What Was Prison Like?

Hell.

Military school.

Military school on a bad acid trip to Hell. Yeah, that's
more like it.

It was a military prison, actually. The first one, at least.
But it was like the school, except that there was no one there
just because their parents wanted them to be. We were a ratio of
one to zero of bad to good. The guards weren't even good. They
were a part of what put me there, they couldn't be good. There
was a priest there, but I only met him once. I can't say if he
was good or not, so I won't let him count.

In the few months I was there, I had to establish myself.
Here I was, the good guy for once, against men who were for the
most part bad. I was noble in this whole thing. Noble, me, you
never thought you'd hear that, did you?

So, when someone decided to take me on, I kicked his ass.
Then someone else and another ass. I would say five people tried
to fight me.

Each time I got into a fight, I was put in solitary
confinement for a week. And these stupid bastards, they kept
putting me in the same cell. Surely, someone as well trained as I
was would find any weakness in this cell. And I did.

I remember leaning up against the back wall and hearing cars
traveling down a road. The wall wasn't even thick enough to block
out the sound. The door had weak hinges. It shook in its frame
every time it was slammed. The guard always tapped each door with
his baton on his way by at the same time every day. And, most
importantly, I was given an actual metal fork with my meals.

So, one day, I decided to see what I could do. When my meal
was slid through the little slot, I ate it and tucked the fork
into my pocket. I had started counting when I was first put into
it -- it keeps you sane when you're all alone with nothing but
your thoughts. And I knew that somewhere between one thousand
eight hundred and two thousand one hundred, the guard would begin
his tapping on the doors of this hall. He didn't disappoint me
that day.

If I started counting after the guard had finished his
tapping, someone would come by to pick up my tray between six
hundred and nine hundred. At about three hundred after the guard,
I began to work my way out.

Out of sheer determination on my part, I broke the door
down. In order to keep the other prisoners quiet, I yelled
through the door that I would also let them out. After several
kicks at the weak hinges, the door came off at it's hinges,
allowing me to slid through the lopsided gap it made.

True to my word, I bent a little metal thingy on the fork
and picked the locks as fast as I could. Hey, I may be a volatile
little bastard, but I'm honest. Mostly. And, besides, it was
great cover for me to have those guys running around creating
static.

I kept the road to my left and quickly found an exit. Of
course, it was locked. So I found a hiding spot and waited until
those morons caused enough of a stir that the guards had to rush
through the door to get them.

As the last guard passed, I recognized him as Joey, the
uncoordinated friend I had before my platoon was reduced to a
small unit that included Nick. Of course, he was straggling ten
feet behind the rest of the guard herd, so I grabbed him.

I placed the fork to his neck, right over the carotid
artery.

Don't look at me like that, a fork is a very handy weapon,
especially when nothing else is available. With the right force,
I could stick a straw through you, and stainless steel forks are
much sturdier.

So, I acknowledged Joey, and I told him I wouldn't kill him
if he helped me out. He recognized me right away, it's that charm
again. I'm unforgettable. I got his gun and he led me through
some security points and out to his vehicle, it was some type of
military jeep. And we sped off.

I ended up dropping Joey a few miles away and thanked him.
He knew I wouldn't have hurt him. There was too much of that big
brother shit creeping up on me when I was around him. He knew it,
and he helped me anyway. I think he was the only person to
believe in me then. I couldn't kill the only hope for me.

I was caught and sent back to prison a few months later. I
was in some run down old bar, and would you like to guess who
walked in? My old buddy Nick.

I... I was drunk, I'll admit that. And when I saw him, I
just remember having to wipe that poor woman's brain matter off
me. And that thought ricocheted off another that I had realized
in prison: Ignacio's wife looked a lot like Sari. In fact, when
I'm drunk, that woman is Sari.

And when I'm drunk, whoever hurts someone I connect with
Sari, has hurt Sari too. Nick didn't just hurt Sari, he killed
her. Right in my arms, he shot her and she was gone forever
again. At this point, all of the hatred I felt towards Nick came
back to me.

So I crossed the bar and took out my gun and shot him. There
was a girl with him, and I briefly wondered if she looked to me
as I must have looked to Nick when I was covered in someone
else's gore.

I ran. I ran from that place. I ran from Nick. I ran from
everything in my life that had been leading up to that gentle
pressure I used to caress the trigger of that gun. I had just
killed someone because they were there. I had become the murderer
that everyone had already assumed of me. But I was a murderer to
myself now. And I knew that if I ever ran across Joey again I
would have to kill him too, because what he believed in died in
that bar. Even though there was so much space between us, I ran
from Joey too.

I couldn't run fast enough. I was caught within a week and
was sentenced later to more time in prison.

This was just another less than extraordinary prison. And I
spent my time there just like any other inmate. Though, I was
more respected here, because I had a military background that no
one else had. Sure, there were a few army men there, but I was
the best out of all of them.

I kicked more asses there. Got mine kicked once. Once. I
never tried to figure a way out of solitary. I wouldn't have to
kill Joey if I never saw him again. I was content to fight,
sleep, eat, and do all the other things on a schedule.

Until I got a letter from Joey. It was a suicide note. He
went on and on about how guilty he was in this whole thing. If he
hadn't helped me, Nick would still be alive. It was his fault,
and he couldn't live with himself any longer. Joey killed himself
because I killed his hope.

From then on, I went on auto-pilot. I don't know what
happened, but there was a riot and I escaped. This time, I was
more careful about drinking.