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This is the story of three men encountering their own personal demons, and how they ultimately collide on one nondescript Labor Day afternoon.
There is Roger Cisneros, who is a registered sex offender, and who wants to "get even" by kidnapping a child in a small town. There is Arthur, a local idiot who has just gone through a divorce and is severely misunderstood and so has suicidal thoughts. Finally, there is Lloyd Bridges, a small-town police chief who is burnt-out and ready to retire and likes his alcohol just a little bit too much. Who will come out on top? ***Inspired by true events***
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
Vaden Chandler
A Little Bird Told Me
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2022 by Vaden Chandler
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Published by BooxAi
ISBN: 978-965-577-990-5
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
The sun came streaming through the second-story of the ancient, prohibition-era granite building. His stone-cold, shark eyes peered open, and he knew today was the day. He heard the rustling up above the ceiling and laughed, showing his yellowed teeth. The rats are running around again, he thought sardonically. Not that it really mattered, he thought, considering it was just him and the damn rats anyway. It took him forever to get out of the bed, what with the creaks and groans of the ancient bed and the fact his juvenile arthritis always kicked him in the derriere in the morning. “Crap,” he muttered under his breath as he finally got out of the old bed.
Turned on the radio, and it was the same old B.S. as always. Brooks and Dunn were talking about a neon moon for about the umpteenth time, and Billy Idol was dancing with himself on another station. After finally settling on a sports talk show where they were openly wondering if Peyton Manning would retire after another year in Denver, he sauntered over to the dreary bathroom for a shave. Today was the day he got even. He knew that, but he wanted to look nice. Today was the day he showed these people that they had railroaded him. Railroaded him good. He hummed to himself as the talking heads had switched and were droning on about Von Miller in the background. After getting the stubble off his face little by little in nice, precise rhythmic strokes, he ambled in his chubby, hairy frame clad in his boxers and selected his attire for the day.
Ah yes, he thought. Attire is important, even on a day like this. After donning a nice polo shirt and some stained blue jeans, he peered at his safe, which he kept in the kitchen for lack of space in the cramped apartment. Heck, he almost had the stupid thing memorized, and it was a big blasted safe. 16 forward, 6 backward, 8 forward, 8 backward, and 6 forward, and viola! He had it open for the umpteenth time, except this time he just might use what he had inside. The collection of five handguns glinted in the morning sun ominously, along with the collection of knives given to him by his grandfather a long, long time ago. He knew, though, he wasn’t just looking this time. He fingered his Glock 19 and his Smith and Wesson M&P Shield and laughed at the irony. “Not supposed to have these,” he grinned. “But I don’t give a crap. Them black boys on the corner’ll sell or do anything for a buck, trust me.” Said to no one in particular, considering he lived alone. It was his “hit kit”, just like BTK had in Kansas.
He examined the array of knives, in admiration of each one. Some of them were more exquisite than others, and some were intricately carved, museum-quality pieces. For his purposes, he only needed a simple one, one that was shiny enough for the intimidation part of his plans. It was something he had been thinking about for a long, long time, even though he was just in his early forties. Needless to say, he paid close attention to those AMBER Alerts that flashed across his cheap Walmart phone, but not because he was a good citizen. He enjoyed hearing about kids being victimized, and it was time for him to cause a kid to go through an AMBER Alert themselves. It was time for him to be the victimizer, not the victim.
He grabbed four of the knives and both handguns and sauntered over to the decrepit brown sofa in his living room, a journey of just a few steps. Ah, he thought. Uncle George. How could I forget about Uncle George…and with the guns and knives still clutched in his hands he sank off in a revelry.
The fondest memories he had of his uncle were out on the water in his old motorboat. The old thing used so much oil it was a freaking wonder he could even get it out on the water. The thing coughed and sputtered so badly, and it made Roger laugh at the memory. But it always made it out on the water just fine. And that, for Roger, was both a blessing and a curse, considering that his uncle was, well, his uncle. Things would always start out innocently enough, of course. George would cast out his line and get a nibble and reel in the fish, often a nice bass or trout. And he would take a nice shot of Jack Daniels every time he almost caught a fish. After about 5 or 6 of these fish, well, you get the idea. Uncle George started slurring his words, and he would always say, “remember, boy, what I told you?” Roger was just ten at the time, and all he did was just nod. Peering at his unshaven uncle, he had a weird reverence for him mixed in with an immense amount of fear. The drinking was just the start, and he always knew it, but there was no one he could talk to. Dad was in jail, and there was no telling where his mom was, dropping him for days, sometimes weeks at a time, at her brother’s house. His uncle jabbed him playfully in the back. “Remember, Roger?” he asked. “I know,” Roger said timidly. “What happens here stays here. It stays out on the boat and no one else needs to know about it.” It was almost rote to him, and something he was used to, just like everything else that happened between him and his uncle.
