-4-
Frank and I took our usual spot near the back of the mess hall. Prison was a series of rituals and rules. The guards had some, but the inmates had more and those were the ones you needed to follow. Knowing the guards’ rules kept you out of trouble. Knowing the inmates’ kept you alive. Our table was away from the gangs, they needed more space, so we remained on the edges, trying not to be seen.
“Gimme that.” A huge hand closed around my pile of scrambled eggs. He crammed the fistful of eggs into his mouth. Most of the food spilled out the sides and onto the ground. It was the same guy that took my Jell-O the night before. I couldn’t remember his name, but knew he was a low-level foot soldier for one of the gangs in D-Block. He was probably trying to prove himself to one of the shot callers. They would send out one of their idiots to do things. Sometimes there was a reason. Most times it was because they were bored and this is what passed for entertainment around here.
“Have at it,” I said and slid the tray towards Jell-O.
“You getting smart?” Jell-O asked. He squared his shoulders and tried to look bigger, more intimidating. The truth was we were pretty evenly matched when it came to size, but I had no desire to get into a fight. I just wanted to go home. “Nah, you ain’t getting smart, are you? You’re trying to be tough. You think you’re tough?” Jell-O snatched an apple from my tray and smashed in on the floor.
“Whatever. Man, I don’t care,” I said. I stood up to leave the table. Jell-O’s hammy fist connected with my shoulder and knocked me back into my seat. I wasn’t going to fight. I didn’t care if this guy beat seven shades of shit out of me. I just wanted out.
Frank was out of his seat before I had a chance to stop him. He grabbed my tray from the table and swung the hard edge at the bridge of Jell-O’s nose. Blood exploded from his nostrils and spilled onto the collar of his jumpsuit. It looked like a morbid clown bowtie. Another time I would have laughed, but I was worried about Frank. He was going to have to eat in here tomorrow or whenever they let him out of solitary and I wouldn’t be here to watch his back. Still, Frank had been in his share of fights and most guys left him alone.
The flat edge of the tray crashed against the side of Jell-O’s head, knocking him to the floor.
The other inmates were out of their seats in a matter of seconds. Their bodies created a wall around Frank and Jell-O, keeping the guards out. The shouting buried all commands to stop or get down. Soon one of the guards on the catwalk would fire a warning shot from the beanbag gun, but for now it was a free for all. Things happened at two speeds around here – painfully slow or incredibly fast.
“Eat the apple,” Frank shouted. “Eat it!”
Jell-O looked up at the tray and saw the rage in Frank’s eyes. His trembling hand reached out and grabbed a fistful of the pulpy apple mush from the floor.
“Eat it!” Frank said again. Jell-O took a few bites before Frank slammed the tray down on his head. The thick plastic tray snapped as Jell-O’s head bounced off the floor. He went limp. A sweet mush of partially chewed apple hung from his mouth in thick ropes. Frank turned to me and smiled. “I don’t think that’ll keep the doctor away today.”
The echo of the shotgun was deafening. All the inmates dropped to the floor and put their hands on top of their heads. Frank and I lay beside an unconscious Jell-O.
“Why the hell did you do that?” I said. My face was pressed to the floor, but I could still see Frank smiling. “I didn’t give a shit about that.”
“Yeah,” Frank said, “but you’re going home. I’m still gonna be here tomorrow and then it would be my turn. You looking weak would make me look bad. Besides, look there.” Frank motioned towards Jell-O. I couldn’t see what Frank was trying to show me.
“Thanks,” I said before a guard dropped his knee between my shoulder blades. Beyond reputation, I don’t know what caused Frank to attack Jell-O, but I still felt the need to thank him. He didn’t have to get involved.
“No problem,” Frank coughed as a second guard dropped a knee on his back and slid plastic cuffs around his wrists. “Go see your family.” Two guards pulled Frank from the floor and out of the mess hall.
Two more came through the doors with a stretcher to take Jell-O to the infirmary. They strapped him to the stretcher and checked him. I stared at the makeshift knife one of the guards removed from Jell-O’s jumpsuit. Frank had seen it. I hadn’t. Missing details like that was the difference between life and death.
Frank saved my life. That was the last time I saw him.
-5-
“One cell phone. One brown wallet with forty-three dollars and a Subway coupon - expired. One lock-blade knife. One watch, broken. One set of keys on a Sponge Bob keychain.” The contents of my life spilled out of a large manila envelope onto the counter. The officer in charge of my release showed little reaction or concern for the things that had once been so important to me. I grabbed my stuff, took my bus fare and signed out without so much as a word. I think someone wished me good luck as I walked outside to wait for the bus, but I couldn’t tell if it was sarcastic or not. I didn’t really care either way.
Once I was outside, I checked my phone. The battery was dead. I knew that it would be, but old habits died hard and the first thing I would do after leaving somewhere was check my phone. The screen was black and a few spider cracks crept from the left corner. I didn’t remember those being there. Maybe the phone had been damaged when I got arrested. I just hoped that it still worked.
The bus stop near the prison was a mess. The bench had most of its planks missing or broken. The Plexiglas walls were shattered or gone. Graffiti covered every open inch of space. Most of it was from former inmates waiting just like I was after their release.
Back on the streets 4 life – Francisco
caught my eye.
I knew about eight guys named Francisco inside and any of them could have written it, because every one of them was a repeat offender. That was just how it worked. Prison only made you meaner and less capable of being part of society. Most guys ended up back inside because it was the only place they ever felt like they belonged. But not me. I wasn’t going back. I wasn’t going to leave some proclamation or prophecy scrawled on a bus stop bench. I was going home.
The bus pulled up. The glass doors slid open and the overpowering reek of urine washed down the steps. Why do buses always smell like piss? But as I got on I saw why.
