Micheal Scott McKinley sat on his bunk absently reading a seven year old wrinkled and dusty copy of a dated National Geographic from the prison library. An article about a failed attempt by several mountaineers to scale Mount Everest had vaguely caught his eye.
Being an adrenaline junkie his whole life, McKinley had sill not gotten use to the stale, monotonous existence of day after day being behind the shadowy iron bars that held him captive.
The article detailed several men's ultimate grasp for freedom, to climb the world's highest peak and to stand above all creation and look down on everyone and everything. Micheal smiled a little as he read seeing that the mission failed and one of the climbers had died in the process. "That's what they get," Mckinley thought to himself.
Stuck in his current position, he often took solace in the failure of others considering he knew he'd never get the opportunity to climb to those heights. The small pleasures in life was what Micheal Mckinley had to look forward too, that and simple survival.
One of his chronic personality traits ever since childhood had always been needing a new rush. As he sought out greater and greater thrills, once he reached his teenage years and his hormones and outward influences both began taking their toll, those urges began to become more violent and harmful.
At the same time, the gradual almost tepid influences of pot gave way to the more demanding and financially constraining grip of crack and methamphetamine, thus a criminal was born.
The years from 16 to 20 had really been but a blur really for Micheal. One memory though that would always be engrained there was of the cool October night on quiet country sideroad on the outskirts of Memphis where Mckinley stood over the deceased body of one of the dealers he frequented.
A pool of warm blood covered his workboots as he held the lightweight, smoking Saturday Night Special tightly in his right hand, trying to think of what to do next as the vibrations of firing it sizzled through his body.
The rising tide of addiction in his body had led to a series of poor decisions, the worst of which was leaving a clear trail of bloody finger and shoe prints all over the scene of the murder.
Micheal, to this day couldn't remember why he killed the man, whether it was a "business' decision or just a passionate acting out of rage because of some perceived indiscretion.
Two days after the killing he had been arrested sleeping on a friend's sofa and after a short wait for a trail, Micheal Scott Mckinley was convicted by 12 men and women, then sentenced to life in prison without the possibility for parole.
"Should've got the chair," he thought to himself as he continued to read about the Everest article. "At least there would be a light at the end of the tunnel". The old lyrics of a Neil Young song that he frequently listened to growing up plaid in his head,"It's better to burn out than to fade away... "
* * * * *
Nineteen year old Emily Harding was raised in a strict Southern Baptist home where life was relatively simple. Live by the code laid out by the Bible and the respect the discipline handed down by your elders. Although her sheltered existence had developed a young lady that was well versed in religious doctrine and as pure as the driven snow, Emily sorely lacked some of the experiences necessary for a girl to develop into a well rounded adult. Even though she was on the cusp of adulthood, in many was she still was like a naive preteen when it came to matters of understanding that there are other forces at work in the world than the love of family and God.
After finishing her high school education at a prep school in Nashville, Emily had been quickly accepted on academic scholarship to Tennessee Baptist College.
The atmosphere and opportunity for social growth at college wasn't markedly different than what she had endured at prep school. Although she was on the verge of completing her freshman year, many of the things she had secretly hoped to happen while away at school still had not transpired.
She had looked forward to the expectation that college offers to gain experience dealing with a variety of different cultures, ideas and personalities. Unfortunately, the choice of the "Bible" college had severely limited the types of people she would be sharing a campus with. Somewhere deep within her gut, Emily knew that there was another word outside of her limited lifelong landscape, but at 19 she still was safely away from it.
Another thing she secretly hoped to explore was her burgeoning sexual needs. Although she couldn't put many of those tinglings and desires into words, something equally as deep within her was telling her every hour of every day that she was missing out on something vital to her inevitable happiness with life.
As the spring semester wound down, Emily was left with several options to contemplate for using her summer vacation as an opportunity for personal growth.
After having spent the summer vacations during prep school as a bible school teacher and helping out on her parent's farm when she could, Emily sincerely hoped to get nothing more than a part time job for some spending money and the rest of the time could be spent relaxing and soaking up the sunny Tennessee summer.
Although her parents were pushing her to look into some missionary work abroad, Emily resisted the temptation to help out in a few of her churches South American outposts, aching to spend the summer trying to find herself.
One such opportunity to develop a few skills dealing with people she had never encountered previously was presented to her by one of her college professors, Dr. Glendon P. Lowell.
Dr. Lowell had been a civil rights lawyer and activist in the 60's but once the opportunities to capitalize on oppression in the South became more subtle and complicated, he decided to funnel his energies into teaching the next generations the value of fairness, equality and justice in society.
Emily had greatly enjoyed her class with Dr. Lowell on Constitutional Law during her Freshman year and loved his stories of the good ol' days.
One of the side projects the 58 year old professor had taken on in recent years was a small personal campaign to help inmates in Tennessee who believed they were falsely imprisoned, a free and empathic voice to lobby on their behalf. To those who freely and honestly admitted their guilt and wanted to repent, Dr. Lowell was also there to provide the voice of God and a caring hand of love in their life.
Occasionally in his classes, Dr. Lowell would bring up these episodes to his students and Emily for one was sickened at first, thinking how those "animals" would even be worth saving.
Still, the teachings of forgiveness and her lifelong experiences with faith had brought her around to seeing the small joy and necessity that Dr. Lowell's program offered.
With the Spring semester winding down and still without any concrete plans for the Summer, when Dr. Lowell made a passing reference about possible using a few student aides with the program over the break one day in class, Emily's curiosity was slightly tweaked.
Later that day, Ms. Harding found herself standing nervously outside the locked office door belonging to Glendon Lowell, fidgeting with the Bic pen in her hand. As the butterflies fluttered in her stomach, she slowly reached her right hand up and put her signature on the first line of the sign up sheet for the summer endeavor.
As incentive, Dr. Lowell was offering three internship credits as well for working in the 8 week prison program. Looking up at the sheet, empty with the exception of her name, Emily immediately felt as if she had done the wrong thing by signing up.
Momentarily she contemplated x-ing it out, but since erasable pins were things of the past and her name was clearly obvious on the top line, she figured plenty of other students would gladly join in the opportunity to gain three credits for basically 8 hours of work. Her backup plan was to defer to them.
Walking away from Dr. Lowell's office, the thoughts of what in fact she might see inside the walls of a prison circled frighteningly in her head as she contemplated what she had signed up to do.
Making her way down the hall to the student parking lot in her apprehensive daydream, Emily was startled back to reality as her for the lack of a better word boyfriend, Alvin Dantzler stopped her to talk.
"Why haven't you called?" he asked in a hurt tone.
"I really don't feel like it Alvy, " Emily sighed, "I've had a really long day. "
Alvin tried to stop her but she forcefully walked right on by on the way back out to her car. What she didn't want to talk about was what had transpired between the two, 3 nights earlier in his dormroom.
* * * * *
The two teenagers had slowly and methodically been building up to that night for quite a while. Alvin Dwayne Dantzler wasn't exactly Emily's idea of the man that would take her on that special night where she gave up her chastity. Although she had promised her parents and made the declaration before the entire church that she would wait until her wedding night to lose her virginity, she had also made a promise to herself not to get married until she had finished school and that was more than three years off.
Even though Alvin wasn't the most suave and accomplished man either, he was still a virgin as well, one thing that he was most certainly was persistent. Over the course of their freshman years, Alvin and Emily had met, become friends and eased into that age old mating dance of love without actually diving headlong into it.
As the semester wound down, each of their libidos had wound up to high and as nature had taken its course, they found themselves alone in Alvin's dorm kissing each other with definite intentions for more.