And that’s when the fun would start. Nothing bad to begin with, mind you. His drunken uncle’s hand would linger a bit too long on his shoulders, and in mock admiration would say, “Wow, nice and strong, gonna be a man real soon.” He would angle his grizzled hands around the back of his neck, and Roger would seem far away, just glancing at the sun shimmering off of the water slapping off the side of the ancient motorboat…. he supposed he had gotten used to it after a while, and he kind of felt like he was somewhere else while everything was happening. His uncle would do, well, whatever he wanted, and Roger would just stare timidly at the water, looking at the greenish concoction and wondering if it could swallow him whole. He knew what that escape hatch was when he was an adult, though. The shrinks called it grounding. “Focus on something else,” they said. “Notice the texture on a table. Take a look at the clouds.” Just simply pretend. Pretend you are someplace else and fly away.
And that’s what he always did, sometimes staring when it was cloudy and peering at the shapes. “That one looks like a car,” he would think timidly. “That one…well, that one is a horse….and that one is a ship, probably a cruise ship with lots of people on it, and they’re smoking fine cigars, and dancing.” Anything, just anything to take his mind off of whatever George was doing. He wasn’t where he was, just like in the Secret Life of Walter Mitty. He was somewhere else entirely, and it was liberating.
As the alarm went off for the last time, he snapped out of his grotesque daydream before he got to the worst part. He disassociated himself a lot these days, and he didn’t want to be called Roger in that way ever again. For the love of God, he thought, as he stretched his legs to try to get the stiffness out for the umpteenth blasted time. He nervously tapped the corners of his little Skoal can, pinched a few, and placed it between his cheek and gum. It was a force of habit that he did out of stress, and it was actually that provided little relief other than fulfilling his death wish. And of course, there were other things he did when he was stressed. He also fantasized, like he was doing now…
Memories, he thought with that sardonic smile. Sweet memories, and they’re so nice. So nice. He thought in his revelry about the boy in the adjoining apartment, number 170. Watching him jump, and watching his lovely little legs stiffen as he tried to make a jump shot. Just ten years old, like he had been. He knew the kiddo would be going out for sports at one of the charter high schools somewhere in the Mile High City when he was older. Blonde hair, he thought. Lovely, just lovely, as the chill first ran down his spine and hit his nether regions. He knew he should take care of his feelings, but not right now. His eyes were void, reminiscent of sharks.
“Today, I get even,” he said in the mirror with cold resolve. “Today, someone, someone’s kid, will get hurt. But I don’t care.”
Staring in the mirror he saw nothing there, just a zombie, gray, wretched and decrepit, just like he was taking in an episode of the Walking Dead. Cold, so cold, just like rain pelting his face.
“Today,” he repeated in a guttural, primal growl. “Today.”
He walked out to the hallway with a purposeful resolve, just like Eichmann or Rommel heading out to war in the trenches of Germany. Roger was a big history buff, no doubt about it, but today he would make history himself. He nonchalantly tapped his wallet – complete with a nice chain and a coin purse – and fingered the twenties inside. Before he headed out on his journey, he had one more stop to make. After heading down the stairs, keys in hand, he reached his parking spot and fired up his ancient GMC van (1987 Model). The damned thing coughed and sputtered but then predictably fired to life. Couldn’t leave just yet, he told himself with a sardonic smile. He was headed to the Home Depot over on Sheridan first. He battled the traffic, cursing all the way, and when he made it to the store, he headed directly to the section he had in mind. Five minutes later, he went to the checkout counter with generous amounts of duct tape and chloroform. He was never one for idle chit-chat, and the tattooed and pierced cashier with the bluish hair didn’t seem to care anyway, but he muttered, “Some paint stripping work I need to take care of,” just loud enough so she could hear and to make it look good.
With his plastic bag in tow, he was off to the races once more and fired up that old van. He smiled widely, he was on his way. As the morning sun glinted off the cracked dash of his van, he had sudden pangs of guilt. It was an ugly specter, and he knew that very evening would be ugly for something. He didn’t know exactly how, but he knew he would be the cause of it. So he snapped back into a revelry as he merged onto the morning freeway. He thought about being ten again. Laying on his back, looking at the stars, and feeling small and insignificant. He thought about seeing satellites and thinking they were stars, and seeing stars and thinking they were satellites. For once, however, he didn’t think of his uncle. He was a void, just a kamikaze pilot on his grotesque mission. He was just a man pointing his ancient Chevy Van down I-70 and headed to the other parts of the state. Hickenlooper’s state, he thought sardonically. Just a liberal who is out-of-touch and will bankrupt this state, and someone who would be lenient on guys like me. He let out a guttural laugh, and with that, it was time to put the politics to rest. Back to the locker room thinking, and that’s all there was to it.
