DRASTIC (Book 4 of the Soundcrush Series)

Chapter 85: Drummer Boys Do The Time

This is a pretty long chapter, but it just didn't feel right to break it up, so settle in and enjoy! 

Bodie, Two and Half Months Later

My alarm rings at 4:45am, and I'm off to the bathroom, quietly shuffling through my assigned dormitory at Camp Hotchkiss. The guard in the viewing room looks at me briefly through the glass, then returns to his Internet viewing. Technically, prisoners aren't allowed out of their bunks before morning count, but in reality he doesn't care where I go or what I do as long as I'm standing outside my cubicle at 5am.

I've been here two weeks, and I've been getting up at 4:45 every morning. I do not want to be standing behind a line of fifty guys after breakfast, all twirling their rolls of toilet paper, waiting, like them, for my turn to take a shit.

Knowing what I knew from juvi about all that, that was my first goal upon arriving here. Establish my early morning routine. I was actually already working on it while I was in custody before my sentencing.

For the first few weeks I was in Federal custody in some government building in Atlanta, I was confined to a room barely bigger than a closet, with a cot a sink and a toilet. I did nothing but sleep. I was that exhausted. The only interruptions of my sleep were the occasional meal, and trips to the interrogation room where I met with an endless stream of Justice Department officials and my legal team. Varrick's visits were also documented as "official".

They were not.

He and I would chat for about fifteen minutes, in which time he would assure me that my mom was holding up just fine and that he saw Marley and Darius every day and they were good, too, and then he would leave me in the interrogation room with his phone for about two hours. I mostly talked to Marley and Darius and my Mom, though I would have brief conversations with Leed and Madam too. Even Marcy and Riley a few times, though Riley's calls were extremely curt and only related to dissolving contracts and deals.

My time in the tiny holding room was thankfully short lived. At my indictment, I was deemed a flight risk and denied bail—a predetermined outcome to keep me safe in custody.

Now, I shoulda gone to a local jail at that point if I didn't have a special deal, but where I actually went was a safe house. It was a dump with roaches, and I couldn't go outside, and a starstruck female FBI agent who got on my nerves was my constant companion, but otherwise I was pretty free to roam around inside the little house, doing whatever I wanted to do. Varrick snuck me a burner and I could talk to Marley and Darius whenever I pleased.

There, I got somewhat reinvigorated. With nothing to do but cool my heels, argue with Darius about why now is the WORST time for him to start his career, and have as much phone sex with Marley as possible, I also managed to read a bunch of books on making prison productive, so I had a plan in place when I got here.

I won't lie, I am luckier than a lot of poor bastards here. I had a pretty good idea what to expect upon arriving, and unlike a lot of them, I wasn't worn down from a frustrating legal battle. The only reason it took two months to actually start my sentence was the slow wheels of justice waiting on my indictment and the tedious lawyering to arrange my final plea deal and surrender terms, plus negotiate me a few perks that admittedly, most guys in prison can't hope to have.

Not even most of the uber-rich hedge fund criminals managed to get a daily email time like I have. Even better than that, they worked me some additional visitation—though its framed as family counseling time with a licensed clinical social worker. The biggest hang up on the final draft of my Justice Department deal, and the one I honestly cared about least, was the film shoot for the Soundcrush documentary. I guess no one has probably ever negotiated a two day film shoot inside Camp Hotchkiss—although that won't happen for a few months. The lawyers and Riley and the warden here are still working out the permissions and the details.