Chapter 2 -- XABGWSLBOITSAB
Damned Tommy, Carter thought as he was returned to his cell. He was a bit of a
joker, and would enjoy leaving him in suspense for a week.
He had received a letter from him about once a month or so but they were never more than
a 'how are you doing, I'm all right, hope to get together when you get out,' and
so on.
He had only known Tommy for the three years he had been in, after they struck
up a conversation one day while working out together. Neither was a fitness
fanatic, but they shared a determination to not let their physical condition
deteriorate due to inactivity. And it it didn't hurt to be built up in here.
Carter was already big enough to discourage attacks by other inmates, but the
additional muscle was both intimidating and useful if a potential attacker
didn't get the idea right away. In any case he had few problems - the prison
was a mixed medium and and minimum security facility, and most of the inmates
were guys like Tommy, low-level first-timers who caused little trouble.
Tommy was the sort of person people naturally liked at first meeting, and did
not all seem like someone who would be in prison, and perhaps he wasn't. He
had gotten three years for receiving stolen property. Helping a friend out,
he said. Learned the hard way that doesn't pay.
Carter looked at the dark patches of skin on his forearms. He had gotten those
pulling kids out of an overturned minivan when the spilled gasoline went up, weeks
of pain that he thought would never end. And then your life is destroyed
because you allegedly mishandled the arrest of a dangerous, violent, drug-crazed
felon who had already knifed his partner. But the only available video showed
him with the cretin face down on the roadside with Carter's knee on his back.
Of course, the drug-crazed felon was the wrong color. The usual agitators showed
up to incite riots, and the rest was, for Carter, history. He knew what was going
to happen, and should have gone on the run. He had seen enough cops go to prison
over similar incidents with such human debris.
He had said afterwards, when asked about his injuries, that he would not do it again.
That there was no place in his thinking for other the people's problems.
Tommy had told him he couldn't mean it. "What would you do now - let a bunch of
kids burn up because of what happened to you?"
He knew he didn't mean it, but the anger which prompted it would never leave him,
only be assuaged by retribution. He refused to think of it as vengeance, but a
necessary delivery of justice.
His cellmate had returned and was reading. He was a quiet sort who had made the
mistake of succumbing to the desire to make some big money the easy way, and got
unlucky. Normally the sort of drug deal he did was small enough to go unnoticed, but
one of the guys he was dealing with was a big enough fish that he got dragged in
with him. Carter liked him - he was literate and intelligent. Just not smart,
Carter thought. But then, he was in for an actual crime, and I'm not, he thought.
Unlucky or dumb, either way you could screw up your life.
"You awake?" Jackson asked. Jackson Miller was the cellmate.
"Yeah," Carter replied. "What are you reading?"
"Dune," replied Miller.
"That's an old book," Carter said. "You read much science fiction?"
"I didn't until lately. A little before I got in here, one of my college buddies was
into it. He has a huge collection, sends me some of them to read. He says the old
stuff is pretty good, and most of what's written these days is trash."
"Like everything else," said Carter. "Including people. Especially people."
"Yeah, I guess you have some experience with that. Being a cop you probably see the
worst of it."
"Unfortunately some of the worst isn't on the streets. It's in the government and
the ones who control it."
"I guess you have a reason to feel that way. I got here by my own stupidity. You
try to do your job and something goes wrong, they throw you under the bus."
"Yeah, well, it's happened to a lot of cops in recent years. Don't be surprised if,
when you go back, the only cops are the rejects. No man in his right mind would be
a cop. Not only do you risk getting killed every time you go to work, you also risk
being used as a sacrifice for some politician."
"Well," said Miller, "you'll soon be out. Any idea what you'll do?"
"One thing is certain," Carter said, "what's left of my life is mine and mine alone.
The world can go straight to hell, which is where it's headed anyway. I'm just going
to watch, and maybe laugh once in a while."
"Well, good luck. I guess I'll probably end up on the street when I
get out. Everything I had is gone, and I don't see any way I can ever start over."
"You can," Carter said. "You'll probably have to abandon conventional thinking.
Outside the box, as they say. Concentrate on survival, nothing else, and keep
whatever you can get and try to make a life independent of society. It's only
going to get worse."
"Is that your plan?"
"Pretty much. Stay away from the cities, disappear. Go off the grid, find a way to
survive with some level of comfort."
"It sounds like you expect the place to turn into Communist Russia, or Nazi Germany."
"Probably some of the worst of both," Carter replied. "The rule of law is almost
totally gone in the big cities, except in a handful of states, and I'd be surprised
to see them hold out for long. The only question is how long it will take the
government to subdue the resistance in the smaller towns and rural areas. There are
a lot of people out there who aren't going to go quietly, and are armed. But without
being united and organized, they will eventually be eliminated, a few at a time."
"You seem to think it's hopeless."
"Pretty much. When I got in here seven years ago it was well on the
way. The election process was subverted to the point that from here on every
presidential election will be predetermined, and the few conservative states will be
outnumbered. It's a dark future.
"Luckily, I don't have to live as long as you. How old are you, anyway?"
"Twenty-four. I'll be twenty-seven when I get out, unless I can get paroled."
"You will if you don't give them any trouble. They can't let people out of the
prisons fast enough, at the rate they new ones are coming in. In a way the world
may be better for us criminal types, since we're already part of an underclass, to
to speak. Hang together and stay under the radar. It's the normal, productive,
law-abiding types that are going nasty surprise."
"Well," Miller said, "I've got some time to worry about it. Thanks."
"I'll try to remember to look you up when you get out. You're smart enough to
survive, with the right help."