Hanson rubbed his fingers together slowly, watching the flecks of blood crumble at his fingertips.
He gradually limped over to his bunk, his limbs like lead, and gingerly eased himself onto it, the stiff mattress rasping in protest beneath his weight.
He rested his head against the pillow, the room spinning into sallow shades of grey, the filthy floor hurtling up to meet him as he leant over the bunk, chinks of light flashing before his eyes he opened his mouth and splattered the grime coated concrete with vomit.
Doug Penhall stood arms and legs spread wide as the metal detector probed his body searching futilely for hidden objects.
He shot the plump and balding security inspector a blasé look as he demanded the officer empty his pockets. Doug yanked out fistfuls of change sending loose coins scattering everywhere, he watched as the guard scooped quarters from the floor on his hands and knees, made no effort to help the man as he grasped at cents and pennies.
"Other pocket" growled the guard as he slammed the last penny against the countertop.
Doug hid a smirk behind his hair; he fished in his other pocket, pulled out keys and gum, a wadded ball of paper and a photograph.
"Wha's this?" enquired the guard scrutinising the coffee embellished photo.
"It's a photo" replied Doug, slowly enunciating each word as if the man was stupid.
"I can see that, who's the photo of wise ass?!" snapped the guard
"That's me" said Doug pointing, "And that there's Judy, Harry, Fuller and Tom"
His voice softened on the names of Hanson and Ioki, as if speaking their names aloud was forbidden, their absences stretching in the hollowness of their names.
"Ok everything checks out, you go in the hall, you find the guy you're visiting, sit opposite, no contact. Speak into the phone beside you." Said the guard.
"Ok so-"
"Visiting time's twenty minutes" interrupted the guard as he led Doug into the hall.
He left Doug at a table, a glass partition separating him and the other visitors from the prisoners.
He watched as inmates entered the room, glanced nervously around, their sparse eyes shining at the sight of friends and loved ones.
He glanced down at his wrist forgetting that his watch had been one of the first items to go into that shiny metal tray of contraband. He emitted a frustrated sigh, convinced that time was ticking by with no sign of Hanson.
After fifteen fruitless minutes Doug rose from the desk and returned to the guard.
"Where's Hanson?" he demanded, his eyes blazing
"You're here to see Tom Hanson? He's not allowed visitors today" announced Collins, his tone clipped. Doug glanced from the guard who had checked him to this new individual sipping coffee in the back of the office.
"And why is that?" he questioned, his tone similar to that of Collins.
"He became ill in the night, when I went to check on him he became very overexcited and had to be forcibly restrained. He's paying penance for his crimes in solitary. He won't be allowed visitors for the next three or four days" said Collins flicking leisurely through a magazine, coffee cup in hand.
"Hanson, overexcited?" questioned Doug, his brow furrowed with suspicion, his eyes scorched with disbelief.
"Yes. He entered into physical altercation with several prison wardens, me included. Now Mr Penhall, I suggest you go home and someone from Fulham prison will contact you when Tom Hanson has completed his punishment." Said Collins allowing his gaze to rise, his ardent blue orbs locking with Penhall's angered brown ones.
"I'll come back tomorrow. If I don't get to see him you'll be real sorry" muttered Doug, his teeth clenched,
"Come back in three days" retorted Collins firmly, his lips turning upwards into a languid smirk. He continued flicking through the magazine slowly.
Penhall grabbed his property from the tray furiously sending other items crashing to the floor. He stormed from the prison, his chest rising and falling with fury.
He glanced back; the omnipotent building loomed in front of him, a fortress of the captured. The bricks and mortar which caged Tom Hanson and the wire and steel which lacerated his heart and soul reflected back in his grief stricken eyes.
Hanson lay on his back, his clothes sticking to his weary body with sweat and blood. His eyes half closed, light-headed he muttered the names, murmured the words he hadn't said in so long, recounted McQuaids and bowling tournaments, dances and deaths, his contorted body shivering in the confinement of his cell as images floated through the haze of his fog ridden memory.
The buzz of the prison gate intermingled with the shrill shriek of a school bell, the demands of a warden overpowered by the demands of a police captain, the cold hands pressed against his warm albeit clammy forehead replaced by the gentle touch of a friend.
