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“Distant Faces”


**~Chapter Two: Movement Underground

A harsh light beams down almost blinding me, again I was startled from my sleep and I was getting peeved with it. Why must the guards assume I’m up to something? I can’t even fucking sleep without them checking up on me. They use the same excuse always:

That they have to make sure no one is carrying a weapon so they bothered checking every single person in the cell. Hell if you think about it, I got off pretty clean compared to the some of the lame bastards here locked up. Some of them kept saying they were innocent as they were getting pushed into a cell. But haha what a laugh, when you’re in this shitty system, innocence means nothing. If that was the case then if I’m innocent even with the two felonies and a misdemeanor under my belt.

I manage to get up from the flimsy cot I’ve been resting on for the past few hours.

‘Time to eat, 425.” The gruff guard states, slamming open the cell. He kept shining that fucking light in my face as I stumble off disoriented. If I was close enough to him, I would have shove that damn flashlight down his throat already.

“I’m coming.” I gruffly grumble out, making my way out of the cell. I shared the cell with another man, but he was barely there. He was either too passed out or too high to know I’m even around him at times. Drugs was something I was never into. Hell I was smart enough to stay out of that pathway. I wasn’t going to get myself hooked on no shit like that. I mean yeah I tried every drug that was available around here, but I didn’t want nothing to do with it after that first taste. I know I could have been an addict if I kept trying some more, but I didn’t want to screw up my parole and doing/selling drugs was enough to lock you up for another seven to fifteen years. I didn’t need that under my belt, I had enough issues to deal with.

The guard slaps on the cuffs on me as he leads the way downstairs to a badly lit metal cafeteria down the hallway. We looked like pumpkins ripe for the picking in our bright orange stupid ass uniforms as trays of pig slop piled up on a counter to my right. It smelled rancid, I couldn’t stand it, its like someone let the food rot and was planning on letting us eat it anyway. If I didn’t die from being locked up, I would die from food poisoning at this rate.

I managed to get a clean tray piling on some fruits and warm oatmeal. The only thing that was normal around here. I make my way down the line of prisoners as I grab a pint size carton of white milk and a plastic spoon heading towards a table at the end of the room located on the right side. Already there were a few heads there, eating away without a care in a world.

You can call them friends, but I don’t like that word. It sounds almost volatile to the tongue. You can’t trust anyone but yourself in this fucked up place and I learned that from the beginning.

A balding older man snaps his head up at me, gulping: the fear under his eyes as he watches me take a seat across from him.

“X…you made it. I thought you would take a day off from being here.” The man responds, eyeing his food carefully.

I smirk, feeling the metal cuffs dig into my wrists as I rip the plastic off the spoon. “Yeah…surprise, surprise…how’s that grits crap tasting?” I eye his plate and frown. It looked like vomit, the way the thick oats clumped up in bumps. I would rather prefer my non-lumpy stuff compared to his. Half of the cooks here don’t know what they’re doing in the kitchen anyways, some of them just wanted to ‘volunteer’ to help out here. But I knew better. The way they would look at us like animals with no hearts, the way they would whisper to one another whenever a prisoner walks past them. They didn’t care about this prison system or us. They would much rather make sure we don’t leave and keep an eye out for us.

“It’s…its ok I guess.” The man whispers out, he looked worn out as if prison was sucking the life away from him. I remember when he first got in: he was scared out of his mind. He was a first time felony, caught in that drug mess out there carrying 4 pints of that white shit when the police arrested him. He claimed he was innocent, that it was a set up, that his so called friend told him to hold the stuff while he himself went to sell some stuff nearby.

Of course, he was played. His so-called friend left the scene of the crime as the 5-0 busted him. Some friend he had huh? This is why I never had friends, or more likely coined that term. Cause friends don’t exist when you the one in trouble. They’re the first ones to leave, which goes to show you how messed up this world is.

I lean back in the rickety chair, chewing on a mint toothpick, the only nice thing that they have around here as the older man looked up at me. “You’s gonna eat your oatmeal?”

