agent Morgan. I've got a time limit. If you don't answer soon, your friend here might not get the information he's after. We'll have to wait until next time.”

“I,” Derek started, swallowing hard. “Before. But I don't think I understood it until that moment.”

Hotch stared hard at Perotta, refused to let himself be distracted by the sudden sharp pain in his chest, the dizzy feeling that washed over him. He studied Perotta's reaction, the pleasure at making both of them uncomfortable, at what he figured would probably destroy their working relationship after it made for an awful drive home. He looked pleased.

“The paper,” Hotch said with some finality, glancing only briefly at the clock. “Time's up.”

The little sheet of paper was released from Perotta's grip, crumpled and damp from his sweaty palm but it was legible. Same as always. A name and a location.

It took Derek almost a full minute to gather himself, to stand up and follow Hotch out of the room once Perotta had been removed. They didn't speak all the way down the corridor, and they didn't say a word as they got their weapons back and re-entered the free world.

Derek sped up as they walked to the car. He unlocked Hotch's door first, old school locks being what they were, he was still a gentleman even if he was more than a little off his game. Old habits die hard. Once inside the car he rifled through the tapes, selected one, and turned it up a little too loud. Loud enough that he couldn't hear himself think. And he definitely couldn't hear anything Hotch might want to say.

He knew what was coming. Useless platitudes. He'd assure Derek it didn't mean anything, he'd forget all about it, even offer him an out to say he'd lied and said what Perotta wanted to hear. And the most frustrating part of all of it was that he would do it. He'd forget it, if Derek wanted him to.

“Derek,” Hotch said as Derek floored the gas a little too hard and made his stomach do a somersault up into his chest. “Derek.”

He turned the music up and drove a little faster. Hotch sighed and looked out the window, watched the prison disappear in the rearview mirror. The softened, damp piece of paper was still in his hand...his unpleasant day was only beginning. He still had to find this person's family, get the police out to the location, dig up remains. His shit was getting deeper and that pain in his chest was quickly turning into a sick feeling in his stomach.

Quickly, without giving it too much thought, he flicked the volume button until it was all the way down and turned toward Derek. His knee knocked into the console and he winced at the jolt of pain. “Derek.”

“Stop please. Just don't.” He was getting angry now. Angry at what? Perotta? Or maybe Hotch for bringing him along in the first place? Or himself for answering so brutally honest when he had no reason to. Hotch gave him an out. But he'd been so angry about being blindsided by the content of the conversation and far too guilty about how much Hotch gave up to lie, or worse, to refuse to answer. Lord only knew what other violations Perotta had in store for Hotch. As it was, he felt like he'd been watching an assault in graphic detail.

“Was it true?” Hotch's voice sounded small and fragile, the question leaving him breathless. Derek's foot eased up on the gas a little at the sound of it. He frowned.

“What? What I told him? Yeah, I guess it was...didn't think lying was an option after everything you gave him...”

“What I gave him was part of the deal I made. You didn't owe him anything. I'm sorry I put you in that position.”

One painfully silent moment stretched into the next and finally, on an empty stretch of highway between the prison and their motel, Derek veered off to the side of the road in a cloud of dust and squealing brakes.

“You're sorry? Man...” Derek's anger was tangible and he knew, without a doubt, the person he was angriest with was himself. “Don't you dare do that.”

Hotch pursed his lips and waited. Derek didn't look like he was done talking. He was just busy processing.

“He thinks you guys have a lot in common. That's fucked up, you know that? Looks at you like you guys are the same...”

“I suppose in some ways ways...”

“No. No. You're not. Maybe you guys both had shitty fuckin' dads but that doesn't make you the same. You gotta be smart enough to see that.”

Silence. All the color had gone from Hotch's cheeks. “It isn't that simple, Derek.”

“No, of course not...it never is...”

Another long silence. God the silence was painful. It was thick and settled in his chest. Finally, when Hotch couldn't take it a moment more, and it looked like Derek was going to start the car again, he reached over and placed his hand over Derek's before he could turn the key in the ignition.

“I asked if what you said was true because...” he paused, gathering what little courage he could still muster after the beating his soul just took in that prison. He wasn't sure he could come back from this if it went south, not after everything else. The things Derek knew about him now...he was too raw to even meet his stare. He'd never shied away from eye contact with Derek before.

Hell, in that case, he might already be dead in the water. “What Hotch?”

He desperately needed Derek to soften a little, and under the gentle touch of his hand he almost seemed to. Almost. He didn't make things easy. “Because what dammit?”

When Hotch took too long to respond, Derek groaned and turned the key in the ignition, shaking Hotch's hand away with the motion. Frustrated, Derek let out a sigh and floored the gas before turning the radio back on and back up. Way up. There was a faint sting of tears in Hotch's eyes. Tears of frustration, at Derek for being so impulsive, for being so open, at himself for being unable to do one fucking thing he wanted to do. This whole trip had turned out to be just as disastrous as he'd anticipated. His fail-safe had blown up in his face. He'd tried to avoid the self-destruction of going on his own but managed to make it worse.

There was nothing he could say now. He knew Derek well enough not to touch that volume dial again or they'd be on the fast track to an actual argument. Instead, he sat silent, each of them stewing in the raw emotions Vincent Perotta had scraped up. The man had a knack.

Derek blew past the turn off to their motel, and Hotch watched it fade into the distance curiously. Part of him thought about speaking up, but his features were set and he looked in absolutely no mood to hear anything come out of Hotch's mouth. So, he kept himself quiet. Clear on they drove as the afternoon turned on them, those storm clouds finally making good on their threats. They'd been hovering all day but the air was still, quiet, calm. Now it crackled with electricity, he could feel it in his teeth.