The chain around the waist of his khaki pants glimmered in the morning sun as his GMC van started to head down I-70. He mindlessly fingered the chain and pulled out the wallet attached to it from his pocket, and thrust it open. He took a brief glance at the fake I.D. at the top of his cards (have to keep your eyes on the road, mind you) and smiled in appreciation at the admirable work. Just like “Welcome to the Jungle”, he thought sardonically. Those street hustlers will find you whatever you need to have. His thoughts began to drift off yet again...
The first time it had happened with Uncle George was just a nondescript day, one that could have come right out of “Leave it to Beaver.” George had a military pension, and besides drinking it up every month, he spent most of his time fishing. The first time his mom dropped him off at his house, he had only met the man a handful of times. He stuck his hand out and smiled. “We’re gonna have a lot of fun, Roger.” Little did Roger know. Little did he know, indeed.
It all started innocently enough on one of their daily fishing excursions. George was thoroughly soused, and the fish weren’t biting. There was an awkward pause, and the mist of booze escaped from his nostrils. He put a finger up to Roger’s mouth. “I like you, Roger,” he said with sour breath. “I mean, I really like you.” Roger peered up at him in bewilderment, especially considering he knew nothing of having a father figure.
“W-What do you mean,” the little 9-year-old version of him asked him after what seemed an eternity of silence from Uncle George. “I mean, I like you, Roger,” George replied. “You’re not a nine-year-old brat. You’re a man. You’re gonna have feelings soon. Strong feelings. Urges.”
Of course, George would never just come out and do it. No, he was too subtle for that...he would usually start with the roughhousing and the tickling games as the sun continued to glint off the water. The whole thing was so odd, Roger recalled. Very rarely did they ever catch any fish. It almost made him think his uncle’s fishing trips had an ulterior motive...
The thundering, sinners-in-the-hands-of-an-angry God rantings of Bill Graham came into focus on the radio and snapped him out of his revelry. It was an older model, just like the van itself, and sometimes it kept searching for a frequency, and it might pick up a Bible Belt station in Kansas or Oklahoma. “God proved his love on the cross! When Christ hung, and bled, and died, it was God saying to the world, “I love you!” Graham thundered. Roger groaned and turned off the radio. No time for Bible bangers right now, he thought. Screw them.
He was 21 when the cancer was about to take his uncle away from him. Some would have called him an evil man, but it was okay, for Roger knew the truth. Roger was ever the obedient nephew, and no one but him and his uncle ever knew what went on during those fishing trips. Him, his uncle, his mother, and God - if he existed. When his mother learned that her brother George was dying of cancer, she’d had one of her rare bouts with sobriety. She came back from wherever she had been for a visit, and the first thing Roger noticed when she came to the door was this wild look in her eyes. He and his uncle were playing some kind of board game, and he couldn’t remember which one, but his mother came in and made herself at home, getting a bottle of Pepsi out of the cooler. Not soon after that, she got real close to her brother and, in an ungodly hiss, exclaimed, “I know what you are,” and proceeded to take her pistol out of its hiding spot in her purse and then literally blow his head off. She did the right thing and turned herself in, dying in the joint a few years later after the booze came for her liver. He hadn’t even told the therapists about most of his family drama, though they tried with all of their might to pry it out of him. Screw them too, he thought as his ancient van motored down that I-70 freeway.
“Right is right, even if everyone is against it, and wrong is wrong, even if everyone is for it,” Lloyd said to himself as he fingered his old military dog-tags from his time in the Marines. It was 5 A.M., and the stereotypical Daylight Donuts residue still clung to his slightly unshaven beard. He sat in his cruiser, still looking to get a respite from the day that was just beginning. Oh well, he thought, it was better than listening to that thing he called an ex-wife leaving him messages over his cell phone each morning. He groaned as he got up from the bucket seat and opened the door, and sauntered into the parking lot. Getting too old for this, he thought as he noticed his stiff joints. He was a small-town police chief, and he was the one and only until Sakura came in at 9. His chin was wrinkled in cynicism as he flipped on the light switches of the three-room police station - two offices with a break room along with an outdated bathroom. Ah, the bathroom, complete with the locked cabinet none of the underlings bothered to ask about, the latest Playboy or Hustler usually tucked inside for Lloyd’s amusement. Had to be a hard copy, Lloyd thought, can’t be having porn on the police computers, now can we?
