By Joshua Ryan

I woke at 8:00 with the vague impression that I’d done something stupid the night before — probably something stupid in writing.  These days, almost everything I did was in writing.  I checked my email.  Oh God — there was a message from that cop I’d met the day before.  I’d wasted the whole day either talking to him or thinking about what he said.  That whole silly business about problems with my books … And here he was again.  Because I’d sent him a message!  “Time for lunch … dinner …”  Worse and worse.  Dinner was even more serious than lunch.  I hoped he was turning me down.  But no, he was saying he couldn’t do dinner until a week from Tuesday.  He would meet me at 6:30.  Where did I suggest?

Of course, I could have written back and told him I could see it was inconvenient for him — maybe some other time, I had a pretty heavy schedule … But … He was eye candy, at least.  Despite the boyfriend.  And it might be useful.  If you’ve got a fetish, I guess you ought to feed it.  And who knew if he was TOTALLY devoted to Craig?  Significantly, he was now pushing dinner, not lunch.  Not that I wanted to bed down with a cop!   I wrote back and suggested La Folie.  That would show him who was boss in the culture department.  “Please be my guest at dinner.  I’ll be grateful for your ideas.”

A week from Tuesday I was holding down a table at Folie, waiting for Dean to show.  It was 6:50 before he slid into the booth beside me.

“I see you’ve already started,” he said, glancing at my drink. “Sorry to keep you waiting.  Got off shift a little late.”

“No problem.”

The expression “rocks the room” came to mind.  I’d wanted to see him in his uniform, and there it was: thick tan shirt and trousers, heavy gold badge, thick black belt with about a million mysterious things hanging off it.  One of them was handcuffs!  Folded in place, so you might not realize what they were, but I knew what I was looking at.

“I know,” he said, sliding into the booth.  “You’re sorry I’m not wearing my gun.”

“You guessed,” I said.  “Maybe you should be a novelist.”

The guy was so big he seemed to fill the place.  The air was sucked out by the smell of that sheriff shirt — some kind of synthetic blend that you never smell if your income is above sixty a year.  I know the waiter was impressed.  When I came in and ordered he thought I was just another guy, waiting for a friend who might or might not appear.  Now he knew I was with The Law.  It wasn’t even a gay place, just expensive, but when I dared to raise my eyes above the top of the booth I could see a lot of people looking in our direction.  It was funny to see how expensive people reacted to the presence of a cop.  There was a mixture of fear and loathing, a general sensation of “he’s in my SPACE!”, and several surreptitious but strongly focused looks that said “my kind of man.”

No point in describing the meal.  Dean had an appetite for steak and scotch; I had an appetite for sheriff deputy; he got what he wanted; I was scared to try.  Conversation was so forgettable that when he ate the last bite and lounged back against the cushions, saying, “OK, let’s talk,” the comment seemed as commonplace as the rest of it.

“Let’s,” I said.

“Like I told you,” he continued, “I’m shy about giving advice.  You’re a great writer; I’m just a reader.”

“A great reader.”  Flattery could get me someplace.

“All right, a great reader.  So great that I think I know what you want.  You want to be sent to prison.”

“What!”

“I think we’re gettin to know each other pretty well,” he said, “Steven.”  His arm traveled along the top of the booth until the hand rested on my shoulder.  Lightly rested.  But on my shoulder.  “I know how much you like prison.  The whole idea of prison.  It turns you on.  It makes you happy.”  The fingers tightened, ever so softly.  “Don’t deny it — you do.”

“All right,” I said.  Hard to deny when my dick was making a jump for the ceiling.  “It’s a good subject.  It lets me develop certain kinds of stories…”

“And you’d like to go there.  You’d like to make it real.”

“Of course, I want my WRITING to be real…”

“And I know how you can do it.  Look, did you ever hear of somebody named Bancroft Reimer?  Of course you didn’t.  You only read Hemingway or something.”

“I detest Hemingway.”

“That figures.  But if you knew about prisons you might know about Reimer.  He’s a guy who spent, I dunno, a year or so in prison, back in the 1930s.  Wrote a book about it.  Nobody knew what he was doing there except the cop who arranged it.  I read Reimer’s book.  It’s pretty good.  Even talks about sex.  You could do better.  No, don’t interrupt.  You could do lots better.  And it would sell.  A ton.  You might get another Danny book out of it too.  And definitely some of those stories under a phony name.  I know they help you pay the bills.  But I’m sure you’d come out with some kind of serious book.  No, be quiet for a minute.  Some kind of serious book.  Maybe two.  Not to mention some hot dick bait for your fetish readers.”

Well, that was certainly not what I’d expected.  Was it insanity, or just a bizarre sense of humor?

“Amazing!”  I said.  “Just think of it!  All I have to do is go to prison.”

“For once you’ll be where you want to be.”

