by Lena Little
“Can you please bring them to me?” I damn near beg, for the first time in my life.
“Oh, you’ll see them tomorrow at your hearing. They’re contraband and were clearly against the terms of your confinement here.”
“I’m walking out of here tomorrow,” I state as if it’s a done deal.
“Yeah, you are…right back into solitary, if Bubba doesn’t finish you off tonight.” He pauses again and looks up at the top bunk. “We’ll make sure not to patrol this floor tonight, Bubba. So you’re free to do what you’ve gotta do…in case there happens to be an…accident,” he winks.
I hear Bubba laugh above me and quickly realize I’m not getting a second of sleep tonight. Now tomorrow, the most important day in the next step in my life, the determination of whether or not I go free or I rot in here forever, is going to start with me showing up looking completely beat down, probably without a shower, and every odd in the book stacked against me.
I don’t care. I’m going to win, my freedom that is. I’m going to say whatever I need to say to get out of here. If they want to hear that I accept responsibility for those fires then I’ll give it to them, even though I know it’s absolutely a lie. All I want is the truth, and that’s her. Little Josi.
I just hope she waited on me, someone she probably sees as a deadbeat who doesn’t keep their end of the deal, who never wrote her back. But if all works out tomorrow I’ll never need to write her again, because she’ll be where she belongs. In my arms.
A moment of clarity washes over me and I realize I’ve completely lost it, that I’m hallucinating. I’d blame it on being in solitary for all that time, but I know the truth. It’s something much more powerful than that.
My ability to reason, to think clearly, to do anything rational is absolutely clouded…but for the best reason ever.
Love. For the first time in my life, I’m in love, and she loves me back. Or at least she did before I quit replying to her letters.
The notes from the parole hearing will be made public, so if I need to I’ll just say something that would make sense to her and only her so she knows I haven’t forgotten about her…if life forgets about me and sentences me to more time to serve.
I clench my fists. Not. Gonna. Happen. I’m going to get out of here and dedicate my life to serving as her liaison, her guiding light, her beacon of knowledge.
And prove that guard and everyone that ever doubted me wrong, as I confess to a crime I didn’t commit and said I never would.
Because the greater crime would be not having her as mine. Forever.
It’s the only shot I’ve got, and tomorrow I make the most of it.
The cell door slams shut and before the clack of the CO’s boots turn to nothingness down the hallway I hear the top bunk squeak and feel Bubba’s thick forearm squeeze tight against my throat.
10
James
“I’m surprised to see you alive,” the CO says, as he arrives at my cell door the next morning, before turning on the hallway lights. It’s an obvious security infraction and a sign he expected to find me dead and was prepared to quickly deal with the aftermath before the other prisoners were awake.
The second those lights flicker to life I collapse onto the floor, releasing my grip on Bubba. I spent the entire night detaining him in a sleeper hold after an all-out wrestling session when he first had me when the guards were last at our cell nine hours ago.
Nine. Hours. That’s how long I had to carefully keep him at bay, being careful not to kill him, yet not allow him enough breathing room, literally, to yell or to slide out of my sleeper hold.
I’m absolutely exhausted, and there’s no way I’m going to perform today in my parole hearing. Then again there’s no way I’m not.
For her…for us…I remind myself summoning all my strength as I stand.
“Let’s go,” he angrily commands, motioning for me to leave the cell, which I do. But the second I step outside he points in the opposite direction I’m expecting.
“I’ve got to take a shower first. Get ready.”
“For what?” he asks, shoving me in the direction he wants me to go.
Don’t argue. Don’t fight this, I remind myself. Just make it to the parole hearing, confess, and give the review board solid reasons why I got thrown into solitary. They’re not even going to know about last night because there’s nothing to tell them. I survived, assholes. That’s all there is to know.
Every few feet the CO sticks me in the back with the night stick until we reach a hand-off area, with a secure door and checkpoint. I’m aggressively patted down, then strip searched for good measure, before I’m allowed to pass through. They don’t even bother to allow me to step aside, preferring to humiliate me with the strip search in front of everyone.
As I pass through, finally clothed, I just stand there.
“Sign this,” someone says, putting a clipboard with a piece of paper in front of my face.
“What’s this?” I ask incredulously, expecting they’re trying to rush me into signing something that waives all my rights, but as my eyes quickly scan the piece of paper my mouth drops open and my entire body goes numb.
“You going to sign it or you want us to change our minds?”
I scribble my name on the paper as quickly as possible before I feel a hand on my arm and in a blur, I’m being handed off again and yet again…on the other side of the gate.
A free man.
My entire body is shaking as I just stand there in the parking lot, not a cent of ‘gate money’, no clean clothes, no public transportation as is customary in these types of situations, and clearly no one coming for me, but I don’t care. I don’t even know how this happened.
How was there no parole hearing?
