Chapter One
James
I was already awake when the morning buzzers sounded and the thick rows of harsh fluorescents hummed and flickered to life, bathing the cinder block cell in blinding white light.
The low buzz emanating from the ballasts was quickly drowned out by the hiss of the PA system kicking on as a monotone voice announced morning bed checks and head count.
Todd swung his legs over the side of the top bunk and grumbled under his breath as he hopped down. “Bro, what the fuck are you still doing here?”
I sat up and craned my stiff neck side-to-side. “No one ever came and got me. They told me it would be between two and three in the morning, but they never showed.”
Todd huffed. “Typical. Well, you better tell Sergeant when he comes around for head count.”
“Maybe there was a mistake. Maybe I got the date wrong.”
His eye widened. “Are you fucking kidding me, JR? You want to stay in this shithole longer?”
“Of course not,” I replied, finally standing up for the first time.
He frowned.
“Shit, I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head. “I guess I’m just a little nervous. I didn’t sleep good—or at all really.”
Todd crossed his arms over his broad chest. “The fuck you got to be nervous about? You’re a free man now!”
Raising an eyebrow, I stepped into my gray jumpsuit. “Am I? Do I look very free to you?”
“Obviously someone fucked up, and they forgot to come get you. But fine, you are about to be a free man. Is that better? What do you got to be grumpy about?”
“I said I was nervous. I didn’t say shit about being grumpy.”
“I know. I added that part.”
I looked around the cell that had been my home for the last three years, nine months, 12 days and 17 hours of my life. “I don’t know, part of me thinks that I’m dreaming, and they didn’t come to get me because I still have another three years to be in here or some shit.”
“Yeah, I can see there being an element of shock. But I can assure you, you’re getting out.”
“And then what, man? This is all I’ve ever known. I lived at home with my parents, and then I went to prison. I don’t know how to live out there.”
I found myself turning in a small circle in the center of the cell, trying to get a hold on exactly what my brain was doing to me.
For the last four years, I had dreamt of nothing else but one day finally leaving this shithole.
Well, that and finding Avery. Now that the day had finally come, I suddenly felt like I needed an extra week or two to prepare.
Pathetic, right?
“I don’t know why you’re trippin’. You have a place to stay, right? Your cousin?”
“My brother.”
“Even better.”
“It’s complicated. We don’t have…” I paused, trying to choose my words carefully. “We don’t have the best relationship. And he’s got a wife and a kid; I’m going to be cramming in on their lives.”
Before Todd had a chance to respond, a loud buzzer sounded and our cell slid open. Sergeant Jenkins entered, accompanied by another officer I didn’t recognize.
“Lindstrom!”
His voice instinctively made my posture straighten, as if I were a soldier being called to attention.
Sergeant was a mean son of a bitch who’d just as soon lock you up in solitary rather than have to look twice at you.
Throughout my time here, we'd had our fair share of disagreements, and it appeared that he wanted to have one last go.
“Yes, sir?”
What happened next felt like a fever dream. Sergeant smiled (actually fucking smiled, teeth and all) and said, “Get the fuck out of my prison. And don’t come back.”
Sergeant nodded and walked away as Todd began to hoot and holler, throwing his arm around my neck. “My boy's getting out!”
The other officer beckoned me to follow him and I did as I was told.
As the officer led me though the prison, people began to clap and cheer as I walked past their cells.
It was kind of a tradition to clap someone out, but, for some reason, I never imagined they would do it for me.
I kept my gaze fixated on the back of the guard’s head to keep any of the other inmates from seeing my eyes beginning to mist.
I felt like I had never been more relieved or more scared, all at the same time.
I took a seat on the other side of a small desk as another guard asked me my name and social security number. After she had verified the information I had given her, she set a stack of papers down in front of me and then gestured to a cup full of ballpoint pens.
“You’ll need to sign your release papers and compare the personal items here to the intake form you signed when you arrived.” As she spoke, she laid a plastic bag on top of the stack. Inside the bag were my wallet, house keys, and my very old, very dead IPhone.
