The
body was lifeless. Officers and guards gathered round to sneak
a peek at the seven bullet holes that drenched his back in warm
blood. They laughed and joked about the horrific events that had
occurred just a few minutes earlier, the smiles on their faces
revealing the darkest side of the human psyche. I wavered at a
distance, not quite sure what to think as they dragged the stiff
away, with a bloody path following it along the cold cement floors
of my once humble abode, Kingsway Penitentiary. He, the dead man,
had been locked in his cell for the night, reading a copy of an
old kids' comic book entitled The Last Stand of James T. Tall.
These books incensed him; the possibility of a life other
than the one he had been handed was an idea that haunted his every
thought since he passed those old steel gates.
That
had been four years earlier, on a cool October morning. As he
entered his cell for the first time after a scalding hot, hose
bath, the others taunted and teased him the entire night. This
went on for the first three years of his stay, yet he never let
it get to him. Everything was building up inside and yet he never
blew up at anyone; not so much as a childish name-calling fit
broke from his lips. He was a quiet man who chewed his fingernails
to stubs and often sat and stared at the water stains on the ceiling
above him, contemplating his eventual escape. The others grew
tired of those antics and eventually moved on to newer entries
into the Illinois State Penal System, young kids who had mouths
two miles wide across their face by the time the others got to
them. Meanwhile he stayed still, reading his stories for boys
that were being sent to him by the only friend he seemed to have
in this world.
Max
Martens was only ten when he passed away after a three-year bout
with leukemia that saw him confined to a hospital bed. He was
embarrassed to set foot outside that room because of his frail
appearance and bald head; it was his own personal jail cell. He
didn’t have much to do and took to writing letters to the
only other place where someone would have just as much time to
lie around and feel sorry for themselves as he did, the state
prison. He wrote the silent inmate every week and included that
week’s serial edition of his favorite comic, just so the
man could have something to pass the time the way Max had. They
became the best of friends, speaking of a life less painful or
a world where they could run free from the stresses and boredom
that had dominated their lives in recent years. Forests to camp
in, racetracks to speed along, and busy city streets they could
walk: these were the simple places that appealed to them.
Max
had written his weekly letter and included that week’s comic
edition, yet there was a note accompanying the letter, written
by his nurse at Max’s hospital. It was to inform him that
young Max’s battle had finally ended that week and he was
now in a better place where he could be free. They had spoken
of this life and now Max had finally found it, albeit in a way
the silent inmate had never though of. He wanted to meet Max,
and experience this life as soon as he possibly could. He could
think of only one way to flee his current situation and when the
opportunity arose, he took it.
The
opening guard was just a few feet away that morning, unlocking
each cell one at a time and escorting the inmates into the courtyard
for their daily exercise routine. When the guard unlocked his
cell, he stepped forth and pounced upon him with mighty force,
knocking them both to the floor. Within seconds the bullets were
flying and he was dead, his spirit slowly leaving his body and
stepping to my current position, a few feet away. He was me and
I was him, and we were all together, John Lennon would have said.
But I am not him anymore, I am a new person, one that can experience
those dreams that Max and I had talked about in those letters
for the past three years. And as I stood in shock of what had
just occurred, not believing that I actually went through with
it, I watched the trail of blood begin to pool in the center of
the block. The guards were happy to have me gone no doubt, they
always wanted to know what was going on in my mind and couldn’t
stand the silence I put forth every night. But that silence was
over now, as I ventured through those cold, brick walls and forth
into the luminous afternoon. The outside was different than I
remember, things looked new and fresh. But as I drifted through
the surrounding forest with its towering trees that were mere
children when I first arrived, I finally saw what I had come for.
Max was sitting next to a small fire he had fashioned out of twigs
and stones. As I moved toward him he smiled and nodded his head,
which was covered in thick black hair that ran down to his pink
cheeks. This is the life we had been waiting for, in a world of
our own.