How was I just, just…freed after damn near twenty-four years?
I have no idea and a ton of questions, but most importantly I have the one and only answer that matters most.
No matter how much time I spent in solitary, no matter how late I was up last night fighting for my life, no matter how much they tried to break my spirit, one belief always stood the test of time.
One who has a 'why' to live for can endure almost any 'how'.
And do I ever have a how, and no way was I ever going to forget that first address on her return envelope. The following letters were changed, which tells me she got smart and hid her actual location. Smart girl. But I know the truth. She surely lives at the first one.
I make my way toward the highway and not a soul stops to acknowledge my thumb, which is up and out almost begging for a ride. I’ve got no car, no money, and the sun is beating down.
But I’ve got the one thing that matters. Hope, and the knowledge that she’s only a couple days walk away.
And I’ve got all the time in the world when it comes to her because she’s all that matters.
“I’m coming, Baby Girl,” I say under my breath with a smile. “Daddy’s coming for you.”
11
Josi
I wake up the next afternoon, entirely exhausted after spending the entire night doing my best CSI impersonation. It’s amazing what you can find on the Internet if you look hard enough. And it’s even more amazing what you can find buried within a word search puzzle from a supposedly dangerous convicted felon.
And what’s even more amazing is I don’t have to do any digging the second I look at my phone. The fruits of my labor are the lead story. Everywhere.
It took a while to find the clues I’d missed in the word search, initially only locating things I wanted to see like “baby girl”, “daddy”, “mine”, “meant to be,” “I get you”, and others, until I found things like “suspicion is debt”, “check the LLC registration”, “international wire transfers”, and a few other phrases that blew the lid off this thing.
And James’ hunches were exactly right. The judge in his initial case, who strangely still ruled over his parole hearings despite that not usually being the case, had been deep in d
ebt all those years ago. The vacation home in the mountains, where James had sometimes slept out front, belonged to her family, although it was wrapped up in a New Mexico LLC, one of the most tight-lipped jurisdictions in the world when it comes to privacy.
It seems the family’s plan was to collect the insurance money and pay off their debts. Well, they did that, and ‘lucky’ for them they had the perfect scapegoat for the fire. James.
But they got sloppy, taking the amounts from the two insurance settlements they received and wiring them to overseas shell companies which then came back in the exact same amounts to pay off large creditors.
And sure enough, as soon as those creditors were paid off, the judge made her way up the ranks, and her first order of business seemed to be to keep James locked up where he couldn’t do any research that might uncover the truth.
But like most people in life, she underestimated me. Granted, she doesn’t even know I exist, and still doesn’t, nor does she or anyone need to…except him.
And the picture of him walking out of the jail this morning, which appears to have been taken via a long lens and unbeknownst to his knowledge, is all over the news this morning. I do find it strange that nobody interviewed him, but then again I don’t care. All I care about is he’s free, and I need to find a way to get ahold of him now…which isn’t going to be easy.
And when I do see him, because it’s no longer a matter of if, but when, I’m going to throw myself into my Daddy’s arms. He looks almost exactly like I thought he would, and despite having been incarcerated for so long he’s aged incredibly well. I make a mental note to myself that I have no excuses to ever not exercise if this man’s body is clearly still a temple after being locked down for so long inside what amounts to little more than the size of half of the standard family garage.
And the day is even better because I got an “A” on my final psychology project. And I didn’t even use James’ letters for information. It felt too personal to write about him, and instead, I simply went to a local jail in the last couple of weeks and interviewed both inmates and police officers, trying to see things from competing points of view. I will say it’s amazing what cognitive bias can lead one to think, and right now I’m giving James the ultimate halo effect. Now that he’s innocent all I can think about are these guilty thoughts about how I want to do naughty things with this amazing man…if he wants the same with me.
The last thing I’m going to do is try and track him down in a way that asks him to thank me for what I did. That’s not it at all. I’m very sensitive to the fact that I don’t want this to feel like I’m asking for a thank you. If anything I’m the one who feels amazed about all this. He’s given my life more of a purpose than going to college and studying something I’m not interested in ever could. He showed me to always bet on yourself, no matter what anyone thinks about you, and I can certainly relate to that.
Having been misunderstood my whole life all I want is for someone who I love to ‘get me.’ And I’m more than ready for him to come and do exactly that, and to take me away from here, even if he, and I, have no money.
No amount of money in the world can make me happy. Happiness comes from within, and I’ve only felt that coming from me when I’m thinking of him.
The only question is, will he come for me?
Because if he doesn’t, I know the letdown is going to be catastrophic.
I close my eyes. “Dear Daddy,” I say softly under my breath. “Come for your princess and make her your queen.”
12
James
I expected to perform manual labor like washing dishes in a diner in exchange for food or maybe even chopping wood for an hour or two in trade for a ride or a meal, but instead I’ve found out just how much the world has changed thanks to the Internet…and how people are still genuinely and generally good.
