By Joshua Ryan
I had to get in to work really early that day, because I was the person who was supposed to handle the year-end calls from the branches in other time zones. When I finally got to the lounge at 9 for coffee, the first thing I did was go to the deck and look at the convicts. I wanted to see if one of them was standing by the fence.
“Whatcha lookin for, Jason?” It was somebody’s voice. I remembered. It was Peter Tomlinson’s.
“Uh . . . nothing. . . . I . . . uh . . . Great day, huh?” It was another one of those days we have in winter when the sun is so bright you’d almost think it was spring already. At 9 o’clock in the morning, it must have been 55 degrees on that deck. It was sort of like the first day when I met the convict.
“Not really. Channel 10 says it’s gonna snow tonight.”
“That true? We almost never have snow in December.” What are you talking about? I asked myself. My eyes were searching the fence, searching . . .
“It’s true. Look at those clouds. Cirrus. We’ll have snow all right. Lotta snow.”
“Too bad. I wanted to wash the car.”
“Huh?”
“Nothing.” I couldn’t believe I was making jokes.
“What are you looking at, Jason?”
“Just watching the convicts.”
“Huh?”
“The convicts. Down in the field.”
