Fiction 4: Friday's Freedom

It was finally Friday and Sparrow was elated. Today would be the parole hearing he'd been eagerly awaiting for five years.

He had been caught in a convenience store with the clerk lying face down on the floor quivering in fear and his hand in the till. A passing policeman had seen him through the glass and had sneaked in to nab him red-handed. No one had been hurt and nothing actually taken, but he had gotten ten years for trying. It had not been the first time.

Sparrow hated prison. He was slight and not very bright, and so was constantly the butt of fellow inmates' jokes and cruelties. He'd made up his mind to be the model prisoner to ensure his earliest possible release. In just a few days he could be released. He would be released. There would be no reason to hold him; he'd done everything right.

What would he do once he got out? He'd have a hundred bucks in his pocket and a new suit of clothes. Well, the first thing would be to get rip-roaring drunk to celebrate, that's for sure, and with luck he’d find a floozy to share the celebration. Then what?

Then what?

Funny, he hadn't thought that far before. A high-school dropout, he had no skills. The hundred bucks would be gone after that first binge. So then what? Hell's bells, sleep in the street? No way! Get a job? With one suit of clothes, none too clean after celebrating, and no address? Fat chance! Knock over another convenience store? For what, maybe fifty bucks and another trip inside? Knock over a bank? Not likely! Even a smart guy like Rappaport hadn't got away with that. He was here doing fifteen.

Then what? Beg? For pennies? Spend it on cheap wine so as not to be so cold at night? Try every endless night to find some charity one-night flop house or a diner that would let a filthy, smelly guy like him sit all night? He cursed at memories.

Then what?

********

"So, Mr. Sparrow, tell us why we should grant you parole."

The judge sat fat and self-important on the other side of a desk, while two guards stood at Sparrow’s side. Sparrow knew the answers. He was a changed man, he could say. He'd proven it by his cooperation in the Big House. He'd found religion. He knew crime really didn't pay and wanted to be a better person. He knew what to say.

"You shouldn't." He heard himself talking as if through a fog.

"Shouldn't?!" The judge looked up from his papers and looked at Sparrow for the first time.

"Why not?"

"’Cuz I'll be right back in. I don't know no other way to live, yer honor. I steal. That's what I do for a living. Let me out and I'll steal. Maybe I'll get away with it for a little while and maybe I won't, but I'll be back here again in no time. And yer honor, when I'm stealing, I think I don't want to get caught. Maybe I'll hurt somebody, like by accident. I don't really want to hurt nobody. But I'm gonna steal, 'cuz I don't know no other way t' eat and find a flop to sleep in. This ain't no picnic here. I hate it. But I eat and I know where I'll sleep and I don't have to scare the pants wet of some pimply kid or Pakki immigrant to do it. Your choice."