Conviction
01/01
“Moore!” The man sitting at the desk calls my name. My head lifts up, giving the authority figure the proper eye contact through the steel bars that ran from ceiling to floor, encasing me in similarity to some rabid animal. This concrete bench has been my bed for the evening, but sleep was not synonymous with this rather firm mattress. Most of my evening was spent weeping with my face in my bonded hands. Once the initial shock and disparity had passed over, I refocused myself, meditating on the many wrongs in my life and my reluctance to correct these known wrongs.
“Yes sir?” I answered; my voice is weighted with the burden of humility. There is nothing I can do for myself at this point. All I desire is a pair of pajamas and a bed with an abundance of covers to hole up in and sleep forever in the warmth. But at this point, both items are a trivial matter; they are the distant paradise and forbidden fruit all in one.
The man behind the desk had been moderating me all night. His shift was ending, I could tell by his body language as his head frequently danced to the ticking analog clock, which I personally referred to as the metronome from the pits of hell. With the mustache like the asphalt at the initiation of winter, dusted with sparse flakes, he was the stereotypical cop. “What are you going to do with yourself?” He asked, clicking away at a screen that only accentuated the deep wrinkles and bags under his dark irises.
I sighed, chuckling loudly. Apparently it was a slow night for criminals as I was the only occupant of the cell thus far. “I’ve been asking myself the very same thing.”
And the answer was always the same, don’t get caught next time. I’d move to a more secluded street where I was more or less another meaningless shadow that lurked around the crumbling bricks of rental properties. My whole foundation was built around not getting caught, this being the only time my faith had failed me. “Well, we can start with breakfast, right? The most important meal of the day.” The policeman yawned, kicking the creaky and out of date office chair out from the desk. I can’t fathom eating at a moment where my desperateness is at this severity, but maybe food will fill the void of emptiness that ravages my insides and festers in my limbs like gangrene.
“You’re treating a criminal to breakfast in bed, sir.” I chuckle, trying to keep the banter light for my own sake.
“We’ve got to have extra donuts lying around here somewhere…” He sarcastically grumbled. Why was he treating me like this? I was here to be held until further punished, not to make wise cracks with the guard. Although I did not deserve this kindness, I was going to milk it as long as I possibly could. “Here you go.” He opened the holding cell’s door; he placed a napkin on the bench with several delectable morsels atop of the floral pattern etched into the paper product. The angel also inched a plastic cup sloshing with water towards me.
“Thank you so much.” The tears threatened to fall once more. I wanted to tell him how much I appreciated the mercy that was shown, how much I envied his ability to get past the fact I was arguably the lowest member of society, but I remained soundless and brimming with tears. The man seemed to understand as he only nodded and left the cell to attend to his post.
I consumed the half of the bagel in a hurry, the constraints of handcuffs not limiting my enthusiasm for the breakfast staple. “I don’t want to see you back here, sweetie.” The man broke the silence as I was about to shove a grape in my mouth and swallow the sourly sweet dessert of nature.
“You won’t.” I lied. As much as I could fight the chances of getting caught, I always knew there’d be someone out there that would betray me at my most vulnerable. Connections in the underground world of any city are either a one way ticket to death or time off a sentence. Whatever side you pick, it all comes back to haunt you. What I’ve learned from my predecessors before me: the people you rat out on will eventually get out of jail, and when they are set free, they are not keen on making amends.
“In a couple of months, you won’t be a minor anymore.” The man rattled off. My mother used to shake the walls of our home when she bellowed a similar statement to the one that currently echoed off the painted white cinderblocks.
I gulped the water down as if I’d hiked through a section of the Sahara. The water was more refreshing on my calloused throat than the roughness of the bagel was. After I finished off the cup, I sat it down beside me with as much poise as two linked together wrists could manage. “I know.” I sighed, wondering what my mother was going to say this time.
She’d picked me up from school after ordeals like this, she’d picked me up from bus station upstate, my mother even came to a mental hospital after I had mislead a group of random people in the public. Actually, as I sat and thought about it, county jail was the last place on the checklist of “How to Know You Suck at Parenting.”
“You have two roads ahead of you, and I can’t see which one you’ll go down.” The man articulated. He probably repeated this speech for everyone; it probably gave him an out of proportion hero complex. But I kept my smart mouth closed, as he was my drink of water after my evening in the ferocious conflagration of hell that existed on Earth as a concrete bench. “It’s completely equal, you have the smarts to be an innovator, but you also have the smarts to commit some of the most heinous crimes a person could fathom.”
