Like everything else, this is a numbers game. What are the odds of me running away without his help? Right now, with no weapon, slim. And what are the odds of him cracking for me? Perhaps they will get better tonight, with a little push from Mother Nature.
Time moves too slow and too fast, as it does in desperate situations. Sometimes, when I fall asleep on the cold floor, I wake up with a sharp inhale. My hair is slick with sweat and my throat burns after his hourglasses haunt me in my dreams. Hourglasses. I can’t bear them anymore. I once slammed my fist into the new TV in my living room because I saw the opening to Days of Our Lives. Spent the night in the ER.
Time.
I’m running out of it.
Today I’ve decided that since I’m not blindfolded and tied anymore, I should go treasure hunting in the carton boxes under the table. There are some old clothes and family albums from one of the guys, but I don’t know which, and they’re so dated, the people in the photos are either too old or too young to be recognized.
Shoving my hand again into the damp box, I retrieve a simple-looking red book. When I open it, warmth flutters in my chest, taking over, making my heart beat faster.
THIS DIARY BELONGS TO
NATE THOMAS VELA
INMATE #21593
SAN DIMAS STATE PRISON, CALIFORNIA
No. Way.
There’s no question it belongs to Beat and not to Ink. I’ll bet anything I have that Ink barely knows how to spell his own name. Beat, on the other hand. . .the first time I saw him, he had a paperback rolled into his back pocket.
His nickname is homage to the literature movement.
I flip a page and read the first entry, my back pressed to the boarded windows, slivers of light licking at the yellow, crusty paper.
OCTOBER 23RD, 2010
IF YOU’RE GOING THROUGH HELL – KEEP GOING (WINSTON CHURCHILL)
Cafeteria. Red-rimmed eyes. Prepackaged meal. Still untouched.
“Took your time, but you’ve made it, boy.” A squeeze on my shoulder throws me back to reality and I snap out of zombie-mode. Twisting my head in surprise, I see my old neighbor, Frank. As a kid, I spent a lot of time in his backyard helping him build shit from all the damaged stuff he had collected from street corners. Broken bikes and TVs were his favorites. I loved his willingness to fix broken things. I also loved his black eye patch. Thought he was a pirate. Or maybe a brave soldier who got injured in Vietnam.
He was neither.
Someone took his eye out with a swizzle stick in a bar fight.
I knew he was serving time here for drug trafficking because moments after the police dragged his ass out of his house five years ago kicking and swearing, his meth lab exploded and formed an atomic bomb-like mushroom cloud above our neighborhood. Took two weeks to get rid of that black shit.
I hunch the shoulder he’s clutching in a shrug.
“Not much to do outside, huh?” He slides next to me with his tray and rips into his four bangers like it’s Burger King. “Here, at least you don’t have to pay rent.”
I avert my gaze from him back to the cafeteria crowd, my eyes landing on the sea of bald, tattooed heads in front of me, lined up in layered, horizontal rows.
“Whaddidya’ do, Nathaniel?”
“I killed him.” I roll my tongue over my teeth.
He nods. “Finally.”
Yeah. My dad left impressions everywhere. He was special like that.
“Plea deal?” He stabs something that vaguely resembles beef and smells like mothballs with his fork.
“Fifteen for manslaughter, parole in four.” The judge said no man should so effortlessly and brutally kill someone else. If it was purely self-defense, Judge Chester argued—then why did I smirk as the cops read me my rights?
“How old will you be when you get out?”
“Twenty-six.”
This awards me with a satisfied nod. Ha. My neighbor thinks I’m redeemable.
Think again, old man.
I came here with plenty of holes in my shoes and plenty of nothing in my belly. Life felt like I was sipping it through a narrow straw. I always gasped for more.
I have the whole sob story written in its predictability all over my resume. Bad school, bad neighborhood, bad family.
My only moment of deep breath was when I smashed a vase into Nathaniel Vela Senior’s head. Between working as a janitor at the local mall and trying to stop my father from beating the shit out of my mother, there wasn’t much room for chasing opportunities or grabbing life by the throat.
San Dimas was an upgrade, as far as I could see.
But I’m not like them, the young inmates.
Hungry and angry and boiling with barely restrained ire. I’m at peace with where I am. Hell, it’s probably exactly where I should be.
“Plenty of jobs for you when you get out.”
I throw him a condescending smirk and wipe my utensils with the sleeve of my orange uniform.
But Frank is not the type to be deterred by silence. He nudges me and laughs, spitting crumbs of minced meat on the table. His good eye is dry and rarely blinks. Probably for a good reason, ‘round here.
“You still writing poetry, Nathaniel?” He hoots, choking on his food. I used to write under his oak tree as a kid. His place was quiet, mine—chaotic.
I don’t indulge him.
“Might wanna keep your little hobby for yourself here. You’re too pretty to walk those halls without guard escort as it is.”