The sunlight that filtered into my cell the next morning kissed my face
like a gentle lover, and for a moment I thought of my wife, and home. But
the iron bars and stark walls quickly brought the dream to an end.
The call came out to line up for the morning meal, and the cacophony of cell doors slamming and mooks mouths yamming almost sounded like metallic applause and caustic cheers. "You like me…you really, really like me," I thought as I palmed the shiv I had melted together the night before, and stepped out into the army ant line towards the food.
My senses were in high gear as I sat down with the ooze that passed for food in this monkey house. While I pretended to be occupied with eating, my peripheral vision was making like RADAR, and scanning.
I was like Spider-Man when my danger sense went off, and the tingling in my skull told me Anton's hand was reaching out to kill me. The fact that I saw him, three rows ahead of me, nudge his buddy to "get on with it" was a big red flag as well. The skinny punk, probably trying to climb some sort of jailhouse ladder of respect, got up and came towards me like a victim of Parkinson's disease: shaking all the way.
I made like I didn't notice as he came near, then jumped up, putting the crazy back into my eyes and the fear into his. For a second we stood motionless, and I asked him something in a low, quiet hiss.
"Wh-what did you say??" stuttered the scarecrow. I smiled like a Batman villain.
"I said…WHAT'S THE FREQUENCY, KENNETH?!?!?" The scream rivaled that of my yell at Anton the day before. I'm sure I almost popped a blood vessel somewhere.
The twitch was so startled he dropped his own, better shiv on the floor and took a step back. I bent quickly and picked it up, smiled once at the stick figure, and then leapt onto the nearest metal picnic table, and leap-frogged it down the rows, my feet smashing into cheap powdered eggs and rubbery flapjacks, yells and curses following me all the way to the third row down, and Anton's horrified face as he turned to see me coming at him with a shard of carved plastic and a razor edged toothbrush.
* * * *
I heard that Anton actually lived, though the one swipe left him sightless, and the second did wonders for his powers of speech.
Someone told me that –I- actually lived, too, but a barely believed them. The beat-down that Anton's buddies, and then the prison guards, gave me left me doubtful of any reports of survival. But someone must have been smiling on me, because I ended up recuperating in the prison hospital, under guard, for the next 3 months. I figured either Woden had put a word in for me, or the Governor was more interested in seeing me live long enough for my vote-inducing example of his being "tough on crime," with the flick of the lethal injection switch.
Either way, it was 3 months of bed rest, TV, and watching the nurse's hips wave both hello and goodbye day after day. Ah, life was good on death row.
==
Part 4 coming soon
The call came out to line up for the morning meal, and the cacophony of cell doors slamming and mooks mouths yamming almost sounded like metallic applause and caustic cheers. "You like me…you really, really like me," I thought as I palmed the shiv I had melted together the night before, and stepped out into the army ant line towards the food.
My senses were in high gear as I sat down with the ooze that passed for food in this monkey house. While I pretended to be occupied with eating, my peripheral vision was making like RADAR, and scanning.
I was like Spider-Man when my danger sense went off, and the tingling in my skull told me Anton's hand was reaching out to kill me. The fact that I saw him, three rows ahead of me, nudge his buddy to "get on with it" was a big red flag as well. The skinny punk, probably trying to climb some sort of jailhouse ladder of respect, got up and came towards me like a victim of Parkinson's disease: shaking all the way.
I made like I didn't notice as he came near, then jumped up, putting the crazy back into my eyes and the fear into his. For a second we stood motionless, and I asked him something in a low, quiet hiss.
"Wh-what did you say??" stuttered the scarecrow. I smiled like a Batman villain.
"I said…WHAT'S THE FREQUENCY, KENNETH?!?!?" The scream rivaled that of my yell at Anton the day before. I'm sure I almost popped a blood vessel somewhere.
The twitch was so startled he dropped his own, better shiv on the floor and took a step back. I bent quickly and picked it up, smiled once at the stick figure, and then leapt onto the nearest metal picnic table, and leap-frogged it down the rows, my feet smashing into cheap powdered eggs and rubbery flapjacks, yells and curses following me all the way to the third row down, and Anton's horrified face as he turned to see me coming at him with a shard of carved plastic and a razor edged toothbrush.
* * * *
I heard that Anton actually lived, though the one swipe left him sightless, and the second did wonders for his powers of speech.
Someone told me that –I- actually lived, too, but a barely believed them. The beat-down that Anton's buddies, and then the prison guards, gave me left me doubtful of any reports of survival. But someone must have been smiling on me, because I ended up recuperating in the prison hospital, under guard, for the next 3 months. I figured either Woden had put a word in for me, or the Governor was more interested in seeing me live long enough for my vote-inducing example of his being "tough on crime," with the flick of the lethal injection switch.
Either way, it was 3 months of bed rest, TV, and watching the nurse's hips wave both hello and goodbye day after day. Ah, life was good on death row.
==
Part 4 coming soon