The Gates of Heaven

“Sorry ass, shiftless doctors,” he mumbled incoherently, as if to prevent even his own ears from deciphering the words. Verbal translation didn’t matter, anyway; his mind just needed to release frustration, allowing room for the impending doom that lurked ahead.

Mark Hennessey had completed his painful, seven-month ordeal with the medical profession and now stood only five minutes away from his future. A future with a new set of leeches that intended to suck the rest of his natural life away.

Riding shackled in a white-correctional, Florida State prisoner transport vehicle had never occurred in any of his nightmares or, for that matter, worst nightmares. However, busted, disgusted, and can’t be trusted now pounded his fully awake body.

For a brief moment, Mark allowed his mind to drift from the current peril and try to remember life as it existed seven months prior. He struggled to pull anything useful from his memory cells other than a beautiful wife and two wonderful kids, alone without him now.  This lack of recall capability did not originate from amnesia, trauma, or even shock. No, he had just overloaded his gray matter with some serious crap recently.  At the top of the mental pile burned visions still remnant from the welcome signs freely distributed along the exterior road to Florida’s premier maximum-security-prison. Entering Raiford prison grounds, no firearms, vehicles subject to inspection, armed guards on duty, 15 mph strictly enforced, and other your life is over notices blocked all access to the good memories for the moment. 

            “Que pasa, pinga? You lookin’ whiter than mi’ coca plants,” Juan Alvarez sneered in Spanglish at the brown haired, boyish-looking man seated catty-corner from him.

            Mark turned his head one-hundred-and-eighty degrees to the left, met the only other passenger’s cold eyes for a split second, and then returned his blank gaze through the metal grate covering the sole window in the back of the van.  His mind remained steadfast and refused any response to the mentally-challenged Cuban, dope peddler.  Don’t do it. Don’t fall for it. Not in this place, Mark’s brain pulsed. Besides, more pressing thoughts required his attention while the van idled slowly between the main prison entrance gate and the looming gate ahead.

            Thoughts like: why none of the prison movies he watched over his forty-one years of existence involving inmates arriving at their new habitats ever painted the picture he experienced now.  For starters, he already wore the prison garb, compliments of the State of Florida from when they picked him up at the Melbourne City Jail.  They made him change out of the orange Melbourne jail colors, and into the orange Raiford prison colors.  “No matter what life throws you, if you look hard enough you’ll see the humor,” Mark’s mother always said.  Secondly, the…

            “You dissing me now, man, but you be bitchin me later,” Juan interrupted, attempting to point at his crotch with his hand shackles on. Only the way Juan’s hands were shackled out in front, it appeared he pointed at his right foot instead.

Mark felt the humor in the moment, smiled at Juan, and continued his mindless game of prison Jeopardy. Alex, I’d like Hollywood prison movie misconceptions for five hundred dollars.