As he made his way to the back office, he was whistling to himself a happy tune. He logged in to the computer and pressed the check-in program, entering his password and ID. It was something he required for all of his employees, and it wasn’t something he was necessarily required to do. However, his time in the military had trained him to believe that uniformity was important. He had the news on as a nice background, and the MSNBC journalist was rattling on again about Trayvon Martin and Black Lives Matter. He sighed in disgust. No one cares, he thought. No one cares. If you do the crime, you do the time.
As he was getting up to get out of the nondescript office, the shadows changed in the opaque glare of the window. The light reflected, and he knew that someone was riding by on the sidewalk on their bike, just like the eerie glint of a shadow on a midnight sundial. He smiled scornfully, because he already knew who it was. How could he forget? He had a history with that kid.
It was a few years prior that he first encountered the kid, seemingly just aimlessly wandering around at the park and strolling on the edge of the freshly manicured lawns of their small town. As a police officer, he could lie, so that’s exactly what he did after calling for backup. He and two other cruisers approached that kid as he turned down the main street. He and his employees stopped and that’s when the kid finally noticed that he was being followed by them. He looked like he had probably somewhat of an exasperated look, but he said, “What’s the problem?” very calmly. Even today, it gave Lloyd the creeps how calm he had uttered those three words.
“Well, Arthur, We’ve been getting some reports of you staring at windows,” Lloyd had said. His employees just sat there agreeing with him and nodding their heads, just like those little gas-station bobble heads you would give to a toddler to keep him quiet. On the other hand, Arthur seemed confused about the conversation. “There are people who think you are being a peeping tom,” Austin, Lloyd’s second in command, explained. Art just stared at the floor with a frown on his face and still said nothing. “Why don’t you get in the back of our police car and we will continue to talk about this?” Lloyd asked him, and Arthur went ahead and complied.
Of course, what they didn’t know about the situation proved to be the most costly to their small-town reputation. As Lloyd, Austin, and Deputy Louie were about to reach a consensus that Arthur should be arrested, that is when Arthur’s parents pulled up. The panic was palpable in the overweight Louie’s voice as he said: “Oh my gosh! He must have a cell phone back there with him!” Lloyd and Austin simply nodded, gearing up for a heated confrontation with Arthur’s older parents.
Arthur’s parents were predictably upset, and it made Lloyd furious almost every time. He just knew the kid was up to something, but there was nothing he could do about it because the stupid parents showed up. He had no choice but to let the kid go, so that’s precisely what he did. Hearing footsteps at the other end of the building snapped him out of his revelry. It looked like some of his lieutenants were getting ready for their morning shift.
Arthur had always been a fan of oldies. He didn’t discriminate, either. Almost any song would do, including classic rock, rap music from MC Hammer or Vanilla Ice, even classic country hits also. There was something interesting about the varying styles of instrumentation, even in rock songs that he enjoyed, and he had listened to the songs so much he almost had them memorized. One of the things he particularly enjoyed doing was strapping on his headphones and riding his three-wheel bicycle down the main street. Force of habit, he thought, and probably just simply an emotional catharsis. At five that morning, when it was still dark, that was precisely what he was doing. As he angled his bike past the police station on the main street that morning, he saw that Officer Lloyd was already on duty with his cruiser parked in the lot. He hurried on past, because he knew the man well. A brief sigh emitted from his face that September morning, but it was okay; he had “Bad Medicine” by Bon Jovi on his headphones.
He was sure that Lloyd had seen or heard him, and even riding by, he could feel the contempt even a hundred yards away. But that was okay too, because, much like Lloyd, he felt the same way. Indeed, He too remembered the mutual history they shared, just like the screaming child from a Van Gogh painting. Arthur had passed the liquor store on his way to his destination, and his eyed twitched as he considered the moment. He had gone in so many times before, but not this time. He knew more often than not it had to be that way. The street lights shined off his class ring, one in which he had ordered specifically from his online Bible college. That’s why he knew he had to continue to fight the “Battle of the Booze” as he called it. It wasn’t the “Battle of the Bulge”, other than being his very own, very personal, battle, one that Lloyd could attest to as well.
When he considered how the contempt coming from Officer Lloyd was almost palpable like the mist after a dense rain, he also realized that he, unfortunately, had a hand in it as well. Of course, he hadn’t asked to be this town’s Boo Radley character, but he did not always turn to Holy Scripture like he should have. Sometimes he turned to vodka. He recalled one night in particular all too clearly, when the town was covered in a dense fog. That, coupled with the fact his eyes were watering from six straight hours of binge drinking Russian vodka, led to a dangerous combination. He remembered the tall glasses of it, coffee mugs, soft drinks, or whatever else. He could mix it with anything, and he did. Heck, he even drank it straight. Fresh off the “Dear John” phone call from his wife on that day in late 2012, he was looking to drain his sorrows in any way he could.
