By Joshua Ryan
The truck didn’t take me to the field hand barracks, where I thought I was going. It turned into the driveway to Mr. Hamilton’s house instead. I thought, this is probly what he does whenever he buys a new workie — he wants to see the goods. But — OK, this is just too hard to talk about, except just a little bit. We pulled up to the side door of the house and I was handed over to this old workie named Cicero, who’s the bigshot up there, and he gave me this funny look and said, “Yes, we’ve been expecting you. Mr. Hamilton is busy right now; I’ll take you to your room.” So right away, it was a room not a barracks.
So he took me down to the basement — which is really nice, for a basement — and he unlocked the door to a little room and told me to wait in there, and he closed the door and locked it, and yeah, it wasn’t a barracks at all, it was just like a bedroom, with a bed and a dresser and a little mirror and so on, so what the hell? It was almost like I was back at home! I did remember how Butch was living someplace next to the House, so maybe this was good, cuz maybe he was still there! Which would be SO great! But I never thought they’d keep him there. I always thought he’d get sent back to the coffle. That’s just what I thought, from looking at him.
It’s past two o’clock in the morning in a quiet upscale neighborhood. Two disguised men have crossed a lawn belonging to one of the larger homes at the end of the street’s cul-de-sac. Using a suction cup and glass cutter, they break into one of the side windows of the darkened house.