HARD TIME – Part 2

Public Safety Writers Contest Short Story Non-Published

Honorable Mention –  HARD TIME

 

Ben had learned to play Cribbage with his father, the one form of recreation the two shared. The game became a passion for Ben—adding and playing combinations of cards came easily to him. He was as proficient at the game as his father had ever been. Jim never shared his brother’s interest in the game. Prisoners were allowed to have playing cards, and although gambling was forbidden, it flourished throughout the camp. Ben was not a poker player but liked to gamble. Taking a wood-stave from an old water barrel, he carved a cribbage board. It was far from perfect, but it worked well enough. Jim played when Ben couldn’t find anyone else, which wasn’t often. Many of the prisoners were skilled players. Although Ben far outclassed his opponents, he was smart enough to let others win often enough to keep them coming back. His prowess kept the brothers in cigarettes, the prison currency.

Once the roadway was twenty miles into the swamp, their keepers no longer spent nights at the inmate camp. Instead, at nightfall, they parked a truck a mile or so from the camp. Two guards armed with shotguns and revolvers took turns sleeping and watching while the others stayed at their encampment of shacks. It worked well for them. They were paid to have four present within the inmate’s encampment at all times. It didn’t work as well for the convicts, especially not for Ben. Within days of arriving, Ben was attacked after the guards withdrew for the night. Finished with their evening meal, the brothers were getting out the Bull Durham for a smoke when a half dozen other inmates approached.

“Howdy, boys. I’m Pete. Me and my friends are here to welcome you to our little piece of heaven.”

A bull of a man, Pete was doing life for rape and murder. The acknowledged leader of the prisoners, Pete, was a vicious degenerate. He took pleasure in beating and raping weaker men.

“I’m Jim, and this is my brother Ben. What can we do for you?”

“Interesting that you should ask. It’s your brother that I want, we’re gonna be special friends.” Pete motioned to his followers, who surrounded the brothers.

Jim and Ben were on their feet in an instant. “What do you mean, your special friend?”

With a smirk, Pete answered, “What it means is that you and I are going to get to know each other really well, punk. When I want a piece of ass, you’re gonna give it to me.”

Now in a fighting stance, Ben shouted, “Over my dead body.” Jim stepped to his brother’s side.

“Little shit on my dick, little blood on my knife, makes no difference to me,” Pete growled as the men attacked.

Jim was as strong as an ox, but not fast. Ben, not as tough, was faster on his feet. They got in a few licks before three men pinned Jim and Pete kicked him into unconsciousness. Ben was helpless and unable to stop the others.

Once Jim was unconscious, Pete and two others dragged Ben to Pete’s tent. The one real tent in the camp.

Inside, they stripped Ben naked and left him alone with Pete. “Like I said, a little shit on my dick or a little blood on my knife. Tonight it’ll be your shit on my dick.” He rolled the semi-conscious Ben onto his stomach. Straddling the helpless man from behind, he bent forward, Pete whispered, “Feel that? Get used to it. You’re gonna get a lot of it.”

When Pete was satisfied, he dragged Ben outside, threw his clothes out, and went to join his friends for a smoke. “Nothing like a smoke after a piece of ass,” he joked.

Ben managed to pull himself up, get his clothes on, and untie Jim, who had been bound after being knocked out. From then on, they were often subject to Pete’s brutal attacks. The brothers got stronger and managed to fight off some of the attacks, but were only seldom successful.

Three months into their sentence, Ben had suffered as much as he could endure. Jim, twenty, and Ben, seventeen, decided to kill Pete.

One night, Jim was settling down to sleep when Ben turned to him. “Jim, if we don’t do something, I am going to kill myself.”

Jim was awake and alert. “Whatta you mean?”

“I can’t take it anymore.” The two talked late into the night. They agreed escape was impossible. Even if they got away, they knew they would be caught and brought back to the chain gang.

“What if we kill Pete?”

 

HARD TIME

 

Public Safety Writers Short Story Non-Published

Honorable Mention –  HARD TIME

The story is serialized in three segments. “Hard Time” was the inspiration for a chapter in A Tale of Robbers and Cops, a historical novel covering fifty years in the lives of two brothers, career criminals, and the men and women in blue who must deal with their crimes.

Hard Time – Part 1

They weren’t killers by nature. Jim Tucker born, in 1912 to Georgia sharecroppers, was three years older than his brother Ben. His memories of home were of a one-room house, a shack really, where he, his parents, two brothers, and two sisters ate, slept, hated, and grew old prematurely. His family survived on less than $350 a year, half what maintained most American families. They were lucky. They had inside running water. The one place where any privacy could be found was the stinking privy out behind the equally foul-smelling chicken coop.

