THE MIDDLE—CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
It was somewhere around two o'clock in the morning and with the exception of just a few faint lights in the corridors, it was pretty dark. I could see silhouettes and shadows of what little there was to see in my ten by ten cell. With my arms folded behind my head, I was deep in thought rather than sleeping like I knew I should have been. My mind had the bad habit of drifting back to things I had tried my best to forget, but couldn't.
Hearing steps, I started counting them. Seven, eight, nine, ten, then I saw him look in at me. His face was hard, emotionless, like everyone else's around here. He was doing his job, making his nightly rounds, and not interested in making friends. I didn't even know if he saw me looking back at him but it made no difference—he was out there and I was in here.
When he passed by my cell, I stopped counting, no point, he won't be back for another ninety-two minutes. Looking at the ceiling, I again started planning what I was going to do when I get out of here. Five days and a wake up and I will be walking through those doors for the last time. I was thinking, I will have served just about seven months of my one-year sentence. My job was waiting for me but that probably was going to be the only thing that would be the same once I get out, and I knew it. My older brother had repaired my car, was looking after my house, and managing what little was left of my savings after legal fees. Was I still angry? Angry didn't even come close to describing what I continued to feel, but these emotions were tucked deep away until after I got out of this place.
I had finally figured out why guys who do ten to twenty years are empty shells when they are released. All traces of humanity are left at the door when you check in. It's all a matter of survival and this place is a damn resort compared to the facility up north where they send the hard-core prisoners.
So I closed my eyes again and for the umpteenth time I tried my best to fall asleep, hoping that I would be lucky this time and get a few hours of sleep. I longed for my old bedroom—the one with the room darkening shades. I knew that room, like everything else in my life, would never be the same again.
"I'll be picking you up next Tuesday," my brother Gary explained to me on the phone in the prison's visitor center when we last spoke. We looked at each other through the Plexiglas wall separating us hopefully for the last time. "Anything you want to eat your first night out?"
"A steak. A big steak, medium rare." Gary grinned at my request.
"Steve, you're too easy. I thought you might say something that would be a little harder for me to sneak by my wife. You'll be staying with Andy and me until you can get settled again. I know there is no food or much bedroom furniture left in your house. This will give you time to get what you need. It won't be the Ritz Carleton but at least it will be clean and you can come and go as you please." He smiled, I didn't.
"I want to thank you..." I started to say before he stopped me.
"Forget it. We're family and that's what family does for one another. And don't worry about Mom and Dad. I know they will come around once all this shit dies down." But we both knew that wouldn't be for quite a while, if ever. Emotions on both sides ran pretty deep.
"You see my kids lately?"
"Last time was about two weekends ago at Mom and Dad's. Heather looks about the same but John now has this stupid bowl shaped haircut that is all the rage. It looks like shit and I told him so. You know what that little prick told me? Said I wasn't his dad and he didn't have to listen to me. I would have slapped the shit out of him but Mom was right there. You're going to have your hands full with that one."
I knew that John wouldn't have dared say such a thing with me anywhere in earshot. Even though I was his dad, he wouldn't be living with me when I got out. He and his sister would be with their mother, at least for a while. Oh well, I had time. Hell, I had all the time in the world once I was out of this shit-hole. I would wait for just the right moment—I was in no hurry.
Although the divorce was already final, I still owned half the house. Kathy would owe me somewhere in the area of sixty-five thousand dollars to buy me out. I knew by now she had probably raided our bank lockbox and grabbed all our bonds and CDs. Luckily I had given my attorney a list of everything by serial number so there wouldn't be any question as to who owned what when I got released. And it would be sooner rather than later.
Kathy and my ex-buddy Bob had done a real hatchet job on me, basically handing me my gonads on a silver platter, but that was in the past. I'd been caught flat-footed and ill prepared the first time. That would never happen again, at least not in my lifetime. So I was waiting, remembering, and looking forward to better days in the future when my ass was out of this rotten place. Only then can I rebuild what was left of my personal life and start a new chapter, closing the old one in the process. I hoped so anyway. I hoped I could hold it all together until that point.
THE BEGINNING—PART ONE—SO I THOUGHT
They were good, really good, because I never saw it coming. Weeks before I even went to jail a few of my supposed friends would come up to me saying they knew something was going on but hadn't said anything. What the hell was everyone thinking? Did they think I knew about it and was okay with it? Every one of those people had to know I never would have stood for it, but I supposed they didn't want to get involved with someone else's problems, most people had enough of their own.
We had a great marriage, so I thought, twelve years and counting. Two kids, a nice house, and jobs we could both be proud of. Sure there were some minor disagreements now and then; what marriage didn't have a few rough patches? But, I loved my wife to death and never dreamed of what she was truly capable.
We didn't have a slew of friends. We mostly hung with a few couples from the neighborhood. The majority had been married seven plus years and were all pretty much the same age as us. We all had at least two kids with the exception of Bob and his wife Connie. They had been trying forever to have a child, but nothing was working. I guess Kathy knew the real reason why, but me, well, I was trying to stay out of their and everyone else's personal business. We were close, but I didn't want to be that close.
One thing that eventually became apparent to everyone in our group was the amount of alcohol Connie started to consume. Since no one had to drive home the booze flowed at our parties, more than if you were getting behind the wheel. We all lived close enough so anyone of us could almost crawl home if we had to. Her drinking started about a year ago and progressively got worse. At first Connie was just a lot more melancholy, but after a few months it started to get a bit ugly, then a lot ugly. Bob drank very little because he had his hands full taking care of his wife.
"Bob, honey, get me another drink, will you?" It would start out at the beginning of the night. By the end of the evening she was telling him to get his worthless ass over there and get her a damn drink. More than once he had to practically carry her home she was so drunk. I felt sorry for him, but it was his problem not mine.
"Connie was in rare form tonight," I said, getting undressed and ready for bed. "I think she passed out more than once. I am guessing the main reason Greg and Judy left early was because Connie started taking her clothes off and asked Greg to help her. There was no way anyone was letting her get in that pool."
"I felt sorrier for Bob," replied my wife, throwing her shorts and top on the chair next to our bed. "I know Connie is devastated that they can't have kids, but her taking it out on her husband is the wrong approach. I told her she could adopt but she wasn't hearing it. She simply said if her husband was more of a man, they wouldn't be in this pickle."
