>>CHAPTER TWO::

Aruis Ex

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"Hey," the sergeant gruffs. "Get up. Breakfast."

He's a stout old mutt pushing the limits of middle age. His shirt bulges out from his belt line and he always has one thumb tucked in-between them as if he had to hold them in place. I always wondered if he ever had any family that he went home to on the weekends, and if they missed him, or if his kids had already grown up and never returned his calls. Maybe his wife had died years ago in a tragic accident and he still kept a wrinkled photograph of her in the wallet protruding like a cancer from his ass.

He rattles his truncheon between the bars. "Hey. Get up. Breakfast."

It was just that I never saw him leave. I was stationed to mop floors during work hours and every hour of every day he just paced the grated walkways and rattled his black truncheon between the bars.

"Hey. Knock it off."

"Hey. Keep the noise down."

I'd never seen him too cross with anyone. The closes he ever came to expressing any kind of emotion was when the guards would congregate at the end of the hall. Someone would talk about a bar fight or one of the inmates who twitched whenever he was nervous. They would mime the way he squirmed whenever they lunged at him to get him riled up. A few of them would roar with laughter, but the sergeant just grinned and shook his head.

"You hear me in there? I said, 'Get up.'"

I sit myself up and plant my feet firmly on the floor. The cell they have me in is small, maybe about seven feet wide and a few more feet deep. I'm poor at judging distances. There's a tin sink and a tin shitter and a small plastic mirror made of safety glass. Some inmates have posters up on the walls. I don't.

The sergeant grumbles something about laziness and then shuffles to the next cell. There are a few moments of relative silence before I hear the familiar sound of his truncheon clanging against the bars.

"Hey. Get up. Breakfast."

Everything in prison is what is for a reason.

Take your silverware for example. No knives, nothing sharp. Not even a fork. I could understand not giving out knives. That was obvious. But forks? As it turns out someone managed to plant those puny little tongs into someone's carotid artery in a fit of rage. So that was the end of that.

Now we use sporks.

They herd us down the side of the mess hall where we're given our meals and then it's up to us to sit down and finish it. I look out over the throngs of deep purple coveralls and polished aluminum meal trays and seek out the most distant table. The one that everyone avoids. The one with the seats that are on the verge of collapsing and the rusted unfinished edges. I sit there because to sit anywhere else would require some kind of loyalty oath. Sometimes it takes more than that, but I'll let you fill in the blanks yourself.

But for me it's not as simple as pledging allegiance to a person, place, or species. Because of the nature of my crime I'm an outcast. That old saying about "honor amongst thieves" or something like that, well, it's true in some respects. There are certain things that even criminals find reprehensible. Oddly enough, these things generally don't bring with them life sentences.

Except, of course, in my case.

There are discussions going on about it all the time. Abuses in the prison system by guards, by inmates, by whoever or whatever. Everyone has their own agenda and everyone is looking to benefit. They want their security camera contracts, their group therapy funding, or a Bible in every cell. There's always something. And I'm stuck in the middle of it. I'm the scapegoat that everyone brings out of the back room. People's exhibit A: the poor, defenseless chameleon who's serving life. Society rejects him. The inmates reject him.

He deserves to be punished in peace.

It just never made any sense to me. Prison isn't Summer camp. It's not some daily seminar or a field trip to the basketball court. It's raw and it's brutal and it's degrading but it's justice. I'm here because I'm responsible.

I can't bring her back.