Derek switched the tapes silently, loud plastic clacking together as he worked one handed. Hotch thought this might be the time, the brief silence between tapes.

“Derek, pull over,” he said quietly, his stomach twisting. He'd done a fairly good job at holding it off. His carsickness was usually enough to keep him in the driver's seat, but he didn't often have trouble if Derek drove...unless he was driving like a wild man through a violent sheet of rain and thunder. This sudden out of control feeling of barreling toward endless black chaos. “Please pull over.” His voice had taken on a breathy quality that Derek didn't like. He knew it well enough from years of sitting in the backseat of a car piloted by Gideon down back roads and highways. Before the jet was in their employ whenever they wanted it.

He swerved onto the shoulder of the road and by the time the car was in park Hotch was spilling out the side onto his hands and knees, gagging and heaving. Nothing was coming up, there was nothing to come up, but man did it hurt. He crawled further away from the car, as if the movement would help. At least it would get him away from the pungent smell of exhaust. Thunder rumbled through the air around them, followed shortly by lightning that lit up the sky as he skidded down the embankment and pushed his way into the wall of corn stalks to get some shelter from the rain. Derek stayed in the car, and he was grateful for that. His stomach cramped painfully but thanked his lucky stars he never actually got sick.

Some part of him knew he wasn't just car sick. It wasn't Derek's driving, it was the time with Perotta, it was the smell of his breath so close, it was that phantom pain in his windpipe every time he looked at the man's hands. It was every single thing he said about his father, about trips to the emergency room and social workers and his mother. It was memories dragged up from murky depths that tasted like bile and blood. He gagged and whimpered until it finally settled and he just sat there, crouching inside the strange shelter of tall cornstalks and drenched spiderwebs that looked like silk and diamonds when the lightning lit up the sky.

“Hotch!” Derek's voice floated strangely through the electric air and he pressed his palms against his thighs to try and stand up. His knees shook a little and he nearly fell, but caught himself quickly against one thick stalk.

“I'm here,” he answered, staggering out of the field. Derek was standing just outside of his door, staring incredulously into the night while Hotch lurched through the muck and up the small embankment to the road. “I'm sorry.” He muttered it while he shucked his soaking wet jacket from his arms and tossed it into the backseat and kicked the muck off of his shoes against the tires.

“You good?” Derek asked, and Hotch could tell that he'd softened a little. The edge was gone from his voice, and his features didn't look quiet so stern. “Need another minute?”

“No, I'm okay.” He paused, meeting Derek's eyes over the roof of the car briefly. “Derek...what you said to Perotta, is it still true?” Somewhere in that muddy corn field he'd found whatever sliver of courage still existed in him and lit it on fire. It would burn fast and hot, it wouldn't last long. He shivered and pushed his wet hair back from his forehead, staring intently at the man before him.

“What does it matter?” Derek asked, reaching for the door, to let Hotch in. He wanted to get out of the rain, but Hotch wouldn't move. "Hotch, get in..."

“Just answer me. It matters.”

“I don't know. Yeah, I guess it's still true. It's okay, you can tell me it's fine and you don't care and...”

He didn't get a chance to finish before Hotch was grabbing the sides of his face, palms splayed drenched and a little muddy against his cheeks, and leaning forward for a kiss. There was nothing gentle about the way he pulled Derek toward him, the way he dove into that kiss hungry and more than a little desperate. Behind them thunder rumbled through the field and moments later the sky lit up in a ferocious web of blinding light. Derek's arms wrapped tight around Hotch's waist, pulling him close, chest to chest, hip to hip and he leaned them up against the car door. His feet slipped in the growing puddle beneath them, but somehow the rain seemed inconsequential. They lost track of the entire storm, the fury of mother nature faded into the background.

“Let's finish this at the hotel,” Derek whispered, his teeth chattering. He really hoped the heater warmed up a little faster this time. Hotch smiled dreamy and tired.

“We'd be there right now if you hadn't missed the turn.”

Derek glared at him, nose to nose, and squeezed his waist a little harder. “Don't push your luck. I'll leave you here.”

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"Prowler Is Given Term," Border Cities Star. June 22, 1933. Page 3. ---- Man Caught in Cellar Of Church Sent To Penitentiary --- Draws Two Years ---- Plea for Leniency Spurned By Court as Record Is Offered ---- Charles H. Crownshields, 31, native of Belleville, whose police record dates back to 1916 and covers a wide range of jails - city, state, federal, American and Canadian - was sentenced this morning to a term of two years in the penitentiary at Portsmouth for breaking into the Immaculate Conception Church here. The sentence was meted out by Magistrate Brodie in city police court.

BEGS FOR LENIENCY Crownshields, who insisted he had only forced his way into the church basement for a night's lodging, that course being recommended by a fellow-traveler on the highway as a comfortable place, put up a strong plea for leniency in view of his promise to a girl to go straight. The promise was given, he explained, during a five-year stretch in Portsmouth. He had been sent away on that occasion for shopbreaking in the Town of Essex and for carrying dangerous weapons.

While appreciating the possibility that a man, some time in life, despite a long criminal career, may suddenly decide to reform, Magistrate Brodie was doubtful of the outcome if he sent the defendant to the Guelph prison farm. He suggested Crownshields, despite good intentions, would yield to an impulse and break custody again. His record, dug up from Supt. Wilkinson's files, showed he had broken away from an industrial farm many years ago and later from the town jail in Elkhart, Indiana.

