Chapter 5 of the still untitled story. Enjoy!

Chapter 5
Southern California had never been a region I could claim to call home. At least not until it was forced upon me. For the entirety of my life, I had lived in a very different part of the country.

Not that it mattered. Once on the inside, I could have been anywhere in the world. Once on the inside, I was nowhere in the world.

The structures that hold our nation's offenders are of perfect design. The architecture is simple, with straight-edged corners, bare floors, perfectly smooth, uniform walls. Walls that trap sound, emotion, memory. Walls that haunt. Walls that muffle hope, dream, prosperity. Walls that negate. And so, once companioned with such a place, it is increasingly felt, day by day, the perfection of prison construct.

I would have very much enjoyed to never again visit a place of such misery.

Fate would ensure I did.
--*--
Where would I go from here? What would I do? Where would I sleep? How would I eat? What was supposed to happen next?

I knew not where the answers could be found. There was a place that might know. A place that might show me the way. I was not yet ready to enter that place.

The prison yard had been of a common set up. Square in shape, it provided the sharpest of corners and four perfectly straight border walls, three of which were formed from the high cement walls of the cell corridors, the other a woven tangle of sleek aluminum fencing topped of with a spiraling formation of the sharpest damn barbs one might ever come across. In the yard, there was nowhere to escape to, not even from the fellow do-wrongers. Through the fence, the only sight to be seen was another yard, full of light grey cement, and a final cement wall on the far side that formed a seemingly mocking reminder of my own personal entrapment. From time to time, I would catch myself yearning to dream of what lay beyond that final cement wall. Of what possibilities the world was entertaining at that particular moment. I never got around to dreaming, however. And it wasn't that final thick wall that got in my way, I could easily see through it, I could easily construct a setting for the world beyond. It was the barbs that hindered possibility. Each of the thousands of barbs had a sleek razor edge that faced up on the spiraling wire atop the high fence, a razor edge that met the bottom edge of the bard in the sharpest of points, with the point, quite presumably, looking straight back into the yard. And so every time I had that itch to think of something bigger, something better than the reality of prison, I arrived at the same end point each time. I would see myself setting free. Letting go of any and all weariness. Unraveling into a heated sprint across the prison yard, the entire time looking between the weaves of the aluminim fencing, past the expanse of cement yard, through the thick cement wall, and into the unknown, into infinite possibility. I would then see myself scaling the first fence with grace and ease, like a spider ascending the trunk of a tree. And finally, I would arrive at the barbs. And the barbs first slice open those spaces between my finers. And then my wrists, my forearms, my face, my torso. And I would lay atop the high aluminum fence in a horrificly tangled mess of blood and razor and pain and slow coming death. And I would look upon my shredded flesh and see the shredded possibilities of life. And just like that, the dream would be over. With each time this would occur, a violent shudder would run through my body in the aftermath, as if to shake out the wretchedly grotesque visions, and with the end of the visions always came the end of dreams. No place to escape in the yard, indeed, not even in the mind could one find their own terrain. The yard, as the entirety of the prison was, consisted of a simple design that served out a complex function. And that function was to keep every part of a criminal contained, including their mind.

--*--

From my place in the grass, I gazed out into the world, far beyond everything I had become familiar with over the course of the past five years. There were no longer any razor barbs to tear through my vision, through my interpretation of what I saw. And what I saw first were the colors. The clown-lip-red roof of a Mcdonalds that sat atop the hill up the east end of the street running parellel to the north end of the prison. The golden arches suspended high in the sky, shimmering bright in the high sun of mid-day. The flourescent pink of a plastic flamingo sitting in the miniscule yard of a house at the bottom of the hill, it's wings spinning round in wild fashion as the winds gusted through. The navy blue shutters and door trim of a house over to my west. The lush green of the grass beneath me.

My vision grew saturated with the colors, as if my eyes had lost the ability to filter incoming light, letting it instead burn my vision with radiant intensity. It had been so long since I'd seen anything so rich, so beautiful.

"Never did see a blade of grass such a green in the all of my life."

Cal. Still present. The bastard couldn't let a moment be a moment. I chose to ignore him, to no avail.

"Funny how things look different right about now. Who'da thought a damn yard flamingo could ever go and look so slick. Odd that people still actually put those tasteless things in their yards. One thing I didn't plan fixin' my sight on here in world of the new millenium."
How irritating! The geezer didn't seem to get it. I continued to ignore, instead focusing on the colors. The deep purple of a custom paint job on an old camaro sitting in one of the drives across the way. The browning of a dying palm next to the muscle car. Even the faded pale yellow of a seemingly abandoned house off to the west was gave off a cheerful feeling.

