Post by Payne on Jun 25, 2019 16:36:40 GMT -5
Day 548 of 30
FCI Danbury
Fairfield County, CT
I first caught sight of him crossing the yard to the brick building that acted as a final check point. He wore the same pair of faded blue jeans and red plaid shirt he'd worn last I saw him, and his hair was pulled back and tied as he was want to do, with the old Stetson placed firmly on his head. He paused at the door, removed his hat and disappeared inside.
A few minutes passed and I waited to see how this last hurdle would be handled. It wasn’t the first time I'd waited here for the boy, but I sure hoped it'd be the last. Eventually the outer gate opened, and I watched as young Dex’ stepped out of the gatehouse and into the mid-day sun. I was suddenly overcome with a ridiculous urge to rush over and embrace him; which I suppressed immediately. We had never had such an overly familiar relationship, and even if we had, prison could change a man... and that was exactly what he would be now. He may have been 22 when he was sentenced but he was still a kid in many ways, but 18 months inside would have changed all that. Instead I watched as he stepped into the light and lightly tilted his face up toward the afternoon sun. He closed his eyes and allowed a faint smile to touch his lips as he felt the warm rays and gentle breeze on his skin. I remembered from my own misspent youth that the first taste of freedom was like no other and I had no right to encroach on them now, not even as a spectator, so I turned away and allowed him these few moments.
When I looked back, he was walking across the dusty parking lot in my direction. The old Stetson now firmly placed atop his head and his battered kit bag slung over his shoulder. He nodded and I returned the gesture before hopping off the hood of the old pickup. In one well-practised motion, he unsung the battered khaki bag, tossed it through the air and it landed in the flat bed with a thud. He held out a strong callused hand and I gripped it in my own, clasping it with the other as we shook firmly.
"'Tis good to see you" I choked on the words and felt no shame as my voice cracked under their weight. "Thought I be left waitin' again."
"Spent the last 60 days in solitary. One of the old guards didn't want me screwin' up my date again." He smirked. "Said even I can't get in trouble arguing with my own shadow."
"Uh-huh.. You sure 'bout that boy? Pretty sure I seen it happen at some point. Could tell that old guard a story or two."
He laughed and climbed into the passenger seat, removing his hat as he did so. It was good to hear after all this time. I rounded the vehicle and climbed into the driver’s seat beside him, pausing to look in his direction a moment or two before turning the engine over. As the truck chugged and choked to life I nodded toward the guard house. “Friend o’ yours?”
“Yarp.” He uttered the word as a sound and nodded toward the elderly guard. “He’s the guard I’s talkin’ about. Wouldn’t be here now if wasn’t for him.” He turned his head toward me with a smile as he finished the sentence. “Let’s go. I’ve spent long enough here.”
I nodded, shifted into gear and hit the gas. A plume of dust saluted the old guard as the truck turned sharply toward the road, and by time the dust had cleared I was just able to see the gatehouse door swinging shut behind him in the rear-view mirror. Dex was hanging his hand out of the window, gently moving his fingers as the flow of air weaved between them while his other hand absentmindedly fussed with the braided leather tassel around base of the hat’s crown, just as he had done as a boy.
“So…” I tentatively broke the silence. “Gonna tell me ‘bout the ol’ boy? Unusual for a guard to get friendly with an inmate… That kinda friendship can cause problems for all involved.”
“You aint kiddin’.” Dex laughed. “I guess we sorta watched out for each other….”
Day 23 of 30
FCI Danbury
Fairfield County, CT
The sounds of raucous laughter and raised voices echoed down the corridor. I looked, but there was no sign of anybody coming. I shook my head, lifted the laundry basket and carried it over to the machine. Once I was unloaded, I tossed the empty basket on top of the pile in the corner and glared along the corridor. “Come on Tee” I growled to myself “Where are ya with th’ detergent?”
Resigned to the fact nobody was coming I left the room and headed along the corridor toward the store cupboard. The sound of laughter grew as I did and the closer I got, the more distinct the voices became and… something else… a whimpering.
“Tee! Hey, T-Bone!” The door was ajar as I arrived. I could see people moving behind the frosted glass upper panel. “Where the heck are ya? I need that washing pow…” I stopped in my tracks as I pushed the door open. T-Bone, my cellmate, was at the back of the room. Three other inmates stood closer to me. On his knees between the four men was Jones, the old guard who was watching our detail today. A dirty sock was stuffed into his mouth and blood trickled from a deep gash high on his balding head, his wispy whiting hair was matted and stained pink around the wound, his skin moist with sweat and a wide eyed look of pure horror was on his face.