HAS LONG RECORD Crownshield's record, international and varied in scope, revealed convictions for driving away automobiles, burglary, holdup, shopbreaking, breach of the American immigration laws. carrying guns, and breach of promise to marry a girl in Lockport, New York.

When arrested, Crownshields was wearing black gloves and carried a flashlight and a jackknife which was missing from a certain dwelling which had been entered just after the defendant's arrival in Windsor from the west.

ASKS PROBATION Crownshields asked for five or 10 years' probation "on his personal honor" but Magistrate Brodie said he couldn't do much for him in view of his remarkable record for getting into trouble.

Crownshields served terms in the U. S. prison at Leavenworth, Kansas, and in the Ohio State penitentiary. And, according to Detective-Inspector Renaud, he had anticipated at least seven years on the latest count.

[AL: Crownshields was 32, single, 'sallow' and known also by the aliases Charles Luftman, Henry Davink, and Henry Miller. He was born in Picton, Ontario, of German immigrant ancestors, but lived at times in Detroit and Windsor. His record was indeed long, including a stint in Leavenworth prison, Elmira reformatory, Mansfield prison farm, and a previous term as #674 at Kingston Penitentiary. He was convict #3104 this time around at Kingston Penitentiary. Crownshields worked in the Coal and Wood gang, shoveling coal off of delivery ships, weighing it, hauling it to storage, and distributing it to the boiler plant. Tough, sweaty, dirty work, though it afforded some freedom outside the walls. In July 1933, he signed a petition with the other inmates in his work crew:

“…We are working under conditions worse than any other gang….we are working in stifling heat and suffocating dust…[this] work is no play, we would gladly prefer a change of work to continuing under the present conditions...You [meaning the warden] have said that we are not entitled to fresh air and exercise. We do not know because we have no rules and regulation…all men working inside are entitled to it…we are working inside a building inside!” “We believe that our request for consideration in just…”

This apparently worked and they were granted more exercise and recreation in line with what the other inmates had won after the riot in 1932. He was released March 1935.]

[scp-foundation-official]

A specific D-class brought from the North Ohio Penitentiary has completely ignored the standard amnestics after a particularly sensitive test, showing perfect memory of the test even after repeated trials to remove memories. the subject was specifically in prison after repeated second-degree felony thefts, and reviewing their information says they are legally 56, while they appear no older than 20. what is to be done about this?

Subject is to be contained at Site-81. New Object File is to created. Item #: SCP- ⬜⬜⬜⬜. Object Class: Pending. Research is to immediately begin into the anomalous properties of the entity. Dr. [REDACTED] is directed to be Lead Researcher. Additional staffing is to be posted as requested and approved by Assistant Director of Personnel Dr. William Borley.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 3.21

537 – Siege of Rome: King Vitiges attempts to assault the northern and eastern city walls, but is repulsed at the Praenestine Gate, known as the Vivarium, by the defenders under the Byzantine generals Bessas and Peranius. 630 – Emperor Heraclius returns the True Cross, one of the holiest Christian relics, to Jerusalem. 717 – Battle of Vincy between Charles Martel and Ragenfrid. 1152 – Annulment of the marriage of King Louis VII of France and Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine. 1180 – Emperor Antoku accedes to the throne of Japan. 1556 – On the day of his execution in Oxford, former archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer deviates from the scripted sermon by renouncing the recantations he has made and adds, "And as for the pope, I refuse him, as Christ's enemy, and Antichrist with all his false doctrine." 1788 – A fire in New Orleans leaves most of the town in ruins. 1800 – With the church leadership driven out of Rome during an armed conflict, Pius VII is crowned Pope in Venice with a temporary papal tiara made of papier-mâché. 1801 – The Battle of Alexandria is fought between British and French forces near the ruins of Nicopolis near Alexandria in Egypt. 1804 – Code Napoléon is adopted as French civil law. 1814 – Napoleonic Wars: Austrian forces repel French troops in the Battle of Arcis-sur-Aube. 1821 – Greek War of Independence: Greek revolutionaries seize Kalavryta. 1844 – The Baháʼí calendar begins. This is the first day of the first year of the Baháʼí calendar. It is annually celebrated by members of the Baháʼí Faith as the Baháʼí New Year or Náw-Rúz. 1861 – Alexander Stephens gives the Cornerstone Speech. 1871 – Otto von Bismarck is appointed as the first Chancellor of the German Empire. 1871 – Journalist Henry Morton Stanley begins his trek to find the missionary and explorer David Livingstone. 1918 – World War I: The first phase of the German Spring Offensive, Operation Michael, begins. 1919 – The Hungarian Soviet Republic is established becoming the first Communist government to be formed in Europe after the October Revolution in Russia. 1921 – The New Economic Policy is implemented by the Bolshevik Party in response to the economic failure as a result of war communism. 1925 – The Butler Act prohibits the teaching of human evolution in Tennessee. 1925 – Syngman Rhee is removed from office after being impeached as the President of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea. 1928 – Charles Lindbergh is presented with the Medal of Honor for the first solo trans-Atlantic flight. 1935 – Shah of Iran Reza Shah Pahlavi formally asks the international community to call Persia by its native name, Iran. 1937 – Ponce massacre: Nineteen unarmed civilians in Ponce, Puerto Rico are gunned down by police in a terrorist attack ordered by the US-appointed Governor, Blanton C. Winship. 1943 – Wehrmacht officer Rudolf von Gersdorff plots to assassinate Adolf Hitler by using a suicide bomb, but the plan falls through; von Gersdorff is able to defuse the bomb in time and avoid suspicion. 1945 – World War II: British troops liberate Mandalay, Burma. 1945 – World War II: Operation Carthage: Royal Air Force planes bomb Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen, Denmark. They also accidentally hit a school, killing 125 civilians. 1945 – World War II: Bulgaria and the Soviet Union successfully complete their defense of the north bank of the Drava River as the Battle of the Transdanubian Hills concludes. 1946 – The Los Angeles Rams sign Kenny Washington, making him the first African American player in professional American football since 1933. 1952 – Alan Freed presents the Moondog Coronation Ball, the first rock and roll concert, in Cleveland, Ohio. 1960 – Apartheid: Sharpeville massacre, South Africa: Police open fire on a group of black South African demonstrators, killing 69 and wounding 180. 1963 – Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary (in California) closes. 1965 – Ranger program: NASA launches Ranger 9, the last in a series of unmanned lunar space probes. 1965 – Martin Luther King Jr. leads 3,200 people on the start of the third and finally successful civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. 1968 – Battle of Karameh in Jordan between the Israel Defense Forces and the combined forces of the Jordanian Armed Forces and PLO. 1970 – The first Earth Day proclamation is issued by Joseph Alioto, Mayor of San Francisco. 1970 – San Diego Comic-Con, the largest pop and culture festival in the world, hosts its inaugural event. 1980 – Cold War: U.S. President Jimmy Carter announces a United States boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow to protest the Soviet–Afghan War. 1983 – The first cases of the 1983 West Bank fainting epidemic begin; Israelis and Palestinians accuse each other of poison gas, but the cause is later determined mostly to be psychosomatic. 1986 – Debi Thomas became the first African American to win the World Figure Skating Championships 1989 – Transbrasil Flight 801 crashes into a slum near São Paulo/Guarulhos International Airport, killing 25 people. 1990 – Namibia becomes independent after 75 years of South African rule. 1994 – The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change enters into force. 1999 – Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones become the first to circumnavigate the Earth in a hot air balloon. 2000 – Pope John Paul II makes his first ever pontifical visit to Israel. 2006 – The social media site Twitter is founded. 2019 – The 2019 Xiangshui chemical plant explosion occurs, killing at least 47 people and injuring 640 others. 2022 – China Eastern Airlines Flight 5735 crashes in Guangxi, China, killing 132 people.

