Chapter Thirty-Three: Lucas Turns in His Man-Badge
After sentencing, Lucas was transferred from the local jail to the state prison. Riding on the transport bus, Lucas sat looking out the window, wondering where it had all gone wrong. He had been sentenced to death! He was going to go to death row; he was going to receive a lethal injection! What had he done to deserve this?
Lucas felt incredibly small, standing in line-up before the warden. He had always known he wasn't the tallest tree in the forest but now he felt completely inadequate. All the working out he'd done that had made him feel more manly seemed now like a joke. He was puny, insignificant, and in way over his head. As he was escorted to his cell, carrying his bedding, he felt the leering eyes of the old-timers drilling into him. He clutched his bedding closer to his chest, shifting his eyes back and forth. In his nervousness, he stumbled slightly, causing a low wave of laughter to break out through the cell block. In his first five minutes of being in prison, he'd already marked himself as an easy target.
Lucas sits on a bench on the mess hall, sandwiched between two burly inmates. He keeps his face down towards his tray. He'd been in prison a week and had yet to speak a word to anyone, including his cell mate. He'd actually tried to talk to Lucas, probably out of boredom, but Lucas had been too nervous to respond and his cellmate hadn't tried again. "At least when I'm transferred to death row I'll get to be alone 23 hours of the day," he thought to himself. He had never thought he'd meet a more intimidating figure than his mother, but boy, was he wrong. This was worse than military school, where he had been picked on relentlessly for his snobbish ways and small stature. "Why did EJ betray me? I thought he was on my side," Lucas thought to himself. His confusion made him dizzy and his stomach started churning. Before he could stop himself, he threw up onto his tray. The two men sitting next to him looked over in amused disgust. "Food not to your taste?" one asked, and the others at the table laughed heartily. Lucas starts trembling, and tries to reply, but can only stammer out unintelligible nonsense. The other man sitting next to him gets up to leave the table. When he picks up his tray, he knocks Lucas' into his lap, covering him with prison chow and vomit. Lucas can't fight it anymore. He begins to cry, softly at first, then loud sobbing.
Lucas stands under the spray of the lukewarm shower water, eyes closed, trying to scrub his misery off his skin. He feels someone standing close to him and opens his eyes. He sees another prisoner standing directly in front of him. He doesn't have to turn his head to know that there's another standing right behind him. In fact, there's a third standing by his side. He shifts his eyes nervously. The inmate in front of him reaches out, puts his hand under Lucas', and with his finger pops the bar of soap out of Lucas' hand. The three men chuckle. The inmate behind him moves closer. "Hey, sweetheart, you dropped your soap."
Kate's sense of superiority and overall bad attitude had done little to earn her friends at her new home. Kate couldn't believe she was reduced to this. Prison garb, ragged nails, she just didn't look herself anymore. She was glad she had no access to a mirror; she couldn't stand the thought of what she must look like without her many layers of makeup and constant dye jobs on her graying hair. "Still," she thought to herself, "I'm better than any of the trash in this place. I'm Kate Roberts, not one to be trifled with." Her fellow inmates didn't agree. She was definitely one to be trifled with.
Out in the exercise yard, Kate stood apart from her fellow inmates, looking down her pointy, upturned nose at them. One of them catcalls to her. "Hey, Katie, why don't you bring that high-class ass of yours on over here?" Kate pretends not to hear and turns her back to them. They laugh. A group of them moves closer to her. "Hey, Katie, that wasn't a request. Get on over here, bitch." Kate turns back around, eyes blazing. "Or what?" she asks them snidely. "Or this!" she shouts back. The gang of women bum rushes Kate. She puts up a half-decent fight, but she's no match for five, prison hardened women. Before the guards can break up the fight, one of them slides a shank between Kate's ribs. She's taken to the prison infirmary, but sadly, she doesn't make it through the night. She dies cursing the name Lucas Roberts.