I scanned the room. Rodrigo and Antonio were brothers. Twins. They were large men and bald headed. They looked identical, except for at this moment one of them had a radio clutched in his hand. Blood dripped from its base and I knew that was what had been used to strike Jones and open his skull. Hector was in charge. Somehow important on the outside he had used the loyalty of his bigger, dumber, accomplices to secure his power in here and took full advantage of it. He was a small man, his jet-black hair was greased and scraped back tight to his skull. A blood stain on the abdomen of his white vest and his unbuttoned pants told me everything I needed to know about what the root cause of the laughter had been.
Last my eyes came to rest on T-Bone. He was my cell mate and the closest I had to a friend in here, despite our rocky start. We came to an ‘understanding’ during my first few days following a disagreement in the canteen and had since enjoyed a passive indifference which verged on an unspoken friendship. He was my equal in height but a slightly larger build, though not close to that of the hulking twins who flanked him now. His eyes suggested he was uncomfortable with what was happening, but he wasn’t the type to say no to the likes of Hector for fear of reprisal. In his hand he held a makeshift knife formed from a broken toothbrush handle and a twisted razor blade; it was an ugly looking thing designed to tear into flesh and shred it as it was removed. Tee was unlikely to have made the thing himself and was probably no more than a victim of circumstance, having found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time – Hector was an unrelenting racist who hated black people almost as much as he hated white Americans and as such, I doubt Tee would have been on his list of preferred co-conspirators.
“Tee?” I fixed my eyes on his. He seemed uneasy with my presence and his eyes darted from me to Jones, then to the knife, to Hector and back again. I kept myself near the door, blocking anyone’s line of sight into the small storeroom. “What’s goin’ on?”
“This don’t concern you Gringo!” Hector spat the words. I ignored him best I could.
“Tee?” I repeated firmly.
“We…” He hesitated and looked to Hector as though wanting to be fed the words. “We’re gettin’ out.” His eyes flicked from Rodrigo and Antonio then back to me and he repeated with more confidence. “We’re getting out. Aint that right, Hector?”
“Sure!” The greasy weasel smirked “Right after we have our fun!”
“You could come.” Tee’s voice was once again on the verge of pleading. “Couldn’t he?”
“Sure. Sure. You can come.” Hector grinned at me this time. “Just come in. Close the door.”
I looked down at Jones. The old man was terrified. His hands were pulled back and bound with cable ties. His shirt had been removed and was crumpled in a heap behind T-bone.
“Gettin’ out?” I moved slightly into the room and looked at the shelf behind Hector. “I only wanted to do my job, finish my time and get out… How you guys planning to get out?”
“He got keys, don’t he?!” Tee snapped the words.
“That right Gringo, we take his keys an’ walk right on out! Shift changes in an hour. Easy.” Hector gestured with his hands and smirked. I wasn’t sure if he really believed it would be so easy, or if he was hiding the actual plan from Tee, but that smirk smacked of dishonesty.
“Tee..” I cautiously stepped forward and pushed the door closed behind me. “You don't believe this asshole, do ya?”
“What the fuck you call me, Gringo Asqueroso?” Hector stepped toward me and the twins immediately moved to back him up, shoving Jones into the racking as they did. “Say it again. I dare you.”
“I said..” I looked down, locking eyes with the smaller man “That you aren't trustworthy... Asshole.”
Hectors face flushed and contorted as white-hot rage ran through his veins. He stepped back and glared at Tee. “Kill this asshole! Now!”
Tee hesitated, but we both knew he had no choice. He rushed forward; the twisted blade stretched out in his hand. I moved slightly and planted my boot into his kneecap, his leg exploded under his own momentum and he was thrown forward. Grabbing his head as he neared me, I drove him face first into the frosted plate glass door shattering it and leaving him slumped half in and half out of the cupboard.
I grabbed Tee's hand and the shank it still miraculously held and drove it into the left side of one of the twins face, as the blade tore into his skin I raised my arm and pulled back driving the blade up through the cheek and toward his eye, rending his flesh before tearing the twisted metal free, leaving his face a grotesque reflection of his brothers. I smirked; momentarily amused by the thought that people would never again struggle to tell the two apart, before driving my elbow hard into the bridge of his brothers’ nose. The sickening crunch and the jet of blood assured me of the devastating break. I grabbed a hand full of Tide Pods, shoved them into his mouth and pushed him back against the racking, as he gagged and struggled for air, I watched him try to swallow and immediately punched the oesophagus, undoubtedly bursting the pods. He collapsed to the ground, slipping in his brothers’ blood and choking on his own.
I turned to face Hector.
