Pure as the Driven Snow

By Bev Vincent
July 2005

I can't convey how much difference two steps made to the quality of the air I was breathing. One moment, a fetid miasma forced its way through my nostrils into my reluctant lungs. Two steps later, I greedily sucked in the nectar-filled air of freedom.

The doorway to my new life didn't clank shut behind me like a fortress gate, metal on metal. Instead, there was barely any sound at all, as if liberty didn't require grand gestures to announce it.

Two steps, one in darkness, the other in the light of a new day.

No guards appeared to wish me well upon my release. The warden probably had to bring in reinforcements to keep me from being lynched outside the prison walls. Wasn't every day that someone like me pulled a get-out-of-jail-free card from the Monopoly deck. Technicalities make the legal world go around, we liked to say on the inside. All it took was one higher court judge's opinion about the legality of a search to get my conviction reversed.

Of course there was a retrial, but without the crucial evidence that had etched revulsion onto the faces of my original jurors, the D.A. didn't stand a chance. I was my most charming, naïve, pure-as-the-driven- snow self and the jury didn't stay out for more than two hours. For most of that they were probably having lunch on the county's dime.

The five bucks they gave me along with my bus ticket barely got me a burger and a cup of coffee at the dingy café two miles down the dusty road from the prison gate, but I hadn't tasted anything so good in ages. Prison time is like dogs' years; each one on the outside is worth about seven inside.

Appeals and trials burn up calendar pages like autumn leaves, so it had been nearly thirty-six months since I last wore anything other than orange jumpsuits and prison fatigues. My shirt and jeans hung loose on me on account of poor nutrition, an aggressive exercise regimen and how worrying about getting shivved—or worse—in the shower tend to keep you on the scrawny side.

When the bell rang over the café entrance, I nearly jumped out of my seat. The waitress behind the counter snorted, spit into a washcloth and yelled out a greeting to the newcomer, who she called Roy.

Roy, it turned out, was the local deputy. He wore the high-peaked hat, jack-heeled boots and shades southern cops favor. He gave me a long look before hefting himself onto a stool that probably wouldn't be good for much after he got his fat ass off it. Guy had to be three hundred pounds at least. I could have robbed the place and gotten clean away at a slow trot. I didn't know they made that many donuts.

"Doin anything for Father's Day?" the waitress inquired. She was wiping the washcloth around the insides of some glasses, making me glad I'd had coffee and not water.

Someone at the far end of the counter snickered. Roy glared at him, but it's hard to take a guy that fat seriously, shades or no shades.

"You know I lost my daddy a while back" Roy said, turning his coffee cup upright with a thud.

The snickering man poked an elbow into the side of the man next to him. Then he tipped his trucker's cap back with his index finger and said, "I think Juana Jean was referring to yore own kiddies. Some of them there seeds you been spreading around the county must'a took." Another elbow jab. "Lest yore shootin blanks." He paused. "Or aimin at the wrong target."

The man slapped his thigh and laughed at his own wit.

Roy stared through his dark glasses for several seconds, then turned back to the waitress. "Gimme an egg sandwich, runny. You know how I like it."

This sent a gale of laughter through the two men at the far end. It was time to be on my way before Tom and Jerry really got the deputy's dander up.

Heat pounded down on my shoulders and back as I walked toward the bus station, which was another two miles down the road. I hadn't gotten more than half a mile, though, before the cop car crept up beside me and stopped.

"You ain't from around here," Roy said through the open passenger window.

"No shit, Sherlock," I thought, but didn't say. "On my way to the depot."

"I recognize you."

"I was in the café."

He shook his head, which made the whole car rock. "Not that. Somewhere else. You've been in the newspapers."

I was surprised he read, but now wasn't the time to challenge him on that point. "I'm just a guy trying to move on to someplace else."

"You're from the prison, aintcha?"

"Once upon a time, a long time ago, yes," I admitted.

The cop barked a short laugh.

"I'll give you a ride. Folks like you we don't want around town any longer'n necessary. I sure do wish I could remember where I seen your face before."

Like I said, I have this naïve look I put on to disarms folks, which must be why Deputy Dawg let me ride up front.

Which is how I got myself a police cruiser to take me away from that hellhole while ole Roy festered in a ditch alongside the interstate. Maybe he did have kids somewhere who wondered on this Father's Day where their pappy was and why he never came around. I seriously doubted it, though.

For me, Roy was just another in a long line of men who thought they could take advantage of a naïve young man, pure as the driven snow, until they laid their filthy paws on him and found out what big teeth he had.

THE END

[Story prompt: Begin a story at the moment a serial killer has been released from incarceration.
Write in first person point-of-view. To spice it up, make the day a particular holiday.]