[ any con saying there's such a thing as "easy time" is full of shit. no two ways around it. there are ways of filling up some of the hours— jawing around with other inmates, learning something you didn't before. pumping iron. getting into fights. getting into trouble for getting into the fights. kp. laundry. picking up pebbles and seeing how many you can get through that one particular hole in the chainlink. but every minute of it's still thrummed through with the knowledge that it's killing time, that at the end of the day there's gonna be bars on the window where you're slammed into your cage, and ain't nothing changing that until something happens.
the nights are worst and seth still isn't used to them even now, but he gets prepared. loaded up his imagination with plenty from the outside to think of in the dark. whole conversations coming and going. old job blueprints with richie, old movies with eddie, older conversations with his old man where he gets to say all the shit he never got to before the house burned down. and — cause he's a red blooded american guy in his prime, thank you — he thinks of women. thinks of vanessa and her carrot cakes, of ex-girlfriends, of magazine pin-ups from his misspent youth.
that's where he figures she comes from at first. spanish had never been his favorite flavor, so to speak, but he's seen plenty of fine looking women round the border and she had to have been one of them. smooth skin, dark eyes, smoky voice, built like a dancer— he doesn't know where he knows her from, mind, but he's not about to file a complaint about it. not at first. but soon she's going from appreciative flashes to recurring dreams to being the only voice he hears, and not just at night. he'll catch her out the corner of his eye in the mess, watch her weave between heavies out int he yard, get whispers of spanish in his ear that make him whip his head around trying to find who's fucking with him.
( for all the years spent defending his brother, a creeping and gnawing dread wraps itself around his gut the longer it goes on. is he out to lose his marbles too? is this what going crazy feels like? )
eventually he gets word out to richie with a recently paroled acquaintance: get me the fuck out of here. he doesn't care how dangerous, he doesn't care how big, all that matters is finding a place this spectral senorita won't follow before he totally falls to pieces.
his brother's good as gold and better. barely a month after sending his s.o.s. there's an unexpected court date for seth, needing transport to a county courthouse for some bullshit paperwork or whatnot. richie manages it smooth and easy at a rest stop long the way, all on his goddamn own the little fucker, and seth can't help whoopin' and hollerin' when they peel out down the highway.
hundreds of miles away, they're stopped in some shitty roadside liquor store for snacks and a map and seth pops into the bathroom to splash water on his face. catching his reflection in the mirror, he frowns at the bags under his eyes, the way his suit hangs a little loose, but shakes his head. ]
Screwed on tight.
[ couple nights on the open road will perk him right back up. get him back on his feed. free me, she'd kept saying, over and over— well. thank lord almighty but he was now and especially of her. ]
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the nights are worst and seth still isn't used to them even now, but he gets prepared. loaded up his imagination with plenty from the outside to think of in the dark. whole conversations coming and going. old job blueprints with richie, old movies with eddie, older conversations with his old man where he gets to say all the shit he never got to before the house burned down. and — cause he's a red blooded american guy in his prime, thank you — he thinks of women. thinks of vanessa and her carrot cakes, of ex-girlfriends, of magazine pin-ups from his misspent youth.
that's where he figures she comes from at first. spanish had never been his favorite flavor, so to speak, but he's seen plenty of fine looking women round the border and she had to have been one of them. smooth skin, dark eyes, smoky voice, built like a dancer— he doesn't know where he knows her from, mind, but he's not about to file a complaint about it. not at first. but soon she's going from appreciative flashes to recurring dreams to being the only voice he hears, and not just at night. he'll catch her out the corner of his eye in the mess, watch her weave between heavies out int he yard, get whispers of spanish in his ear that make him whip his head around trying to find who's fucking with him.
( for all the years spent defending his brother, a creeping and gnawing dread wraps itself around his gut the longer it goes on. is he out to lose his marbles too? is this what going crazy feels like? )
eventually he gets word out to richie with a recently paroled acquaintance: get me the fuck out of here. he doesn't care how dangerous, he doesn't care how big, all that matters is finding a place this spectral senorita won't follow before he totally falls to pieces.
his brother's good as gold and better. barely a month after sending his s.o.s. there's an unexpected court date for seth, needing transport to a county courthouse for some bullshit paperwork or whatnot. richie manages it smooth and easy at a rest stop long the way, all on his goddamn own the little fucker, and seth can't help whoopin' and hollerin' when they peel out down the highway.
hundreds of miles away, they're stopped in some shitty roadside liquor store for snacks and a map and seth pops into the bathroom to splash water on his face. catching his reflection in the mirror, he frowns at the bags under his eyes, the way his suit hangs a little loose, but shakes his head. ]
Screwed on tight.
[ couple nights on the open road will perk him right back up. get him back on his feed. free me, she'd kept saying, over and over— well. thank lord almighty but he was now and especially of her. ]