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ALWAYS A CONVICT
Hey, it’s good to be out!
And no matter what, Dave isn’t going back to prison. He has a wife and a little boy; it’s time to start being a man.
Things are looking good. He’ll be working at a ranch – good, hard work – he has a place to live, his favorite uncle looking after him, and the best wife and kid a man could have. Man, are Karen and little Terry worth keeping straight for!
But.
There’s that guy in the wheelchair, that guy that won’t stop terrifying Terry.
This story comes with bonus short story. That would be “Flood Stage”. The river’s rising, and it’s time to make some money. At least, that’s what crossed the minds of two knuckleheads that have blocked the only bridge leading out of the flood zone. They now have themselves a toll bridge, and you better have money or valuables, unless you prefer to go floating down the river.
They never figured on the Colonel coming along. He’s not in the mood to pay tolls, and he’s especially not in the mood to see people get hurt.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018
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Always a Convict
BookRix GmbH & Co. KG81371 MunichTitle
ALWAYS A CONVICT
by
Jake Wilhelm
includes bonus story “Flood Stage”
FRONT MATTER
COPYRIGHT 2017
Title story collection: Always a Convict
Title Story 1: Always a Convict
Title Story 2: Flood Stage
Author: Jake Wilhelm
Cover design: Jake Wilhelm
ALL ITEMS (c) Jake Wilhelm 2017/EP Dowd Enterprises. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in shape or form by any means, electronic, mechanical, copying, recording, or otherwise without prior written permission.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book is dedicated to my father, for his inspiration and support
ALWAYS A CONVICT
His first breath of free air was a good one, because as Dave took that first breath, he saw Karen and Uncle Laslo waiting for him. They were leaned casually against the side of an old Thunderbird, just looking all natural even though most of the T-Bird sat in the gray shadows of the prison.
Dave exhaled, and disappointment set it. Couldn’t help it. Now he could see in the car, and now he could see that Terry wasn’t here to greet him back to the world.
“Where’s my son?” he asked, walking quicker, the paper bag with his belongings tapping his leg (his clothes but mainly the envelope with the $1.35 he had on him when he was arrested).
Karen walked towards him, her arms out. For a couple seconds, Dave forgot Terry as he snatched Karen up, spun her around, held her tight and inhaled deep. That smell of her, that strawberry soap she used and the smell of the sun on her red hair, that’s how he knew he was free. And now that all that bullshit he used to do was behind him, the best part of his life was still here.
Part of it. As he hugged her and hugged her tight, Dave said again, “Where’s my son?”
“Long trip,” Laslo said. “Too long for a little mite like him.” Nearly fifty, he was only ten years older than Dave. But damned if he still didn’t look like that tough cowboy Dave followed around like a puppy dog back when he was a kid. Laslo was a cowboy, for real, which came in handy when Dave faced the parole board. Laslo had set Dave up with a cowhand job at the ranch he worked at. Now, after damn near forty years of goofing off, Dave was finally doing what he should have done to begin with - follow that cowboy into the world of hard work and good sense.
“Damned good to see you,” Dave scooped Laslo into the hug.
“Not sure if I should be huggin’ you, I don’t know what you learned in there, and I’m not into man love,” Laslo said with a wink, patted Dave on the back and stepped away. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
When Dave established himself into the backseat behind Karen, he couldn’t help but notice something. It was a bit retroactive of a realization, but there it was. Karen’s hug hadn’t been that tight, it wasn’t that, well, honest feeling. Almost ‘friend zone’ kinda embrace, huh? No. OK, maybe he had spent so much time dreaming about this moment, attached too much baggage to what should happen. In a crazy moment, he bent forward and kissed the back of her neck. She giggled and Laslo started driving.
“Giving you a fresh start up there,” Laslo said. “Don’t do your usual fine job of messing things up and make me look bad to my boss.”
“I won’t. You guys, I’m done with dope and stolen cars,” Dave said. “I guess it took this last time in prison to scare me straight. I’m straight as a new two by four.”
“Yeah, they all say that,” Laslo said. “Just don’t make me look bad, OK?”
*
Hours later, they left the hustle and crank of the Central Valley behind. They were in the foothills now, grazing the bottom of the Sierra Nevadas. All those cities that had troubled and tempted Dave too much - Stockton, Fresno, Bakersfield - were lost behind in the smog. The air was cleaner up here. Made a guy know he could start all over again.
He knew he was free when they passed the gates of the ranch only to bounce along for miles along a dirt road. This was how far away they were. No roads! They were leaving all that bullshit behind. The freeways where he led the cops on a chase in a stolen Lexus were in the past - now, he was just a dude on a dirt road in a twenty year old T-Bird. He wasn’t talking much, though, not like he had been that night when he was yelling at the cops in his rear view mirror, giving them the finger while he gave the Lexus more gas (and this was how drunk and outta his mind he was – at some point, he took both hands off the wheel so he could fire a two middle finger salute out the sunroof!).
Karen was singing along with a Beyonce tune on the radio. She nudged Laslo, and he joined her in time for the chorus. Laslo raised his voice much too high when you take in account people were trying to keep their ears intact around here. Laslo snickered, Karen giggled.
“Never knew a city girl like you could make it out here,” Dave teased Karen. She and the boy had been staying up here with Laslo since Dave went to stir.
“It’s real nice out here,” Karen said, turning down the radio.
Laslo lit a cigarette and started in on Dave. “The boss is really doing me and you a favor, Dave. Since it’s winter, most of the guys have already gone home, and there’s not much work to do. There’s a couple guys riding fence, looking after the cattle we let range in the winter. You won’t see them, they’re gone all winter. They seem a little too close, you know. You might want to meet up with them and discuss what’s currently happening with man love with ‘em, they are kinda strange, you know.”
“And?” Dave asked, laughing a little because that was Laslo, always going off on a tangent. Mom used to tease the heck out of the old guy; she would even purposely lead him down the merry road just so everyone could find out what he was going to say next.
Karen laid a hand on Laslo’s arm and said, “That wasn’t very nice.”
“Well, gee.” Laslo said. “Sorry about that. Where was I?”
