A Glass Half-Empty

Chapter 1

Do you want out? she’d asked me. Not in so many words. Instead, it was written on her palm and pressed to the glass. I’d told her no. Told her to let me go. Instead, all she answered was, Be ready.

Then she hung up the phone and left me there.

The guards marched me back to my cell. I’d learned to call the eight-foot by eight-foot concrete-and-steel box home for five years now. Five years into three consecutive life sentences with no possibility for parole.

Did I want out?

What kind of stupid question was that anyway? Of course I wanted out. It was all any of us wanted. We were the detritus of humanity. Caged like animals because the good people of the State of New York thought that’s what we were.

I suppose on some level, they were right. Certainly there was an animalistic urge within me to protect my own kids. Especially from the corrosive influence of those pencil-necked bureaucrats who thought they knew better than I did how to raise my son. This all started because of a raw milk controversy, believe it or not. All I wanted to do was raise my kids natural-like—the way God intended. I wanted them to eat foods grown from the ground and range-fed meat. And raw milk—not the pasteurized crap that took out all the healthful benefits and left my son reeling from allergens.

But the good people at the FDA had decided that they knew better than God how to feed and care for a child—and certainly better than me. Despite eating and drinking raw foods for thousands of years, now humanity could only be allowed to have that which was processed and irradiated and whatever else they did to it in the name of protecting us from nature, because that’s what was good for us.

And I’d pointed a twelve-gauge shotgun in the faces of those bureaucrats and told them to get the hell off my property.

Of course, that’s not what gave me three consecutive life sentences. Those were earned when I fought back after they arrested me the first time. Those were earned because I’d killed almost a dozen people in my bid to bend the state to my will by holding the city hostage with homemade IED’s.

But the real reason I wasn’t getting out was because I uncovered a dark secret about the city that nobody wanted to talk about—especially not the powers that locked me up. The whole lot of them were corrupt. Sick bastards preying on children, selling them into prostitution and pornography. Kids that had been entrusted to the state through the foster care system. I’d stumbled upon this ring quite by accident—and that, more than anything, was why they had to silence me.

Frankly, I was surprised that I’d lived this long.

Not that there weren’t attempts. Most of these came at the hands of my neighbors. Fellow inmates incarcerated for numerous violent crimes. Real scum of the earth types. Arsonists. Rapists. Murderers. And all of them motivated by a sick, perverted sense of self-entitlement.

I figured I was different from most of them. I had no problem admitting what I’d done. I’d gone to war against the state and lost. But my cause was noble and just. And if I’d have won, that argument would be easier to believe. Nietzsche said the good war hallows any cause. Or something like that.

Regardless, there I sat. And I’d learned over the years to accept my fate and try to make the best of a very bad, ugly situation. I didn’t think about getting out except when it got real bad, like when there’d been an attempt made on my life again. The last one was more than six months ago. Seventh since I’d been in there. This time it came from a fresh fish. Dumb bastard trying to establish himself in the pecking order. I still don’t know where he got the shiv. Most are made outta spoons and such, though the guards try and keep careful track of those. Still, one or two escapes the kitchen every few months or so. Somebody usually winds up in the hole for it. Most times they find the spoon, but occasionally it slips through the cracks, never to be seen from again until it winds up twisted in somebody’s gut.

That’s almost what happened to me, except that I saw his shadow moving behind me and slipped away just as he lunged for my kidney. After that, there wasn’t much left to do. I beat the crap out of him and left him lying on the ground in a pool of his own blood, with his own shiv shoved through his hand. The guards didn’t see it happen—or if they did, they didn’t say nothing about it. I was a three-time lifer. The most they could do to me was throw me in the hole for a while. It’s not like they wanted to bring me out of my cell and put me on trial for assault. Me and courts didn’t get along too well. First time I was in one, I shot the judge and bailiff and just about burned the building to the ground. I’d have done so a second time if they hadn’t had me chained up so carefully. I supposed they could do it again if they’d really wanted to, but like I said, I was a three time lifer. Maybe they figured, what’s the point?

At any rate, I didn’t think much about getting out. I’d learned that such thoughts are dangerous. They made you weak. Kept you from being able to deal with the realities of day to day survival. The last thing I wanted to do around here was forget how to survive—especially by entertaining impossible notions.

For the first year or so it was the afternoon entertainment. The fresh fish would chat about it in the yard, trying to figure out the prison’s weak points, learning the schedule of the guards, the layout of the rooms and such. Most of the older inmates ignored this kind of talk. I figure they themselves had probably had all the same conversations, and we eventually came to the same conclusions they did.

