“I love the stories that they tell about you boys growing up.Mostly it’s just little bits of trouble that you got into as kids, but they’re funny to know that you all were just like every little kid around.”He said they had their fair share of cuts and bruises, too.“I bet you did.Then, when Dakota got married, and then the other two, it made it a little bit easier around the household.I think that it’s amazing that you all still hang out together.Even the married ones.”
“We were all we had.It was hard for a person to go anywhere and not know one or two of us.Even when we had part-time jobs around the town we lived in, we’d see one another.”Lance told her how they all took home their paychecks when they were still living at the home and made sure that there was money for fees and such.“Grannie would make sure we had spending money too if we worked, but we were all so happy to have a place to be nightly that we’d hand over our checks without a word.They raised us to be that generous with our money.Like I said, family is all we had back then.”
“Now look at you.You all still have each other and so much more.Coming here opened up a whole new life for all of you.One I bet you didn’t expect either.”Lance said he didn’t know what he’d do without Georgie in his life.“I know what you mean.I love Kayce so much, and I can’t believe howmuch I love just being around him.He’s become my best friend, too.Plus all the others in the family, too.”
At noon, Lance went to get them lunch.There were always vendor trucks around that they could go to, and today was no different.When he came back with Cubans, a delicious sandwich made with roasted pork, ham, dill pickle, and Swiss cheese, and grilled on a specialized bread, she couldn’t believe how good it tasted.When he ate all of his, she gave him what she couldn’t eat of hers.They were that good.
By three, they had taken a total of thirty calls each.Most of them were going to have interviews on how they could get help.While a few of them were calls like the one she’d had earlier, just people trying to scam a good charity out of some of their cash.She even had one where a woman wanted to drop off her kids for the day so that she could go to work.She said that’s what a charity could do for her today.Of course, they didn’t take her up on her fine offer but told her that she could call the health department to see if they could help her out.
“Once, when I was working, I had a woman come to the door to ask about diapers.That’s a big thing for them to need.They’re so expensive, and when she needed help, as you can imagine, she couldn’t wait for a week, as she needed them now.I had her come by, and I gave her what money I had on me.It wasn’t much, like thirty dollars.But it was enough with what she had to get some diapers.”He smiled at the memory, and she joined him.“I wouldn’t have done it if Parker hadn’t made it so that no one can enter this building with ill will in their hearts.That sort of made me realize that she did indeed need the money, and I felt good about giving it to her.”
“Would you do it again?”He shook his head, and she asked him why.“I mean, it turned out well for you and her.Why don’t we have a few bucks around so that we can do that when it’s needed?”
“Because word would get out and we’d be bombarded by people every day.Can you imagine giving thirty bucks to every person who had a sad story?I mean, that woman from earlier would have taken it and told all her friends how she’s scammed this place.They’d be lined up out the door to get their thirty bucks.I might be jaded, and I probably am, but I’ve learned that people as a whole are screwed up.A person is all right and will stop to help you if you’re injured along the side of the road.But get a group of people together, and they’ll pull out their cell phone to record what’s happening to you before calling 911.”She told him she was sorry that he felt that way.“I am too somedays.That’s why I blow glass and make love to my wife.Because I’m afraid of getting so deep into thinking that the world is a terrible place that I’ll never come out of it.Today I shouldn’t have come in, but I thought working with you would be fun.And it has been, don’t get me wrong.But I’ve had a rough couple of weeks getting work done, and I’ve been suffering.”
“Why don’t you go home?I can handle this for the next hour.And if I can’t, they’ll just have to call back when they don’t get me.”He asked her if she was sure.“I am.I’m not down in the dumps like you are, so I’m fine.Go ahead and leave, and you’ll feel better once you get home with Georgie.Go and have a good day, Lance.You deserve it.”
When he finally left, she only had an hour to go.The phone rang about a half dozen times, but she could handle it.After locking up and heading home, she felt better, too.She was going to talk to Kayce about Lance and see if he could not work the phones for a while.He needed a break before it became too much for him.
Chapter 7
William wanted to see his daughter, and she’d better get her ass to see him.There was no reason whatsoever that he should be in prison right now, and they were saying that he was going to have murder charges added to his sentence when he was sentenced, and that wasn’t fair either.Things were not going his way, and he couldn’t understand what the big deal was.He needed answers, and he was going to by god get them, or he was going to have to hurt someone.Someone finally answered the phone at the police station where he’d been.
“Yes, I want someone there to get in touch with my daughter.Her name is Molly Toby.”They said that they didn’t do that.“Yes, you do.You’ve done it for me before.I’m locked up in prison now, and no one is helping me understand what is going on.Even my lazy sons are here, and they don’t know what’s going on either.”
“I can give her a message, but I don’t have any way of transferring a call to her if she doesn’t want me to.”He said that would be fine and told the officer what he wanted.“You want her to come and visit you in prison and to bring money.You didn’t say how much money to bring, so am I to assume you want her to bring enough to put in your fund?”
“Yes, that’s right.In her brothers’ funds, too.A couple of grand each would be enough for starting, and then after the first week, we can see how that goes.”The man whistled, and he didn’t understand that either.“Just tell her, as her father, I demand that she come and see me, and to bring money.Someone here should know how much it’ll cost to have me bailed out of them.That judge did me wrong, and I don’t believe that I belong here anymore.These people aren’t nice to me.”