“Whoa Gringo!” He was now sat in the corner of the room, his hands stretched out in front of him, fear etched into his face. His eyes darted to the forgotten dripping shank held in my trembling hand which drew my attention back to it. “Come on now.. This is a misunderstanding. Me n’ you… We can still walk outta here.”
I heard the voices of the guards in the laundry room just up the corridor. It was clear someone had raised the alarm. “No.” I said and tossed the shank through the broken window “We aint goin’ nowhere.”
As the voices rushed down the corridor toward us, I dropped to my knees, planted my face against the blood smeared concrete and locked my hands behind my head. Hector was screaming in frustration, Jones in pain. I just closed my eyes and waited.
Day 548 of 30
West On I-84,
Fairfield County, CT
“HAHAHA!” I laughed, coughed and swerved into the wrong lane. Dex grabbed the wheel and righted us as I choked and spat out of the window onto the freeway. When I was able to string a sentence together, I choked my way though: “You attacked a guy with a tide pod?” and retook the wheel. Dex smirked and scratched his jaw through the thick tangle of hair.
Finally, he laughed and nodded his head. “Guess I did.”
“Those are dangerous.” I laughed.
“Apparently so.” He chuckled and hung his hand out of the window, again enjoying the breeze on his skin.
“And for that you got..?”
“Six extra months.” Dex snorted in disgust.
“For saving a guys life?” I shook my head and internally cursed the corrupt prison system.
“For fightin’ and assaultin’ a guard. They wouldn’t believe I had ‘no prior knowledge’ – Hector insisted t’was my plan. Accordin’ to them, I had a last-moment change o’ heart and nothing Jones said would convince ‘em otherwise. Could’a been worse.. they wanted t’ add years, but because I saved Jones life ‘in the end’ and stopped a breakout, they ‘let me off light’.” Saying the words out loud tied an audible knot in Dex’s stomach and turned my own. “Jones was out f’ near-on a year. By time he got back, my time’d been extended three times; all fightin’ off revenge attacks. Was him that got me int’ solitary. Was him got me out.”
Silence fell for several moments as I allowed him to reflect on the importance of that act and the weight he would always carry from it. Finally, he signed deeply and turned back to me.
“So… What’s the plan?”
“The plan?” I asked feigning ignorance, fixing my eyes once more on the road. “What plan?”
“Well…? Where too?” Dex stared out of the window “I wanna get back south soon as possible. Air up this way stinks.”
“Yea.” I hesitated and tightened my grip on the wheel. “About that…”
Dex stiffened, lowered his leg from the dash and turned slightly in his seat. “…’bout what, Nick?”
“Well… Things gonna be different now Dex. For a while at least.” I could feel the question behind his stare.. no need for him to say it out loud; the words ‘Different how?’ boomed in my head. “Look… It aint like before. Cant just pack up the truck and go where we want. You, eh…” I hesitated and took the exchange for I-684. “You need t’ get a job. A real one. Parole officer came ‘round to check the place said as much.”
“You gotta be kiddin’!” Dex scoffed and threw himself back against the seat like the stroppy teenager he was when we first set out.
“The Officer… McCarthy his name… He knew all ‘bout you. The fights... both before and after gettin’ locked up. Well…”
“Knows ‘bout me? ‘bout the fightin’?”
“tis what he said.” I nodded my head toward him. “knows a guy who knows a guy… Apparently saw you couple times at the truck stops. Anyway… He says he can give you a chance. Gig pays well too. Regular work.”
“What’s the work Nick?”
“Even pay our travel. All over it is.”
“Nick, tell me. Now!” His voice was sharp and his eyes pools of fire. He reminded me of his Daddy.
“It… It’s wrestlin’..”
“Wrestlin’?” He laughed. “Nick, I aint no wrestler.”
“No.” I agreed. “But you fight like ya life depends on it. Little refinin’, little trainin’, little time…”
“And I could be a bad wrestler?” He laughed again shaking his head. “Nah Nick. Not for me. We can find somethin’ else.”
I hesitated again, then slowly shook my head.
“Aint nothin’ else Dex.” I again tightened my grip, the tips of my knuckles whitening. “McCarthy… He aint signin’ off on nothin’ else. Told me either you play ball… or you head right on back to FCI Danbury. Says he’ll make eighteen months seem like nothin’ if you aint playin’ by his rules.”
Dex sat in stoic silence for a long moment. His jaw set and the line of his mouth hidden under the tangle of hair. His teeth quietly grinding, as he considers his options. Finally, he nodded his head firmly but only once and asked “Where too?”
“Ibiza!” I replied jovially in a futile attempt to disperse the tension. “Best get you a passport.”
“This is a fuckin’ Nightmare.” He angrily spat the word.
“Yarp.” I uttered the word as a sound and nodded.