“Listen.  Just because I write about it occasionally…”

“It’s your favorite topic.  Do you think people can’t tell that?  All those times when you get bored with your plot and you start spending your time on cells and cuffs and uniforms…”

All right, he had a point.  These days, I seldom got hard about Danny’s adventures.  I did get hard about the things that Dean was mentioning.

“Atmosphere is important,” I said.  “I’m doing my job.  I’m a writer.”

“Then why are you so unhappy?”

Luckily, the waiter came by right then, and I had time to think while ordering a nightcap.  OK, things had taken a confusing turn.  Now something needed to be said.  Something to wrap it up.  Something besides “I’ll have a cognac and a crème brûlée.”  Which I said.  Dean ordered another scotch.  Then we were alone again.  His hand was still on my shoulder.

“I’m really not unhappy,” I told him.

The king of all cliches.  At least I didn’t put crap like that in my books.

“Fine,” he said.  “Forget it.”  The fingers gave my shoulder a reassuring knead.  Reassuring, but I hoped not final.

“No, tell me,” I said.  “I’m curious.  How am I supposed to go to prison?  And get out again, I assume?”

“When you stop being mad, I’ll tell you.”

“Give me a minute.”

Our drinks arrived, and I took a little more than a sip.  I didn’t know whether it was the alcohol or my inability to get past his ridiculous suggestion, but I was feeling very weird as my fork bit into the crème brûlée.

“OK,” I said.  “Go on.”

“I’m number three in the sheriff’s office.  It wouldn’t be hard for me to fix up a criminal record for you.  I’d create a crime — don’t worry, something basically harmless, like you” — a stroke on the shoulder here — “just a lot of it, and plug you into the system.  Arrest record, sentencing record, the whole thing.  There’d be an order to report on such and such a date.  You’d show up at the Sheriff’s Department, and I’d take you to prison.”

I would have interrupted several times by then, but my dick was doing gymnastics.

“Simplicity itself,” I said.

“You’re probably wondering if it would be illegal.  If so, you’re showing that you aren’t ready for prison, boy.”

“Very funny.”

“Very true.”

“Believe it or not, I’ve received a lot of rejections in my life.  I’d hate for you to tell me that I’m unfit even for prison.  So, how illegal is it?”

“Don’t worry.  It’s illegal.  Pretty much illegal.  But after you publish your exposé of the prison system, no one will care.  You’ll be a whistleblower.”

“Fine.  But please enlighten me — just how would I get out?”  My dick leaped again.  “How would I get out” implied that I would first be locked up, which seemed to be one of my triggers.

“Again, pretty simple.  Not like your plots!  I have a couple good contacts in the DOC…”

“DOC?”

“I just gotta laugh,” he said, “about how little you know about prisons.  DOC is Department of Corrections.  You know … they run the joint…”

“OK.  Sorry.”

“I know a couple good DOC guys.  When the time comes, I’ll pull their wires.  I don’t think they’d mind seeing a … what do they call it?  Investigative report?  They wouldn’t mind one of those coming out.  Nobody likes the org he works for.”

“I wonder who’s measuring these drinks,” I commented.  “Alcohol content approaching zero.” Playing for time.  “Dinner was good, though.”

“I liked the steak,” he said.  “Potatoes were over-done.”

“I thought so too,” I replied, trying to wriggle back closer to the hand that had dropped off my shoulder.

“To your prison adventure,” he said, raising his glass.

You don’t drink a toast after you’ve downed half your drink, but I followed suit.  Whatever he wanted…

“Strangely,” I said, “I can’t think of a reason not to go to prison.”  I thought he’d pick up on my irony, but he didn’t.  Maybe I was slurring too many syllables.

“I’ll give you one.  Just to be fair.  After all, everything has its downside.  Maybe not in a book, but definitely in real life.”

“What could POSSIBLY be the downside of my going to prison?”  If you haven’t used enough irony, put more in.

“That means you’ve already thought of all the upsides.  And I do mean UP.”  The hand was back on my shoulder, clamping it.  I felt like I was being arrested.  I also felt strangely warm and happy.  I did wish he would drop the corny puns.  But what do you expect from a cop?

“OK,” I said.  “You’re writing this novel.  What’s the downside?”

“Just that state prison isn’t a college vacation.  Nobody goes there for less than a year.”

“What?  Why’s that?”  Yeah, I was at the stage where I was actually disappointed.  I’d been thinking that what he meant was a week, two weeks … maybe a month…

“Hate to keep saying it, but what DO you know about prisons?  It’s true in every state: less than a year, you serve your time in county jail; a year or more, you go to state prison.  That’s just the way it is.”

“So how much earlier than that would you get me out?”

“No earlier.  Even I couldn’t make that happen.  You’d be in the system, and the system isn’t set up for that.”

“Why not?”