Escape was impossible. Not without help from the outside, of course. And that was the one thing that no one on the outside wanted to do—help the kind of men locked up in here.

Except for Melissa Cooper. I could still see her face—hardened after years in that downstate treatment facility. She’d been my accomplice on the outside, and the reason I’d tried to take down that child-sex ring instead of concentrating on getting my own kids back. She was sorta the reason I wound up in here. I’d thought about it a lot. If I hadn’t stopped to help Mel—hell, if I’d have car-jacked anyone else from the hospital that day that I met her instead—then I probably wouldn’t even have been there rotting in prison. Instead, I’d have been living it up in some non-extradition country with my children, waiting for the day when they turn eighteen and I could return them to the land of their birth.

I didn’t blame Mel for what happened. I made my own choices every step of the way. In the end, I couldn’t resist the urge to try and protect her, too. She needed me. Or maybe I was just a sucker for a damsel-in-distress. Either way, she was the first visitor I’d had in the five years of my incarceration, and there she was offering me a way out. No, promising me a chance at escape.

What the hell were you thinking, Mel?

I didn’t want to seriously entertain her suggestion. It was dangerous. Stupid. And probably impossible. People only escaped from maximum security prisons in the movies. Nobody does it in real life.

Hey, Gerrold! Heard you had a visitor.

The voice belonged to Randall Murphy. My neighbor on the right. He wasn’t a bad sort—for a bad sort, that is. We’d play chess together using makeshift pieces we’ve carved out of bits of rock or whatever might be handy. We each had a board in our cells we’ve laid out on the floor, and call out our moves to one another throughout the day. He cheated, of course.

What’s it to you, Murph? I called back.

Heard she was real tasty.

I half-laughed. That ain’t somewhere you want to go.

Murphy was a rapist on the outside. Four women in a little over two months. Didn’t wear a condom, which is how they finally got him. That, and the fact that his final victim turned out to be a black belt in some martial art or other who basically kicked his ass for him before turning him over to the cops. I only played chess with him because he was more interesting to talk to than the neighbor on my left. That would have been Dougie Windover. He was a paranoid freak if ever I saw one. Tried to shank me the first month I was here. I broke his hand against the bars of his cell. Ever since, he hadn’t said more than two words to me. Two words in five years. I didn’t have many options when it came to company.

Oh, come on, Murph said. Don’t be like that.

Let it go.

You gonna do a conjugal?

I didn’t answer. What was the point? Murphy was looking for material. Anything to fantasize about. I’d be damned if I was gonna give it to him.

If not, maybe I could do a conjugal. His voice faded, drifting into his own fantasies. I lay back on my bunk and stared at the ceiling. It was almost time for dinner.

I wondered what Mel meant. Be ready, she’d said. Ready for what?

Chapter 2

Mel was back the next day. I didn’t want to see her. In fact, I almost refused the visit. She needed to stop this nonsense before someone got hurt. I decided to pick up the phone to give her a stern lecture about it—which is the only reason I went to see her again.

Well, not exactly. She had my curiosity up, I had to admit. There was no way I was gonna let her know that, but it was true. Why was she here? Why now? How long had she been out of the treatment facility? Where was she staying? What was she doing with her time? How was she?

All these questions and more flooded my brain. They’d kept me awake most of the night, and so even though I knew I should just walk away and make her forget about me, I went anyway.

I picked up the phone and pressed it to my ear, watching her mirror my actions through the glass.

Did you think about what I said? she asked.

No, I lied. Did you think about what I said?

No.

I think she was being honest. I put my hand on the glass. You can’t do this, Mel.

I found Rogan.

I opened and closed my mouth. Uh, okay. Where was she going with this?

He’s in Florida. Spends most of his days drinking or fishing.

I should’ve asked how she knew this, but it didn’t occur to me at the time. Instead, I smirked. Good for him.

They paid him off, Old School.

Old School. I closed my eyes. That’s what she used to call me. I hadn’t heard it in such a long time. I’m sorry. What did you say?

I said they paid him off. He never did anything with the laptop. All that evidence you gave him? You might as well have flushed it down the toilet.

I’d suspected as much. Mel’s stepfather had been part of the child-trafficking ring. We’d absconded with his laptop after we killed the bastard and turned the evidence over to Detective Rogan. He was supposed to use it to bring down the ring. I guess he had other plans.

A lot of things have been flushed down the toilet, Mel. Or haven’t you noticed?

I’m going after him.

What? My voice stopped working for a moment. She must’ve read it in my eyes.

I’m gonna make him pay. But first I’m gonna make him talk.

That is a very bad idea.

