Well, this has been bothering me for a while. I know there are a ton of other stories like this, but probably that's because it's an idea that is just so unexplained that we have to explore it more. Some parts may seem strange, or not normal, but just bare with me. This is all coming from my imagination and personal experiences, so it may suck, but hey, nobody is judging me…I hope.
So, sit back, and enjoy.
14% of all males in prison in the USA were neglected as children.
Neal Caffery threw a small pebble at the wall, watching it bounce off, then take several leaps backwards to land centimeters away from his right foot. He didn't bother looking for it after that, just picked up one more, and started the cycle all over again.
Jail was a lot of things. It smelled, the food was less then gourmet, and the people were either (a) some form of tough gang since they were five, (b) the only class they experienced was english until the fourth grade, or (c) a combination of the two with a little muscle and a lot of hair thrown in.
There were several other White Collar criminals, though they seemed to be hiding from him and whenever he approached one to discuss perhaps a new painting or how he wished to visit one museum, they seemed more interested in sliding their arm up his leg then actually listening.
That seemed bad enough for a high-class, clean-cut, alleged art theif like himself, but the thing that made jail worse then anything at all was this: it was boring.
He had tried everything to keep himself entertained. He swiped a deck of cards and played every card game known to man at least thirty times before deciding that playing with himself was what social rejects did at recess. He had done drawings on the floor with rocks and pebbles that he found, but none of them really matched up to his stolen set of colored pencils that he had owned on the other side.
The boredom was everywhere…silently killing off his spirit until he was walking the halls with a hunch in his back and a dead look in his eyes that told people one simple fact: he was bored. Neal didn't enjoy being bored, that was one of the many reasons why he choose a less then legal job for his 9-5 job.
Being a criminal had been thrilling. He enjoyed racing from that pain in the ass FBI agent, Peter Burke, and enjoyed the rush of adrenalin he had each time after stealing, forging, or one of his many White Collar activities.
Kate had also enjoyed the rush of the job. She would be right by his side when he suggested an idea that usually had Mozzie saying, "Are you insane!" Mozzie was the logical one of the group, he and Kate were the wild, restless adrenalin junkies. Neal supposed it was good to have the bald man around, just to make sure they didn't end up dead or in prison.
Turns out, Mozzie lacked in that last part of his job description.
Neal had been in jail for a month almost and he was still in shock from the fact that Peter Burke had caught him. He had been positive that he had that idiot agent chasing his lead from him that happened three days earlier, but when he exited his car on the Pennslyvania border, ready to crack open a bottle of wine with some old friends, there had been the feds.
Now, thanks to a group of backstabbing friends and one very persistent FBI agent, he was stuck in the brain-rotting place they called prison.
Neal knew what to exepect from prison, he had several friends who had been here before, but still, the boredom and stink took him by surprise. He wasn't he could last another four minutes, minus four years.
He sighed as he threw another pebble at the wall, trying to think of anything that could entertain him until the guards came to release them to the yard. At least there he could participate in the usual poker games that went on, maybe win something from the gullible prisonmates.
"Caffery, that's the fifth time you've sighed in the last seventeen minutes," a voice commented in a very dull tone from the other cell next to his.
"Why do you keep count, Lorzano?" Neal had quickly realized the third day of his sentence that if you wanted to sound tough, you called people by their last names. Nowadays, he only introduced himself as Caffery.
"Do you think you're the only person whose bored as hell in this place? I've been here for five years and the most entertaining thing I've ever done here was get into a fight with half of the guards and my cell mate. I got locked up in solitarily confinment, but still, it was worth it to find some peace from this."
"You know I don't like violence or-"
"Or guns. Caffery, I'm pretty sure even the warden whose never even come down to this damn place knows that."
"Well, I don't like them."
"You're a felon, being fond of violence is in your job description."
"Must have missed that on the interview," Neal said in a very dry tone. Lorzano was an alright guy for a criminal, but his felonies involved much more violence then Neal would ever appreciate, making the man a little afriad of him.
"You're funny, you know that. Would have made a great mobster if you had a liking for violence," Lorzano said and Caffery could picture the man leaning against the wall, slicking back his greasey black hair with a smooth move with his hand.
"Oh, what a shame."
"Why don't you enjoy guns? They're so entertaining if you know how to use one properly. You do know how to use one, right?"
"Yes."
Lorzano breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh thank goodness. Did you know that learning how to shoot a gun is in the man's handbook? It's right there next to banging hot chicks and drinking fourty cent whiskey straight from its diseased lid."
"Don't worry, I read that page."
"You must have skipped the page about loving guns more then your wife. I mean, what's not to love about them. You cock them up, take aim, then let them loose on some poor son of a bitch's ass and watch him squirm on the ground like an ant under a magnifying glass. Now that is a sight to see."
"Please, shut up," Neal said, feeling his face go pale and his stomach to start churning at the man's somewhat vivid description of a person getting shot.
"So, tell me Caffery, why don't you like guns?"
"It's a long story…"
"Where are we going to go?" Lorzano asked in a tone that for some reason annoyed Neal much more then the oily man himself.
"Can you please just shut up and drop it!" He shouted and heard the footsteps of a guard approach.
Neal was about to shout that they were alright when Lorzano covered it for him. "We're alright, no bloodshed." The footsteps retreated. "Caffery, you can tell me anything. People tell me their damn secrets all the time. Sometimes I think my head is going to explode."
