I limp down the prison steps, a free man for the first time in thirty years. I should be smiling, but like a frightened animal my eyes scan and dart everywhere. I wince and hold my chest as my old heart shudders in the heat. Have those beasts bee...
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All right, gotta make this quick. The sun blazes as I shuffle down the front steps of the Walls unit. My fat ass is sweating already. Ray got his release today, too. He's all smiles on the sidewalk ahead of me with everyone else who recovered their freedom today.
"Who gonna sing for Cellblock Three now, Joe?"
I wave it away. "They'll figure something out. Hey, good luck to you, Ray."
But he doesn't reply. His lady just ran up and he's already laughing and buried in her hugs and kisses.
I begin the three blocks to the bank to cash my prison release gate check. My eyes try to adjust to a colorful world not surrounded by red brick. I'm totally exposed like I haven't been for thirty years, and I watch every patch of woods and bushes. Nothing's after me yet, and the boiling daylight helps. Or at least I hope it does.
All the other released cons make a line and the bank takes too long. I keep looking out the windows – good, still nothing. I get my little wad of cash and waddle to the bus station. Damn, my feet hurt and I can't get enough air. 64 years old and can't walk for shit anymore.
The first bus to Austin leaves in four hours, the guy says. I peek outside again, looking into the briars and all the hidey holes. It could take days for them to show. Or minutes. I ain't risking it. "Fuck Austin, then. When's the next bus to anywhere?"
"If we route you through-"
"No." I point to the dock. My hand's shaking. "Get me on that there bus closing up. Sorry, brother, I need out of here right now."
Sitting on the bus as it rolls down the street, I look out and smear milky sweat on the window. Only dust and exhaust chase along the ditches. There's no chill in my spine, no screaming in my ears, and that gives me comfort enough to breathe. I'll get to Austin and Dina eventually. The thing is to keep moving.
In and out of those brick walls everyone I cared about had been safe and steady, and I'd just as soon have died in there, where the freaks couldn't get at me. During those three decades I'd occasionally punch someone just to keep in enough trouble to avoid the parole board. But then they forced this compassionate medical release for my heart – just about pushed me through the door and set me on the curb. Now that I'm out those animals will be moving again, tracking me. The thought of it has got me so wound up that my ticker can't last much longer. That's probably what the board was hoping, that I'd end up face down somewhere. I can't blame them.
The bus rumbles town to town. I feel nervous as the sun gets low. I scan the gloomy countryside, sometimes imagining their dark bounding shapes, but I know they can't keep up if I drift quick enough. People getting on take one look at me and decide to sit somewhere else. Except for this hat-and-suspenders kid with a music case who slides in next to me.
"Now what you got in there?"
"Banjo." He answers me straight, without a flinch. I like that, and feel like singing anyways. Something I picked up in the Unit.