I signed the forms and collected the bag’s contents.
The clothes I had come in with were at least a full size too small now, so I was led to a nondescript closet where I was issued a gray sweatsuit.
The fleece was scratchy and had that cheap sheen that told me it was made in China, and probably by small children.
Still, I was grateful for the Emberford Department of Correction’s parting gift.
I was going to have to get some clothes.
I had bulked up considerably since I was first incarcerated.
At 18 years old I had been rangy and scrawny, not even my full height.
I started filling out by my second year inside as I worked out relentlessly to busy my idle hands and even more idle mind.
None of my old clothes were going to fit me, if my parents had even kept them.
I had done a few work programs over the years—even went up and helped fight wildfires one season. For my time and troubles, the prison issued me $427.
That’s plenty to start your life with, I guess. I reminded myself to be grateful that they had given me any money at all. I also had $26 dollars in the billfold of my wallet, so there was that. I had no memory of where the money had come from or how I’d earned it.
Now that I was dressed, had my pathetic belongings, and had signed all my paperwork, another guard came in to escort me out.
Out out. Past the large steel security doors I had crossed almost four years ago.
Past the 20-foot fences wrapped in barbed wire, past the guard towers, and through the parking lot.
Past the guard's post at the exit point, and finally out to the curb.
The cool morning air wrapped itself around me, causing a shiver as my escort nodded and turned back towards the prison.
As long as I had been looking forward to this moment, it all seemed rather anticlimactic.
There I was, standing on the curb. The sun was just starting to rise, and the prison’s battered brick walls were literally behind me.
I tasted the air. Nothing felt particularly momentous.
But this was a moment, right? I dimly wondered if I were dreaming.
“James.”
I looked across the street and noticed an old red Ford Ranger for the first time.
The driver’s side window was rolled down, and in the scant light of the streetlamps, I could make out some of the man’s features.
He was broad-chested with defined features and suntanned skin.
His chiseled jawline was covered in black scruff, and I was a little shocked that I had forgotten how much we looked alike.
I looked both ways before crossing the street, which immediately made me feel silly since it was six in the morning and the back of the prison was still like a ghost town.
Nervous didn’t even begin to describe what I was feeling.
Being outside in the open was giving me anxiety, and I had to fight the urge to look over my shoulder as if there was someone following me.
I tried to force myself into a calmer state of mind, so I didn’t give off weird vibes when I got into his truck. The windows were rolled down, and Jack offered a small smile as I approached the passenger's side. I pulled the door handle, but it didn’t budge.
“My bad,” Jack said as he fumbled for the unlock switch.
When I opened the door, the dome light illuminated the truck’s small cabin, and I got a good look at him.
He was so different than I remembered him, yet oddly the same.
He had obviously hit the same growth spurt I had while I was inside.
But it didn't look like he had managed it as well.
He was thick with a big chest and large arms and shoulders, but his belly pudged out over his seatbelt.
I couldn’t judge him—he had a real life.
A wife and a kid and bills to pay; work to go to every day.
I’d had fuck-all to do with my days besides lie around and lift weights in between re-reading Avery’s letters.
Prison life, it turned out, was strangely conducive to attaining the best shape of my life.
“Thanks for coming to get me,” I offered as I pulled the seatbelt across my chest and lap.
“Sure,” he replied quickly, nodding his head and keeping his eyes forward.
He put the truck into gear and pulled off the curb and onto the blacktop.
We drove in silence for a few minutes, for which I was grateful.
I hadn't been in a moving car in a very long time.
Between the tires hitting the road and the whole ‘freedom’ thing, my stomach was in knots.
After about 10 minutes or so, Jack spoke. “I figured you would probably want to stop and pick up some things before we headed to the house. Walmart is the only thing open right now, but I figured it was something, at least."
Honestly, I was so overwhelmed that I hadn’t considered the fact that I had nothing. I had established the clothing problem, but I hadn’t even thought about everything else. “Yeah, that would be good. Thanks.”