“Yeah hands off fatty. I got this. You finish your crap. I’m hungry, I’m eating mines.” I grunt out as the younger man sitting besides me breaks into a snicker. He had beady eyes that slat and were always narrowed, his red carrot colored hair sat styled in spikes. They called him Carrot top, but it wasn’t for his hair. He was the drug dealer within the prison. He placed red berries and bags of coke together in his hair…hence the name. Yeah…people still do it in here: hell the guards lit up a few rolls every once in a while. Which is the reason why Carrot was still in business. He gets his stuff mailed to him, up here in Attica Correctional Facility. I was caught doing illegal transactions in Florida a year ago and they send me here to New York. Attica is one of the grimiest places around I’ve been in. Not like the jails down south, the people up here are too doped on rules that I get more time here than anywhere else. Pretty fucked up if I should say so myself.

Carrot snickers, crossing his arms on his chest as he looks over to Uber, one of the nicest inmates around. I never got that why that kid was so nice in a world of insanity here. But he was, people say its cause he’s slow…retarded to a point that maybe he just didn’t understand the repercussions of his actions. Which could be why he never got out, simply because the ones in charge here thought he didn’t understand his actions yet.

So I’m in jail…again…I hate this world and yet I keep coming back to it cause there’s nothing out there for me to do or turn to. My family wants nothing to do with me after I got locked up again the second time. It broke my mom’s heart when I was sent off to jail. But I couldn’t help it. It was like I had to do what I had to do and if I was caught…which I was. It would be worth it. I have my violent tendencies at times. I can snap like any other person when I’m under pressure and I can physically attack someone when the time is needed. But I never killed anyone. No…as much as I wanted to take the life away from so many people before hand, I never had the heart to do it. Not sure why really…maybe there’s a soft spot in me. I don’t like to call that out, but it could be that, other wise why not take up a Beretta and blast some sucker out when they needed it. Maybe I am soft…who cares…

Uber smiles at me, the lovable fart looked like a kid trapped in an adult man’s body. His big gray eyes and squished up nose makes him look like a cabbage patch doll gone wrong. He’s pale compared to the bastards locked up here, pretty ivory colored, which is why he’s the Uber Ivory…heh. Stupid ass name. People give each other names here to form some kind of alliance…almost a friendship if I should have to say. They’re not my friends…no. I like talking to them though, they let me be me. I don’t have to hide behind the bars or listen to the bitches here tell me what to do. For that one moment at the table, I can be me…Xavier, the smart one of the group.

Uber leans forward on the table towards us three gleaming like a kid at a candy shop: “Guys you know what I was looking at?”

Carrot raises his eyebrows, he leans against the chair eyeing the man.

Joey was still slurping down his plate greedily eating as he looks over at Uber, talking between bites: “What’s that?”

Uber grins, pointing to a 24 inch color television set propped in the corner of the room. I squint, trying to get closer to the screen. I think I was beginning to lose my eye sight, I could barely make out what’s being shown. I get up from the seat as I see a guard run over to me grimacing, holding out a gun at me as I raise my eyes. One movement and they all go insane. I can’t even scratch my ass without them all assuming I’m going to do something. I walk towards the television, taking just a few steps to it as the guard shouts out for me to take a seat.

“I can’t see the tv…I’m just moving a little closer to see it, that’s it.” I ease the security down. The guard glares at me as I get closer to the tv set, stopping to look above me at the news. I blink and smirk, seeing my face on it…

But wasn’t me…no…no it was my brother…my long lost brother…momma didn’t say there was another me…I was adopted by her as she told me when I was getting locked up the second time over a year ago. She didn’t tell me much more until I did the research on it. It was only yesterday or a few days ago that I found out. I so happened to work in a department of making those trashy cheap jewelry little kids wear out there. One of them was of a group…some music group I never really paid mind too…until I saw my face starting right back at me. I kept the necklace in my cell and looked it over confused, trying to figure out why I have a brother when I was told I was the only child in my family. But this man…this other me…he had a brother and sisters, a mother and father…all a big happy family. He was famous, he sang, he did music, hell he even went into real estates. He’s fucking wealthy rich for doing crap. And here I was, locked up for making a simple wrong choice. He was a celebrity in his own name and women would scream his name out when he did concerts with his band members.

I can get women to scream my name but it takes my dick for that to happen. And being locked up here for a year deprives me of any social contact with women unless it was the lady serving the food here. So I guess I’m stunned by the whole news…seems my mother confessed that over thirty one years ago when she was giving birth to her son, the docs screwed her over giving her one of the children from the lady that had twins…

I was given to her. I love my mom, she’s the best thing God could have ever created for me in this pathetic life and it gave me a reason to life. So when I see this other person looking like me I feel cheated of life. I could have been in his place…I could have been the wealthy one, the one that would make women and girls of all ages eyes light up at the sight of me…but I wasn’t. I was locked up here behind bars like a rat in a maze. Going around circles only to end up back where I started: behind bars.

