Riven - Jerry B. Jenkins [56]
Brady knew exactly what he should do, yet he also knew he would not do it. He should swallow his pride and enlist all the help he could in order to succeed on the midterms, believing that even if he failed, his teachers and Dean Hose would recognize that he was giving it his all. They would be able to make concessions for him, keep him in the play, keep him in school, and transition him into the work-release program.
But that crazy part of his brain, that lazy, hope-things-will-work-out part of him, heard the timing issue—that his midterms could all be Fs and still not affect his first three performances—as a license to coast. He knew there was no way he could pass even one test with that attitude. He would be flunking himself out of of the play, even out of the work-release program.
But what if a talent scout saw him that first weekend? Then Brady wouldn’t need school. He wouldn’t need anything but his dream and his passion and his talent. And maybe, just maybe, he would be so impressive that the school would let him try the work-release program on probation.
Hose had been crystal clear on that score, though. It wasn’t going to happen. The second weekend of the musical was in no way guaranteed—unless Brady failed, and then it was guaranteed he would be on the outside looking in.
Yet still Brady mentally shut the door on his midterms. He wouldn’t be cracking another book, taking another note, talking to any teacher, employing any tutor. He would do his best on the tests, excel on the boards, and hope for a miracle.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, he knew. But he had never played the game before, and he wasn’t about to start now.
Adamsville State Penitentiary
“Eight percent of the state budget goes to incarcerating criminals,” Warden Frank “Yanno” LeRoy said as he led Thomas Carey out of the office wing and down a long, sterile corridor. When they turned right, Thomas’s senses were assaulted. The tang of industrial cleaners hit his nostrils, and as they approached the first envelope, as Chaplain Russ had called it, he heard all the clanging and yelling.
“These men cost us over three hundred dollars a week each,” Yanno said. “It’s no surprise some wonder why we don’t just execute ’em all and save money.”
Thomas couldn’t imagine anything worse. Sure, some no doubt deserved to die. But to kill them all just for economic reasons? How, then, could any of them be reached for Christ?
He was quickly processed through the double entry into the main unit, surely because the warden was with him. The corrections officers greeted the warden, and they were friendly, though businesslike, with Thomas.
As they moved into the corner of the massive first floor, Yanno stopped to point out things and explain. And from all over the unit came shouts and cries.
“Padre!”
“Father!”
“Reverend!”
“God squad in the house!”
Thomas tried to take in everything at once. In some ways, this reminded him of a zoo. Cement floors, concrete block walls, tiny slits of windows, and cages everywhere. He was surprised to notice that each cell had a solid steel door with an opening for a food tray, the rest of the front wall made up of two-inch square openings, almost as if metal strips had been woven. There were no bars, per se, except between corridors and envelopes. Each man’s “house” was identical.
“Each cell is seven feet by ten feet with a built-in bunk, a concrete stool, a metal table, and a sink-toilet unit.”
“I’ll never complain about the size of my office,” Thomas said.
“I hear that. But this is the price for bein’ a bad citizen. They carp and complain and write letters and cry to the public, but we’re not trying to be mean. They’re not in here for chewing gum in class, know what I mean?”
Closer to the cells, the industrial cleaner smell was overwhelmed by a stench that seemed to be a combination of sewage, garbage, and body odor. “Each man is responsible for cleaning his own house, and we give ’em what they need for that once a week. They tend to misuse good cleaning products, so they get watered-down stuff that can’t be