Beckett
Ten Years Ago
The morning alarm rings, but I’m already awake. Today is visiting day, and it’s a day I love and hate.
I love seeing my family.
I hate seeing the sadness and pain in their eyes.
But, for the first time, Ryland and Hudson are on the list.
Only two people are allowed, and it’s only once a month. My parents came the first time. This is my second time I’ve been allowed to see my family. Two months of living in hell, and I sometimes wonder how I’m going to make it through fifteen years.
I’ve not talked to Ryland or Hudson since the day of the shooting, when they caught Clay and I discussing his situation with Skates.
I quickly make my bed, and, when a quarter after six hits, I stand outside the cell. When the guards release us from head count, I take the few shower items I have to my assigned station.
Showering is my least favorite part of the day. The water is cold, two guards stand and watch, and you get two minutes to shampoo your hair and soap your body. In those two minutes, you also have to rinse.
The first week was the worst. Since I was the newest inmate in prison, the others all did what they could to intimidate me. Comments about dropping the soap and asking if I wanted a scrub down, just to see my reaction, were plentiful.
The guards do little to control the heckling. Two minutes felt like forever the first week, but then a new prisoner came in, and he became the new target.
But I’ve been nicknamed, “pretty boy,” and every time I hear it, I think of the guard from the county jail who gave me his lecture. Everything he said was true, and I’ve spent any opportunity I’ve had in my cell or out of it trying to gain as much muscle as I can.
I finish my shower, put on a clean orange jumpsuit, and head to the cafeteria. I stand in line, and, when I get to the counter, I pick up a tray of the same food I’ve eaten every day the past week. Cold porridge of some sort—it could be oatmeal, cream of wheat, or grits cooked the wrong way. I honestly can’t decipher it, and I’ve stopped trying. There is nothing on it, and I’ve learned to eat it. If you don’t eat, you starve, and I need to add muscle, not lose it, so I’ve learned to get it all down and keep it down.
During meals, you can quietly speak to your table mates, but if it gets too loud, the guards flash the lights and blow a whistle, and you have to stop talking. The same men sit at my table for every meal. They try to speak to me all the time, but I say as little as possible.
“You got guests coming, kid?” Roscoe, a thirty-three-year-old cocaine addict who got eight years for drug dealing, asks.
I grunt and focus on my bowl of mush.
“Who’s on your list?”
I ignore him and take another bite of food.
“Cat got your tongue again?” Roscoe says.
“I’m eating,” I reply.
“What about a girlfriend. You got a girlfriend?”
A girlfriend. I never had a girlfriend. Clay and I had so many girls after us, we decided playing the field was way better than having to commit to one girl. So that’s what we did.
We got whatever we wanted—hand jobs, blow jobs, sex. It didn’t matter what we wanted. Girls were more than happy to put out for us and give us whatever we wanted.
But my memories of all the girls I messed around with are starting to fade. It’s only been two months, and faces are blurring. The only faces that don’t are those of my family, Clay and Mia, and Henry and Skates.
I don’t know if I see Clay and Mia or Henry and Skates more. The grief never goes away. My anger, hatred, and desire for vengeance grow. Henry and Skates will get what they have coming to them, even if it takes me fifteen years.
When breakfast is over, I go to the bathrooms and clean the toilets. As one of the newer inmates, I got assigned bathroom duty. In order to change jobs, you have to have a skill useful somewhere else in the prison. My first week inside, I signed up to take GED classes, and I’m on an accelerated path. The teacher for the course told me I’m smart and discussed several degrees that would help me have a different job in prison, so I plan on obtaining my nursing degree after I get my GED in the hopes I can get out of cleaning toilets for the next fifteen years.
I finish cleaning the bathroom and go back to my cell for two hours and study for my GED. The alarm rings, signaling it’s time to line up for visitation.
Strict rules exist. You can’t touch the visitor, or they can be removed from the list. You get thirty minutes, and that is it, not a second longer.
When I get into the room, I wait five minutes until my family are admitted. Ryland and Hudson both come in, and I clench my jaw, holding back the emotions I feel.
They are clenching theirs as well.
They sit across from me, Ryland on my right and Hudson on the left.
“You doing okay?” Ryland asks.
“I’m dealing.”
“You need more money in your account?” Hudson asks.
“No. I’m fine.”
“Tell us what happened,” Ryland calmly says.
“I can’t. You’ll all get killed.”
Hudson sighs. “We already figured that. But you can trust us, Bro.”
Ryland looks around the room then back at me. In a low voice, he says, “The two people we discussed. They did it?”
I stare at him.
“Bro code is in play,” Ryland says.
Bro code between the Brooks brothers means that whatever is said goes to the grave and is never repeated. I finally cave.
“S or H did the shooting?” Hudson says.
“Does it matter?” I ask.
“Yes. Tell us.”
I take a deep breath. “S.”
“Anyone else there?”
I shake my head.
They stare at me for a few minutes.
“You need to keep everyone safe,” I tell them.
“We are...we will,” Hudson assures me.
Ryland’s jaw clenches harder. “I’m going to kill them both.”
“No. It’s my vengeance to take. You don’t want to end up in the cell next to me. I need you both to make sure everyone stays safe. As long as I’m in here, and I keep my mouth shut, everyone will be fine. This runs deeper than only those two. Who knows how far.”
Hudson licks his lips. “Then that’s what Ryland and I will work on. We’ll find out who else is involved in this.”
“There is something else I don’t understand.”
Ryland raises his eyebrows at me. “What’s that?”
“Why wasn’t I charged with Mia’s murder, too?”
They exchange a glance.
“There was a joint funeral. Clay and Mia were cremated, and her grandparents distributed the ashes in the ocean. We weren’t allowed to go to it. The Crimsons specifically said to keep the Brooks away,” Hudson says.
“Have you all been ostracized by everyone on the island?”
Ryland shifts in his seat. “Don’t worry about that. Focus on staying out of trouble in here and watching your back.”
“Okay.”
“What do you know about S’s father?” Hudson says.
I shrug. “Besides the normal info everyone knows, and what we disclosed to you about the packages, nothing.”
The bell rings for them to leave. They stand up, and I have to stay seated.
“Hey, Beckett,” Ryland says.
“Yeah?”
Ryland and Hudson pound their fists into their chests.
Together we stand, alone we fall.
I pound twice on my heart, clenching my jaw. Vengeance will be mine, and anyone who took part in Clay and Mia’s murder will pay. I can only hope that a slow burn in hell before and after their death will be their punishment.