His words were the truth. I, personally, could not even see my path. This scared me out of my wits. If I cannot shape my life and choose the direction it goes in, who will? The epiphany convicts me more than the law ever will. Glued to the bench with my wrists in the cuffs, I recollect what these hands have done, what they have destroyed. Out of utter disgust, I promise myself one thing.
When I am freed, these hands will create something.
“Yes sir?” I answered; my voice is weighted with the burden of humility. There is nothing I can do for myself at this point. All I desire is a pair of pajamas and a bed with an abundance of covers to hole up in and sleep forever in the warmth. But at this point, both items are a trivial matter; they are the distant paradise and forbidden fruit all in one.
The man behind the desk had been moderating me all night. His shift was ending, I could tell by his body language as his head frequently danced to the ticking analog clock, which I personally referred to as the metronome from the pits of hell. With the mustache like the asphalt at the initiation of winter, dusted with sparse flakes, he was the stereotypical cop. “What are you going to do with yourself?” He asked, clicking away at a screen that only accentuated the deep wrinkles and bags under his dark irises.
I sighed, chuckling loudly. Apparently it was a slow night for criminals as I was the only occupant of the cell thus far. “I’ve been asking myself the very same thing.”
And the answer was always the same, don’t get caught next time. I’d move to a more secluded street where I was more or less another meaningless shadow that lurked around the crumbling bricks of rental properties. My whole foundation was built around not getting caught, this being the only time my faith had failed me. “Well, we can start with breakfast, right? The most important meal of the day.” The policeman yawned, kicking the creaky and out of date office chair out from the desk. I can’t fathom eating at a moment where my desperateness is at this severity, but maybe food will fill the void of emptiness that ravages my insides and festers in my limbs like gangrene.
“You’re treating a criminal to breakfast in bed, sir.” I chuckle, trying to keep the banter light for my own sake.
“We’ve got to have extra donuts lying around here somewhere…” He sarcastically grumbled. Why was he treating me like this? I was here to be held until further punished, not to make wise cracks with the guard. Although I did not deserve this kindness, I was going to milk it as long as I possibly could. “Here you go.” He opened the holding cell’s door; he placed a napkin on the bench with several delectable morsels atop of the floral pattern etched into the paper product. The angel also inched a plastic cup sloshing with water towards me.
“Thank you so much.” The tears threatened to fall once more. I wanted to tell him how much I appreciated the mercy that was shown, how much I envied his ability to get past the fact I was arguably the lowest member of society, but I remained soundless and brimming with tears. The man seemed to understand as he only nodded and left the cell to attend to his post.
I consumed the half of the bagel in a hurry, the constraints of handcuffs not limiting my enthusiasm for the breakfast staple. “I don’t want to see you back here, sweetie.” The man broke the silence as I was about to shove a grape in my mouth and swallow the sourly sweet dessert of nature.
“You won’t.” I lied. As much as I could fight the chances of getting caught, I always knew there’d be someone out there that would betray me at my most vulnerable. Connections in the underground world of any city are either a one way ticket to death or time off a sentence. Whatever side you pick, it all comes back to haunt you. What I’ve learned from my predecessors before me: the people you rat out on will eventually get out of jail, and when they are set free, they are not keen on making amends.
“In a couple of months, you won’t be a minor anymore.” The man rattled off. My mother used to shake the walls of our home when she bellowed a similar statement to the one that currently echoed off the painted white cinderblocks.
I gulped the water down as if I’d hiked through a section of the Sahara. The water was more refreshing on my calloused throat than the roughness of the bagel was. After I finished off the cup, I sat it down beside me with as much poise as two linked together wrists could manage. “I know.” I sighed, wondering what my mother was going to say this time.
She’d picked me up from school after ordeals like this, she’d picked me up from bus station upstate, my mother even came to a mental hospital after I had mislead a group of random people in the public. Actually, as I sat and thought about it, county jail was the last place on the checklist of “How to Know You Suck at Parenting.”
“You have two roads ahead of you, and I can’t see which one you’ll go down.” The man articulated. He probably repeated this speech for everyone; it probably gave him an out of proportion hero complex. But I kept my smart mouth closed, as he was my drink of water after my evening in the ferocious conflagration of hell that existed on Earth as a concrete bench. “It’s completely equal, you have the smarts to be an innovator, but you also have the smarts to commit some of the most heinous crimes a person could fathom.”
His words were the truth. I, personally, could not even see my path. This scared me out of my wits. If I cannot shape my life and choose the direction it goes in, who will? The epiphany convicts me more than the law ever will. Glued to the bench with my wrists in the cuffs, I recollect what these hands have done, what they have destroyed. Out of utter disgust, I promise myself one thing.
When I am freed, these hands will create something.