I just blink, almost hypnotized at the tv set as this man…my so called brother started speaking surrounded by four other men. They call themselves the Backstreet Boys…what a laugh. They did shitty music for the public and they’re famous. Goes to show how messed up this world really is. I hear Uber jump out yelling out something.

I glance over at him as he stands up happily pointing to the tv. “X look, its you! You on tv!” He bounces around as Carrot and Joey stare stunned at the tv.

“That ain’t you man! You don’t know those guys. You here with us.” Joey shouts out, wiping the slop off his lips.

Uber frowns, still pointing to the screen: “No its X! Its X, he’s out there on the tv set and he’s all happy. Look at you X all smiling.” He grins sheepishly, looking over at my direction.

I guess I’m just stunned to see that, to see that I really do have another person out there. That it was possible for me to have a twin…or someone that was identical to my appearance. I just stand there fascinated with the other me. He seemed all bubbly and laid back. And he was nice…something that I didn’t take into consideration when I got into prison. They call him sweet D…what the fuck was that? He was shaking some fans hands and I watch him and the other men wave to the mass as they exit a stage. The entertainment news changes into another music artist as I blink, shaking my head standing there confused.

So it was true…all those lies or what I assume where lies were really true. I have a brother out there and he was the only way to my freedom…
~*~


My watch died a while back, I tried putting batteries in it but to no avail. No one in this stupid hell hole knew of anyone that can fix it. So I was stuck with the time of 12:37 in the afternoon locked in my watch. That was the last time I was outside with some of my buddies before being locked up this third time. That was the last taste of freedom I had since and that time reminded me of it.

Do I hate want I did that I’m in this predicament again? No, its my life, this is how I live it. Some people will never understand it and assume its wrong. But I say don’t count your eggs before they hatch. Life has an odd way of twisting things around and I wouldn’t be surprised if those people are screwed over by now.

I look over at the jerk off that’s passed out yet again in the same cell I’m in. Dinky is the name he told me, his real name is David though. He was caught up in a gang bust a while back and was locked up here before I joined him in the cell.

A guard walks by in his tired blue attire, waving a thick baton, scraping it across our cell startling Dinky. He grunts, his small dark eyes seem to take in his surroundings before sitting up.

The security guard snickers, tipping his navy blue cap at us. If the bars weren’t there I was excited to get my hands around his neck and take out the air from ever reaching that man’s body again. I have evil tendencies granted…but it was people like that, that drove it out.

“425…it looks like your lucky day. Commission is considering giving you parole in the next week or so. You’re gonna have an nice talk with you lawyer now since after all this is your freedom we’re talking about.” The stock guard grins, tapping the baton like bat against the metal bars.

“You serious? Or you yanking my chain here?” I whisper out, heading over to the bars, my eyes looking the man over.

The guard yawns, nodding his head: “Yeah…I’m gonna let you meet your lawyer now just so you know its real.”

I smirk holding back a laugh: I get parole finally. Meaning I’m gaining my freedom back. Everything I lost I can now gain back…and things are looking better already with my little brother out there.

Dinky bolts up from the cot in shock, shaking his head: “Hey wait up! How come he gets to go! I’m still doing my time. That’s unfair.”

“Get over it, you asked for it. Life ain’t fair.” The guard glares at him as he unlocks the cell, sliding it open enough for me to step out.

I look over at Dinky and smile: “Your time will come man. Relax.”

“But I want out too!” Dinky stands up, the tall lanky man frowns, watching my every step as I follow the guard down the hallway. I hear the other inmates shout out things, thinking I was either going down the infamous green mile or to freedom. In reality, those are the only two ways of leaving the place. Either you get your life in order and get parole or screw things up more by getting the death penalty.

I smile feeling good again. I could already smell the fresh air and the wind touching my face. Visions of the pebbled cement and honking of cars as people rush around me to their lives seemed more real now. I was waiting for this for a year and today was my day. I wasn’t going to rush back to jail…no…I got plans now. And it’s all thanks to Howie as he’s called. Heh, how funny life can be.
~**~

**~To Be Continued…~**