His eyes had peered deceptively at the class, and he downed in one swallow. “It will be different this time,” he lied to himself. It wasn’t, and the sleepwalking continued...suddenly he was awake, and more alive than he had ever been. After a few seconds, it all came into focus, and he saw the 1930’s era solid wood of the interior of the downtown apartment complex come into view, just like a zombie suddenly losing the glazed eyes and becoming clear-eyed, with clarity of thought to match. He heard his wife on the other side of the door, and she was crying bitterly. “Let me in,” he heard himself say adamantly. The only sound he heard was a muffled sob and then silence. She cleared her throat, and then she said: “Five seconds, and I’m calling the police! Five seconds, Art....five seconds!”
Lloyd was just settling in for the night when he got the signal from dispatch. He groaned. “That Jeffries kid again up to his old tricks,” as he hurriedly threw on his uniform and his badge. The apartments were only caddy-corner from his house, and the moon had shone through the mist in an eerie, ominous glow. As he made his way to the apartments, he fingered the firearm in his holster and his taser. He stood at the doorway of the apartment. “On the count of three,” he thought to himself. “One, two, three...” and he opened up the door to the main hallway of the outmoded building. His eyes met a palette of dancing shadows as he head Arthur shouting at the top of his lungs on the second floor of the stairwell. “Idiot,” he thought contemptuously. “Arthur,” he called out gently, belying his typically angry response. “Arthur, stop this!” he said with a bit more urgency, summoning up all the fake charm he could muster. “Arthur, I’m coming up the stairs.”
“Come on up, you son of a -” but Arthur couldn’t get all of the words out before the mucus and half-digested food came coursing out of his mouth, and he stumbled and fell upon the ancient wooden floor. Half-gagging, Arthur cursed on the floor, passing out for about thirty seconds or so. That was enough time for Lloyd, and when Arthur awoke, the police chief was promptly on top of him, trying with all of his might to cuff him. To say that Arthur was belligerent would be an understatement. “Stop resisting! Stop resisting!” Lloyd shouted in an authoritative turn. For a few minutes they squirmed on the floor, reminiscent of a macabre wrestling scene, and then Lloyd finally got the handcuffs on Arthur. “Good grief, you are stupid, boy.”
“W-What?” Arthur said, his eyes glazing over. “I just wanted to talk to her!”
“Yeah, I get that, Art,” Lloyd smirked. “Problem is she doesn’t want to talk to you and there’s a restraining order.” With Arthur finally subdued, he was hustled off to the squad car. “Bakersfield 1 en route,” Arthur heard the police chief say over the receiver before he passed out again. Alas, the brief trip to the sheriff’s office would prove as eventful on that moonless night. The booking part? An entire different story for Arthur as he briefly uttered his guttural snores in the back of the squad car.
Growing up, Lloyd had discovered rather quickly that he was an Army brat. His father was a good man, but some would claim he was harsh. Even at the ripe old age of six, Lloyd was living proof of that, simply evidenced by the ominous welts on his backside. “Belt training,” his drill sergeant father had always called it. The prototypical 70’s family, Lloyd thought. His dad was the taskmaster and kept him in line, and his mother was... well…his mother was more like Edith Bunker. But as he fingered his dad’s dog tags - he often alternated between his own and dad’s - he remembered what his dad had said as a broken old man, a shadow of his prior formidable self: “Lloyd, I want you to have these,” he said in the hospital bed, handing the dog tags to him with a degree of effort. “I know I was an a-hole to you, but it was all for your good.” Stoic, Lloyd simply replied, “I know, Dad. I know.” Boy, did he know. His dad was an a-hole to everyone. A loud shriek snapped the police chief out of his revelry. It was an old, thin building, just as everything else was in that dusty old town. Sound traveled pretty easily, and he knew right away that it was Arthur’s scream. He groaned as he sauntered down the hallway to the jail cells. “..and that’s another charge, Art!” he heard the young and rather tall upstart young Sheriff’s Deputy say in an authoritarian fashion.
“What did he do, Casey?” Lloyd inquired as he poked his head in the cell, seeing the deputy standing pat and a pitiful Arthur still drifting in and out of consciousness. “Silly son of a….” Casey uttered. “He tried to slug me! Good thing I remembered to duck.” Lloyd didn’t even look over. “Well, Casey,” he shrugged, “You’d better let the moron sleep it off. I’m gonna go to the E.R. and get myself checked out.” Considering that Arthur had fought back, he knew that was the proper procedure. Especially considering he was chief. Of course, the injuries were only superficial and nothing worse than his basic training days, but the effects could be inflated, he thought with a smirk.
