Running into Avery’s brother and the Walker brothers only underscores just how much this fucking town hates me.

Maybe not everyone. After I was released and my story was all over the news, there were people being interviewed that seemed like they were on my side. I read a bunch of editorial decrying the state of criminal justice, and all that bullshit, but I saw an equal number of people saying that I’m trash and deserved what I got anyway. Sometimes it’s hard to drown out the negative voices, even when there are positive ones to pay attention to.

I guess that’s just how people are. The negative always outweighs the positive if we let it. Our default mode is negative, suffering, anger. And the only way to beat all that shit is through hard work. You have to actually try to be happy, which is why it’s so damn hard. Trying is a pain in the ass.

I could easily give up, turn to drinking, numb myself to everything around me. I don’t think folks would really blame me for doing it. I’ve suffered enough, a random and cruel fate. I had five years of my youth stolen from me, all for nothing.

I’m not the kind of man to lie down and die. Even if the Walkers and the Sellers of the world want to fuck me up, throw me in jail, silence me, get rid of me, I’m not going to let them win. Those rich bastards have enough as it is. They can’t take my dignity, too.

The drive to Ocilla, Maine, feels familiar, even though I haven’t done it in over five years. The last time I was here, I was staying at that ratty motor lodge, killing time before I headed back home. That was the day someone killed that poor woman and decided to frame me for it.

I can’t help but think about it all as I head out there. I keep seeing the way people looked at me as I was dragged in and out of court, the murderer, the trash kid from the bad family. They looked at me like I was a fucking piece of shit, and people actually cheered when the verdict was read out loud.

And then there was that first year in prison. I didn’t tell Avery everything about that year. I got in fights almost every day, had to learn to defend myself. Got my nose broken more than once, had to have a tooth replaced, broke my wrist, my ankle, and five of my ribs. That shit didn’t stop until I hooked up with another group of guys that banded together for protection, and things got better from there. They weren’t my friends, though.

I never had friends in prison. Just couldn’t make any. I kept to myself, reading books, mostly law books, trying to find some way to prove my innocence. Whenever people asked me about my case, I always maintained that I didn’t do it, and they always laughed.

“Everyone’s innocent in prison,” a guard once said to me before jabbing me in the gut with his club.

Nobody believed me. I was a pariah and a liar. In prison, people want you to own your crime, no matter how bad, as long as you’re not a pedophile or some shit. They call those guys “touchers,” and they’re regularly beaten. Fortunately, I was just a regular murderer.

The years wore past. I began to lose hope, thought maybe I really was going to rot in prison forever for a crime I didn’t commit, until Mark Pederson came to visit.

Mark saved my life. He was the lawyer that got an anonymous tip from some private investigator. I still have no clue who hired the investigator, but that PI saved my life. He got the night clerk of that motor lodge to admit that he lied about not seeing me, and he admitted that he hid the tapes from police. Fortunately, he had a copy of the tape, and that’s what ultimately freed me. Mark was the lawyer that made sure it all happened the right way.

It still feels like a dream, that first visit from Mark. I didn’t believe him at the time. It took weeks and a few more visits before I finally let myself feel a glimmer of hope again.

I pull off the freeway and glide toward Ocilla. It’s around one in the afternoon on my day off. I don’t head right into town, though. I take a few back roads, navigating from memory. I get a little lost, but after a half hour of going in circles, I finally find it: the Ocilla Motor Lodge.

I pull into the front parking lot and kill my engine. I hate that I’m back here. It brings back so many shit memories, but I’m here for a reason.

Before I can get out of the truck, my phone buzzes. I pick it up and I’m surprised to see a text from Avery.

“When do I get to see you again?”

I hesitate before typing back. “Thought you weren’t allowed to.”

“I’m not. But since when did that sort of thing stop you?”

“Never,” I type back, grinning to myself. “I guess the Walkers didn’t talk.”

“Nope, not yet. Fortunately I still have a home.”

“Fortunately,” I send back. “I’ll see you soon.”

“Good. Don’t forget me.”

I smile and slip my phone back into my pocket. I climb out of the truck, suddenly feeling more confident.