[ultraheydudemestuff]

Levi Scofield House

2438 Mapleside Rd.

Cleveland, OH

In Cleveland, Ohio, Levi Tucker Scofield, the man who designed the 125-foot tall Soldiers and Sailors Monument on Public Square in 1894 to Cleveland's Civil War heroes and built the Scofield Building in 1902 on the southwest corner of Euclid Avenue and East Ninth Street which is being restored, also built a mansion at 2438 Mapleside Road in the city's Buckeye-Woodhill neighborhood. Sitting for the last 117 years, hardly anyone notices it today. And, sadly, it is slowly crumbling into ruins. Scofield was a third-generation Clevelander, born in 1842 on Walnut Street, near today's downtown intersection of East Ninth and Superior Avenue. His grandfather Benjamin, a carpenter, came to Cleveland from the state of New York in 1816, and built some of the early-era buildings in what is now the city's downtown. Levi's father William followed in the family business, likewise becoming a carpenter and also a builder who contributed to the early building up of downtown Cleveland. In the 1850s, William purchased property on the southwest corner of Erie (East Ninth) and Euclid Avenue, and in about 1861 built a boarding house there, which also served as his family's residence. Growing up in such a family, it is not surprising that Levi decided to become an architect.

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Levi Scofield, just 19 years old, left Cleveland to fight for the North. He joined the 103rd Regiment as a private, but was soon commissioned a second lieutenant. By the War's end, he had risen to the rank of Captain. In 1865, he returned to Cleveland and began his career as an architect. His work covered a wide range of building types. He designed mansions for Euclid Avenue millionaires. He also designed school buildings--including the Central High School building on Wilson Avenue (East 55th Street) in 1877. He was an early architect of penitentiary buildings, creating the plans for the Athens, Ohio Lunatic Asylum (1868)--today, housing the Kennedy Museum of Art at Ohio University, the North Carolina State Penitentiary (1870), and the Ohio State Reformatory at Mansfield (1886). Scofield also designed monuments--not just the famous Soldiers and Sailors Monument on Cleveland Public Square (1894), but also--and perhaps just as important to his national reputation, the 'These Are My Jewels' monument for the State of Ohio that was featured at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. And, of course, he designed office buildings, including the downtown Scofield Building.

In the 1890s, as the Euclid Avenue corridor in downtown Cleveland was transforming into a commercial district, Levi Scofield decided to move from what had been his boyhood neighborhood of Erie (East Ninth) Street and Euclid Avenue, to the "country"--the southeast side of Cleveland, near today's intersection of Quincy Avenue and Woodhill Road. There on a bluff overlooking the Fairmount Reservoir--which was then a picturesque body of water, he purchased six plus acres of land and designed and built a beautiful residence for his family. The three-story, stone-facade Victorian style house with over 6,000 square feet of living space was completed in 1898. Scofield resided there until his death in 1917.