“They’re not nice, or they’re not doing what you want them to do?There’s a big difference, you understand.”He said that he didn’t understand anything going on around him.“Just tell me your name and a phone number where she can reach you.”
“I’m in prison, there’s no number here where she can get in touch with me.And I’ve tried to get one of the guards to give me their cell phone so that I can call her, but they said that it’s against the rules for some reason.How am I supposed to get in touch with her if there are all these rules that I’m supposed to abide by?And tell me this, why is it that I have to share my cell with someone else who isn’t as clean as I am?He’s nasty, is what he is.”
“I don’t have anything to do with that.You’ll have to take that up with the prison warden.”He said they won’t let him see him.“I would imagine that he’s a busy man, what with running a big prison like he is.”
After getting off the phone with the man, his phone call was just cut off because he’d hit his time limit.He went back to his cell.That’s why he needed a cell phone so badly.It didn’t cut you off in mid-sentence.When he got into his cell, the man he was sharing with was naked, lying on his bunk.It nearly had him running from the room, but all he did was yell for the guards.He wasn’t supposed to do that, and he told on him every time.
“It’s too hot just sitting in the cell all day.Why don’t you take yourself someplace else so that I can have my free time?I ain’t bothering you any.”He pulled on his dirty underwear when he was told to.“It’s not like I’m subjecting you to my fantasies.I’m just naked all the time.Damn bastard.”
“I don’t care how hot it is in the cell.You’ll not be spreading your germs all over the place while you share with me.If this keeps up, you’re going to have to find someplace else to bunk.I hate germs of any kind.”When he pulled on his pants, he felt marginally better, but the man was repulsive.“When was the last time you had a bath or shower?You smell bad, too.Christ, of all the people that I have to bunk with, why did it have to be you?”
“Just lucky, I guess.Just calm your horses.I’m dressed now.I’m also hot, so it’s going to makeme smell worse.Not that I care, but you should get yourself some smelly candles from the store so that you can burn them.Maybe you’ll burn the place down too while you’re at it.Won’t that be a hoot?”His roommate, whose name he never remembered, was getting on his last nerve.All he wanted him to do was to clean up after himself, but he thought it was funny to rub things into his face.Christ, he needed to talk to the warden soon, or he was going to be bat shit crazy just trying to keep himself healthy.“You think it’s a walk in the park being in here with you all the time?It’s not let me tell you.”
Going out into the general population again, he didn’t think it was any better.There was a man doing his nails right there at the table he’d eaten at last evening.Another man was playing cards with cards so dirty they were black from the user’s hands.Sitting at a table close to the guard’s station, he was alone there.Someone was going to have to get him his daughter here so that she could get him out of here.She wasn’t much good for anything else; she might as well make it so that he could be free of all the people in the prison, at least.
William didn’t read the newspaper for anything but to see if anyone he knew had died.He would occasionally look up some arrests that had happened around town, but never saw his name in the paper.That’s why he was so confused about the murder thing.If he was going to be arrested for murdering again, why wasn’t his name in the paper?He thought the judge had it all wrong until he got here.Then he heard from several inmates that they were in for their third time murdering someone.He just couldn’t believe it.
“Inmate, you have a phone message.It’s from your daughter.She said to stop calling her that she likes you right where you are.”He asked about bailing him out.“There was no bail set for you, so there is nothing that she can pay to get you out.”
“That’s not right.I have to have bail.That’s the way things work when you’re in jail.”He pointed out that he wasn’t in jail but in prison, and things were different from what they were there.“I don’t see why they are.It’s the same thing.People are still in cells because they did something wrong.I’ve done nothing wrong other than have myself a daughter who is as ungrateful as her brothers.At least they could be depended on when I have a job to do.She’s worthless.”They didn’t say anything back to him, so he asked again about using one of their cell phones.They asked if he had her number.“It should be programmed into your phone.It was on mine when I had it.Just look under bitch.That’s what I had her named on my phone.”
The three men standing there laughed and asked him why that would be in their phone.He explained to them that he’d put it in his phone, and it should be in all cell phones.That’s the way things work.
“No, it doesn’t.You had your own numbers put into your cell phone, and I have my own.Not that I’m going to let you use my cell phone, but what do you want to call her for?She’s made it perfectly clear that she doesn’t want to talk to you.You should just leave her alone.”He said that she’s his daughter, and he demanded things from her that she should be doing.“Obviously not, or she’d be here visiting you right now.I’m thinking that if you keep bothering her, she’s going to complain to the right person and get your phone privileges taken away from you for good.”
People were always thinking he was stupid.He might mess up once in a while, but he hadn’t worked a day in his life and had a good one, too.There was always money around for him to snitch, and he was smart enough to know when to walk away when his guts were telling him to.Yes, sir, people underestimated him all the time, and he was happy for it.It showed him how smart he was when they did that to him.
He had to think of a way to get Molly here so that he could talk to her.He might be pissed off at her, but she was his only hope of getting out of here.Since she was fixing up his house, surely she had money to spare when it came to him.The very least she could do was set him up a fund so that he could bribe the guards into getting him a new cell without anyone to share it with.Then he thought of something else.