She laughed. The sound was almost musical, reminding me of the girl I’d come to know and love. Add it to the list, she said. Then she pressed her own palm against the glass, and I could read the words she’d scribbled onto her skin. I frowned. They made no sense whatsoever.

I’ll see you soon, she said.

I watched as she hung up the phone, licked her palm and wiped it on her pants, and then waved good bye.

I went back to my cell, my mind whirling.

***

Don’t eat. Don’t drink. Don’t wash. Those were her instructions.

She hadn’t even asked my opinion in the matter.

Then again, I’d probably made my position abundantly clear already. I didn’t want her doing this. I know I told her this.

Typical Mel, she was going to do what she wanted anyway, whether I liked it or not. I had no idea what she was up to, but I figured the best thing I could do was to fake an illness. It might win me a trip to the infirmary, but only if I played it right.

The best way to land in the infirmary, aside from being genuinely hurt, was to not act like you wanted to go to the infirmary. Most fish didn’t get this. They wanted to hang out in the doctor’s office ‘cause it looked a whole hell of a lot less like a cell than their normal digs, and so they’d crab, moan, whine and complain loudly enough that the guards would finally put them where they wanted to go, but only after making sure they needed to be there first.

Usually, this involved a rather heavy-handed application of their batons.

I’d learned early on that the best way to grab a break from the prison scene was to act sick, but to make it look like you were trying to tough it out and just wanted to be left alone. For whatever reason, this always worked. Even when you didn’t have any measurable symptoms, like a fever.

Then again, the food was so bad in this place that stomach illnesses were fairly commonplace.

I curled up on my side and made sure I moved slowly when the bars opened for dinner. Mel hadn’t been very specific about when to start fasting, so I figured I should probably start right away. I shuffled through the line, saying nothing, and then sat at the table across from Murphy, even shoving my tray his way when he noticed I wasn’t feeling too well.

What? You ain’t hungry?

Not really.

He hastily scooped my dinner onto his tray. Heard that tasty treat come knocking on your door again today. Is that what’s eating you?

I gave him a baleful glare and said nothing.

Murphy had curly blond hair and a thin mustache barely covering his upper lip. He wasn’t very powerfully built, more wiry than anything else. I often wondered how he managed to subdue those women before he got beat up by one.

Must’ve had some harsh words to take away your appetite. What’d she do? Break up with you or something?

Told you I didn’t want to talk about it.

So what happen? She find someone new?

Murphy?

Yeah?

Shut the hell up.

Damn, baby. He picked up a spoonful of my mashed potatoes and shoved them in his mouth. She messed you up, good. You want my advice? Find another one that looks just like her. Bang her and dump her.

Really. How am I supposed to do that in here?

I’m just saying. You know, there’s ways.

You offering to be a surrogate?

His eyebrows knitted. What you got to be like that for? You know I don’t roll that way. I’m talking about up here. He tapped his forehead. It’s like all we got left.

Terrific, I dead-panned. So now I’m supposed to take relational advice from a rapist who got beat up by a girl.

Damn. He shook his head and left the table. I felt a twinge of guilt. It was an unwritten rule. You never ask why a fellow inmate was incarcerated, and you never brought it up. That’s what the guards did. And we weren’t gonna sink to that level.

I watched him go, grateful for the peace and quiet. I wanted to think. My stomach rumbled, which didn’t make matters easier. Daylight streamed in through the windows above, cascading across the gray tables and tile floor, and giving the room a feeling of being slightly less cold than normal. I shivered anyway.

Right about then, a fight broke out.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t a fight—at least, not like what I was used to seeing. It started when a paranoid fish three tables down started screaming about worms in his food. He shrieked and flung his tray across the aisle. The guy it struck rocked his head back, and then stared at the blood on his fingers before beginning to paint with them on the table. The first man turned and began choking his neighbor, who promptly rolled on top of him and began slamming his head on the floor.

I watched all this happen in the space of about a minute and a half, and that’s when I realized that no alarm claxon had sounded, and that the guards around me were behaving in similarly strange ways.

Whatever thoughts I had about faking an illness evaporated. The entire prison population looked as though they’d just gone completely crazy—prison personnel included. And as they were currently either finger-painting in blood or beating each other’s brains in, I decided the best thing to do was to get scarce.

I ducked under my table, and was immediately joined by Murphy, who told me how beautiful the color orange was. It rhymes with grapefruit, he said. I stared at him, seeing the faraway, glassy-eyed stare in his eyes and the twitching of his mouth as he tried to articulate whatever it was he was experiencing.

Dude, I said, are you tripping?

All through the tulips, he sang. I like tulips. They’re good for kissing. Like a frog.