After the death of Levi Scofield, his family remained in the house until 1925, when it was sold to the Cleveland Catholic Diocese. For the next thirty years, the Scofield mansion served as a chapel, a mission headquarters, and as a convent for the Sisters of the Most Holy Trinity. In 1955, the Sisters sold the property, and the mansion became a nursing home--first Mapleside Nursing and then Baldwin Manor, until approximately 1990, when it closed. Since that time, the mansion has been vacant and has experienced neglect and disrepair. Now nearly 120 years old, the Levi Scofield mansion is on the brink of demolition. There has been much talk in recent years about the Opportunity Corridor and what that new roadway might bring to the Buckeye-Woodhill neighborhood on Cleveland's southeast side, where this mansion still stands. Whether the new corridor will be built in time to bring new opportunity to the historic Levi Scofield Mansion, though, is anyone's guess.

Located in in Cleveland’s Woodhill neighborhood, this 1898 home of sculptor and architect Levi T. Scofield sits on a bluff over-looking the city. While this home is both architecturally and historically significant, it is also severely deteriorated having sat vacant for over two decades and was slated for demolition. The City of Cleveland’s Building and Housing Department reached out to Cleveland Restoration Society regarding the property which was added to the National Register of Historic Places on December 31, 2019. After evaluating the home, CRS quickly assembled an expert task force of local real estate and development professionals to secure and stabilize the property. To date, CRS has been instrumental in having the property donated to the Cuyahoga County Land Bank, orchestrating the release of liens, and initiating over $200,000 of donated construction services.

[jwood719]

"Where all my friends reside ha! ha!" notes "E.M.Q" on a picture postcard of the Ohio State Reformatory.

Peering through the gate down the front drive.

The Ohio State Reformatory, Mansfield, OH. Some History, and the Residence.

Guests were told on tour that the Ohio State Reformatory building may very well owe its extended existence to director Frank Darabont, who arrived in the nick of time to prevent the institution's destruction.

The south facade of the Ohio State Reformatory at Mansfield, OH.

Preparing to film an adaptation of Stephen King's novella "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption," six months of location scouting culminated with the Ohio Film Commission pleading the case to Darabont at a convention for the production to come to Mansfield, OH, about 60 miles southwest of Cleveland. The building (built between 1886 and 1910) had been constructed to serve as a place to bring wayward young men back to the straight-and-narrow, but by the 1970s had fallen into disrepair.

High-minded architecture (above and below) was considered part of the moral uplift project.

Budget concerns had the state shifting the focus from reform to straight-up incarceration, and as prison populations grew in Ohio, Mansfield's facility was switched during the 1960s away from reform to maximum security.

The looming walls and barred windows of the housing section.

Inmates sued and won against the state for deplorable conditions, and it was ruled that the state had to provide better. Ironically, more money was taken from the decrepit Mansfield building while a newer facility was built adjacent.

A hallway in the residential/administrative wing: as was customary when built, the warden and his family as well as most of the corrections officers lived on-site. Today, in addition to visitor services and offices, there is also the official Ohio penitentiary museum, a cafe, and the ubiquitous gift shop (I bought a pair of trays like they used in the mess hall scenes - because of course I did).

Stained glass transom light in the residence hallway.

So the story is, after the inmates were moved to the new facility, and after Ohio and Castle Rock Entertainment had swung a deal for filming within the Reformatory, there was an apparent goof in the chain of command; arriving by rental car after flying in from Hollywood, director Darabont showed up on the grounds just before state contractors were to begin swinging their wrecking balls. Darabont's stepping in at that moment halted the demolition, and allowed the filming to proceed.

The warden's dining room in the residence.

As the saying goes, the rest is (film) history. Utilizing many of the rooms around the residence as well as filming out on the yard, Darabont's The Shawshank Redemption is on many "best" lists. Locations in Mansfield and the surrounding Ohio countryside subbed-in for the surrounding Maine environment.

Reception area outside the office used for Warden Norton in the film.

Subsequent to the movie (which was not a "hit" upon release) there was still debate about keeping the old prison, but a local non-profit, the Mansfield Reformatory Preservation Society, organized itself and began to stir up interest (and funding) to restore what many had thought to be a relic and an eye-sore. Who would tour an old prison?! Turns out, quite a number of people do, all the more so as Shawshank's reputation grew.

The residence after restoration; as much as possible, the original materials are retained; the floor, for instance, is original throughout.

As with many old buildings under the auspices of non-profits, work is by and large volunteer and on-going, and depends on subscription and tour fee monies for funding projects. Chatting with a docent about the work, done by people with passion for their jobs in his estimation, he told me that the society has over a million dollars lined up to restore one cell wing to its condition circa 1940. I'll admit my eyes went wide thinking of all the layers of lead paint that would need to be abated to do that -- 'cause the peeling walls are a nightmare.

A typical scene: missing plaster and decaying paint in a washroom.

Looking back up the main drive.

What remains after filming is the main structure; the "yard," where once stood the workshops surrounded by a 25 foot-high wall and agricultural fields beyond, were razed when the new Mansfield facility was constructed. There are no photos allowed that depict the new facility, even if through a window.

The yard: north of the main building (highlighted above) in this undated aerial shot (Ohio History Connection collection).

As part of the reform movement, the young men were expected to take part in what today would be called vocational training (they built furniture, for instance) as well as arts (there was a band), and agriculture (the incarcerated grew most of their own food and any surplus was sold). Many went on to lead fairly good lives after getting the equivalent of a high school education, and the recidivism rate was reported to be something like 25% or less -- compared to 50% or worse for other institutions. Not bad for the first half of the 20th Century.

