After months in a holding cell and enduring the embarrassment of a public trail, I was sentenced with voluntary manslaughter. I was told by my public defendant lawyer that this sentence is sometimes called a “Heat of Passion” murder. For some reason I laughed when he told me this. Well, I had fifteen years to find a reason why I laughed because that was how long I was locked up. I'll get to my conclusion on that in a bit, but first let me tell you how prison was.
Being faced with the fact that my freedom in the world was lost took me months to get used to. At first I didn't talk to anyone and suffered from visual hallucinations. When I tried to sleep, Yolanda's eyes appeared underneath my own eyelids. For the first year, it never was important or upsetting to me that I killed a man. That fact was just an inconvenience that put a barrier between me and my love.
My inaugural year was fairly uneventful because I was in a secluded cell. I threatened suicide often because that ensured my single cell occupancy. During this time, I started getting used to the feeling of being imprisoned and began to adapt. I read for more than half of the time that I was awake. Reading so much started to open my mind to subjects I've never considered. Philosophy, history, and romance novels were my favorite types of books. The mixture of these subjects showed me for the first time that I can relate to people and gave me a feeling of confidence around others. I stopped acting suicidal and slowly started being a more reasonable human being. On a good day, I tried to joke with some of the guards. My sense of humor never went over well. They usually told me “Shut up Bandy” and banged on the bars of my cell with a baton.
In my second year I fared much better. I was moved into a larger cell with another man. When I was escorted to the new cell, the man was sleeping face down on the top mattress of a bunk bed. He had a bush of dark hair shooting in all directions. He wore the standard prison attire, but his seemed especially fitted to accentuate the large muscles of his body. He slept without a sound while I moved into the new cell. I hung up a picture I drew on the wall and put my books on a stack in the corner. I laid in the bottom bunk while cracking open a paperback book. When I'm nervous, it's hard for me to retain what I'm reading. I got to page sixty of the book when I heard a rustling above me. This made me realize that I had no idea what I just read. I didn't even know what book I was holding.
The bed started shaking and a pair of legs swung over the top bunk and swayed near my face. My new roommate coughed a few times. He then yelled “Yippee” and jumped out of bed and landed on his feet facing me.
Hey, guess we're roomies he said.
Yeah, I said and started nervously laughing. He looked me hard in the eyes for an uncomfortably long time and then finally broke my gaze by looking at the book I had sitting on my chest. He stared at the book deciphering the title and then looked back into my eyes. He started laughing obnoxiously loud and began snorting. He started to lose control of himself and even passed gas. I had no idea what was wrong. I looked down at the book and read the title, The Complete Idiots Guide to Amazing Sex.
My heart started pounding, I knew this was my only chance to make a good impression. I thought fast and looked at him directly. “Hi, my name is Bandy. I'm in here for murder.”
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