Consequences of His Actions

"...having been found guilty... I sentence you to..."

That statement kept playing over and over in James' mind. He was led out of the courtroom to a holding cell. He sat there for a while and two women came to see him. They were upbeat and cheerful, but James wasn't in the mood. He hated confined spaces, so he did everything in his power to not end up here, but that didn't work; here he was about to spend time in jail; being told when to go to sleep; when to wake up; when to eat, when to shower. He never liked being told what to do, but he would have to make the best of a bad situation. And as situations went, they didn't get any worse than this. An hour later the cell James was in was almost filled, and the cell across from his was the women's equivalent. The men in James' cell were whistling and barking at the women and in turn the women took off their clothes and were parading around naked as if they were in a pageant for the men. Ordinarily this would have turned James on, but he could only think of his own predicament. A few minutes went by, and the guards came in and made the female inmates put their clothes back on; to the boos of the male inmates.

An hour later, all the male inmates were chained together and were led to a transport bus in the underground garage. There was no chance for escape because the door leading to the outside went down a hall straight to the waiting doors of the bus. If anyone even thought about escaping this wasn' t the place to do it. James was shackled to the bus floor and sat in a seat next to the window. He wanted to look through the bars on the window; he wanted to see the outside world. The bus then pulled away from the courthouse and took a different route back to the jail that it had taken to get there. They never stopped for the lights and their escorts were always on the side of the bus. Traffic either slowed down for them or got out of their way altogether. When they arrived at the jail, all the prisoners were led into a processing area. James was given a standard jumpsuit and told to change into it. He took off the suit he had worn to court and changed. He was told to walk behind the guard 3 paces and always on the guard's right side next to the wall and to follow the yellow strip on the floor. The guard took him to an elevator and up a few floors, when they exited the elevator, he was led to a large cell area. The doors seemed to open automatically but James knew better. He could hear the lock switches being pushed at the guard's station and he could also see the guard in the center of the complex that was open. That one station controlled 4 floors for a total of 8 cell blocks. He could see down a few flights into the other cell blocks. He went into the cell block and was told to go into the bunk area and pick a bunk. He did that and that's when he realized that this was his new home.

James sat down on his bunk and sighed. A few inmates came over to talk to him, but he didn't feel like talking that much. He knew he would eventually have to talk to someone, but not right now. Now he needed the solitude of his own thoughts. He needed to prepare himself for his ordeal here. A few hours passed and he went into the common area, he saw a few inmates playing cards and walked over to them. He watched them play a few hands and figured that they were playing Spades. He wasn't much of a card player, but he was always a fast learner. "Hey, I'm Rob, this is Willie, and that ugly son of a monkey right there is, Kelley and you know what, Kelley's bout to owe me his Canteen."

"Hey fellas I'm James..."

"What's up, Jimbob?" asked Kelley. "And don't listen to this Monkey's ass, he about to owe me his canteen."

"We see you all settled in," said Willie. "Took you a minute to get accustomed to these walls, huh."

"Yeah... I hate being confined."

"Don't we all," said Willie. "And for the record both you ugly muthas owe ME your canteens. I got more books than all of you and I'm about to win the last three, too." He put the last three cards in his hand down on the table and showed them he had the three highest cards: The Queen, the King, and the Ace. The other two men sighed and complained but gave their canteens to Willie reluctantly. "So, tell me, James, what you did to win an all-expense paid vacation here?"

James sat down on the bench and thought about that for a second; the only thing he could say was, "I'm paying for what I did. I forgot that for every action, for every decision there are: CONSEQUENCES!"