Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Spring Time

The United States marshals were two clean-cut muscular young white boys dressed in khaki pants and dark polo shirts with badges clipped to their belts. They carried lots of chains. When they came on to the tier to get Eddie all the inmates came to their doors to watch and holler. It reminded me of hyenas at the zoo, all lined up in a row against the bars with muzzles drawn back showing sharp teeth, yipping and howling.

When they came for Eddie he moved like a doomed man. He walked out of the cell then turned and grabbed onto the bars, pulling himself up close to me. I reached through the bars and put my hand over his and didn't say anything. Where could they possibly hide somebody like Eddie? Somebody who looks like him, acts like him, talks like him? Somebody who couldn't make it for long on the outside even when people weren't trying to kill him? He looked at me and stayed quiet too, and when his eyes started to well up he turned away abruptly. "Let's get out of here," he said to the marshals. They put on the leg irons, waist chain and cuffs, then led him away with a hand on each bicep. They walked him off the tier and out of my life forever, and that was the last time I ever saw my friend.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

What on earth date is it?

ClinkShrink said...

Good question. The title of the post is actually a pun rather than a referrence to a season---Eddie is getting "sprung" from the facility. I didn't actually specify but I imagined it being within a few days after he gave information to investigators. In real life it would take longer than that.

Anonymous said...

Uh no, not the pun. The post is dated June 20 2007. The other posts have later dates except for the first which says January (I think). Who is flying that wonky plane with Einstein?

ClinkShrink said...

I had to put the sections up in future reverse chronological order to keep the story reading from the top down on the blog.

Now that I think about it, I'm glad English doesn't have a "future reverse" tense. It would just be too confusing.

Anonymous said...

I think they made a few movies about that.

Zoe Brain said...

I know it's Bad Fiction, but is life inside really like that?

ClinkShrink said...

Since I'm still working on the inside I'll probably refrain from mentioning which parts are based in reality. None of the characters are based on any one particular real person. I will say that the gang references and issues, unfortunately, are quite real.

Anonymous said...

Love it. I'm a fan. Can't wait for the next installation.

ClinkShrink said...

Awww....

Emy L. Nosti said...

You had me at clean-cut muscular, but lost me at shirts.

I hope this is a prison romance. Actually, that's probably a really, really bad idea.

Emy L. Nosti said...

Oh crap. This is the last entry? Well, I can see this is all going to be very confusing between CS's DC and DB by DM.