As his van was gaining a head of steam down that Colorado interstate, Roger was listening to Stevie Nicks belt out “Tell Me Lies”. He briefly looked in his rear-view mirror at all of the cars darting back and forth down this mountain freeway. Nice middle-class people, he thought. Nice people with a house in Cherry Creek or Highland Village. Dogs, wives, kids going to playdates, the whole nine yards. Yes, they told him lies all right. And yes, they were very sweet ones. But only to the prosecution for sure. “Your honor,” the young upstart in the blue suit a few sizes too big for him had started. “The defendant is a liar.”
The inexperienced prosecutor’s eyes darted around the room, searching for dramatic effect from the jurors but inadvertently being met with a death-stare from Roger. “He has built this facade of being a law-abiding citizen, but he isn’t.” Over at the defendant’s table, Roger tried his best not to smirk. As he recalled, he’d half expected Jack Nicholson to dart out in his full, “A Few Good Men” attire and start bellowing out his testimony. Roger’s eyes glinted in the morning, a Rocky Mountain sunrise, as he bitterly remembered that an acquittal wasn’t meant to be in that case. “We the jury in the above and entitled action…” (this flashback always gave Roger a racing heart) “find the defendant guilty of the crime of enticing a minor in the third degree on a person under 14. The defendant is to be remanded back into Arapahoe County custody. We will convene for sentencing on December 1st.” As they were placing him in handcuffs, he saw the prosecutor shaking hands with the judge, an elderly black man. “Job well done, son,” the judge said to the young prosecutor and slapped his hands on his back. “Yeah,” the young D.A. assistant replied. “Hopefully we aren’t so stuffed with Thanksgiving turkey that we let him off the hook with the sentence.” And the judge laughed. And so did the prosecutor. Well, Roger thought as he reflected back on the trial, I’ll be the one laughing after tonight. The year before his conviction was the last time he had enjoyed turkey of any kind.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way, Lloyd thought. I was supposed to be a hero. Sitting in his cruiser on yet another nondescript day, Lloyd was bored, and that wasn’t good. Thinking about his wife living with another man in a nearby town, he had an angry frown perched on his mouth. Tears? he thought. Those are for wusses. Screw her. He still had his uniform on, but the radio was off, signifying his off-duty status. “Time for some me time,” he muttered to himself as he was on this old country road of his ancient family homestead. He peered at the faded white fenceposts with the ancient giant apple tree in the background. Had he not known the history of the place, he could have sworn it came out of a Norman Rockwell painting. The apples marking the ground had just about always been there, and he remembered picking them up when he was a kid and putting them on his head, pretending he was William Tell or something to that effect.
Fond memories for once, he thought sarcastically as he lined up some of the old beer cans by the road on the top of the fence. He had chased the hot-rodding teenagers away from here on more than one occasion. Probably could have handed out a bunch of MIP’s or DUI’s while he was at it, but they were from well-off families.....taking his first shot, he thought, “This one’s for you, Dad,” and pulled the trigger. Down the can went, some of the beer spilling out of its innards. Setting his sights on the next beer can, he said to himself, “This one’s for you my dear Wifey,” (he couldn’t bring himself to say ex-wife) and pulled the trigger yet again. The silver bullet can fly off and hit the ground near the apples. Setting his sights on the third beer can, Lloyd thought about that butthole of a drill sergeant he had during basic training some 40-odd years ago. “This one’s for you, Sergeant Armstrong,” he growled as he squeezed the trigger. Then, with one beer can remaining, he thought about that Arthur kid again, and he thought about his family. He thought about how Art’s father loved to collect things, and how his property was dotted all over the place, making the whole entire town look more like an eyesore rather than the idyllic Mayberry he wanted to create. With the resentment boiling up in him, he growled, “This one’s for you, Art,” as he took the last shot. The beer can went flying off, seemed to stay in the air forever, and then finally hit the drought-infested, dusty ground with the rest of its beer buddies. His break over, Lloyd smirked and sauntered in a regal fashion back to his patrol car. He had to get home now, and leave this back to the popular teenage hangout that it usually was. With alimony payments taking a huge chunk out of his paycheck and some grown kids that barely even talked to him, his only source of company was Banquet and DirecTV. Oh well, them’s the breaks, but at least he had his badge. Because of that, the criminals feared him, and the regular, law-abiding citizens simply nodded at him in respect each time he passed by. Such is life. It can run parallel, and it also can take you into a head-on collision as well.
The road got longer for Roger, and the buildings and landmarks got farther and farther apart. But it was okay, because Roger was listening to one of his favorite bands. “I am the man in the box,” he sang along quietly. “Jesus Christ, deny your maker...see my eyes? Can you sew them shut? I’m the dog who gets beat…” His raspy voice trailed off. Indeed he was, he thought. That is a truthful statement for sure. He knew all too well what it was like to be a “man in the box.” But as the highway continued to twist and turn, Roger faded into his revelry once again.
