Free From – Chapter 22 – July 22nd

I hope you will join me this month as we JOURNEY each day through our short story. It is about finding FREEDOM in the midst of all the captivating pieces in life that steal our peace which we need FREE FROM!

FREE FROM
July 22, 2021

Hebrews 13:3, ‘Identify with those who are in prison as though you were there suffering with them, and those who are mistreated as if you could feel their pain.’ (TPT)

Chapter 22

Legend had never known what a gateway drug was, but he learned quickly. One is never enough; the first high is the most supreme and anything after that is just chasing the wind. It didn’t take long for him to gather a group of buddies once they realized he was around to stay like a broke-down car. Misery loves company; tragedy throws a party. He was the company, and they threw the party, if it included him. They were a sorry lot, true versions of drunk pigs. It didn’t take long for him to add drug paraphernalia and use to his charges. Along with the drug use, came the expense, and suddenly an occasional handyman chore wasn’t quite affluent enough. When the dudes offered him a cut of the profits to get his hands ‘just a little dirty’ on their next run, Legend didn’t hesitate for a moment. Like a Lays® potato chip you can never eat just one. Soon, he was as efficient as the lords and his new gig was more lucrative than anything he ever imagined. Why had he wasted so many years, he wondered often, and when the memories hid in the wings or regret flaunted itself in the rearview mirror, he took another hit or sniffed a second or third line. He was fine—as long as he didn’t think about it. Or them.
Possession with intent to sell doesn’t mess around though, and as the task force busted through the shack they were all holed up in, his life passed before his eyes. Legend knew he was going away for a long time. He had been dodging a bullet for much too long; all the warrants that had been filing themselves away suddenly came to the surface. He gulped, felt his head fall forward into a pile of cocaine and money, and let them wrap the cuffs around his wrists. He was so tired. It had been a wild ride, and one that he was silently relieved had come to a screeching wreck. They offered him immunity and a lesser sentence if he would just help them out with the big guy, and he thought to himself, ‘Ha! That’s a rap, where were you when I needed help?!’ He kept his sneer to himself, and shrugged, “Nah,” he said, “I need a good nap, some hot food and an occasional shower. I’m good.” With a smirk, he added, “It’s all gravy.”

Legend hadn’t counted on, however, the harshness of prison. Nights here and there in county jail were an oxymoron; they left one soft, and lied about the future. It wasn’t what ya knew; it was who. Thank god, he murmured often to himself in the first months, he hadn’t sold out. There were friggin’ eyes everywhere in prison, on every wall, in every cell, in every place where you least expected it; someone was always watching, forever listening. You trusted no one. He’d be a dead man if he had thought he could work himself a simpler, shorter sentence; yea, a death one. He knew some guys, met some others, and established himself. Soon the bullies stopped trying to get a piece of him. He learned to keep to himself even though he hated his own company. He did his job, making .13 a day, scarfed down grub that had no taste, and reminisced about the war, his childhood and his dad, the thug. Anything to keep from picturing Annie and imagining Breize and Blayze and how grown they’d be by now. What a life! he thought; hiding in closets as a kid to crawling on his belly in enemy camps to running a crew to working the streets and snorting money to .13 friggin’ cents a day and a bowl of beans.
“You Legend?”
“Who’s askin’?” Legend glared through the bars at the wide berth of a black man who had the whitest smile he’d ever seen.
“Jesus,” the man said, his grin eating half his face.

To Be Continued…