The landowner refused to do anything to ease their suffering. The walls were of roughhewn planks cracked and decayed to the point they no longer kept out the wind or rain. The Tucker’s waged a constant battle with the elements to keep the place livable. Nailing and repairing the wooden walls, applying tar paper, and sheets of tin seemingly did nothing to solve the problem. Their father succumbed to alcoholism and consumption at the ripe old age of forty as the Great Depression began. He left behind a wife and five children to fend for themselves.

Nine months later, their mother remarried a widower who had four children of his own. With eleven mouths to feed, Jim felt it would be easier for all if he left. Ben went with him. Two days later, they stole their first car—their first step in a life of crime.

The following week, broke, hungry, and with nowhere to sleep, they held up a gas station. Immediately caught, there was no trial. The deputy sheriff who arrested them said, “It’ll go better for you if you plead guilty and get it over.”

The judge who presided over their arraignment did not ask or offer them an attorney. Instead, he said, “Boys, the deputy tells me you want to plead guilty.”

Jim answered, “Yes, sir, I guess so.”

“Did you steal the car?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you hold up Mr. Smyth’s gas station?”

“I guess we did,” Jim began and added, “Yes, sir, we did, sir.”

“It sounds to me like y’all are guilty. How do you plead?”

“Guilty.”

“Ben, how do you plead?”

“I guess guilty, sir.”

“Son, you have to plead guilty or not guilty, one or the other.”

“Guilty, sir.

Sentenced to three years on a Georgia Chain Gang, they endured back-breaking work. The labor was difficult enough without the swamp, inhumane guards, and brutal inmates. Still years away from becoming a wildlife refuge, the Okefenokee Swamp covered 400,000 acres of Northern Florida and Southern Georgia. This shallow peat-filled quagmire was home to more than four hundred species of animals, including alligators, venomous snakes, and panthers.

Assigned to lay down a roadway for what was to become Georgia State Route 94, the convicts cleared a swath of land wide enough for a two-lane road into the heart of the swamp. They suffered immensely from the heat and never-ending swarms of insects. The prisoners had no protection from the elements other than the rotting and mildewed tents, the warden and guards referred to as inmate shelter.

The guards fared little better in the hastily erected temporary buildings moved whenever the roadway inched another five miles into the unforgiving swamp. The warden had a decent home in Fargo, miles outside the swamp. An infrequent visitor, he came to inspect the camp once a month to verify the records of new, released, and deceased inmates. If an inmate was unfortunate enough to die after the warden’s monthly visit, his remains were unceremoniously buried in a shallow, unmarked grave.

Guarding the prisoners was an unpleasant task made even more so by the environment: rain, sweltering heat, humidity, insects, snakes, and any number of other unpleasant experiences. The guards endured constant pain and discomfort. They were generous in passing their pain on to the convicts. One guard was often heard repeating, “If I have to put up with this shit, dem fu%#ers are going to suffer even more.”

 

COMING HOME

Thank you, Public Safety Writers Association, for awarding third place to flash fiction Coming Home. At the end, there is a link about a danger all returning warriors face.

Coming Home

It is five days now, and he is still running. He knows he is running from something; he isn’t quite sure what. It is time to stop running.

It could have been the reception he, along with all the others, received when they arrived at SFO on that cold and foggy autumn day. He had been wearing the outfit for what seemed an eternity, but he had only been in this one for about twenty-eight hours. He had taken a cab into the city, but it had started before then. First, the baggage handler had thrown his bag at him, and then the cabbie acted as though he was another Typhoid Mary.

He found himself confused as he thought, “Why? I’ve only done what was expected of me, why this?”

Dropped off at the Grey Hound Bus Depot, he was treated as a pariah. People stood aside and either glowered at him or backed away. One woman spat at him. He had never imagined a woman could do something like that.

The bar had been no different. After one drink, he began walking. After a few blocks, he found himself in front of a Harley-Davidson dealer. On a whim, he marched inside. Here it was different.

“Hi, welcome home and welcome to Dudley Perkins.”

The salesman treated him with dignity and deference. Maybe that is why he bought an Electra Glide, riding clothes, and a helmet. He threw the outfit into a filthy Dempsey dumpster behind the building. He didn’t go back for his bag.

