Cazual Conversation

Watching the video, you can see in his stubbly goatee, rocky nose and shackled ankles just how Anthony Davis conned not one, but two female guards into smuggling him contraband.

Absent that video, available by clicking here, one would wonder why in the world two women with careers would risk all to help an inmate, the same inmate, by breaking the law. And they did it within a month or so of each other.

But watching the exclusive video shot by S. Brady Calhoun during a jailhouse interview with Davis, it all becomes crystal clear.

The man, as one of the correctional officers put, is a silver-tongued devil.

Sure, you have your doubts when you hear something like that, but watch the video on our home page and you’ll see.

The man/inmate is part counselor, part psychologist and all hotness, it would appear.

“You see, some poeple like that are just submissive,” he told Calhoun. “That type of behavior … it’s just easier for them to along with it.”

Well, that sure explains why the first guard was smuggling in cigarettes, though Davis was quick to say the smokes never went straight from her hand to his, but instead went through an intermediary.

One doesn’t become the jailhouse Casanova without some degree of guile, after all.

And Davis is a man who worked his way up, a man with initiative and drive.

“I Iused to be what they call a floorman here,” he explained. “And both (the women) worked around me.

“I’m around them 12 hours a day during their shift, when they’re working, so you develop some kind of working relationship - even though you are inmate/officer, you understand what I’m saying?”

Oh yes, we understand. Who wouldn’t throw their lives away for a piece of that action? If he can maneuver like that while in custody, the sky’s the limit when he gets back into the free world.

Even his outlook on life, his inside desire to bring joy to others, bleeds through as he sits with his wrists handcuffed behind his back and his ankles shackled.

Seeing him so restrained, it is easy to understand why a married woman employed as a correctional officer would smuggle into this inmate nude pictures of herself.

Consider this take on life, which he says led to his cozy relationship with the two female guards: “When people come to work and they’re down and out, ‘I’m not someone who likes to see someone mope and be miserable,” he opined. “Life’s too short if you can’t put a smile on your face.”

I just may send the man some cologne. Strike that, it would appear he’s doing just fine without it.

It’s surely cultural, surely intellectual and surely revered in many circles, but I lost the battle not to laugh when I spied the ad in Fridays’ News Herald for “The New York Miniature Book Society Collection.”

Surely this was some kind of joke.

Beneath the headline in the ad for the month-long event - that’s right, this stuff is too small to appreciate in only a week or two - was a picture of someone’s hand holding what could only be three miniature books.

They appear to be the size of sugar cubes.

I’m sure this is something important and noble, and I’ll trust readers to make me aware of that. Until then, the questions persist, namely, how on earth did this come to be?

Can you read them? Do they have little pages? Perhaps they were props in “Honey I shrunk the kids,” with Rick Moranis.

Can you check them out? Smuggle them into jails? Can we carry this over to our children and revert to smaller backpacks?

The exhibit is open at the Bay County Public Library through Jan. 4, and it is free. That matches my miniature budget just fine.