Jail Time

It could have happened to anybody, he told himself, it wasn’t my fault, I couldn’t have stopped them in time. But in his heart he knew that he hadn’t tried to stop them at all. There was time and he knew it. His life was to be full of guilt from this point on. As he walked home that night with his head down and shoulders slumped as to protect him from the burden of knowing he could have stopped a murder. He heard the sirens approach him, and he froze. He knew he was the prime suspect. He hadn’t called the police. He had left the scene and he hadn’t been very inconspicuous about that. The police officers told him his rights as they slapped the icy handcuffs around his trembling wrists. This was it. His entire life meant nothing up until this point

            At the police station, he explained that the man was coming into his store being disrespectful and disrupting his business, so he asked some of his friends to rough him up a little bit.

            “I didn’t ask them to kill him,” he explained.

            “ How do we know that?” the detective assigned to his case asked.

            They had offered him a cigarette and asked if he needed a lawyer, all the formalities that come with being in trouble with the law. If this were in the old west the sheriff wouldn’t have done anything to him. But it wasn’t, and he knew that this would go on for months, maybe years. Everyone he knew would ignore him, his business would go down the toilet and his life, as he knew it, would be over. Everything he thought about went back to the thought of his life being over. M aybe he would commit suicide. That way he wouldn’t have to deal with his family leaving him or anything sad. But he knew that was the easy way out and he needed to be a man and deal with the cards he was dealt.

            The detective left the room to confer with his superiors, and when he came back the news he carried was devastating.

“We wont be able to get you a court appearance until Tuesday. Unfortunately, we are packed so you will have to stay here until then.”

            “I can’t, I have a business to run! Please, cant I just pay bail and get out of here tonight?” the police officer could hardly understand him through his sobs.

            “I’m sorry. We will get you some food and the clothes you need to stay here. Good luck,” the cop said as he left to gather John’s prison attire.

            John went to his cell and tried to sleep, but the loud noises made by the other prisoners kept him awake. He viewed them as intoxicated scum that didn’t deserve a life outside of jail. But he quickly realized that he was now a part of this scum, and he didn’t deserve the life that he was given.

            The day of his court date had come and then went. He was sentenced to three years for conspiracy to commit murder. The years had passed, and he was finally released, a little early for turning in the man who committed the murder. The fresh air was amazing against his nostrils and it wasn’t filled with the stench that was created by his fellow inmates that he was used to. John had a chance at a new life and he wouldn’t waste it like he did before.