Hey everybody, I have some exciting news. I entered a three round writing competition and out of the 30 people in my heat, I placed fourth which means I advance to the second round. For the contest, we were given a character, an activity and a genre. For my heat it was a prison warden, fishing and action/adventure. It was one of those stories where I had a solid beginning, but no idea where it might go. Sometimes that’s great and sometimes, it’s terrible. I am happy to say I’m really glad how this one turned out and I wanted to share it with you. I hope you like it.

“The Hole”

That cloud was trouble. There wasn’t any bad weather forecasted, but the Atlantic waters off the coast of Florida never kept any weatherman’s promise.

Paul scanned the horizon from the stern of his old, beat-up Boston Whaler Montauk named “Jail Break.” The water was calm, the sun warmed the air. A perfect day for the noble art of fishing and thinking. Or as his wife liked to say, fishing and drinking. She was half right. At fifty-four years old, he didn’t drink much anymore, but he liked being by himself.

Paul cast a line out and waited. Everything was just right…except for that cloud. It wasn’t menacing, it was just off somehow. Maybe it wasn’t the cloud at all. Maybe it was something else.

Goddamn Nolan. Inmate number 7039460, Brevard County Jail. He was what Warden Paul Howell would call a model inmate. He’d been incarcerated for grand theft of an ice cream truck that he took on a joy ride. His ride ended when he crashed into a retention pond. To his credit, Nolan never denied what he did, surprisingly was not drunk or high at the time of his arrest, and even told the arresting officer that he had planned to take the truck to a local children’s hospital to treat the kids. Altruistic as it seemed, grand theft was still grand theft, and Nolan was a repeat offender.

“I’m not going to have any trouble with you, am I?” Paul asked Nolan.

“No sir. Just want to do my time and get out.”

They all said the same thing. Bunch of liars. But for some reason, the skinny man with unkempt sandy blond hair, seemed different. Whether it was his wide childlike eyes, or the way he sat in the chair fidgeting with a loose string on his jumpsuit, Paul didn’t know, but a part of him wanted to believe that Nolan was genuine; that there was a guy on this earth that would steal an ice cream truck for the sole purpose of surprising some kids. But it was probably bullshit.

It was smooth sailing until Nolan had been given a new cellmate. He’d gotten along fine with his previous one, but the morning after they’d paired him with the new guy, Nolan called for the guards. The officers reported to Paul that Nolan, just as calm as can be, told them he’d beaten his cellmate down because he was a pedophile. Paul checked the records and sure enough, there was a charge for sexual abuse of a child. He was going to be all right, but he’d definitely be spending time in the infirmary. The question was what to do with Nolan?

“Should we put him in the hole?” one of the guards asked.

“Yes. No…not yet. Bring him here,” Paul said.

The two guards shared a glance that suggested they disagreed completely with their warden.

Not good.

Minutes later they returned with a handcuffed Nolan and sat him down. Paul leaned on the edge of his desk and rubbed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “I thought you said you weren’t going to give me any trouble?”

“Well, sir, I didn’t want to. And honestly, I ain’t caused you any trouble. Just my celly. He’s a bad person.” One of the guards behind Nolan snickered.

Paul shook his head. “I got news for you, kid. This is a prison. It’s full of bad people. A lot of people would say that since you’re here, that you are a bad person.”

“But, ain’t bad. I never hurt anybody.”

“You don’t think that stealing people’s property, repeatedly, doesn’t hurt people? You sure as hell hurt your celly, don’t you think?”

“He–”

“He what? Deserved it? You and me could go round and round about that, but it doesn’t really matter. I can’t have you doing this. You said you wanted to do your time and get out. This could lead to even more time.”

“I ain’t never done nothing like this before, and I swear I won’t do it again, but I just can’t be cellies with a pedophile. One of them sons of bitches killed my daughter.”

There was that look again. That wide-eyed, childlike pleading look.

“Is that true?”

