Hoppers

Antonio Fennell was counting. He knew the classification people would count his days for him but who knew how long that would take and he was writing home. He wanted to tell his mom about his release date and his security level and where he was going next and what he was going to do or work on to keep from ever coming back here. She wrote him about Tiesha who was seven months old. When he was on the pretrial side they came every week, his mom towing along Tiesha who was braided up with pink bows. There had been no word from anybody since he got moved to DOC. Of course, Tiesha's mother didn't visit. Before he got locked up he had just enough time to get her name tattooed on his right forearm over a picture of a heart and a bloodstained cross. The picture was good enough, but just to be sure he had them add "R.I.P." in an italic circular script over the top. He would never forget her. Never, ever, for as long as he was locked up.

He pictured himself on outside work detail. In his mind's eye he was there with the rest of the crew dressed in a bright orange jumper with CCCF stenciled on it. It was Spring, it was sunny and he was there in the beautiful weather cutting extra days off his time.

He kicked the bottom of the upper bunk to get his cellie's attention.

"Sup?" from the sound of his voice Antonio could tell his cellie had been asleep. He had been down a long time and had no trouble sleeping in chaos. Antonio was jealous. "Hey, check this out. See if I did this right." Cellie dropped down an arm to take the papers, flashing the bits of blue color that marked him as a cuzz. Cellie barely glanced at the papers before dropping them back down on Antonio's chest. "Man, watcha doing that for? It ain't real. It ain't going to be real for a long time."

"Gotta plan for the future, right? You gonna stay in the game forever? Ya feel me?"

Cellie grunted and rolled over. "You ain't got no future."