Silence. Dead silence. It was something that made Roger’s eyes misty. It had been a dying art form for the last five years. It was a void, nothingness, and the strange irony in it all is that Roger couldn’t sleep without the noise. Who would have thought that he would miss the screams of some mentally ill and delusional fellow convicts at 3 a.m.? But he did, and as he laid there in that bed that was hard as a rock in that fleabag weekly hotel, all he heard was the occasional car driving by. This was reminiscent of that night so many years ago, in that cold, grayish granite block that was a classic example of the archaic Prison Industrial Complex. The silence here was like an old friend, but the silence there was only intermittent, broken by the occasional guttural scream from a few tiers down and that light. That blasted, constant, never-ending light. Another guttural scream. And another. And then the echoes grew closer and closer, creeping along the walls until the scream seemed to be right in the bunk with him. And then he suddenly realized that he was the one who screamed. He heard cursing in the next cell block. “All right, you cracker piece of…” the young punk yelled. “Keep it down!’ Life would devolve into a predictable routine for the next three years, barring a few incidents.
Lloyd was bored, and even with his man of his high stature, he knew that wasn’t a good thing. Not a good thing at all. Of course, he didn’t know what he had to be bored about, he thought contemptuously. Considering that his whole life revolved around his job, even when he was off-duty. Some men enjoyed fishing, some liked collecting stamps, but he liked looking at his gear and practicing his field maneuvers. Today, he was at his dimly-lit home office, watching DUI training videos on YouTube. It wasn’t anything he hadn’t done for some time, especially when he was doing double-duty for a few years training new recruits in South Fork. The video was having the recruits get drunk, and on purpose, no less. Even alone, his eyes flinched with a hint of sarcasm. What a day, he thought, almost cracking up. Getting drunk and getting paid for it. And all on Uncle Sam’s dime.
It was overcast outside, and the wind was whistling through the trees, reminding Lloyd of another day not so long ago. Lloyd must have been in his early twenties, somewhere in that range, and he was fresh out of the Marines with his friend Carl in one of those big old boats. Goodness, Carl could barely keep gas in it, especially considering that Jimmy Carter couldn’t handle the oil crisis. They were laughing and cutting up, just like any good friends would do, and George Thorogood’s “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer” came on the radio, below Carl’s pile of 8-track tapes. “Sounds good to me!” Carl bellowed obnoxiously while the sound was playing. “Let’s go party, Lloyd! Loosen up!” Even back then, Lloyd was a bit of a stickler geek, but he just grinned. At that hide-out on the outskirts of town was the first time Lloyd imbibed, and he indeed did have a bourbon, a scotch, and a beer. He hadn’t talked to Carl for years. They’d lost touch like friends often did. Last he heard, he was upstate in the mountains, and he worked as a prison chaplain. Ironic. Ironic the paths they had taken. Oh well, it was better than thinking about that witch he had had for a wife.
Roger’s eyes flinched as the Puerto Rican gangster sitting across from him sneered at him with his prototypical gold-capped teeth. “You’re not one of those Chesters, are you?” he asked. Play dumb, Roger thought. Play dumb. He hesitated. Bad decision. “What’s a Chester?” Roger asked. “You took too long, S A,” the thug responded. “Oughta shank you right here. Maybe I will.” Roger just kept his head down, belying the flood of emotions he felt. “What’s your name?” the gangster asked. “Roger.”
“Oh well, that isn’t your name anymore, a-hole. Your name is now Chico. You don’t like it, that’s too bad,” the Puerto Rican said in a half-grunt, half-laugh. In one fell swoop, the Puerto Rican got up from the table and motioned to Roger. “Let me show you what happens to Chesters, Chico,” he snarled in a low guttural tone, and arched his head toward an older man with a long flowing and graying beard on the other end of the room. With a loud whistle, Mr. Puerto Rican caught the old man’s attention, and the bearded man’s eyes shot up. “Hey S A!” Puerto Rico screamed, and the rest seemed to be in slow motion. He rose up, running to the other end of the room, kind of like a morbid John Elway evading a sack. The guards saw it too, but they only half-heartedly ran up to stop it. Mr. Puerto Rican had them beat by almost a mile, and in the bearded guy’s case, that mile was stained an unholy red. In an effort to resist, the older bearded man also got up in one fell swoop, and Roger half-expected the man to resist, but he saw the white in the man’s eyes. Besides their coldness, he saw a hint of submission, reminiscent of a scared little chihuahua or toy poodle, and Roger knew that the man understood what was coming.