Paul’s shoulders slumped. He was thinking of a way to work something else out, when he saw the two guards sharing the same look as before. A warden couldn’t show weakness in front of his guards any more than the prisoners could show weakness around each other.“I may be a lot of things, but I’m not a liar. They never caught that bastard though.”

He straightened up and rolled his shoulders back. “I’ve got to do something with you. If I don’t…it’s going to look bad.”

“I know, but you gotta understand–”

“I don’t have to understand anything, Nolan. I have to do my job. You’ve beat a man within an inch of his life, and I don’t have much choice other than the put you in the SHU while we figure things out.”

“No! Please! I can’t go in the hole. I can’t!” Nolan scrambled to his feet, but the two guards behind him grabbed his shoulders and dragged him out of the office. The last thing Paul saw was Nolan’s eyes imploring him to change his mind, but it was too late. Still, it felt all wrong. Who wouldn’t want to beat down a pedophile? Especially when… But the prison had a zero tolerance policy on inmate violence, and for the most part, it worked. Most of the time, Paul thought they deserved the hole, but sometimes he had his doubts as to whether it was fair or not. The looks on their faces when they came out was eerie. Haunted. Men with tear streaked faces, and dull eyes. A lot of guys went in one way and came out different. Off somehow.

Kind of like that cloud in the sky. It hadn’t really grown, but it was still there. Lurking.

There was a tug on Paul’s line. He pulled the rod back and started to reel the fish in. It wasn’t huge, but it was putting up a good fight. It’d probably be big enough to fry up and eat for dinner. Other fish started jumping out of the water as he reeled his in. Bluefish. No doubt about it. He reeled it in and gently worked the hook out of its lip as it stared back up at him with its dark, fathomless eye. It reminded him of Nolan.

“Dammit,” he said as he tossed the fish into the sea water filled bin next to him. The fish swam furiously in the bin, and made thumping noises against the sides. This was supposed to be taking his mind off of the prison, yet here he was putting a creature into a tiny box against its will. He considered calling the jail and telling them to take Nolan out of the hole.

Thunder rumbled. Paul stood straight up and looked at the sky. The troubling cloud was now a front. A bolt of lightning shot down toward the water.

Paul hurried to the helm of his boat and turned the key. Nothing. He turned it again, but got the same result. “Come on!” Thunder cracked through the sky, closer this time. He took a quick look back and the front was on him. He kicked the steering column and gave the key another furious turn. The old engine came to life as fat raindrops smacked the windshield.

He’d made it maybe twenty yards when a bolt of lightning struck the boat. The force of it knocked Paul backwards, through a tangle of rope and cast net. He slammed his head on the back of the boat. As darkness tugged at the edge of his vision, he smelled sulphur and heard the engine die.

“No. Please, no.” Paul heard a voice, but he couldn’t place it, but then realized it was his own. Every part of him hurt. He didn’t open his eyes fo

r fear of what he’d see. His head was all fog and dizziness, and he felt like he was floating, but when he tried to move his arms and legs, they were stuck in place. His ears rang and the smell of salt and burnt fiberglass filled his nose. With a jolt, he remembered being overtaken by the storm.

He slowly opened his eyes, or at least thought he did. All he saw was darkness. He wiggled his hands and realized he was submerged in water except for his shoulders and head. Still unsure of what he was tangled in, he tried to pull himself up, but banged his head into something solid. Exquisite pain shot through his already aching skull. His boat had capsized and overturned, and from what he could gather, he was underneath, lashed to his boat by line and his cast net.

No light of any kind played through the water. He found his voice and called for help a few times. The sound of his voice rising in panic scared him. He heard cries like that before. Some of the guys put into the hole would yell for help, for their moms, for death itself. No more yelling for now. The throbbing in his head continued, and he felt nauseated. Concussion? Probably. Either that or sea sickness. Wouldn’t that just be a hoot?

“Yeah, that would be funny. Wouldn’t it, sir?” a voice said.

“Who’s there?”

“Nobody. Not at least according to you. To you, we’re just a bunch of dumb dogs, aren’t we? Found drugs in your cell? Stick ‘em in the hole. Mouth off to a guard? Stick ‘em in the hole. Beat up your celly because all you can see is the face of the asshole that killed your daughter? Stick ‘em in–”

“That’s not fair! I didn’t want to put Nolan in the hole.”

