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The second those lights flicker to life I collapse onto the floor, releasing my grip on Bubba. I spent the entire night detaining him in a sleeper hold after an all-out wrestling session when he first had me when the guards were last at our cell nine hours ago.
Nine. Hours. That’s how long I had to carefully keep him at bay, being careful not to kill him, yet not allow him enough breathing room, literally, to yell or to slide out of my sleeper hold.
I’m absolutely exhausted, and there’s no way I’m going to perform today in my parole hearing. Then again there’s no way I’m not.
For her…for us…I remind myself summoning all my strength as I stand.
“Let’s go,” he angrily commands, motioning for me to leave the cell, which I do. But the second I step outside he points in the opposite direction I’m expecting.
“I’ve got to take a shower first. Get ready.”
“For what?” he asks, shoving me in the direction he wants me to go.
Don’t argue. Don’t fight this, I remind myself. Just make it to the parole hearing, confess, and give the review board solid reasons why I got thrown into solitary. They’re not even going to know about last night because there’s nothing to tell them. I survived, assholes. That’s all there is to know.
Every few feet the CO sticks me in the back with the night stick until we reach a hand-off area, with a secure door and checkpoint. I’m aggressively patted down, then strip searched for good measure, before I’m allowed to pass through. They don’t even bother to allow me to step aside, preferring to humiliate me with the strip search in front of everyone.
As I pass through, finally clothed, I just stand there.
“Sign this,” someone says, putting a clipboard with a piece of paper in front of my face.
“What’s this?” I ask incredulously, expecting they’re trying to rush me into signing something that waives all my rights, but as my eyes quickly scan the piece of paper my mouth drops open and my entire body goes numb.
“You going to sign it or you want us to change our minds?”
I scribble my name on the paper as quickly as possible before I feel a hand on my arm and in a blur, I’m being handed off again and yet again…on the other side of the gate.
A free man.
My entire body is shaking as I just stand there in the parking lot, not a cent of ‘gate money’, no clean clothes, no public transportation as is customary in these types of situations, and clearly no one coming for me, but I don’t care. I don’t even know how this happened.
How was there no parole hearing?
How was I just, just…freed after damn near twenty-four years?
I have no idea and a ton of questions, but most importantly I have the one and only answer that matters most.
No matter how much time I spent in solitary, no matter how late I was up last night fighting for my life, no matter how much they tried to break my spirit, one belief always stood the test of time.
One who has a 'why' to live for can endure almost any 'how'.
And do I ever have a how, and no way was I ever going to forget that first address on her return envelope. The following letters were changed, which tells me she got smart and hid her actual location. Smart girl. But I know the truth. She surely lives at the first one.
I make my way toward the highway and not a soul stops to acknowledge my thumb, which is up and out almost begging for a ride. I’ve got no car, no money, and the sun is beating down.
But I’ve got the one thing that matters. Hope, and the knowledge that she’s only a couple days walk away.
And I’ve got all the time in the world when it comes to her because she’s all that matters.
“I’m coming, Baby Girl,” I say under my breath with a smile. “Daddy’s coming for you.”
11
Josi
I wake up the next afternoon, entirely exhausted after spending the entire night doing my best CSI impersonation. It’s amazing what you can find on the Internet if you look hard enough. And it’s even more amazing what you can find buried within a word search puzzle from a supposedly dangerous convicted felon.
And what’s even more amazing is I don’t have to do any digging the second I look at my phone. The fruits of my labor are the lead story. Everywhere.
