The Joint

I can’t imagine anyone enjoys walking into a prison. But for those of us who’ve committed substantial crimes, it’s hard not to imagine ending up there. It feels like entering enemy territory.

“I’m Michael Diamond. Here to see Madeleine McCullough. I called yesterday.”

The administrators and guards all felt like the enemy. It wasn’t their words. It was their tone of voice. The way they looked at me. Like I was a criminal just because I was there to visit someone. Like I was guilty.

It’s entirely beside the point that the law was no longer something I respected. It was not the point that I was the sort of fellow who would take the law into my own hands. That was not the point. The point was that I had come here of my own volition, and they were mindless slavers, doing a corrupt government’s bidding.

But I digress!

There I was, an 18-year-old boy in a women’s prison. The catcalls made me blush, but she didn’t look at me like that. No. She looked almost reserved and elegant in her orange jumpsuit and green bandanna. Composed.

Her clever green eyes melted when they hit me.

“Hello, Michael. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Hi, Mom.”