Submission - Dear Martha - Bryce Gleeson
Dear Martha,
It has been too long since we have last spoke. Your letters, though sparse, were a glowing beacon of hope that guided me towards the light through all of these years. Two thousand, eight hundred, and ninety-nine nights have passed since the judge ruled me to be a criminal. I shall not spend another minute past midnight in this cell of mine. Since your last correspondence, I’ve made new friends within these walls. Men whom I wouldn’t associate with outside of here, I assure you, but they have offered to help me get out from under the thumb of the warden and the gang members who reside here with me. I do not belong confined within these walls. I served too long for this country to be locked up for the rest of my good years.
It has been almost a decade I’ve seen a tree or smelled fresh pastries. I yearn to swim in a lake and eat fresh fruit from a tree. Tomorrow, I will begin my long journey to you. I don’t know how, and I certainly don’t know when, but I promise I will meet you after all these years.
A long time ago, you described your face as pale and round, with smile marks and pocks on your forehead. Your nose as long as a witch and your smile as crooked as Nixon. I wonder if what I will see will line up with your caricature of yourself. And I wonder about your teeth, as you refrained from painting a picture of them for me. I will know soon enough.
In a few hours, surely the news will break of my escape, and from there we can plan our rendezvous. I dare to call it a tryst, but I worry that you hold yourself to a standard so high that you would not blemish your reputation by dating an escaped convict. Though my crimes are of merely a financial matter, the label alone is enough to turn heads and tilt noses. Please, I beg of you, give me a chance.
If you are reading this, I am already on my way to you. I hope that you can give me a tour of your city, even as friends.
Sincerely,
Jacob S. Fleischmann
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He lined the glue with his tongue and pinched the envelope shut, writing her name and address in bold blocky letters across the middle of the paper. Six months had passed since he sent her a letter, and six more before then. Her responses must have been lost in the mail, he hoped.
With his back to the cafeteria, he handed the guard the letter. He’d never considered it before now, but if the guards or the warden or the clerk reads the letters, he might not make it out tonight.
His time at the prison had been more burdensome and drearier than he’d imagined. The concrete grew greyer with each year that passed, and the traffic-cone jumpsuits faded to a blotchy pale auburn. Yellow paint along the walls soured like lemons and blue tables became overcast. Now in the end of the season, the grass in the courtyard would turn to hay, and the sky would darken earlier than before. And, at the precipice of his eighth consecutive year, he and the rest of his mates would be locked inside for the Winter to account for the cold.
Without hope for so long, he’d leaned into prison life, making the most of his situation around year two. He was on a first name basis with the guards, and had grown a liking for almost all of them. Officer Brine, the man whom he’d entrusted his letter with, was his least favourite of them all. His dislike came from a lack of understanding of humour. Brine doesn’t laugh at jokes or understand banter among inmates and officers. When someone like Jacob laughs, Brine takes it as an insult on himself rather than accept the humour as a token of friendship. The insult brings lashings or yelling, depending on the severity of the hurt feeling. Respect was demanded from Brine, and so, Jacob extended his hand as a gesture of gratitude for taking his letter. He declined, offering instead a swift nod and a shushing away. That for him was respect returned, and Jacob was satisfied. This was the last time they would meet.
Dinner at the prison that night was as unremarkable as every other meal he’d had at his table. Red sauce with overcooked noodles and undercooked pork meatballs. They’d skimped on the sauce and overcompensated for the lack of spices with an overabundance of salt. Sounds of forced swallows and slurps of cool aid and milk between bites smacked through the dining hall. A fitting sendoff meal; a reminder why he must leave.
The time between recreation and lights out felt twice as long as his sentence. He and the inmates were silent, each soaking in the sights before their great departure. Nostalgia and anxiety whispered through the gym and the library, but none of those who were in on the ruse said a word. A few nods, a handful of thumbs up without smiles. Not so much as a peep.
At nine, the cell bars clanked shut. The guards sauntered by the cells, uncomfortable in the silence. An absence of apish chanting at lights out means trouble.
Jacob sat alone in his cell with the plan for the evening rattling in his head. At midnight, his door lock will disengage. Five minutes later, he’ll leave the cell, crouching along the wall towards E Block. Glusman, his friend, will be waiting for him at the elevator shaft exit. The guards would be alerted to their descent only as they reach the loading dock on Ground Level. No alarms, Glusman told him, and no commotion. They’d be pursued by a lazy night guard who is only checking on the alert because of protocol.
Then, they stick around the loading dock for a while, hiding from the guard, then leave through the manhole under bay six. The drop is ten feet into a thin puddle of dense muddy water. They have to crawl along the pipe, and reach the barred exit to the pond. From there, someone would be in position to pick them up in a van. Then it’s a long road to freedom, somewhere outside Nashville.
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Written by Bryce Gleeson
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