"Hope none of 'em have kids." He chuckled out the last few words, struggling to annunciate in his apparent amusement.

"What?" The question cut the air, coming out of me almost as sharp as the prison barbs.

"You know, hope none of those people across the street are payin' too much in rent. Being next to a prison and all. Next to all the 'danger.'"

Cal grinned wide while putting danger in finger quotes, his tone clearly sarcastic. I didn't bite on the humor.

"It's Southern California, Cal. One of the densest populations in the world. Where else are the people going to live?" I tried to brush him off, stating the facts plainly but something he had said was stricking a disturbing chord inside of me.

"You're right on that one, my boy. But it's fitting you know? If it wasn't odd, it wouldn't have a place here. I mean come on. They condemn people like us. Label us. Stereotype us. Fear us. Lock us up all nice and heavy. And yet, here they are, those same people, getting burgers from McDonalds a couple hundred feet away from a few thousand of us dangerous folk. It's straight silly. Makes no sense.

People like us.

"What do you mean by 'people like us.'" I asked, although I already knew the answer. It was not something I wanted to accept.

"Come on, Ansel. You're a criminal. You're a convict. And now, you're an ex-con. And I have some rough news for you, friend. People who have never been a criminal consider it far worse to be an ex-con, rather than just a criminal, or even a con. Because now that you're an ex-con, you're out there with them, eating with them, walking with them, and hell, god forbid, interacting with them! Face it, there's no place out here for people like us."

People like us.

People like Cal?

People like me?

I'd never considered the implications of reentering the world as something other than just...whatever it was that I was. Something other than the person I identified with on the inside. I found it hard to comprehend the consequences of such a complexity. No matter what I did from here on out, no matter where I went, or how I felt about myself, no matter what it was I thought I was from now on, I would always be something more, something....issued. More than anything, the most important part of who I was, until the day I died, and perhaps even beyond that day, would be the record that told of my time served.

What was the point of being freed?

Why should I desire to reenter a world no longer my own?

He must have sensed my perplexion.

"A long time ago, I was thinking many of the same things I suspect your turning over in your head right about now. It was fairly early on in my sentence. Probably a couple years in. One night, I got to thinking about the things that would be buried with my body when I was laid to rest. You know, all that time on your hands, in that place, it'll get you considering things that would otherwise be far off in the back of your head. Anyways, I thought of some nice things that I hoped would end up with me. Maybe the engagement ring I'd purchased but never presented to the love of my life. Obviously a forever-lost opportunity once I'd been thrown the book. Maybe she'd show up to say goodbye one last time. A picture of me and my Ma. You know, a final momento of the woman, long laid to rest herself, that gave me life. Some other things from my active years. And then at the end of this whole sequence, I was picturing my casket in the hollow grave, nicely finished wood, shiny brass handles, curved trim; and it actually looked a hint beautiful as the first shovels of dirt slid off the smooth surface of my final resting spot, which is kind of pathetic I suppose, but you can sympathize I'm sure. A fitting, well-executed end doesn't sound so dark when your locked away with nothing else to really imagine for life."

He paused and looked intently in my direction, as if watching the depth of his self-described end sink into me. In that moment, as I looked back at him with softened eyes, I actually felt half bad for the fella. It seemed as though he were nothing more than a sad and guilty old man.

"I'm sorry, Cal, but that really has nothing to do with what I've been thinking."

"Well that's because I'm not quite finished just yet. You see, as I watched those first shovels of dirt fall away, as I watched the backs of the people who'd decided to attend my final tribute receed away from the grave site, a shadowy figure dropped a final belonging down into the grave. A piece of paper came to rest atop the casket, and I recognized it as a copy of my criminal record. A detailed description of my conviction, my time served, and my release. And there was only that single conviction, no more. But that one mistake, that specific moment of my life that lead to thirty eight plus years in prison, came back to haunt me one final time, for eternity. And I realized, right then and there on that night, in that cell of mine, that even if I did live to see my sentence through, I'd never be just me for the rest of my days. I'd be a piece of paper that told so much more about who I was than I could ever convey otherwise. And that is why, my friend, there is no place out here for people like us. No matter who you think you are. No matter how you feel about yourself and your life. No matter who you come across, you will always be an ex-con first. That is why I so readily took purpose in you and your situation. It's us. Me and you. And that's it. The rest of the world, it's no longer ours."

I understood the meaning in his words. I felt the meaning in his words.