Now five days later, he is in Southern Utah stopped alongside a lonely highway. Sitting back against the motorcycle, he stares at a stark rock formation in a long-dead seabed. The trees, those that still have foliage, display orange and yellow leaves that shift and drop as a cold wind passes slowly through the lonely valley.

He feels as cold and lonely as the scene in front of him as he says goodbye to a world that no longer cares.

https://www.apa.org/monitor/2020/01/ce-corner-suicide

 

JOE

In my last post, I told about taking first place in the 2020 Public Safety Writers Associations Flash Fiction Contest. I am posting the story here today. I hope you enjoy it. After the story, there is a link that explains the danger Peter faced.

JOE

Fifty years ago, Agent Orange covered the young lieutenant from head to foot. Not yet known as a killer, his platoon cursed the mess left by the defoliant. Later, Peter laughed at their ghost-like photo images. Now in his seventies, he mused, I’m just another casualty of the Vietnam War. The doctors gave him six weeks.

I have one last shot at Joe. The best time, late afternoon.

Pete needed an experience he could savor. Only a mile to Joe’s, the old man took his time wandering through the forest of changing colors. He first came here on a spring day before he left for Vietnam. The trees had been shielded by leaves in brilliant shades of green—young and strong, much as he had been. Now the approaching winter turned the landscape into a strange rainbow of orange, yellow, red, and brown. Pete saw his cold and bleak future reflected in nature’s cycle of life, death, and rebirth.

Only I won’t be reborn.

He arrived early, perfect timing for an afternoon nap. Joe would be doing the same. A rock shelf provided enough warmth for Pete to enjoy a brief respite from the pain that came with the cancer.

Pete assembled his gear when he awoke.

Joe had been his elusive quarry for many years. Today might be the day.

Standing in the shallow current, Pete made his first cast. The fly dropped with a loud plop.

This won’t do, Joe will never come up for something so clumsy.

Pete’s fourth cast drifted as if on a cloud. His hand-tied mayfly floated to the water’s surface. Joe struck—stronger than Pete ever imagined—much stronger.

Be careful. Work slowly. Joe can break the three-pound test. He has before.

With a skill honed over decades, Pete worked his quarry back and forth, ever closer. Until he slid his net under a still combative Joe, the fish everything Pete could have hoped for in a native Brown Trout—a real trophy—at least eight pounds.

With the compassion of a true sportsman, Pete removed the small barbless hook. He held Joe up to the sky, an offering to the gods. He knelt, and with tenderness bordering on love, Pete gently returned Joe to the swiftly moving water.

This is the best day of my life!

https://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/agentorange/locations/vietnam.asp

 

 

Public Safety Writers Association – Award Winner

 

The results of the Public Safety Writers Association 2020 writing contest were announced yesterday. I’m proud and humbled to announce that I placed in several categories:

 

 

Flash Fiction Non-Published First Place                    Joe

Flash Fiction Non-Published Third Place                  Welcome Home

Short Story Non-Published Honorable Mention          Hard Time

Fiction Book Non-Published Fourth Place                 A Tale of Robbers and Cops

In the weeks to come, I will post my flash-fiction stories, “Joe” and “Coming Home”  to my webpage, followed, in three parts, by the short story. “Hard Time” was the inspiration for a chapter in A Tale of Robbers and Cops.

Visit my webpage at: https://gdcramer.com/

FLYING THE THIN BLUE LINE

TODAY I BOUGHT A THIN BLUE LINE FLAG

From the moment I first saw a thin blue line flag, I considered it to be a desecration of the American flag. I still do.

Today I bought one.

I try to fly Old Glory every day. I’m proud of the flag and what it stands for. I admit I’m surprised that it hasn’t been stolen or worse.

Why is today different. My opinion has not changed, and I doubt it ever will.

One of the first things I saw this morning was the news of the murder of Toledo Police Officer Anthony Dia. His last radio transmission: “Tell my family I love them.” The senseless killing of police officers is fast becoming a daily occurrence. I have been retired for decades, yet I still bleed Blue for my brothers and sisters wearing the badge.

I will fly the thin blue line below Old Glory with pride and love.

George Cramer #073
Sergeant (Retired)
San Leandro California Police Department

Long Ride Update—More Bad News

Roadrunner Harley called today. I wish they hadn’t. “Boss, good news.” Here is where I was hoping they would say the parts are in, and the bike is ready to go.

NOT SO!

“One of the parts came in, and the other should be here in a day or two.”

Instead of telling the guy what I thought, I politely thanked him and disconnected the call.