“But you did it anyway.”

“This isn’t happening.”

“Which part? Talking to me or you being trapped under your boat? Because you’re definitely talking to me and you’re definitely trapped under your boat.”

Paul closed his eyes and shook his head. Maybe he was still unconscious from his fall.

“You’re not.”

Unexpected emotion rose up in him. He yelled for help as hard and loud as he could for

as long as his throat could take it, and when he was done, his arms were numb from being tangled ever tighter, and he struggled for breath. The only sounds in return were the faint ringing in his ears and the gentle lapping of the water against the sides of the turtled “Jail Break.” He tried to untangle himself with the thought he could climb onto the bottom of the boat and signal for help, or maybe sleep, but the more he struggled against his ties, the more tangled he became. Frustrated and exhausted, he rested his head against his shoulder and dozed off.

Wild dreams spun in his mind. Tattooed prisoners, going into the SHU like men, but coming out as scared children with tear streaked faces. Fish swimming madly in a bucket, thrashing so hard against the walls that their bodies broke into pieces. Worse than any of that was the feeling of dread, of complete aloneness. The feeling of not knowing if you’d ever see the sun again, let alone the people you cared about, that’s if they still even cared about you.

Paul startled awake by inhaling a lungful of salt water. After he finished coughing and gagging, he opened his eyes to the darkness again. Pitch black. Impossible to tell how long he’d been asleep, if he could even call it sleep. He was also lower in the water than before. If he pulled himself up and touched the boat with his head, his chin barely cleared the water. The “Prison Break” was taking on water.

“Yes sir, it is.”

“No, please no.”

“No what? No despair? No hatred? No hoping your death comes quickly because that’s the only way out of this? No. You get all of those things.”

“Why?”

“Nobody is arguing the people in your prison don’t deserve to be in prison, but the SHU? Really? That’s your solution to everything even though you know it doesn’t work. Nolan almost convinced you, but you did it anyway. Too worried about what your little punk guards thought than doing the right thing. You’re the boss, Paul. You. Not them.”

He opened his mouth to speak, but it filled with water. He tilted his face up and spit it out. Clearance was down to maybe 5 inches now.

“Uh oh. Getting a little desperate?”

“I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to be sorry. Just try harder. You’re better than this, Paul. Be a leader.”

“I will. I promise. But how will I get out of–” Water flowed into his mouth. He spit it out one last time and took as big a breath as he could, then went under. He opened his eyes under the water, felt the sting of the saltwater burn his tired eyes. He also noticed a light. It was all around him, radiating through the water. This was it. This was his time. He thought of his wife as he closed his eyes again. He hoped she thought of him as a good person. Hoped she knew he loved her. Wished he could turn all of his wrongs into rights.

He blew some air out of his mouth. Then a little more, and a little more until his lungs were almost empty. He parted his lips slightly ready to breathe in as much water as he could. It would be the first time he’d breathe liquid since he came into this world. Then he felt something slip into his mouth. Plastic. A mouthpiece of some kind. He opened his eyes and saw the blurry figure of a man in front of him. The man gave the “Okay” symbol and then air filled Paul’s mouth. He took a breath, the first breath of a new life. The man sliced away the netting and rope, and in a few minutes Paul was free. The diver guided Paul out from under the boat and to the surface. Paul squinted against the morning sun, tears streaked down his face.

The man who saved him was a scuba instructor taking an early dive with a friend when they saw the turtled “Jail Break.” They almost hadn’t gone diving at all since the storm the day before had likely stirred up sediment, making for unfavorable dive conditions.

“I sure am glad you decided to dive today. What’s your name?” Paul asked the diver.

“Dave. But most people call me by my last name.”

“Oh yeah? What’s that?”

“Nolan.”

“You don’t say.”

“Glad we could help. Maybe you can get somebody out of a bind, someday. You know, pay it forward.”

“I plan to.”