I head into the main office of the Motor Lodge. A young girl sits behind the desk, idly staring at her phone. She’s maybe nineteen at most, skinny and pale, with stringy blonde hair and too much eye makeup.

“Excuse me,” I say to her.

She looks up like I’m the most annoying thing in the world. “Yeah?”

“You work here?”

“Yeah,” she says, blinking.

“Okay. I’m looking for someone, an older guy. Short and a little overweight. He works here, or at least he used to.”

She shrugs. “That’s Ron. Works nights. Got a big nose, right?”

“Right,” I confirm.

“He comes on at ten tonight, I think.”

I nod. “Thanks.”

I leave the office, cursing my shit luck. I don’t want to be in this town until ten tonight, but I guess I have no other choice.

Ocilla isn’t exactly the cultural center of Maine. Frankly, there’s not much to do around here. The only good thing about this town is the annual classic car show, even though that’s been fucking marred and ruined for me. Although it’s not their fault that the rain ruined my alibi, I still don’t feel like ever going there.

So I end up driving aimlessly for a few hours around town. I catch a movie around four, and grab some dinner by six-thirty at a crappy little diner. That kills another couple hours, and finally I find myself at a bar down the street from the Motor Lodge, just sipping on a beer and watching hockey on TV.

Nine rolls around and I’m sitting at the bar when the door opens. So far, this place is pretty empty, with only me and a few other local guys that probably live in here. So when the door opens, everyone takes a look. And everyone but me looks away, uninterested.

I can’t stop staring. The guy that walks in is older, round in the middle, balder than I remember, more haggard overall, but it’s him. It has to be him. Ron from the Motor Lodge, getting a drink before his shift starts.

He sits down a couple stools away from me and orders a beer. The bartender seems to know him, and they make a little small talk as he downs his first and gets another. I’m guessing this is his usual routine.

The bartender walks away after pouring the second, and Ron goes quiet. He watches the TV and sips his drink, and I can’t stop watching him.

This is the man that screwed me. Because he lied, I ended up in jail. There’s so much I want to know, so much that’s still missing. Why would he do that to me? Did he know that he’d be damning an innocent man to prison? I want to punish him, but I hear he’s being punished enough. There’s a case out against him, and I think he’s going to end up in jail for a few years for what he did.

And clearly the time hasn’t been good to Ron. He’s overweight and looks to be at least in his late sixties with bags under his eyes. His work clothes are old and wrinkled, like he doesn’t care enough to bother ironing them. I can’t blame the guy, since the clientele of the Ocilla Motor Lodge probably doesn’t give a fuck, either.

I watch him for fifteen minutes. He drinks two more beers in that time, and I can tell he’s getting a decent load on. I sip my own beer, trying to be inconspicuous, although really I just want to run up to him and punch him in the fucking face.

I’ve never been in this situation before, confronted with the guy that screwed me over. I know he didn’t know me, and apparently he was bribed with a decent amount of money, but still. I feel like this scumbag owes me five years of my life.

I’ll settle for some answers, at least.

I finish my beer and stand up. He doesn’t look over as I approach and sit down in the stool next to him.

“Are you Ron?” I ask him.

He nods. “Yeah.”

“You work at the Motor Lodge?”

He sighs, still not looking at me. “I thought it was you.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “You know me?”

He turns to me and I can see the defeat in his eyes. He’s a beaten man, broken down and spit out, chewed up by the world. I can see it all and yet that doesn’t make me any less angry at him. This broken asshole screwed me, and screwed me hard.

“Recognized you when I first came in. You’re famous, you know?”

“I guess I can thank you for that,” I spit at him.

He winces. “I didn’t know, okay?”

“Didn’t know what? That you were robbing me of five years of my life.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Exactly.”

I stare at him for a second and all I want to do is break a glass over his skull. Maybe I can smash it in, kill him right here and now, get revenge. But that won’t change a thing. It won’t bring back all that time I lost.

I look at his half-empty beer. “Want another?”

He looks surprised. “Uh, sure.”

I nod at the bartender and he brings two more drinks. Ron downs his beer and starts on the new one, but I don’t touch mine.