“You’re so cute,” he said.  The hand ruffled my hair, then returned to its grip on my shoulder.  “It’s because this isn’t your story, that you can change to suit yourself.  In the state’s story.   There’s no such thing as early release.  In place of that, we have indeterminate sentencing.”

“Indeterminate?”  Why was he so calm, and I was so … agitated?  Oh yeah, I knew why.  Great to have a fetish, isn’t it?  Not to mention a giant hunk who thinks you’re “cute.”  I hadn’t had enough of that in my life.  In fact, I hadn’t had any of it.

“It’s a way of keeping you around till they … decide what to do with you.  Whether to keep you or let you out.  Sort of like I’m doing now.”

I pictured myself saying, “That’s where you’re wrong,” getting up, and walking out of the place.  Oh yeah, I’d need to pay the bill first.  I wondered what he’d do, besides letting me pay.

“You say the sweetest things,” I murmured.  Another cliché oozing out — I couldn’t stop it.  At least I was being sarcastic.  But can you be sarcastic if the audience doesn’t care?

“The idea is, they put you in the oven and take you out when they think you’re cooked.  They give you five to ten years; ten to twenty years.  Whatever.  The sentences are sort of a joke.  The less they know about you, the more indeterminate they make them.  Especially if you’re male and fairly young.”

“FAIRLY young?” I said.  But he ignored me.

“They know that young males commit most of the crimes.  Aggressive, dumb … What’s new?  So they want to get them into prison, even if it’s only for some minor offense.  Once they’re in prison, the system can let them out whenever.  So that’s the way it goes.  You’ll get a sentence of one year to something.  Start low, go high.  One to five, one to ten, one to thirty … Makes no difference.  You’ll go behind bars, and I’ll get you out when you reach the one-year mark.  Close as I can get to it.”

My head was saying, “What the FUCK are you talking about?”  Something else was saying, “Keep him talking.  This is good.”

“One year — that’s a long time!”

A look of amused contempt.  “If you thought like a convict, you’d be saying, ‘That ain’t long.  I can do that standin on my head.’”

“A year without a drink,” I said, draining my glass and wondering how long it would take to get the waiter back.

“I guess you couldn’t handle that.”

“Sure I could.  As long as my ‘fetish’ holds up.”

“Holdin up pretty well right now.”

I hadn’t realized it, but from where he was sitting he could definitely see my crotch.

“Look at it this way,” he said.  “You’re gonna save a lotta money.  Jerry says you’re renting some guy’s condo.”

“He’s a professor, and he’s got a grant.  He’s studying something.  Something in Greece.  The Greek islands.”

Just keep babbling, Steven.   Maybe you’ll decide how to handle this.

“Islands!  Sounds good.  Cut off from the world.  No worries.  No cares.  Might as well be in prison.”

“He’s coming back in June.”

“Perfect.  June comes, you put your stuff in storage, you start serving time.  Your last book came out in January, right?”

“Sure.  Three months ago.  Which means I should be spending my time on the next one.”

“Instead of screwing around with me.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Just yankin your chain.”  Another squeeze on my shoulder.  “Look, you’ve published three books in the last three years.  Six, if you count the dirty ones.  You won’t have a better time to screw around.  Even if it isn’t with me.”

“That’s a pity.”  Here’s the only guy I ever met who comes on to you by saying he’s not going to come on to you.

“Maybe.  But I’m talking about you now.  Just tell Jerry you’re goin on a trip someplace.  Around the world.  Someplace.  Some big writing project.  Like that professor, right?  Off to the islands.  Jerry won’t be happy, but so what?  Say goodbye to your friends…”

“What friends?”  Another bit of sarcasm that went right past him.

“Better and better.  Less to worry about.  Give somebody your power of attorney.  Get direct deposit on your royalties…”

“You should have been a writer.  You have a remarkably detailed … imagination.”

OK, I was now officially drunk.  I had to hunt for that word, and slow down when I said it.  Im-ag-i-NA-tion.

“I enjoy thinking about it.  You gettin ready.  To go to the Pen.”

“I’m glad you’re happy.  Can we talk about this later?  I think I should call a ride.”

“Scared to get busted?  Scared to get yourself a DUI?”

I was going to take that as an insult.  Then I looked into his eyes again.  When was the last time a hunk like that had a look in his eyes like that — about me?  Answer: There wasn’t one.  It had never happened.

“I just … I don’t want to do anything that could get me … in trouble.”

“Sure, sure.  I’ll drive you home.”

I should have guessed it — Dean’s car was the biggest thing that had hit the road since . … I didn’t know when.  Tons of chrome, enormous shoulders, fucking convertible … lying under the spotlights in the parking lot like an alligator waiting for its prey.  “Cadillac Eldorado,” he said.  He waited to see if I recognized the name.  I didn’t.  “1979,” he explained.  “Quite a beast.”

The front seat went all the way across.  Made it easy for him to pull me next to him.

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