Page 754 of The Tempted

I glance at the clock on the wall and feel my lips spread into a grin—it was almost time for thelast supper.

After a few more hits of oxygen I was carted to my new cell. I didn’t hang my pictures nor did I remove my personal effects from the brown paper bag, this was just a resting point, a time to gather my thoughts and pray.

Our father who art in Heaven…

I prayed for my wife.

Welcome her with open arms Saint Peter.

I prayed for my children.

Let them be happy and healthy.

I prayed for my grandchildren.

Let them always be safe.

I prayed for Val.

I prayed for a woman I never met…Christine Petra.

I prayed for Danny Parrish.

I prayed for all the innocent victims of the G-Man.

Rest in peace, this ones for you.

Amen.

I didn’t pray for myself, not this time, whatever will be, will be. The bell sounds, and another fresh faced correctional officer opens my cell and guides me to the mess hall. I grab an empty tray and get on the back of the line as my eyes scan the room searching for my mark.

Come out and play.

The room was divided, white sat with white, black stuck with black there was no unity amongst inmates, a sure sign that this prison wouldn’t survive the chaos I was about to implode.

I shuffled my feet as I inched my way up the line, scoping the room for the face I hadn’t seen in years, a face so gruesome only a mother could love. Bet that bitch hated him too.

Father forgive me.

I made the sign of the cross as my eyes zeroed in on the table in the corner of the cafeteria and the lone man sitting at it devouring a pudding cup.

“How do you want to do this,” I hear Val’s voice say.

I glance at the man in front of me, peer over his shoulder as he loads his tray and smiles.

“You can’t be serious, Vic,”Val’s voice dares.

My grin widened.

Watch me.

I lift my tray over my head and slam it against the inmate in front of me before stepping to my left. He drops his tray, spins on his heel and glares at the man who stands in line behind me. I watch as he rears his fist back, his knuckles colliding with the poor innocent man just waiting for his grub.

“FIGHT!”

We like to think times change but they don’t, society is just as fucked as it was before Martin Luther King had a dream, and segregation was just as much alive in this cafeteria as it was on the streets. White attacked black, black attacked white, yellow went for red and so on and so forth.

And me? I, like Moses, parted the sea, holding my head high as I walked through the chaos, through the disruption, straight to the end.

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