In that split-second, something in the hands of Mr. Puerto Rican glinted in the dull light of that prison chow hall, and even Roger knew that it was a shank just simply from his earlier habit of watching all of those prison documentaries on Court TV. In yet another split-second, Roger peered at the face of the bearded man. Eerily, it reminded him of a little toy soldier, very stone-faced, either like matchstick men or one of those British guards he had seen on the movie screen when he was there with his latest prey. The terrorist Puerto Rican thug made it to the man, and his homemade weapon sliced him from one side of his protruding gut to another. Oddly, the old bearded pervert didn’t make any sound whatsoever. In the aftermath, with blood coming out everywhere, the bearded man grunted and then clutched what was left of his stomach as the guards led him out of the chow hall on a stretcher. Roger didn’t see much of that old bearded man after that. Did he croak? Had he met his maker? Hard to say, but either way, it was a shame. Probably would have made a good cellie. Goodness knows, they probably could have swapped a few stories.
Arthur stared straight ahead, lost in a revelry of his own making. There was no question that he found his demons in his own solitude. He half-laughed, half-grimaced as he looked at his ingredient options. No, he thought ridiculously, he wasn’t some mad scientist or creepy chemist like his weird neighbors down the block with their open-secret of a meth lab. No, instead, he was peering at an older bottle of chocolate milk with a looming expiration date, and on the counter next to it he saw his secret stash of Russian-brand vodka, with just enough left to create another off-the-wall concoction. As he grasped the vodka in one hand, he took the chocolate milk with another hand and poured the vodka inside it. His laughter spewed out, with alcoholic breath thick enough to wilt a rose. He even had a name for his new-fangled concoction: Count Chocola (not the kind for kids, mind you!). He grimaced in mock anticipation as he held the first sip from the travel mug to his lips. He hesitated, twirling it around so he could get the full effect. “Here goes nothing,” he said, talking to himself. Surprisingly, this hangover-bait concoction actually went down his palette quite easily. It had just the right mix, kind of reminding him of one of those sweet-and-sour candies at the Dollar General downtown. Hangover bait for sure, he thought. After a few minutes, with the buzz thoroughly setting in, he looked around the crowded, messy room for his father’s TV remote. Good thing he’s away on one of his car buying trips, he thought. Heaven forbid he sees me this way again, ha! He finally found the remote buried under mounds of papers by his chair, with the characteristic soot from his mechanic dad making it blend in with the dark oak ottoman. Ignoring it, he started flipping through the channels. He cruised through them so fast it was almost like he was like Jeff Gordon out on the race track. Soon, he settled on something, and it was a very familiar scene with the familiar chants of “Jerry! Jerry!” Ah yes, he thought, the Jerry Springer Show. What a microcosm of my life.
He peered, his eyes big and prying, at the people arguing about boyfriends, ex-lovers, and whatnot, and about the time the gloves came off is when his concoction finally hit him. As the guests on TV began their fights, he began to feel dizzy, and that was putting it mildly. The Springer guests were crowding all over each other as he staggered to what was left of the cluttered kitchen sink in a vain attempt to splash his face. The coldness felt foreign to him, like an ungodly and unwanted baptism, as if he was drowning under the ice of nearby Rutherford Pond. He belched, and it wasn’t a dry one either. It was a watery, snot-filled belch, and he knew what was likely to come next. He would mess up an already cluttered sink, because he was going over Niagara falls in a barrel, but he wasn’t in the barrel. He was part of the falls. But in the next split-second, nothing came out. It’s a miracle! He thought bitterly, and then- wonder of wonders!-he proceeded to stumble down the stairs, into his basement bedroom, and pass out in a booze-filled stupor and oblivion.
“You know they put a K O S out on that old bearded dude, right?” the equally old and grizzled cellie said from the top bunk. Roger flinched, belying his intense discomfort, and pretended to be smart. “Well yeah, uh...” his voice trailed off. “But what’s that?” The cellmate coughed and replied in a raspy voice. “It means kill on sight.” Roger stayed in abject silence for a full 30 seconds, and then the only word uttered from his mouth was, “Oh.”
A few minutes passed, and other than a few hacking coughs echoing throughout the cell block, there was nothing but silence. Roger sunk into a revelry, and he was letting it go, but then the whisper of his grizzled cellie pierced through the air. “I know what you are, asshole,” he said.
“What?” Roger replied.
“I know what you are.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t play dumb with me, kiddo.”
“I know.”
Roger put up his best tough exterior, and in what was supposed to be a tough voice that only came out as a hoarse allergic one, he said, “All right, asshole, what am I, since you seem to know so much?”
“You’re one of those. You’re just the same as he was.”
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