"Take him down to the sick bay"
"He's filthy"
"He's delirious"
"He's selling guns to the gangs; he ordered the hit on Ioki"
"He keeps mumbling"
"How's Ioki? Does he know bout Tower?"
"Shot a cop"
Hanson stumbled in the grip of two wardens, barely conscious, his feet dragging against the corridor. His vomit and blood soaked clothes chafing against his damp skin as sweat permeated every pore.
"What the hell happened to him?"
Clothes ripped from his skin, semi healed scars opening, the blood pulsating from his wounds, the bruises dark against his pale skin. The doctor glanced at the battered and beaten inmate before him, his hair coated with grease and flecked with encrusted blood.
His body convulsing as his slender frame shook and writhed with illness.
" Doug?" the plea rose from quivering lips, the blurred outline of the doctor flanked the doorway as Hanson peeked through his eyelashes, the world fuzzy and lacking in warmth.
"You need to sleep. Sedation. Sleep"
The voice echoed in his head, amplified in the vast whiteness. He felt the jab of the needle and the heaviness of his eyelids but as the world became consumed with blackness he knew nothing more than the plea frozen on his lips.
Doug?
"How was he?"
Doug startled at the low whisper as Judy's lips brushed against his ear.
He glanced up at her, pencil in hand, idly doodling beside the form he was meant to be filling in.
"They wouldn't let me see him" he muttered, his tone bitter, his eyes torn with regret.
Judy perched herself on the edge of his desk, wanting to be close to one of her friends. The chapel seemed so empty. The bond between the officers blown to smithereens in the past month, Hanson was in prison, Ioki a coma and Booker; Booker might as well have been for all Doug cared.
He hadn't reported back to Jump Street
in days, sticking close to Farrell and homicide. He claimed he
enjoyed the work there better but Judy knew the man feared rejection
from the chapel.
You'd never be a hero for taking down one of
your own. And he'd never be welcomed in the chapel as long as
Hanson remained behind bars. Penhall would make sure of that.
She glanced down at Doug's form, at the initials carved there, the usual graffiti adopted by the McQuaids to embellish papers in class.
"You really miss him don't you?" she questioned softly
"Don't you?" retorted Doug, tugging the form away from her. He frantically scratched at the pencil marks, blowing the excess rubber heavily until there was a blank white paper canvas.
"You can still see him, it's not like he's dead-"
"No he's just imprisoned for something he didn't do" barked Doug his voice shattering like glass.
" Doug this is hard on all of us"
pleaded Judy, her eyes welling with tears, " What with Harry and
Booker-"
" SCREW BOOKER!" snarled Doug, his eyes blazing,
his face twisted with repulsion, " He's the reason Hanson's in
that place!"
"He was trying to protect Hanson, to make sure he wasn't shot, or, or run up a rail, Doug he was just trying to help!" protested Judy the tears spilling forth
"Well he did a swell job!" spat Doug sarcastically, "He really helped Hanson by putting him in prison"
"Hanson could have been shot" sniffed Judy the tears trickling down her cheeks.
"No he wouldn't have been!" denied Doug, "Not if Booker had just stayed the hell away, He was looking for the bullet from his gun, from the warning shot he fired. Only Booker had to interfere. What the hell was he doing there anyway? Fuller knew he despised Hanson!"
"He was making sure Farrell-"
"Yeah, Yeah He was making sure Farrell didn't shoot Hanson. Well thanks to him Hanson now has to worry about people doing a lot more than aiming a gun at his head" spat Doug his tone laced with derision.
Judy placed a hand on Doug's shoulder
"He'll be ok, they both will"
Doug tore himself from her grip easily. He scraped back his chair, ignoring the dull thud it made as it toppled to the ground in his haste to leave the building.
He leant against the balcony, allowing the cold metal to cut deep into his arms, the stinging numbness piercing his flesh as he stared out into the parking lot, desperately seeking out the car that wasn't there and hadn't been for so long. His hazel eyes clouded with regret and longing as he scanned the vehicles, the bright blue mustang noticeably absent.
The car meant almost as much to him as it did to Hanson, the link to Tom's deceased father had also become symbolic of his best friend. Now Hanson was gone, so was the car, and everything Doug had seemed to be crumbling to dust before his eyes. All he had to do was wait for the rest of the world to crash down around him, splintering away the last iota of his soul.