The whole Internet thing is still new to me, which makes people laugh when I say that after they tell me they saw my picture online and read my story…and they want to help.
It’s taken less than half a day to get from San Quentin to Josi’s hometown. And my luck didn’t run out when I went to check into a hotel nor when I went to the store to try and buy the cheapest suit I could with the limited money I’d received from strangers.
The outpouring of support has been overwhelming, and somehow I’m not even sad or unhappy or even revengeful about having lost so many years of my life…because those years wouldn’t have mattered anyway because they would have been spent without her.
Josi, the girl who I’m literally minutes away from right now.
I want to go to her house right now and just hold her, thank her, and make love to her. But I need to get ahold of myself first, not to mention I can’t just show up like that. Until my record is expunged I’m still a felon, and her parents might not react so well to a big man showing up on their front steps.
But tomorrow is a new day, and I’ll be ready. Tomorrow I’m not holding back. Tomorrow I’ll have gotten at least some sleep, although I’m wide awake now, full of adrenaline knowing I’ve come so close. Knowing my journey not just today, but in life, has brought me to my woman.
And starting tomorrow I’m going to show her exactly what that means. And not just her. The world.
13
James
I’m up before my wake-up call from the front desk, having barely slept last night after not sleeping at all the night before. Even at forty years old I feel as completely full of energy and ready to go…because today’s the day.
Walking the short distance to Josi’s high school, the only one in town so it has to be hers, I’m practically speed walking by the time I get there. I try and will myself to slow down so I’m not sweaty, reminding myself there’s no award for getting there early not to mention I’m not going to be able to see her early.
I make my way inside the school, one of the few people that’s there by themselves, but it doesn’t bother me. I just smile, knowing I might be entering myself, but I’m not leaving here today alone. Never again will that happen, like it did yesterday when I left San Quentin. Then again she was with me along this entire journey of freedom, whether she was there physically or not.
I climb up the seats in the gym, which is being used for today’s graduation. Quickly, my eyes scan the floor as if I’m in the prison yard looking to see who might have a shank. I guess that’s one ‘positive’ that I can take with me. I’m always on alert and my eyes can spot a needle in a haystack. But with all the graduates wearing caps and gowns, and facing the opposite direction, it’s going to take a miracle to find her…
Until her personality shines through.
There, on the top of her cap, it’s written, in glitter of course, ‘Word Puzzle Winners.’ It’s her, it has to be. And not only because she’s giving me a clue, an inside joke into what we did together, but because I also see that long, flowing hair of hers, like fields of barley.
I watch as her cap moves from side to side as she scans the crowd on either side of her, but not behind where I’m sitting. Then, just as I go to stand, she turns and our eyes lock. I’m the only one standing, or a least I think because I’m not looking at anyone or anything else. I just feel my height amongst the other people in the stands here today to show their support for the graduates. But, ironically, it’s her support for me that’s made the most difference in the world today.
She’s so damn thoughtful, giving, perfect…and mine.
Her eyes light up and my chest swells so big I almost pop the buttons on my suit. Raising her little hand which is engulfed by the sleeve of a robe that’s clearly too big, she waves. And for the first time in my life, I wave back. It’s not a body movement I’m accustomed to, at all. But I’m also absolutely in foreign territory when it comes to everything about her. She makes me feel things I’ve never felt. She causes me to do things I would have considered effeminate before. But when it comes to her it feels natural, right, and I somehow feel even more manly for it…because it p
uts a smile on her face and makes me feel exactly like the kind of man she needs, the Daddy she’s never had and will never want for ever again.
Damn, my Little Girl is so perfect and tailor made for me and me alone, just as I am for her.
“If you’ll please take your seats,” someone says from the podium up front, yet the thought of sitting down doesn’t even cross my mind. Standing, showing my princess the kind of respect she deserves whenever I’m sharing the same airspace with her, is all that’s on my mind, not that it requires any conscious thought.
The announcer clears his throat and my hips fold backward and I sit, never taking my eyes off her. She waves one more time and quickly turns to the front, and even from this distance I can see her bouncing in her seat.
And it’s only then I see everyone around me staring and realizing I’m bouncing my own foot on the bleachers, causing a loud disturbance. I knock it off as quickly as I can, my body acting sporadically at the way she responded to me, reaffirming that she’s just as happy to see me as I am to see her.
I get lost in time until I hear the announcer call out the name “Josephine”. I don’t even catch her last name as I watch her stand and move to accept her diploma. I shoot up out of my seat and whistle louder than anyone else in here could ever dream of. Whistling is another way of communicating in my former life in prison, and once again I’m served by something from my past…the one she literally saved me from and kept from becoming my dreadful future. Now, my future is one thing and one thing alone.
Her.