A homeless man, who easily could have been mistaken for a pile of rags and trash, sat in the back of the bus. It looked like he was arguing with himself or with the bottle that stuck out from the top of a creased brown paper bag.
I paid my bus fare and took a seat near the front. Only a few other people were on the bus. I guess most people find ways to avoid the line that stops near the prison. I couldn’t really blame them.
The bus lurched forward and we were moving. It felt good to be outside, but it was strange. I kept looking around, waiting for something to happen. Maybe the homeless guy was making me nervous, but we had more than our share of crazy inside, so I didn’t think it was that. Maybe it was just being outside?
I spent the last three years having someone else tell me what to do and when to do it and suddenly making a decision as simple as where to sit on the bus felt overwhelming. I took a couple deep breaths to try and calm myself and immediately regretted it as my throat, nose and eyes were assaulted with the acrid tang of old piss.
The driver fumbled with the knob of the radio. I caught a glimpse of his profile. He looked worried. The bus came to a stop and the driver grabbed the radio.
“Dispatch, this is Green Six,” the driver said. Must have been his bus number and the color of this route. At least it wasn’t gray or orange. The irony might have been too much to stomach.
“Go ahead, Green Six,” the radio answered.
“Is there something going on? I’m getting a lot of static on the radio and everything but the local stations just went dead,” the driver said.
“Green Six,” the dispatcher said, “are you pulled over?”
“Yes.”
“There appears to have been some kind of accident or attack,” the dispatcher continued. “Most radio and television stations in or near cities have gone silent. All we’re getting is local and it’s not telling us much.”
“Any word on what happened?” the driver asked. I leaned forward in my seat to try and hear more of the conversation. The driver was trying to keep it hushed, probably not wanting to panic the passengers, but he was doing a pretty poor job of it. I looked around the bus and everyone was either silent or checking their cell phones for information.
“None yet, Green Six,” the dispatcher answered. “Finish your route and then check back in.”
I hadn’t really noticed the sun before. Inside, I tried not to focus on something that was free when I wasn’t. But now I saw clouds pass over the sun. Large, greasy raindrops splattered against the windshield of the bus.
“Dispatch,” the driver said into the radio. “Any word on this freak storm? I didn’t hear anything about rain today.”
“It’s springtime, Green Six,” the dispatcher said. “It’s going to rain from time to time.”
The driver hung up and put the receiver back in its cradle and pulled the bus away from the curb.
I tried not to let the feelings of unease grow larger, but couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going to happen. Maybe it was because the sky had turned gray? I hated that color and thought I was escaping it.
I was wrong.
-6-
The bus continued on at a snail’s pace. The streets were flooded with rainwater. At one stoplight, I watched a gutter overflow and wondered what else was escaping besides the storm water. I guess it probably didn’t matter much. These streets were drowning in proverbial shit long before this storm.
The bus driver kept twisting the knob on the radio one direction and then the other. Occasionally, there’d be a break in the static, but never long enough for us to figure out what was going on. People on the bus whispered about terrorist attacks and doomsday cults. I stayed quiet and watched the storm. Something about it bothered me. Then again I found that most things were bothering me today.
“Looks like the storm is letting up,” the driver said. He turned to smile at me while we waited at a light. I didn’t know what kind of response he was looking for, so I just nodded and went back to staring out the window. The driver began to hum and slide his window open to let air into the bus. It did little to combat the smell.
It did look like the rain was stopping. Maybe it was just a freak spring storm? The clouds thinned and I watched a jagged line of blue cut across the metallic sky. It was nice to see a color other than gray.
The bus pulled up to the next stop. It was still two stops away from mine, but the smell of urine and a break in the rain made me anxious to get off the bus. I grabbed the metal rail and pulled myself out of my seat. The driver said something cheery that I ignored and answered only with a wave. People wasted words out here. In prison, you say the wrong thing or too much of the right and you were likely to find something sharp stuck in your gut. I would have to work on my people skills, I guess.
No other riders got off at the stop. It was calming to be alone on the sidewalk. I spent three years with no time to myself. Hell, I even had to use the toilet with another guy in the room.
The rain had driven most people inside, so even as I walked further along there were few people. The blue in the sky continued to break through and few errant rays of sunshine trickled through the clouds. As I waited to cross at the corner, I found my attention drawn upwards. I hadn’t seen a free sky in a long time.
A long line of black twisted through the sky like a scrap of ribbon lost to the wind. It twirled and changed directions, but still headed towards me. For a moment, I thought it might be a flock of birds, but as it got closer I watched a large, powdery flake flutter to the ground in front of me.
“What the fuck?” I asked no one as I used the toe of my boot to prod the flake. It crumbled and fell apart like ash. More began to drift down from above.
Clouds, darker than any I had ever seen, moved across the sky. I worried about rain, but as more of the ashy flakes fell from the sky, I knew that fear was misplaced. Something very bad was happening.
I pulled off my sweatshirt and wrapped it around my face and mouth. I didn’t know what was falling from the sky, but I sure as hell was in no rush to breathe it in. The sweatshirt wasn’t perfect, but would keep some of that crap out of my lungs.
I looked for somewhere to duck into, somewhere to protect me from the ash that spilled from the clouds. This section of town had been run down and near abandoned before I went away and three years had only made it worse. The old storefronts were shuttered or covered with plywood. There was no way I was getting into any of these spots. My best bet was to haul ass and try to catch up to the bus at the next stop. The bus wasn’t the best place to take shelter, but it would be safer than standing on the sidewalk.
I pulled my sweatshirt tighter and ran. The screech of tires and shattering of glass echoed down the street. I had a feeling the bus was going to be out of the question.