I went to college to learn accounting to make money. Unfortunately, it backfired. I spent too much and my college loan payments were much greater than my measly accountant's salary in the large corporation I was finally hired by. After about 10 years of struggling where I didn't even have enough to live in a cheap apartment or buy a new car, living with my mother and driving hers, I needed to do something drastic to make money: embezzlement.

 

You see, by that time I was handling a lot of the corporation's transactions and I figured out a way to skim off a few bucks here and there and place them in the anonymous account that I set up in a bank that I didn't frequent until I needed a large sum. Of course, it paid off my college loans handsomely and I even started buying new cars and houses that were a little over the top for my income. Mom liked her new house and new car I bought her for her birthday. The ladies didn't seem to mind, either. But, protective of my newfound wealth, I didn't buy their entreaties, remembering how they treated me when I was poor.

 

Well, the auditors soon found out that there was a "leak" in corporate funds and began to track it down, leading directly to me. When faced with the options, I pled guilty, surrendered all my assets and the prosecutor settled for five years. It's been two years now and I've been good, so it looks like parole is about six months off.

 

Even better, my prison, located just outside Denver, is overcrowded, so I'm sitting here on the bench that is used for a waiting line into the cafeteria. There are two people sitting ahead of me in line. One old guy who may have been here a long time, and a short ugly woman that came from the women's prison adjacent to ours. What she is doing here, I have no clue.

 

The warden just came before us and explained that we were about to take a test. They were planning an early release of nonviolent prisoners who were within a few months of parole in order to relieve the pressure from too many inmates and not enough cells. To be fair, they were going to give each of us a test to see how well we "fit in" to society and obeyed rules and the law. The guard explained that it was a simple test. All we had to do, was respond correctly to what the guards asked us to do. I was willing to do whatever it required to get out of this ugly place and start my life over again, poor or not. It made my stomach churn just thinking about it.

 

The old guy was first. We were sitting on the bench that ran down a long hallway, just at the point where it opened into the cafeteria eating area. The guard told the old guy to stand about 10 feet back from the end of the wall directly across from where we sat and walk toward him. When he got to the end of the wall, he was supposed to make a bow (the guard demonstrated), before turning the corner to the right around the end of the wall where I could just see the door that led out of the cafeteria to freedom. The old guy began walking towards the guard, standing back behind a tape that had been placed on the floor so that the inmates would turn right instead of continuing across the tape.

 

My anxiety increased as the old guy reached the end of the wall and should have bowed to the guard standing on the other side of the tape. Instead, the old guy just shouted, "I ain't no Catholic, I ain't bowing to nobody!" With his unsteady gait he turned the corner and headed for the freedom door, only to be grabbed by the guards and hauled off to his cell for another few months. I felt a pang in my side as I watched the episode unfold.

 

At my first opportunity, I had asked the ugly woman next to me what she was in for. She replied, "shoplifting." Certainly a nonviolent crime, but not normally resulting in prison. She was up next and obediently followed the guard's instructions to a T. She walked swiftly toward him as he requested, but when she went to bow, she somehow tripped, and her head struck the guard in the crotch. All of the inmates in line laughed out loud, including me, and the guard was so embarrassed that he excused himself while they carted her off through the freedom door either to her freedom or back to her cell in the other prison. No way of knowing. My stomach was getting worse.

 

It was my turn, next, and with the new guard, a mean old bastard that I knew very well, stepped to the tape line. The pangs in my stomach turned to massive cramps as I got up to take my place along the wall and walk as carefully as I could to the point of making my bow. All went as planned until I bowed and I let out a massive fart that echoed up and down the hall and was only surpassed by the laughter of all the inmates in the line. By that time I was sweating profusely and bright red from embarrassment and exertion. Not only had I farted, but I had shit my pants.

 

There would be no living with the other inmates now, but that bastard guard signaled for them to carry me off to the showers, and then later back to my cell. I didn't go to chow that evening, but stayed in my cell to avoid what I knew I would get from the other inmates. I had to get out of this place… soon. Luckily, the earlier obedience test at not worked very well and they still needed to remove a few more inmates to open up new cell space. So they came up with a much more drastic solution.

 

I finally got to sleep, hungry, about 2 am, but then, was aroused about 5 am and herded off with a number of others to a prison bus and taken to the airport where we were put on a cargo plane. None of us had any breakfast and moods were pretty grim. The guys kept eyeing me and snickering under their breaths to avoid detection from the guards who stood sternly, nearby. Finally, when we were up over the Rocky Mountains, we were all asked to unbuckle from our seats and go to the back of the plane. Being that close to the other guys really unnerved me, but I tried to keep calm and calm my empty stomach.

 

Suddenly, the cargo door opened, and one of the guards yelled, "Jump!"

 

I seized the opportunity to obey and jumped. As the plane grew rapidly smaller above me, I looked back briefly and saw that no one else had jumped with me. I was the only obedient one. And then I turned, and saw the jagged peaks of the mountains coming up very rapidly…

 

I woke up in a cold sweat in my cell and started yelling. "Why am I still here! Why am I here! I jumped! I jumped."

 

I kept yelling, "I jumped!" so long, that I woke up the entire cellblock and everyone got very angry banging their cups on the bars. Finally, the guards came and took me away to a padded cell far from the others. I still don't know why they didn't let me go. I was obedient, wasn't I?

 

Moral of the story: Rule number 1: When jumping out of an airplane, one must wear a parachute.

 

Copyright 2014 © Ronald W. Hull

 

11/16/14