Photos: R. Jake Wood, 2024 unless otherwise noted.

The Ohio State Reformatory site.

Arty shot! Pass-through in the washroom.

[ledenews]

What Makes the Wheeling Area a Tourism Destination?

There’s only one Highlands Sports Complex and one gothic-style penitentiary and one Oglebay, and that’s why some come. Other visitors study the history and admire the beauty and enjoy the recreation, and even more attend festivals and concerts and regional events in the parks and on the waterfront. And yes, most tourists who do visit wish to eat fish sandwiches and pizza squares with cold cheese just like we do. And Olivia Litman knows why. Downtown Wheeling is home to a ton of history, culinary adventure, and entertainment, but there is much more throughout Ohio County and beyond. She’s the marketing director for the Wheeling Convention & Visitors Bureau and she, Executive Director Frank O’Brien, and marketing assistant Michael Biela collectively mastermind the out-of-town promotion in larger cities with residents looking for a getaway. “We market Wheeling and this area in the Pittsburgh, Columbus, Cleveland, and the Canton markets, and it’s about 70 percent online advertising and 30 percent traditional media,” Litman explained. “Most local people have no idea what we do here, but what we do is probably why it’s very difficult to find a hotel room in the area most weekends. And let’s face it, we have a lot to enjoy. “All of the events and entertainment we have here, combined with the parks, makes us a premier destination. We’ve been very popular once it was OK to travel again (after the pandemic), and we expect that to continue this year, too,” she said. “The past few years, The Highlands Sports Complex has been a very popular destination, and, of course, Oglebay, too. And new places like Waterfront Hall and what they are doing there has added many more new folks in Wheeling.” The Wheeling area has been under construction – quite literally – for more than five years with a $223 million project along Interstate 70 in Ohio County, and currently with the $32 million streetscape and stormwater separation projects along Main and Market streets in downtown Wheeling. The construction is scheduled for a Summer 2025 completion. The former W.Va. Penitentiary in Moundsville was closed in 1995 and has been a tourist attraction ever since. The orange barrels and detours, though, have not deterred show and games goers to the Capitol Theatre and Wesbanco Arena, and the City of Wheeling has distributed public funds to private sector operations in downtown Wheeling. “We’ve experienced so much construction in Wheeling and in the area, but, believe it or not, our visitors are not unhappy with our downtown,” Litman revealed. “They are still coming here, and for that, we’re thankful. We’ve has so many great shows at both venues, and the Nailers have had a good season, too. “Some people come here to enjoy the golfing, everything your can do at Grand Vue Park and Oglebay Park,” she added. “We have a lot of visitors who are with us for a week at a time, and we’re a terrific three-day weekend destination for the people who live and work in those Ohio cities and in Pittsburgh. Oglebay's annual Festival of Lights began nearly 40 years ago and has attracted millions of visitors to the Wheeling area. The Wheeling CVB, or VisitWheelingWV.com, is operated on funds generated by the hotel/motel tax that is collected by the City and by the Ohio County Commission. State code mandates the funds be utilized for recreation and to promote the area. “We monitor the marketing dollars we spend to make sure we get the expected return, and if that’s not the case then we change direction when it comes to our online advertising.,” Litman said. “There is so much to experience in this area, and right now the Palace of Gold (in Marshall County) still brings a lot of people to our hotels, and it’s an international destination. “Wheeling Island Hotel Casino and Centre Market are very popular with our visitors, and people come from all over to shop at Cabela’s at The Highlands,” she reported. “Our visitors are people of all ages because of the diversity of the attractions. You can do a lot of different things in this area and that’s why the area is so popular.” https://ledenews.com/dreams-coming-true-at-the-highlands-sports-complex Read the full article

[silenthistorian]

The Famous "4-11-44."

Cincinnati, Ohio 📍

Publication: Cincinnati Commercial

Issue Date: April 19, 1875

[givebacknyc]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: BRUBAKER (1982) Vintage LASER VIDEODISC.

[whatdoeschronicevenmean]

But if treating prisoners more humanely was a public priority, you wouldn’t have known it from the way prosecutors and elected officials carried on during the pandemic. By June 2020, all five of the nation’s largest COVID-19 outbreaks were in correctional institutions. At a prison in Ohio where dormitories were filled to double their capacity, nearly three-fourths of the people in custody were infected.

By early 2021, the jail population in many states had returned to pre-pandemic levels, even as the number of infections continued to rise. In states like North Carolina and Wisconsin, the virus’s toll on correctional workers prompted officials not to rethink the logic of mass incarceration and put fewer people behind bars, but to shut down understaffed facilities and transfer prisoners elsewhere. The closures exacerbated overcrowding in the penitentiaries that remained open—and, in turn, the fear of infection among both prisoners and staff. “They’re terrified,” an official with the union representing prison guards in North Carolina told The New York Times. “They feel like, as usual, they’re forgotten and left behind.”

...A skeptic might note that such a prison would probably cost more to run than a maximum-security prison in the United States, which was true, and that the data on whether more humane prisons succeeded in reducing the recidivism rate was inconclusive. But reducing the recidivism rate was not the only goal. Equally important was creating an institution in which Norwegians could take pride, a sentiment the staff at Halden appeared to share. “I have the best job in the world,” the warden of the prison told Benko, mentioning that his officers liked their jobs and hoped to finish their careers there. As the comment suggested, it wasn’t only the dignity of incarcerated people that was at stake in changing the brutal conditions in America’s prisons. It was also the dignity of the staff, who didn’t use fear and threats to enforce their authority and didn’t seem to feel contaminated by the conditions in which they worked.

