Eighteen months was a long time to wait for someone; especially when that someone didn’t even want to see or speak to you.
I had tried to visit Rick every month since he went away, but he always refused to see me. I drove to the prison on visitation day and sat patiently at a metal table for hours waiting for him to appear. But it was the same thing every time. The guard would eventually come over to tell me that the prisoner did not want to speak with me and that I shouldn’t come back again.
But I did come back, every month for eighteen months.
Rick hated my guts and I guess I couldn’t blame him. It was my testimony that helped put his brother, Eddie, away for twenty-five years to life for the murders of Brent and the clerk at the convenience store.
Ronnie also struck a deal with the district attorney and testified against Eddie. Rick was never charged with the murders because Eddie swore his brother had nothing to do with them. Eddie and Ronnie had their own shady dealings with the clerk that Rick knew nothing about. It was all about a truckload of stolen cigarettes and the fact that the clerk had screwed Eddie out of his cut. Brent had just gotten in the way. Wrong place, wrong time.
Eddie and Ronnie were also convicted of the Crown Jewelers robbery. They took a deal that tacked on another twenty-four months to the sentences they received for the murders. Eddie would probably be in prison for the rest of his life. Ronnie might get out in ten years with good behavior.
Rick didn’t fight the robbery charges.
He pleaded guilty and took a plea that sent him away for twenty-four months. I was in the courtroom the day he went away. He refused to even look at me.
With good behavior, he would be released after eighteen months.
The eighteen months runs out tomorrow.
RICK
Eddie once said he could do eighteen months in the pen standing on his head. I wondered if he still felt that way, now that he was doing twenty-five to life. I would have loved to have asked him, but he was upstate at a maximum-security prison and I was three hundred miles away on a minimum-security work farm. He was in a prison and I was on a work farm. He would have loved to have given me shit about that.
I’d spent the last eighteen months working in the kitchen and helping in the fields, keeping my head down and my nose clean. It wasn’t hard to do the time. The place was a resort compared to a real prison. I was probably the only real criminal in a place full of white collar assholes, crooked politicians, and doctors who overprescribed pain meds to their patients for cash under the table.
I had no idea how I’d managed to be sentenced to the work farm until an assistant D.A. told me it was part of a deal Sandy arranged in exchange for testifying against my brother. I was already pissed at her for lying to me, not to mention her little plot to kill me and my crew that came out in court. Knowing that she sold my brother out so I could do a cushy stretch just pissed me off even more.
* * *
“Take it easy, Rick,” the guard at the gate said, slapping me on the back like we were old pals. “Don’t let me see you back in here again.”
I gave him a smile. “Don’t worry. You won’t.”
I tried to be patient as he went inside the guard shack to hit the button that opened the main gate that separated the farm from the free world. The gate rumbled and slid noisily to the right. As soon as there was enough space to step through, I went out the gate and started walking. I didn’t look back.
I was wearing the clothes I had on the day I processed in; a pair of jeans that now hung off my narrow hips rather than hugged them, motorcycle boots, and a blac
k t-shirt. They had given me back my wallet, which was empty except for an expired driver’s license, my watch which had since stopped working, and a cellphone that no longer had service.
I had a hundred and eight dollars in my pocket; money earned from working on the farm for eighteen months. It came out to about six bucks a month. In the old days, I made a thousand times that in a week, but the old days were gone.
There was a bus station three miles from the work farm. I could have called a taxi to pick me up, but I decided to walk. I wanted to stretch my limbs and breathe fresh air and feel the sun on my face and the taste of freedom on my lips.
I was told to turn right at the gate and keep walking down the dusty road until I saw the Greyhound sign. I hoped a hundred and eight dollars would get me home. If it wouldn’t, I’d buy a ticket for as close as I could get and hitch the rest of the way.
I didn’t have much left for me there, but I had a little money stashed around and still owned the bar. My plan was to sell everything I owned and get the fuck away once and for all. Find some place nice, get a normal job, meet a nice girl, and settle down.
I couldn’t help but wonder how many other criminals had walked down this same dusty road with the same good intentions in mind.
And how long was it before they went back to their old ways.
* * *
I saw the sun reflect off the shiny grill of the black Cadillac before I realized who was behind the wheel. The car was coming at me at a pretty good clip. I could hear the growl of the engine as the driver downshifted to a stop in the middle of the country road, stopping directly in front of me.
She opened the door and stepped out of the car. It took me a minute to recognize her. Her hair was long and blonde, pulled back into a tight ponytail. Her blue eyes were bright and clear. Her cheeks flushed when she saw me. She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. And I hated her guts. And I hated myself for wanting her so badly.
She licked her lips and gave me a nervous smile.