383 words (1 minute read)
by DB

Wasco

The bus bumped up and drew me out of the daze I was in. “Exit light, enter night...take my hand, off to never never land” played on the radio. How fucking ironic. Foreshadowing has always been my favorite literary element, and I always got a laugh when I experienced it in the real world.This wasn’t going to be a fun adventure.

We were pulling up. There were 30ft tall fences spanning what seemed like a few hundred yards, then curving around to make the enclosure. With guard towers spread out every hundred yards or so. We were here.        

“Ay Wood, tell the pile Lucky Red is here headed to the S.H.U”  the guy sitting next to me said. He was skinny, smoked out clearly, with a shaved head and orangish-red beard. On the top of his head was a huge swastika.

I never had any relations with racist skinheads or any kind of “white supremest” and had only really seen them at punk shows before landing in jail. This was prison, I knew there’d be more.

I looked to my right where we were chained together and said “I’m not sure where I’ll land but I’ll spread the word”.

“Tell ‘em to shoot something back, it’s been too long since I’ve had a taste” he said. I had no idea how prison worked or what he was even talking about. How I ended up there was not where I thought my life would ever head.

The bus pulled into a gate, and we sat on the bus while they walked around with mirrors on sticks inspecting the vehicle. The air of excitement a lot of the guys had was unsettling. People were half standing, looking out of the windows.

“Here we go fellas” one guy towards the front said. “Ah fuck that was a quick trip. When’d we get here?” asked a black cat a few rows up.

The sheriff finished his inspection, knocked on the bus twice and disappeared into the guard shack. Then we sat. For what had to have been over an hour before the next gate opened and we started rolling in.