“Been a hard month for me,” Ron says. “I’m looking at jail time, you know?”

“Not surprised,” I say.

“I’m not the jail type. I don’t even know why I did it. Honestly, that night, I was drunk. I had a drinking problem back then.”

I glance at the empty glasses in front of him. “Must’ve been hard.”

“I barely even remembered you. Don’t get me wrong. When that guy came in and offered me money, I just took it, no questions asked. I needed the money, and I was drunk. I didn’t think about it, not until you were released. I had no idea.”

“Of course you didn’t.”

“Now I’m this… this…”

“Pariah?” I offer.

“Yeah, pariah. Whatever. I’m a monster around here now. People hate me. I can barely get through work anymore.”

“Must be hard, people hating you.” I hesitate then lean toward him. “But at least it’s for something you did.”

He winces. “Guess that’d be worse. Being innocent and all.”

“It’s worse. It’s a living hell, telling the truth and nobody believing you.”

“Like I said, I didn’t know. And anyway, I wasn’t the one that got you locked up. It was those witnesses.”

“It was all of you,” I say to him.

“Yeah… well…” He trails off and takes a long drink from his beer.

“I just want to know one thing.”

He looks at me. “What, kid?”

“The man that bribed you.”

He winces again. “Don’t make me.”

“Tell me who it was.”

“I don’t know his name. Never asked. Hell, I barely even remember him anymore. Like I said, I had a drinking problem. I was drunk more times than not.”

“What do you remember?”

He sighs. “I told the police everything already.”

“I’m not fucking police. Tell me.”

“Tall, bald, skinny. Tattoo on his wrist, which I thought was weird. That’s all I remember.”

“White? Black?”

He shakes his head. “Neither. Tan, maybe Italian or Puerto Rican or some shit like that.”

I lean back in my chair and stare at him. A broken drunk man living a broken, worthless life. I can feel the anger slowly draining away.

“Tell me one more thing,” I say to him.

He looks up at me with this pathetic expression. “Whatever you want, kid. Just leave me alone when you’re done.”

“You do anything worth being free for in these last five years?”

He stares at me for a second then just turns back to his drink. He doesn’t need to answer. I already know.

I stand up and toss some money on the bar. He doesn’t look up at me and I have nothing left to say to him. What’s there to say? He can’t fix it, and I got what I came for.

As I head toward the door, I stop and turn back to him. “One more thing. Why’d you keep the tape?”

He looks at me, confused. “Tape?”

“The one with me on it. You supposedly gave it away to the guy that bribed you, that’s why the cops couldn’t find it five years ago. But the PI that helped free me found a copy. Why’d you keep it?”

He shrugs. “Didn’t know, honestly. I thought the tape was gone forever, but apparently the footage was backed up on a hard drive.”

“Where was the hard drive?”

He shrugs again. “Don’t know. Not around here. You should ask that guy, what’s his face.”

“Who?” I press.

“Jason Slick. Real boring looking guy, but he’s the one that found me and made me talk.”

I nod. “Thanks.”

“Yeah, sure.” He turns back to his drink, and I leave the place.

Back in my truck, I sit behind the wheel for a while, thinking. Jason Slick must be the name of the private investigator. I never learned it, although I remember glancing at him when I was in the courtroom. His testimony was important, but I never got to hear it. They rushed through my second trial even faster than the first one, I guess because of how embarrassing the whole thing was.

But that’s the man that helped save me. He knows what’s going on, because he found that hard drive somewhere. If I’m going to get to the bottom of this, I’m going to need to find him and ask.

I glance back at the bar. Inside there, Ron’s still drinking before his night shift, just waiting for the day that he goes to jail for good. Out on bail, I’m guessing, but not out forever. He’ll rot in prison, and part of me hopes he dies in there.

But truth is, guys like that, they’re already dead. Just wasting their time, going through the motions, waiting until their heart stops and they go wherever you go when you die.

I’m not dead yet. I’ve got a second life to live, and I’m not going to waste it. I start up my truck and head back to Coldwyn.

I won’t make the mistake of staying overnight in Ocilla ever again.