Did you know that here in Ohio you can be sent to jail for thirty days for not paying the fare on a bus or a train? You didn't? Well, it's true.
Can you now imagine the first night in a holding cell for this infraction? You can't? Well, I can. Here's how I think it would go.
The room was dank from sweat and stale urine. The overhead lights shone harshly on the four men in the tiny cramped cell. One man, stick thin and poorly dressed, paced nervously back and forth, like an alley cat in a cage. He snapped his fingers in a series of sharp clicks and pops. Two of the men, one large and beefy, the other small and compact, engaged in animated conversation. The fourth man sat apart from the others, his hat covering his brow as he hunched his shoulders low.
"Yeah," said the large man in a loud booming voice, "I was nabbed on grand theft auto." He laughed. "I musta led them cops for one hundred miles before they caught up with me. Got up to hundred 'n' twenty miles an hour at one point." He slapped his knee in amusement. "Jesus! Took a couple of 'em down before they got the cuffs on me."
His companion chuckled in appreciation. "Grand theft auto, huh?" His voice was grating and harsh, like screeching metal. He leaned in close to the bigger man and said in a whisper, "Stabbed my landlord." He thrust his arm out and twisted his wrist. "In like butter. SOB wanted ta throw me out." He wheezed in laughter. "Wanted ta throw me out so I put him down."
The two men howled with laughter.
The thin pacing man stopped in his tracks and glared at them. "Why don't you two guys shut up." he said with a whine in his voice. "Not everybody wants to hear your damn stupid stories." He whipped around to face the silent hunched man. "You don't wanna hear this crap, do you?"
The man sat, not moving, as if he hadn't heard.
The thin man scurried to him. "Hey, I'm talkin' to you." Still no response. The thin man turned back to the others. "See? He don't wanna talk."
The large man hefted himself up from the metal folding chair and moved slowly to the quiet man. He bent as low as his round stomach would allow. "Hey? That true? You don't wanna talk?" The man sat, still hunched, still quiet. The beefy man looked to the others and shrugged his shoulders. "Don't wanna talk."
This seemed to agitate the thin man. He scurried to the seated man and grabbed his shoulder, clenching long bony fingers into his flesh. "You can at least say why you're here." He was almost pleading, as if this silent man was a affront to everything he held dear in his sad life.
The man moved, lifted his head and peered at the others. His eyes were a winter cold blue, empty and void of compassion. He stared at the man confronting him.
The thin man fell back, hand to mouth, and stumbled over his back peddling feet. "Jesus Christ," he said, "it's him."
A hush fell over the room. They had all seen the trial on the news, read of this man's crime and his sneering indifference to the courts and justices. They had seen the face of his lawyer, slashed from the cheek to his bottom lip after one motion failed.
The man lifted his chin and spoke. His voice was deep and low, almost a growling purr, measured and slow. "You want to know why I'm here?" He pulled his hat up and looked at the men. "One sunny afternoon. Got laundry to take care of. Problem is, I got the jack for the washer but not the bus. So, I figured I'd just sneak in the back door, you know? When the driver ain't lookin'. But he sees me, see? Yells out, 'Hey! You gotta pay the fare!' I got myself up to the front. 'Come on, give a guy a break.' I says. He says, 'No. You gotta pay like everybody else'. I sat down in the seat with my bag of clothes and I says, 'Make me, bus jockey'. Next thing I know some bus cops got me in cuffs. Drag me outa there. I can't even get my clothes." He laughs, a short sharp sound that resembles a hound dog bark. "And I go to trial and the judge says, 'Guilty!' And now I'm here with you lugs."
The men are still, like statues. They stare in fear and repulsion at the man.
He leans back in his chair. "In thirty days I have an engagement." He lowers his hat over his eyes. "An engagement with a certain bus driver.
In the distance a train whistles, a low melancholy sound that sends chills up the spine of all who hear it.
