Chapter Two
Kevin
AS HIS MANACLED body sped through the darkness to Heartland Penitentiary, Kevin’s mind spun backward to the day of the murder. He was not on the bus, but in the classroom.
“Turn to page twenty-one,” his English teacher, John Davis, had directed.
Kevin heaved a sigh and opened the book. The letters danced nonsensically on the page. Reading was difficult and not worth the effort. To keep awake, he doodled in the margins.
For the hundredth time, he wished his old man weren’t a screwed-up drunk. Then they wouldn’t have been kicked out of their apartment.
At his old high school, Kevin had had it made. His teachers couldn’t deal with his dyslexia, so they’d passed him from grade to grade. Other students were forced to study, but he’d enjoyed a free ride. The guys had envied him for that. Also for something else. He had a hot bod and had made it with every chick in class.
He frowned, thinking of his new classmates. The North Siders were a different breed. They didn’t say what they thought. They slunk around, whispering behind his back, making fun of him. They had no clue how smart he was.
His eyes lifted from the book. With a defiant twirl of his ballpoint, he fastened his gaze on Mary Alice Callaway, the occupant of the next desk. She was a looker. Beneath that frilly white blouse with the high neck collar, her huge tits jutted out, almost begging his palms to envelop them. She was the only worthwhile thing in the whole school.
She had a right to be stuck-up, but instead she was nice. She never made fun of him, and acted like he really counted. Too bad she had a thing for Larry Murphy.
Kevin narrowed his eyes as he caught four-eyed Larry exchange a no-one-else-exists look with Mary Alice. Man, he’d give anything to wrench off the creep’s bifocals and jam his pen straight into those pumice colored eyeballs. Larry didn’t deserve Mary Alice. It was a mystery what she saw in that short, stringy haired dud.
The bell rang. Larry the Wonderful rushed off to his law clerk job, leaving the blonde and beautiful Mary Alice alone in the hallway. It was Kevin’s chance. He had to take it. He had to convince her.
Adopting a Brad Pitt smile, he sidled up to her. “Mary Alice, honey, could I walk you home?”
She flushed, then said, “Why sure, Kevin.”
He was in heaven. He knew he was moving, yet his feet barely touched the ground. She spoke to him, but he didn’t know what she said. He watched in fascination as her blonde curls bounced wildly in the wind. Her glossy lips moved up, down and around, giving him a giant boner.
All too soon they reached her apartment building. Sweat broke out beneath his parka.
He looked deep into Mary Alice’s shining blue eyes and popped the question. “Would you like to go to the prom with me?”
She had to say yes. She belonged to him.
“Kevin, I’m sorry, but I’m already going with Larry.”
She couldn’t mean that. He grasped her shoulders and looked deep into her eyes, trying to make her understand. “But you can’t. Tell him you’ve changed your mind.”
Her face flushed. She bit her lip. With a little persuasion, maybe she’d give in.
Too bad that’s when her kid brother, Danny, showed up and butted in with his two cents. To top it off, Old Man Meyer shouted down at them to keep quiet. His dream was shattered.
The prison bus rocked, jerking Kevin’s shackled hands and feet, forcing his mind back to the present. It was over. Mary Alice was dead. He squeezed his eyelids tight, but the tears trickled out anyway, forcing him to face the facts. He’d loved Mary Alice. He’d never see her again. He missed her. Coupled with the wrenching pain was another realization: his life was ruined. If only he could go back and erase his mistakes.
It shouldn’t end this way. He shouldn’t be the one to pay. Danny Callaway’s words had damned him. It might take a while, but there was one thing he would do. Get even.
The jolting ride on Oganawa Drive to Heartland Penitentiary grew hot and sweaty.
As the bus approached the compound, the gates swung open, then quickly shut, trapping Kevin inside.
He wanted to scream, “I don’t belong here. Let me out,” but it was no use.
He was unceremoniously pushed off the bus and forced down two flights of stairs to a cold, damp room. A combination of piss and B.O. bombarded his nostrils, making him want to vomit.
Realizing the futility of it all, he lowered himself onto the nearest bench and avoided eye contact with anyone. His thin T-shirt and ripped jeans offered scant protection against the bone chilling dampness, but he wouldn’t shiver and show weakness.
Soon he was shoved into a so-called “reception” area and ordered to line-up and strip. Before an audience of inmates and guards, he underwent a humiliating body search. He stood stoically as goose bumps broke out over his arms and legs. Even when the guard stuck a gloved finger up Kevin’s ass, he didn’t flinch.