"It's not sometime I'm fond of talking about."
"Of course it isn't, then why else would it be a secret."
Neal rolled his eyes. "Alright, do you really want to hear?"
"Very much so, Master Caffery."
He took a deep breath and began to unload his past that not even the crazed FBI agent who had hunted him down for three years knew. "Well, when I was a child, I had a less then happy childhood…if you want to put it nicely."
"Oh shit, is this going to be one of those sob stories that I hear about like abuse and recovering and then finding your faith with Jesus? Because my ma told me enough of that shit to last me a lifetime…and one after that."
"No. I was never pyschically abused…more like…another way that in my opinion, hurt a lot worse."
"Then why do you hate violence if you weren't abused by your parents?"
Neal sighed, all the memories he had been pushing down for the last few years resurfacing. "A lot more people can hurt you then your parents."
Lee Cox swung his short feet, desperately trying to get the swing he was currently sitting on to move. His older siblings could push the swings with ease, allowing themselves to fly high in the sky, almost high enough to touch the birds.
His older brother, Daniel, said he had once caught a Bald Eagle then wrestled it to the ground. Their father had helped him tie it up then chop it up and cook it for dinner. Of course, this had been before Lee was born, so he wouldn't remember, but according to his five older siblings, it really happened and had been quite a feast.
Ever since then, Lee had been obsessed with being able to push himself to the top of the clouds on the swing, but so far, his efforts remained fruitless. Now, this didn't appear fair to Lee since he had seen other little boys like him go much farther on the swings then Lee had ever gone. He just didn't understand it at all.
His oldest brother, Jared, explained that their family didn't have a lot of green stuff so they couldn't buy as much food to make him big and strong like the other boys his age. Apparently, in the adult world, green stuff could get you anything you wanted, and it seemed unfair to the little five-year-old that his family didn't have enough.
"Do you need help, Lee," his oldest sister, Alexis, asked. She was almost ten years old and all of a sudden, she thought she was the queen on everything. Jared, who was thirteen, called her something called a bitch. When Jared found out Lee had overheard, he had made him pinkie swear that he would never tell Dad about it and Lee had kept it a secret ever since.
"No! I can do it!" Lee replied, turning his head away from his sister and attempting even harder to push with his legs. He gave one final, giant push, and moved a little bit more then Lee could ever remember doing. "I moved!"
"Good job, now we have to go home," Alexis said, and reached for his hand. Lee shook his head and retracted his hand.
"No! I want more!" Alexis sighed and grabbed him, dragging him out of his seat and across the playground, the whole time, he had been pouting.
"Wow, you want to be a little bit more harsh there?" Daniel said as Alexis walked over. Daniel was twelve and was three inches taller then Jared which made his oldest brother very angry all the time.
"Shut up," Alexis said and stuck out her tongue. "Where's Mimi and Sam?" Lee's youngest siblings were twins, both seven years old, and were the best of friends, which often made Lee jealous that he didn't have a twin to be best friends with. He yelled at his dad for a twin, but his dad had replied that in order to have a twin, he needed a Mom which they didn't have, thanks to Lee.
Lee didn't talk to his daddy for three hours after that, finally breaking his vow when he asked his daddy for the ketchup.
"They're on the monkey bars."
Alexis rolled her eyes. "So, go get them! Jared says to be home by six o' clock, and it's almost five-thirty!"
Daniel stuck his tongue out at his sister and then turned to Lee. "C'mon, let's go get Mimi and Sam and then go home without mean ole Alexis."
Lee nodded and grabbed Daniel's hand, "Ha, you're mean!" He said, looking at Alexis who crossed her arms and rolled her eyes.
"You're teaching him bad things."
"Whatever," Daniel said, walking away with Lee in tow. Mimi and Sam were sitting by the monkey bars, looking up at the quickly darkening sky, whispering secrets to and fro. "Come on you two, we're going home for dinner."
"Get up sleepy heads! Get up! Get up!" Lee encouraged.
Mimi looked up and poked her twin to get up as well. "We're coming Lee, calm down."
Daniel patted him on the back, saying, "They're getting up. Take a chill pill lil' fellow."
Lee nodded, feeling all the energy from the day of swinging and playing around like regular five-year-olds did coursing through his body. "Can I play some more?"
"No, we're going home to eat. Don't you want to eat?"
Lee felt the pains of hunger in his stomach, but those were always there. He never experienced a day without feeling every pain of hunger gnawing away at his stomach. Lee was worried that one day his stomach would eat a hole right through his stomach and burst out.
Mimi and Sam stood up, quickly brushing themselves off before walking out with Daniel and Lee, ready to go home, to a place where they faced many more problems then the pains of hunger.
"So, you hate guns because your Dad couldn't afford to feed you?" Lorzano asked in a confused manner.
"No. There's much more to this story."
"Then spill, Caffery, we still have another three hours until they come to let us out to the yard."
"Hold on, it's hard to relive your past all at once," Neal said, and closed his eyes, trying to focus on something other then the hellish things he faced as a young child all the way up to being eightteen.
Oh my gosh! Boring first chapter over! Please, stick around, next chapter should be up and running tomorrow, and trust me, there will be some more answers.
Also, in case you didn't know, Lee was Neal…just you know, younger and with a different first/last name.
