This story would make more sense if you read the chapters in order. It is a cuckold tale and should not be confused with my other BTB and romance style stories.
Tags: Jail. Parole. Sex. Cheating Wife.
"She was a fast machine,
She kept her motor clean,
She was the best damn woman that I've ever seen..."
There was a thump on the cell door.
"Jukebox, you're up next." The court room security guard called out.
I stood up and looked at myself in the metal mirror that was screwed to the wall. The suit probably fitted me the best it ever had. I'd dropped a splash under five kilograms in the last six months. Prison food and some exercise had done wonders for me.
"Hey Jukebox, do you take requests?" The guy from the cell next yelled.
"Only if I know the song."
"How about... shut the fuck up next time?"
I heard him and the guy on the other side laugh. It was okay, it wasn't the first time I'd heard that joke. After my new lawyer had arrived and I changed my story they interrogated me for a couple of days in Tamworth before formally charging me with numerous drug and firearms offences. They shipped me to Long Bay Jail in Sydney where they had me locked down in isolation.
Gooses thought shutting me in a room for twenty two hours a day would make me change my story. In my job I regularly spend eighteen hours a day in a machinery cab so I was used to solitude. I was getting a bit sick of it when I remembered an interview I heard with an old guy who'd been kept in solitary by the North Koreans for six months at the end of the Korean War. He passed the time singing show tunes. I updated the idea a bit and 'Jukebox' was born. It was sort of a habit now when I was locked down.
After the stint in solitary didn't work I got shifted around every couple of weeks. Parklea, Silverwater, Lithgow, Bathurst and Goulburn. All for a short duration making me a constant new guy. The Renegades connections worked out for me there. The word was passed around pretty quickly. Mess with me and you have them to deal with. There was still the usual stuff for new prisoners or freshies as we were known. They went through my stuff and took what they wanted but they left me alone.
I'd been back at Long Bay in the remand section for the last five weeks. The detectives were still coming every week trying to get me to cooperate. Prison didn't scare me as much anymore but they were now threatening to take the farm off me through the confiscation of proceeds of crime act. My lawyer said they had no chance of making it stick.
Today was D day. My sentencing hearing. The day before my lawyer had made his pleas, friends had given character references. The prosecution had asked I be made an example of for other offenders. A rich private school old boy who tried to take a short cut profiting from other's misery. As I walked up the staircase that led to the dock I remembered the confidence of my lawyer the previous evening.
"It went well Nathan. I think you might even sneak away with weekend detention."
After all the formalities were attended to the judge asked me to stand. Soon after he started reading his deliberations I knew my lawyer had got the prediction horribly wrong.
"In my twenty five years on the bench I've heard so many stories of a good person making one mistake or error of judgement. They all start to blend into one eventually. The inevitable line up of upstanding citizens willing to vouch for the accused good character. The flimsy excuses of stress or depression. As I sat and listened yesterday I wondered if those fine citizens would be standing behind the accused if their son or daughter was hooked on the drugs their friend had assisted to manufacture."
Yep I knew I was screwed. He droned on for another ten minutes berating me and society for moral turpitude and greed. Then came the sentence.
"I only wish the crown had have been able to prove you had had contact with the drugs, guns or even one of the drums left in your storage. Then I would have been able to put you away for very long time to consider the error of your ways. As it is the import manifest which shows the frankly unbelievable amount of chemicals you had stored there is enough to put you in the higher end of the lesser charges. So it is with some disappointment that I can only sentence you to eight years of incarceration with a non parole period of five years. This sentence will be on top of the six months you have already served on remand. I hope you take this time to reflect on the countless lives your activities will have destroyed. Also perhaps others will read of this judgement and make better decisions than you sir. Bailiff you may take the prisoner away."
As I sat in my cell after my lawyer was let in.
"Well he was a cranky cunt today wasn't he?" He laughed but I didn't. "Look we will appeal and hopefully we might get a year or two knocked off but the old prick didn't leave the appeals court too much wriggle room. Still you'll be looked after."
He patted me on the back and was about to leave when he stopped.
"Oh I almost forgot. Your wife was in this week. We filled out an application for an expedited divorce. If you could sign it then it should be a formality."
He passed me a bulky A4 envelope.
"I thought we had to wait for twelve months separation?"
"You're going to jail for at least five years Nathan. The court will consider that enough of a reason to expedite the process. Claire wants to get remarried before the baby comes."
"But Jim's in the big house as well."
"She's not marrying Jim." The lawyer laughed. "Eleanor would never allow that. No, the new guy was with her..." the guy thought for a bit, "big guy, islander or kiwi, Tiny?"
"Bullshit."
"I'm just the messenger."
"Well tell her this. If she wants me to sign she better have the guts to come and ask me herself. Face to face."
At the end of the day myself and the other souls sentenced or remanded returned to Long Bay. For me I was processed again, this time as a convict. General population has different coloured clothes to the remand prisoners. I was strip searched, appointments made for psychological testing, issued with my bed linen then assigned a cell. For two weeks you are assessed then given a security rating. Either high, medium or low. Where you are sent after depends on your that rating.
I was hoping for low as they usually get sent to prison farms. My cell mates told me no new guys doing more than a 'coat and tie', prison slang for five years, get a low rating. I ended up with medium and was scheduled to be sent to Bathurst. I wasn't supposed to have visitors in the first two weeks but the day before I was to be transferred I got called in. Claire was there to see me.
