Under Arrest

Chapter 34: One Way Ticket

       “Moltisanti! Cut the chatter!” yelled a guard overseeing the inmates do their chores.

       “Relax boss. All that grumpiness makes you look old,” Dante always fended a guard’s shout off with his acid humor.

       The guard didn’t ride on and just kept pointed his attention towards watching over the prisoners.

       “We’ve got to come up of something,” whispered Dante as he walked by his friend who was busy with the hand shovel.

       As he got the chance, he went closer to his friend who awaited his ideas if there were any, “Screw the shed, we’ll find something else, something already in the locker room.”

“That’s fine but we’re risking a lot if we take chances.”

       Cristoval knew that. He himself wasn’t willing to rely on pure luck that they’d find something as good as a crowbar in the room they were going to sneak into. Thinking of an alternative, he asked Dante when the guard wasn’t looking.

       “Hey, do you think pliers would do? They’re easier to sneak in under our clothes.”

       “Trust me, that was my first thought, but I’ve already tried besting padlocks with pliers and it didn’t get me through my locked diary,” said Dante, recalling the days when he used to keep a journal about how he fared with his life, “In the end, I admitted defeat and decided to write on a new one.”

       “…You had a diary?” Cristoval grinned.

       “Never mind that.”

       They went back to both work and thinking of another way. While watering the plants, something bumped into Cristoval’s mind, a realization he didn’t want to be true, but it did seem so. He didn’t want to knock the wind off his friend’s sail, but he had to say it before they did something stupid.

       “Do you think maybe tonight’s not a good idea?”

       “…yeah,” regretfully admitted Dante.

       Seeing that they seemed to share a similar estimation of things, Cristoval ruled the day off of the list of days which would be a best time to make their escape. Odds were against them, but he discovered that Dante was thinking of a very different thing from what he did.

       “Let’s ask for help.”

       Cristoval’s eyes widened.

       “What?! You want to put someone else on board?! You’re crazy!”

       “Two hands are better than one. And not just someone but two “someones”. I’m sure whoever we decide to bring with us would want his cellmate to have freedom too,” Dante explained.

       Cristoval almost didn’t agree with the plan, but it was Dante’s call. He’s only a hitch hiker as well, for Dante was the one given the keys to liberty not him. After getting back from the water pump to refill his can, Cristoval paused on a spot near Dante.

       “Who do you have in mind?”

       “Someone in the night shift. Tools are cleaned in the middle of the night and the ones in maintenance duty wear suits sewn from top to bottom that make it possible to hide something underneath. It’s the only way I was able to come up. If you have another, I hope yours is better because I really don’t want to find us carrying dead weight.”

       “And I thought you were letting me do all the thinking,” Cristoval laughed, “We’ll need to talk them to it first. The question now is who in this shithole could we trust?”

       “I know a guy.”

       It was now four in the afternoon, and most prisoners were outside their cells to spend the trapped freedom inside the walls. The usual daily scene played on the screen, some playing ball, some playing chess, and some working out. Others usually amused themselves by having conversations with one another, but one simply couldn’t talk with the same person over and over again every single day. Dante and Cristoval approached someone leaning on the wall as he took a smoke. Everybody dies, but this chain smoker seemed to want to pass away quicker than an average male does, usually having an average lifespan of sixty years or so. Studies showed that smoking subtracts ten years from your precious years.

       One look at Ronaldo and you’d say he should’ve been dead years ago, for he smoked like a winter chimney.

       “How’re you doing?” Dante greeted as he approached from his left.

       “I’m having a bad day. What do you want?” Ronaldo said as he exhaled the gray fumes.

       “Bad day? You seem perfectly fine to me. I’m more worried than your lungs. You think they’ll make it another year?”

       “Get lost,” Ronaldo looked away, not interested in having Dante’s company.

       Not giving up, Dante knew they were just in the foreplay. He hadn’t told him what he wanted from him. It was never his habit to expose his personal interest right away, so he waited for a moment. After Ronaldo coughed, he asked, “Mind if I ask, how many cartons do you smoke every day?”

       “Not much, just a bunch of mind your own business,” Ronaldo gave no shit.

       “Don’t you feel sorry for your two airbags? They’re going to die before you do.”

       “What the hell is wrong with you? Can’t find anyone else to piss off? Go bother someone else.”

       “Oh, well, alright. I just came by because I was wondering how much you’d like to have them checked in a proper hospital.”