Next he was thrown into a chemical shower and deloused. His skin emerged red and raw, but he pretended it didn’t matter. He stumbled into the standard regulation gear of cotton shirt and blue jeans. His pride remained intact, but his body had overreached its limit. He tried to stand, but instead swayed.
His eyes drifted shut. The guards shook him awake and marched him through a long corridor, up three more flights of stairs, then into a cage.
Half-asleep and disoriented, Kevin couldn’t focus. All he could see were blurred bars. The nine-by-six cell closed in on him. He wanted out.
A voice said, “Take a load off, man.”
Through the blackness Kevin barely made out a lanky, dark-haired guy.
“I’m Brad Sturgess. We’ll spend some time together, so how about we get along? You can have the bottom bunk tonight.”
No one was that nice. What was the catch? Kevin gave him a double take.
Brad patted him on the back. “Hey, I’ve been there, too. I’m on your side, buddy.”
Kevin nodded, too washed out to speak. Gratefully he sank onto the thin mattress. Before long he fell into a nightmare-ridden sleep, dreaming he was in prison, waking up to find he was.
WITH TIME, HE managed to relegate his prior life to a tightly closed compartment. The past was a never-never land. For his own sanity, it was best forgotten. He forged new friendships, soon discovering that the queers were attracted to him because of his bod. Also, the murderers welcomed him as one of their own. He would not disillusion them. It was ironic that in this crummy hell he’d gained acceptance.
Despite that, he longed to be free. The days stretched ahead endlessly. Not a studier by nature, he attended classes just to relieve the boredom. In one he worked on the dyslexia problem he’d been cursed with. It wasn’t easy, but he did make progress. Still, he’d never enjoy reading.
He always looked forward to electronics class. The others watched open-mouthed as he deftly pieced intricate components together. With practiced ease, he mastered complicated wiring. He’d known he was smart, but hadn’t known how smart he was.
On top of that, he turned into an auto mechanics whiz, diagnosing and solving automotive problems.
Right now his fingers itched to touch a grease-filled motor, but that was denied him. There would be no classes while lockdown was in effect.
Kevin paced his cell.
“Sit still. You’re driving me nuts,” Brad Sturgess said, gazing up at Kevin from the bottom bunk.
“Gonna make me?”
“Hell, no. Why bother?”
Kevin resumed pacing, ignoring his cell mate’s sigh. All around him rose the usual din of yelling and swearing, enough to burst his head. Lockdowns were the pits. He despised being stuck in one place. The combination of stinking bodies and putrid toilet smells pierced his nostrils and clung to every inch of his clothing.
Ever since Billy Holliday had stabbed a guard two weeks ago while trying to escape, privileges had been denied for everyone. Kevin had known what was coming down. He’d been the one to show Billy where t
he electrical connections on the fence were frayed enough to deaden the charge. With a life sentence hanging on his head, Billy had had nothing to lose by fleeing.
Kevin wished him luck and cursed him at the same time. He’d give anything not to be stuck in this shitty lockdown where he was forced to endure the rigors of thinking. Thinking was dangerous. That’s when the tightly shut compartments of his mind creaked open, spilling out horrific details he’d rather forget.
It was happening again and he was powerless to stop it. The reel of events began to play. He didn’t want to remember Mary Alice, especially the way he’d last seen her. For the thousandth time, he wondered why he hadn’t behaved differently. His cowardly actions had cost him big time. He’d regret his mistakes forever, but it was too late to undo them.
If only he’d told the truth, maybe things would have turned out differently. The problem was he’d seen the way the judge and jury had reacted to Danny Callaway’s testimony, gazing in awed fascination at the All-American traumatized brother of the rape-and-murder victim.
Kevin knew right then it didn’t matter what he said because he didn’t stand a chance. The jury would convict a monkey if Callaway decreed it.
Yeah, Callaway had put him here. Every torture-filled moment was the creep’s fault. God, he hated him.
At the thought, Kevin banged his fist into his palm. He was sick of being a victim. It was time to strike back.
He knew of incidents where inmates had exacted revenge. Only a month ago, Anthony Edwards had ratted to a guard about Billy Holliday’s hidden stash of hash.
It didn’t take long before Anthony’s only son was gunned down just steps from his porch. When Anthony had learned of it, he’d sobbed like a baby. Poor Anthony had always bragged about how the kid was the best of him and his wife, Miranda. Now the poor fool was hurting and would never be the same.
Kevin felt kind of guilty about that since he was the one who’d snitched on Anthony. He should have kept mum. Anthony didn’t deserve a dead son. Prison was rotten enough.
And now Billy was out there somewhere, trying to escape. If by some miracle he did succeed, Kevin would get his payback.