As I sat there on that grass, no longer confined to the perfectly functioning do-wrongers body trap and mind bomb, not yet anywhere beyond it, I understood that I was between worlds, perhaps forever. It was not the physical matter that trapped me between places. It was a state of existence. Something deeper than feeling, deeper than description. A place entirely new to me.
As I started to see myself in this new light of being, I, for the first time, actually saw Cal. He'd been there all along, from the moment I'd stepped foot into this new place free of metal and cement bondage, but I had, in some way, chosen not to embrace his presence. He was present now, however. He'd found a way to connect with me. To help me. To force me to accept things for what they were, and more importantly, what they were going to be. I looked upon him as his own existence for the first time, and saw the deep history within. He was withered, as a flower in the bone-dry heat of a mid-summer's afternoon. His skin was rough, and permanently stained a darker shade of human by, presumably, many years exposure to the unforgiving rays of the sun. Wrinkles found there way into all of the smooth spots of the body a much younger and more fortunate soul might take for granted. His face was at ease as he stared off in blankness, most likely still taken back to that life defining night in his cell, yet the wrinkles of his forehead, and at the outer corners of his eyes, and his lower cheeks, and his neck, they all remained quite noticeable. His eyes were a dark shade of green, hardly visible as their lids lay low in the intense afternoon light. Long and flowing dark brown hair, streaked with silver, complemented his self-imposed label of ' The Last Hippy.' He was tall with a thin yet solid stature. Greying eyebrows went well with his greying beard, which had gone untrimmed for quite some time. It too, flowed, ever so slightly, in the winds of the day. Although weathered, if not weary, he held a radiance about him, perhaps a product of his seemingly confident understanding of the world's understanding of him. He looked, I just then realized, like a man you'd find it a pleasantry to hold a conversation with. He looked like a man who had seen things. Big things. Important things. He looked a man that had some knowing that needed to be known.

As I sat next to this new presence in my life, this man going by the name of Cal, I found myself to be glad to have him with me. Quite a comfort it was, I thought, to be anything but alone in a place of existence reserved for those deemed deserving of a lonesome one.

"Cal..."

"Yeah, friend?"

"I'm sorry for the way I was earlier."

"Nothing to be sore at, Ansel. Nobody said it was going to be an easy ride. And if they did, I am sure and certain that they were severly mistaken."

"Cal, do you think we were meant to go through this together?" I wasn't certain I believed in destiny or fate or that type of thing at all, but a small part of me, in this particular moment, hoped it to be the case.

"I think that we're here now, you and me. And I'm thinking you don't want to go through this alone. So then, I suppose my answer ought to be: does it even matter?"

He was right. Whether it were predetermined, or a random situation of luck, we had started out on this thing together. And the reality of it all was, it was a damn good thing. Perhaps the best damn thing.

"So, where do we go from here, Cal?"

"You, my friend, can't go anywhere without doing something about those there envelopes. Pretty sure you need to figure that out more than just about anything right now."

I had forgotten, for a moment, of the envelopes. Of everything, both wonderful and terrible in nature, they might embody. I had forgotten of the reasons for my current situation in life. And of who I was because of it. Of who I might be forever. I had forgotten, that the answers to all of my questions, the solutions to all of my problems, may or may not be right there with me. I had forgotten just how terrified I was of opening them. Of reopening that part of my life. Of opening up into her.

"Not here."

"Why not? We have nowhere else to be. Nothing else to do. Why don't you just go on and get it over with, Ansel?"

The reasons were complex, some of them selfish on my part. But one stood out as being for reasons other than my own interests. And that was the only reason that really mattered.

"Because. She wouldn't have wanted it to be this way. In this place."

I thought of her, right then and there. Of the way she liked things to be. Of her tastes for life, for her own reality. Of her desire to take me with her, along for her spectacular ride. It was the least I could do after all that I had already done, I thought, to open her letters in a setting she'd have been happy in.

"I know of a place we can go. A place you can be alone. A place far better than this one here.
What do you say?"

What choice did I have?

"I say, how will we get there?"

"Are you ready, Ansel, to once again break the law?"

I was fairly certain that I caught his drift. It was the only option we had. Just like they say in the studies and the papers and on the news. Offenders are much more likely to repeat if they have nothing positive to focus on when reintroduced to society. And I was quite certain, then and there in those last moments on the grassy patch outside of the prison, outside of my haunting home of the past five years, in those last moments between such contrasting worlds, such contrasting realms of possibility and eternity, I was quite certain that life had nothing good in mind for me.

"Let's get on with it." I was blunt and let Cal know that this was the way it was going to be.

"Follow me."