[“The idea that work can be morally injurious has not gone entirely unnoticed. At the height of the coronavirus pandemic, it was described in often-moving detail in articles about physicians and nurses who were forced to make excruciating decisions—which patients should be hooked up to ventilators? who should be kept alive?—as hospitals were inundated with COVID-19 cases. “None of us will ever be the same,” wrote an ER doctor in New York City who worked on the front lines of the pandemic and published a firsthand account of the anguish that she and her colleagues felt.

Notably, though, it took an unforeseen crisis to thrust doctors into such a role, a crisis that eventually abated. In the case of many dirty workers, the wrenching choices—and the anguish they can cause—occur on a daily basis because of how society is organized and what their jobs entail. Unlike doctors, moreover, these workers are not lionized by their fellow citizens for working in a profession that is widely viewed as noble. To the contrary, they are stigmatized and shamed for doing low-status jobs of last resort.

People who are willing to do morally suspect things simply to earn a paycheck deserve to be shamed, some may contend. This is how many advocates of migrant rights feel about the Border Patrol agents who have enforced America’s inhumane immigration policies in recent years. It is why some peace activists have accused drone operators involved in targeted killings of having blood on their hands. These activists have a point.

The dirty workers whose stories unfold in the pages that follow are not the primary victims of the systems in which they serve. To the people on the receiving end of their actions, they are not victims at all. They are perpetrators, carrying out functions that often cause immense suffering and harm. But pinning the blame for dirty work solely on the people tasked with carrying it out can be a useful way to obscure the power dynamics and the layers of complicity that perpetuate their conduct. It can also deflect attention from the structural disadvantages that shape who ends up doing this work. Although there is no shortage of it to go around, the dirty work in America is not randomly distributed. As we shall see, it falls disproportionately to people with fewer choices and opportunities—high school graduates from depressed rural areas, undocumented immigrants, women, and people of color. Like jobs that pay poorly and are physically dangerous, such work is chiefly reserved for less privileged people who lack the skills and credentials, and the social mobility and power, that wealthier, more educated citizens possess.”]

eyal press, from dirty work: essential labor and the hidden toll of inequality in america, 2021

[ozkar-krapo]

OHIO PENITENTIARY 511 JAZZ ENSEMBLE

"Hard Luck Soul"

(LP. Jazzman. 2012 / rec. 1971) [US]

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"Ohio was no stranger to deadly building fires. But none of the previous fires foreshadowed the 1930 Easter Monday fire as closely as the October 8, 1928, dormitory blaze at the State Brick Plant at Junction City, Ohio, where fifteen inmates died and twenty-seven were severely injured. Indeed, the day after the Columbus disaster, one journalist noted that the Brick Plant fire had called attention to the perilous conditions that reigned in prison farms and road camps and other related facilities, describing them as “firetraps” lacking adequate provision for the immediate release of inmates in the event of a fire.

Unlike the dangerously overcrowded Ohio Penitentiary, holding close to 4,500 inmates, the dormitory at the Brick Plant was a “barn-like structure of wooden frame and corrugated iron covering, erected upon a ten foot brick foundation,” with accommodations for 275 prisoners “sleeping in two-tiered bunks arranged in pairs with narrow aisles between.” Including 13 trusties, who did not sleep in the dorm, there were a total of 288 men at the Plant.

Several inmates discovered the Brick Plant fire at midnight, but by the time the alarm resounded through the dimly lit dormitory room it was too late. The fire spread quickly along the building’s floor and framework, leaping “from bunk to bunk across narrow aisles, while convicts cursed and screamed as they struggled to open doors and windows.” Making matters even worse, the fire hydrant did not work. As in the Columbus blaze in 1930, the convicts were awakened in time to escape, but upon reaching the nearest exits found them locked and barred. According to guards and convicts, it was probable that “many of the dead were trampled to death in a ‘mad rush for the exits.’”

Convicts who had made it out into the fresh air remembered looking back through windows “into the flaming interior,” where they witnessed sights that they would never forget, seeing fellow prisoners “wreathed in flames, rushing to  and fro” before disappearing in the smoke and flames that enveloped them as they fell to the floor. The roof and walls soon collapsed, showering ring the onlookers and writhing victims with burning embers.

As in the Columbus fire, stories of convict heroism abounded. Among the heroes was a convict overcome by smoke and burned to death as he tried to rescue his friend. Another prisoner, who had been responsible for the prison commissary, ran inside to fight the flames but perished “on his job.” One inmate, Andy Kiebert, who made it out safely, ran back into the burning building to rescue the convict mascot, a terrier named Tiny King. The animal lover suffered burns but fought his way back out, emerging with the relatively unscathed dog under his coat.

News reports would describe the fifteen fire victims as “charred bodies, part of them only small piles of bones,” with “few or none … possible of identification.”  A dozen of the more seriously burned were taken to the hospital at the Ohio Pen for treatment. A cursory identification of the dead was attempted, but remained tentative, their identifications being based for the most part on the location of the body when found. Prisoners aided in the task “to some extent,” but not with any degree of certainty. In the early going, the only ones identified were two African American inmates. A prison dentist examined the victims’ teeth to aid in the identifications. The remains were buried in the New Lexington Cemetery, where markers were set up for those whose identities had been established. Twenty men were missing, three of whom, officials believed, had seized the opportunity to escape during the confusion that followed the fire’s discovery. Others, including many cons, insisted none had escaped. Despite the opportunity for a learning moment, few lessons had been learned at the Junction City fire."

