Tag Archives: jail cells

My Trip to Paris – Chapter 10

By Joshua Ryan

Chapter 10: So Good for You to See Me

It was an interesting conversation—so interesting that now it was even harder for me to sleep in my bunk at night.  A few months before, I would have dismissed his prison shit right away–nothing but weirdness.  Now I was confused.  Why was he telling me this stuff?  Was it to make me love him, or warn me not to?  The sight of Paul in his convict suit, indistinguishable from the other cons—that was me, wasn’t it?  Wasn’t that what he meant?  And if I loved him, that’s how I’d end up?  But that’s how I already had ended up!  I flipped up my badge and looked at the picture.  That gray little blob might as well be “Paul.”

So now I was playing with my badge when I should have been sewing.  And at night, it wasn’t enough to jerk—yeah, I was doing that, what do you think?—but I had to dream, too.  One dream I remembered: I was outside the Pen—they’d let me out!  I was so happy!  At last I was free!  I walked off down the street, and I looked back at the walls, which I knew, even in the dream, I was mainly just making up in my head, because I’d only seen them once from the outside, and then I was squinting through the bars of a prison bus.

Continue reading My Trip to Paris – Chapter 10

My Trip to Paris – Chapter 04

By Joshua Ryan

Chapter 4: The First Time I Saw Paris

The bus seemed to be full; it must have made several other stops before getting to me.  Some of the passengers were dressed in solid orange, others in stripes.  A few were in normal clothes.  It was very quiet; the only sound was the rumble of the highway, the faint sigh of the A/C, and the rattling of shackles when somebody shifted his feet.  There was a guy in the seat next to me, a young guy with long blond hair—the kind of young guy that makes you feel old.  He was one of the prisoners in stripes, his yellow hair lying pitifully against the black-white bars on his jumpsuit.  From time to time he sniffled, and I knew he was crying.  I wanted to look out—to do something besides listen to my chains clattering every time I moved, but there were bars on the window and I couldn’t see much more than him, raising his hands to dab at his nose, and a blur of sky striped with steel on the other side of him.  The bus went fast.  Then we were off the freeway and driving through a town that had to be Paris.  Nothing else in the region had that beaten, rusted-out look.

The bus stopped for a train, and I saw the line of dead factories that followed the tracks.  After the last boxcar limped past we bumped across the rails and onto a wide street that should have been filled with cars and lined with businesses.  Should have, and wasn’t.  We were going slower, so I saw more, but all I could see was vacant lots, factories with rust creeping across their sides, and liquor stores with their windows blocked up.  Then, abruptly, the narrow lawns and the broken sidewalks and the parking spaces filled with derelict vehicles were replaced by a gray concrete wall rising next to the street, tall and long and getting longer as the bus slowed down.   And now it had stopped.

Continue reading My Trip to Paris – Chapter 04

Dear Mr. Cop – Part 04

By Hunter Perez

The morning sun illuminated the hotel suite, giving the space a bright golden hue. John looked at his wristwatch and saw it was a little before seven. He quietly crawled out of bed and quietly moved to the windows to draw the curtains and darken the room.

John left Lucas alone in the bed, but Lucas was unaware of this – he fell into a deep sleep a few hours earlier, with the slightest of smiles resting on his lips. John sat the edge of the bed and gazed at Lucas, his inner thoughts in combat between exhilaration and panic. The night with Lucas went far beyond the Mr. Right Now encounters he enjoyed in his weekend sojourns, and the last thing that he wanted was to lose the sensation he experienced. But his repeated thoughts of having Lucas as his personal prisoner continued to resonate. He feared being rejected if he broached the subject to Lucas, but he also reminded himself the subject was planted and cultivated in the letters addressed to “Mr. Cop” – the scenario was not of his creation, even though he wanted to see it through.

“I’ll lock you up and throw away the key,” John thought as he studied Lucas.

Continue reading Dear Mr. Cop – Part 04

Dear Mr. Cop – Part 02

By Hunter Perez

The following day, John was asked to work a double shift because one of his fellow officers became ill. He didn’t get home until after midnight, but by then the lights were out at the home of his mysterious blond neighbor. The day after that, another officer became ill and John was pressed into another double shift. Again, he came home too late to catch a glimpse of the neighbor.

On that second night, another lemon yellow envelope addressed to “Mr. Cop” was among John’s mail. He tossed aside the magazines, catalogs and bills that accompanied the letter and tore open its envelope.

“Dear Mr. Cop,” the letter began. “Since I found the courage to contact you, I wanted to share my dreams about how our life together could unfold in a captor and captive relationship.”

Continue reading Dear Mr. Cop – Part 02