If you ever go down Trinidad
They may you feel so very glad!
The radio leaked the harmonized girls' vocals, seeing the catchy song. Alfred looked away from the chipped wall and peered through the bars. He saw before him an empty cell. His blue eyes followed the row of bars towards the end of the hall. One of the officers, the only one who worked that evening following Christmas, was listening to his radio. He hummed tunelessly and tapped his pencil, staring at the mountain of papers before him.
Alfred stood slowly, moving towards the bars. He curled his fingers around the cold rungs and pressed his face against them. He squinted. He had lost his spectacles the previous week. The prison hadn't bothered giving him a new pair. Alfred licked his lips, his stomach grumbling. The weak gruel they fed him was hardly enough. Sometimes the stale bread was nice, though.
The officer raised his head, nearly jumping to the ceiling when he saw Alfred's earnest face peering down the dim hall at him. The howling winter wind scratched at the walls. He stared at Alfred, composing his "I hate life and everything to do with it" officer's look, but could only manage a look for false cheer. The holidays still clung stubbornly to his mood. He missed his children. He calmly set his pencil down. No one else was there. The warden was home with his wife. It wouldn't hurt to say a word or two to Alfred.
"Hello."
Alfred did not answer for nearly a full moment. At the end of the painful interim he muttered: "Do you think it's real cold outside?" He had a slow way of talking, laid back, most likely southern.
"Most likely," the officer, Officer Warren, said with a nod.
"Think I'll ever be outside in that cold again?"
"I don't know, son, maybe you'll get lucky and be free."
"I don't think so." Alfred shook his head slowly, his bangs shaking. He had brushed most of his hair forwards, so it hung just short of his brows. He touched it often, even though he didn't have a mirror. He couldn't purchase hair products, either, he wasn't like the prisoners up the hill who were doing only a certain amount of time. He was here to fry.
Warren had seen dozens of men come and go that way, plus the one woman. He had seen a kid just barely eighteen who went nuts and pulled a gun on his mother. He had seen an old man whose past caught up with him. He had seen men who didn't care what they did and were hell right up until the end. And all the while he didn't bat an eye. His emotions he left at home. Now it seems that he had brought some along. Or maybe it was the holiday spirit. He gazed at Alfred, trying to feel detached.
He was tempted to ask what a nice young man like him was doing there, but he knew the past well and he didn't bother. He wasn't that kind of guard to begin with. He looked back down at his papers, fiddling with his paper.
"You think I'll ever feel the rain again?"
Warren opened Alfred's file and looked at the date of execution. It was mid-May. By then rain should have fallen.
"If you prove to be a good prisoner we'll let you out in the spring rain if there is some." Warren explained.
He stopped suddenly, before adding a little anecdote to his statement. What was he doing? Fraternizing with the prison will not do. When his cohorts hear about this they'll chastise him. He doubted he would get in trouble, since he was not exchanged plans or anything of that nature. Warren still shouldn't get attached to Alfred. If he did, it'd be like loving the warm days between autumn and summer. They'll evaporate soon enough. Except in this case there was no next year to look forwards to.
I do not own "Rum and Coca Cola" by the Andrews Sisters.
To the person who told me not to continue: if you are reading this then you certainly are confused.