I stopped trying to make sense of his blather and scooted back from him. Whatever was happening, I wanted no part of it. I poked my head out, witnessing the insanity intensifying all around me, and spotted my exit. The door to the cafeteria stood ajar, blocked by the body of a guard lying face down on the concrete, a splash of vomit pooling near his chin.

I crouched, ready to spring for it, when Murphy’s hand grabbed my arm. Don’t eat the cherries, he growled, they’re poisonous.

Got it. I pried his fingers off my arm and raced for the door. A moment later, I was on the other side. I was halfway down the corridor when the first gunshot rang out.

Chapter 3

I dove for the floor, covering my head with my hands. The sound of the gunshot rang in my ears and generated animalistic howls from the room behind me. What followed after it made me look up. Crazed laughter. Not exactly what I wanted to hear, but it sounded like it came from in front of me, not behind in the cafeteria. A second blast punctured the howling riot, followed by the noise of crumbling concrete spattering to the floor. I rolled to my feet and scurried down the hall. At the end, I glanced through the gate and saw a pair of guards aiming at the ceiling with their shotguns. They were clumsily following a reflected flash across the ceiling, made impossible by the fact that the reflection seemed to come from their own badges and moved when they did.

This is crazy, I thought, and decided then and there that I had to do something before somebody got seriously hurt. Neither guard looked particularly aware of the other—nor of me. I stole into the room, greeting the one who turned my way with a cheerful, Hey, and earning just as happy a response from him.

Can I see that? I pointed at the gun.

His eyes brightened. You wanna try?

Shooting the lights, right?

Fairies man, he corrected. Frickin’ fairies.

Yowza! bellowed his partner before blasting the ceiling with his shotgun. The noise echoed from the walls and made my ears ring. Damn it, man, he said, they’re singing again!

Well, go on, convict, said the first guard. Give her a whirl.

I shifted the gun in my grip. I got a better idea. I smashed the butt end into the back of his partner’s head. The man crumpled to the ground. I grabbed his weapon as he fell and turned back to the first guard. He stared at his friend.

You killed him, he gaped, that’s awesome!

Think so? Then you’re gonna love this. I beaned him with the gunstock.

Neither guard would die—at least, not from anything I’d done to them. I figured they had a better chance surviving without their guns than with, though. After grabbing their keys, spare ammunition, and both guns, I hurried down the hall. Three more turns brought me face to face with the source of the insanity.

How’d I know you’d have something to do with this? I gaped.

Duh, Mel answered, ‘Cause I, like, warned you about it. Her eyes lit up as she took one of the shotguns from me. Sweet!

I gave her a quick once-over. She’d dressed in skin-tight black leather, accenting her curves, complete with matching boots and gloves. The tattoo of a rope decorated her throat, along with a noose on the side. The image of the rope ran up alongside her neck to disappear behind her ear. ‘Put knot here,’ was stenciled beside an arrow pointing to the noose.

I furrowed my brow. You mind telling me what the hell you’ve done?

Is that a ‘Thank you’? she spat, and stalked down the hall. I followed close on her heels.

It might be if we get out of here, I retorted. Just then, a large Hispanic from D block lunged around the corner, wielding a kitchen knife. I grabbed Mel and threw her behind me, aiming my shotgun toward the floor. The explosion nearly jolted the gun from my hand, even as it blew the man’s foreleg clean off. He crumpled screaming, holding the bloody stump of his leg.

Mel blasphemed. I snagged her arm, propelling her forward. When we rounded the corner away from the man, I shoved her against the wall. Now might be a good time to tell me what you’ve done, I bellowed, before you get us both killed!

In reply she grabbed my face and pressed her lips to mine. The kiss took me by surprise. Hot, passionate, desperate. Feelings long dormant flooded my veins. I pressed into it, into her, forgetting everything. Where we were. Who we were. All that had transpired between us.

But only for a moment. I pulled away. No. Not here. Not like this.

She bit her lip and traced her index finger down my chin. Just wanted you to know how I feel. Then she ducked under my arm and moved away from me.

Hey, I called.

LSD. She propped the barrel of her gun across her shoulder, jauntily swinging her hips. I spiked the water supply.

My eyes shot wide. Where’d you get enough LSD to do that?

You forget, she turned and eyed me, I got friends who owe favors—especially those SOB’s who took over for Gill.

Gill? I blinked, remembering Gill. An unshaven blond thug who used to run a trafficking ring: drugs, guns, tots for toys—you name it. Mel had tried to buy me a new ID through him until we both learned that he was part of the ring that took my kids—along with hundreds, hell, thousands of others. He was one of the reasons I’d wound up here in the first place, though I hadn’t known it at the time. I’d killed him when he