Question: I two parts were shipped on one order from Milwaukie, how is it that one arrived today, and the other part is expected in a day or two?

Use your imagination and you will hear many of those words that would get your mouth washed out with soap.

BAD – BORING – WORSE!

Today should be Day 9 of the ride; instead, it is Day 7 of sitting.

When Roadrunner Harley said it would take three or four days to get the parts to fix the Ultra, I was less than happy. Yesterday, almost a week later, they called. “Sorry, Boss, we won’t have the parts until Wednesday or Thursday.” You can probably imagine the words that came out of my well-known potty mouth. It appears the regulator and stator had not been shipped.

I called Mrs. Cramer and asked her to book me on the next flight home. I wanted to get the fish smell out of Mr. and Mrs. JAK’s home. As my Dad used to say: “Fish and visitors stink after three days.”

Got on a direct Southwest flight at 1:30 p.m. All the middle seats were left open. Got a can of water, dribbled all over the front of my soon to be tossed T-Shirt. I’ve flown hundreds of times and around the world three or four times. The seat was the hardest and most uncomfortable two hours I’ve ever experienced, even worse than eighteen hours in strap seats in a WWII vintage Navy cargo plane.

It’s good to be home with Mrs. Cramer.

When the bike is ready, I’ll fly back to Phoenix and continue on the ride—much abbreviated.

Good, Boring, Bad – On two wheels?

 

Day 1- Saturday 6/6/2020 Started well with a tailwind. That was fine until I turned south, and that same wind pushed almost sideways off the road. In and out of wind tunnels for a hundred miles or so. Then running below the flow of traffic at 80+ mph on I-5. But sure ate up the miles. When I turned onto SR 138, it was a smooth ride, and a bit of scenery again had a tailwind, nice road, smooth as silk. Hit cruise control. After a couple of minutes, glanced at the speedometer, 90 mph in a 55 zone. Dropped to 75 until I the 210 and turned toward the coast, and now the wind was pushing me around again.
210 and I-10 to San Bernardino was an experience. At 85 mph, I was forced to the slow lane. The fast lane was 95 to 100 mph.

528 miles got me to the Best Western in Indio as I enjoyed the welcome dust blowing in the wind. What an experience check-in was.

What a boring day. The only positive was being on two wheels.

Day 2 – Sunday – Not as boring even without any scenery

Sgt. JAK woke me before 7:00 a.m. “You up yet?”

Hit the road and missed the turn to I-10. A mile down the road, asked a guy in a jeep, “If I keep going straight, will I hit the I-10?” He pointed straight ahead and said yes. I kept going for 35 miles. Stopped at the end of the Salton Sea in Imperial County. Checked my map, made a U-Turn, and back the way I had come for a 70-mile experience to the I-10. Trust me; the Salton Sea is not much in the way of scenery.

I-10 is not quite as boring as I-5, but not much less. Crossing into Arizona, I was feeling the heat and felt as though heat stroke was a possibility. It may have taken me 76 years to realize, when that happens, you should get out of the sun. I pulled into the first rest stop, drank two fruit juice packs, a bottle of water, and splashed water on my head a few times and sat in the shade. After a half hour, I felt refreshed and got back on the road.
Being in Arizona, I kept the speed down to 80 mph and watched those doing 90+ fly by.
About thirty miles from JAK’s place outside Phoenix, the cruise control bucked and quit working. This is usually a clue. The amp meter dropped and indicated no charging. I figured I could keep going and get closer to civilization as long as the battery had some juice. Nope, after a couple of miles, everything failed. As I pulled to the side of the road, I spied an overpass ahead. Time to get into the shade for what I knew would be a wait of several hours. I made it.

I pulled out the iPhone. Crap, almost out of charge because the GPS sucks power like the sun melts ice. I did manage to call the Harley-Davidson Road America and get the process started. Four cages and one BMW Motorcycle stopped and offered help. Four Harley’s went by without stopping.

I called JAK, and he came out and got my gear. When the two arrived, the operator was a woman. She was a character. In large letters, she had “TOW CHICK” tattooed on her neck.
Loading was an adventure. The bed of the truck was as slick as snot with oil. Of course, JAK had to get a photo of me sitting on the scooter on the truck. Almost a duplicate of a photo he took about ten years ago when the bike broke down on the way to Sturgis.

We get to Roadrunner H-D. No service personnel until 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday. They would not allow me to lock the Ultra inside. “I’ll lock it up in front of the service door.” That was not well received, but look where it’s parked and locked.

I’ll be waiting when they open.