- Mitchel Roth, Fire in the Big House: America's Deadliest Prison Disaster. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2019. p. 89-90.

[leighsartworks216]

Pet

Yancy x gn!reader

Requested by @captain-wordy-and-nerdy:

"Hiya, just me back on my ego bs lol. This time I humbly request #6 from the funny prompts with Yancy. Thanks, ily"

6. "Are you sure I can't punch him in the face?" "Yes." "What if I just break his nose a little?"

I'M SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG I am a notorious procrastinator and also I had to write a (late) essay for class before I could get back to this

Warnings: swearing, bad accents, bad writing, reader is feisty in this

Word Count: 1015

Masterlist

Deciding to stay at Happy Trails Penitentiary was one of the most interesting choices you could have made in your entire life. While staying at the prison hadn’t sounded too appealing at first, without Mark, your life of heists and crime in the outside world was suddenly defunct. Besides, the guy who convinced you to stay, a songbird from Ohio who spoke with a heavy Brooklyn accent, was kinda cute.

Yancy, the aforementioned songbird, was basically the leader of the entire prison pack. He knew everyone who came in and out of the penitentiary, and he was buddies with a good majority of them. They all even took part in the giant musical he put together for new inmates. He took it on himself to personally help you adjust and get comfortable, telling off anyone who said he’d gone soft.

Sometimes, new prisoners would come in who weren’t as moved by the musical as you had been. They weren’t very keen on doing time, especially not in a place where the leader regularly sang and tap-danced. They didn’t do much to fight with the others - they focused instead on serving their time and getting parole as fast as possible.

Others, however, had a bone to pick with Yancy.

“Hey, twinkle-toes! Go practice somewhere else! I’m tryna enjoy my lunch!”

The nickname immediately set everyone on edge. Parole was coming around, and their leader, twinkle-toes himself, hadn’t done anything to make sure he didn’t get on the list yet.

Yancy turned from his section of the cafeteria where he’d been working on his newest dance routine. The Warden had been kind enough to give him little space indoors; the grass outside wasn’t a good place to practice like this.

“What’d youse say?”

And it starts.

You carefully maneuver your way in front of Yancy, ready to stop him from completely destroying the guy that insulted him. There were easier ways to get off parole. Hell, you trashed the laundry room just the other day and that had been plenty to get the Warden to cuss you out and send you to your cell.

“I told ya to practice somewhere else,” the newest inmate, a stocky man with long, unruly hair, repeated. He was clearly not from around here, if the southern twang in his voice didn’t give it away. “I don’t need to see ya prancing everywhere while I eat.”

Yancy squared his shoulders back. “Oh, prancin’? Youse thinks this is prancin’?” He moved to step forward, but your hand on his chest stopped him before he could get very far. “How’d youse enjoy your lunch if it was shoved up youse’s-”

“Yancy!” you scolded in a whisper. “Just leave it alone. It’s not worth it.”

You could see his jaw tense, his eyes scanning the man who insulted him up and down, calculating if it was worth the effort. His brow was furrowed tight. You’d never seen him this angry before, not even when he was complaining about his (deceased) parents.

He huffed a breath, stepping back and away from your hand. He didn’t even look at you when he turned with an annoyed, “Fine.”

“Yeah, yeah. Let your little pet talk you down.”

Yancy barely had time to turn back around and grab you before you launched yourself at the man. Now he was the one holding you back while you gnashed your teeth at the inmate, spitting fire.

“How dare you! I am NO ONE’S pet! Let me go, Yance! I think this asshole should learn a thing or two about manners!”

“Youse’d kill him before he ever got the chance to learn.” Yancy dragged you back far enough that the man who insulted you felt safe enough to get up and run while he could. Messing with Yancy was one thing. Messing with you? Hell didn’t even burn as hot as the fire that burned inside you.

You pulled at Yancy’s arms around your waist, trying to get them to let go so you could chase after that bastard. “Let me go, Yancy. I’ll show him who’s who around here,” you growled.

He laughed dryly. “I don’t think so, doll. Just- Hey, just calm down!” He pulled you farther into his little dance corner and let go just enough to turn you around in his arms. You, of course, tried fighting him to look over your shoulder to where the inmate retreated, but he was strong enough to hold you with one arm so he could grab your chin between two fingers and turn it to look at him. “I think he knows not to mess with youse again.”

How did he manage to look so tough and so soft at the same time? Looking into his eyes immediately doused the fire inside of you. No matter how much you didn’t want to admit it, he was right.

You huffed, imaginary steam leaving your nose. Your shoulders sagged as you eased the tension in your muscles. “But I want him to know not to mess with you, Yance. You’re the boss around here; they should know better than to talk shit about your dancing.”

“I think he knows that, too, doll,” he chuckled. “Don’t think they’ll be getting close with youse here watchin’ my back.” He removed his arm from your waist, wrapping it around your shoulders instead as he guided you to a table. “Now, how’s about a puddin’, puddin’?”

You grabbed the pudding cup Sparkles McGee slid your way, looking down at it with a frown tugged on your lips. You turned back to Yancy just as he was grabbing his own cup. “Are you sure I can’t punch him in the face?”

Yancy rolled his eyes, leveling you with a stern look. “Yes.”

You scowled, tearing open the cup. You spooned a large glob of pudding into your mouth. The vanilla eased your nerves some more, even as you looked to the exit the inmate took. Yancy thought you let the argument go by the time you finished your dessert.

“What if I just break his nose a little?”