Break Out

“I’m telling you, man, he’s different. Not like us. At all,” said Jerry Gleaton, inmate number 5976493.

He was speaking to Gordon Midmayer, the man who ran their crew, across a steel table in what looked like an interrogation room. Gordon was a hard and large man who wore his graying black hair straight back and whose skin was almost completely drawn. There were tattoos of names, various gangs and neighborhoods he’d associated with over the years, area codes, scary creatures with yellow eyes and horribly visible teeth.

Gordon leaned in closer to Jerry, exhaling, expressionless. “You’ve mentioned that. Several times. What I need are answers. Facts. You get it?”

“I’m not joshing you around, Gord. He was there in his bunk at lights out, and gone before first call. Like he was never there in the first place. That’s all I know. Hell, it’s all anyone knows!” He drew a cross over his heart and held his hand up. “No word of a lie.”

“Tell me from the beginning. Everything. Because what I know right now is that you were transferred in from another prison, where your bunky just busted out, somehow. And now you’re here, celled up with me, and I need to know exactly how that happened, and why. Dig?”

Jerry shook his head. “No. It wasn’t like that. There was no prison break. He was just… gone, my man.”

Gordon sat back and crossed his arms, bushy eyebrows perched low over steel blue eyes deep as any ocean. “Tell me.”

He told Gordon about an inmate named Trenton Montego, or Trent, as he preferred, a man who had made a big splash when he’d arrived at the correctional facility. He shook the foundations of nearly every prisoner there that summer and by winter, he was a ghost. A memory. And yet, he would exist always, immortalized by events which would have shocked Jerry to the core before. But now? Nothing much did. For he had been exposed to an ancient and wonderful secret, passed on by a meek and powerful man who used to be his cellmate at another correctional facility, three hours away.

“When Trent had first arrived, no one knew what to make of him. Middle-aged, short and pudgy, round and wiry silver-rimmed glasses, almost no hair to speak of, and a smile big as the Texas sky. He was assigned to my cell, as my old cellmate had moved out a few days prior. It was time for a change, anyhow. But I mean, nobody expected Trent.

“Right away he began challenging everything we knew, from how we viewed ourselves to how we thought about reality, our sentences at the prison, even the prison itself. None of us had ever heard anyone speak like he did, and whenever we could, we’d try to get a few minutes with Trent. You know, to learn stuff. It was like he was a church, always there when you needed him and always ready with fresh, new information that could really make you think, make you change how you see shit.

“I remember one time, this huge guy, Bruce, stood up and told him he was full of crap and so on and so forth, and that we were what we were: prisoners. Man, this Trent dude never even missed a beat. He barely raised his voice. He simply said, ‘No.’ I don’t know, man, maybe it was the way he said it, or something, but I’d never seen Bruce sit back down so fast in all my days there, no word of a lie. It wasn’t like he sat down scared, or anything like that, but he sat down, all the same, and fast. Never said another word as Trent explained more new concepts.

“He told Bruce and anyone else who was listening that we were not, in fact, in prison, if we did not wish to be and did not believe we were. You can imagine how that was received. Bunch of degenerate car thieves and pill heads, ya know? A few of ‘em doin’ hard time. They weren’t ready to hear deep shit like this. Not by a long shot.

“He said that if we truly believed we were locked up, then we were. But instead, he told us, if we chose to believe we were free, reality would have no choice but to reorganize itself around that belief. He said that reality was created within, not externally.

“Then one of them said yeah, well, you’re locked up! And the men laughed, and Trent smiled and nodded, his eyes closed. When he spoke, the men quieted down. ‘Yes, it’s true,’ he said, ‘I am most definitely existing here with you all, now, in this moment. But only because I choose to be. Don’t you see?’ But nobody saw, bro. That part took time. Luckily, I guess, that’s all any of us actually had.

Gordon sat up again and leaned his elbow on the table between them. “I've heard shit like this before. Wack job spiritual types, always insisting we create our own realities and the power lies within, stuff like that. Never gave it much thought. So what happened?”

Jerry thought carefully about what he'd say next; Gordon was not a man who played around when it came to his time. He was an important man, even while locked up, and if he suspected his time was being wasted, it could mean a bad evening for Jerry. “Well, nothing, at first. He just kept on and on, telling us that we need to look inside ourselves and believe, and that we were all there by choice and he could prove it. Of course, you don’t say something like that in the joint if you ain't prepared to back it up, and he was called on his claims pretty quickly by most of us. Even the ones who stayed quiet and didn’t play along watched that man closely. No one could say for sure if he was a threat or a nutcase or a savior, but we were ready for whatever, you know? So Mike Vancent—doing a year for boosting a Dodge super car and wrapping it around a police cruiser in a chase—stands up and says, 'OK, tough guy, since you're so sure of yourself, then by tonight someone in this facility believes you or we go to Bone’s cell and talk it out.' And by talk it out, you know, he meant—“

Gordon held up his hand, which was about two-thirds covered in gang ink on the back side. “I get it. Not a fun trip. Especially if he was talking about Bone Miller. We were locked up together in Oklahoma. Back then they called him the Handyman because he’d do just about anything for a fair price. Same guy?”

Jerry nodded excitedly. “Yeah boss, that’s him! A real peach. This guy once pissed in his own mouth and saved it there for like four hours or something, until the guards came for morning checks, just so he could spit it at them. He got a month in the hole for that trick but he came back a legend.”

Gordon threw his head back and laughed. “Yeah, yeah that sounds like the guy I know.” He laughed harder. “Sounds like he's only gotten crazier over the years.”

“I don’t know about that, but he's not someone you fuck with. He’s like seventy or something but nobody, and I mean nobody, gets in his way. Dude, last year some punk kid, wet behind the ears and cocky as hell, doing a bullet for manufacturing, cheated him in a chess match and Bone caught him, broke his arm on the spot. Then he cut him up good with a small piece of wire he’d filed to a point and intentionally rusted by leaving it under a slow sink drip every night. Kid nearly died from the infection. He got transferred out to Ross right from the infirmary, never even hit his cell again.”

Gordon whistled. “When we were locked up in Tulsa there was a guy, much the same story. Cheated him at cards but wasn't slick enough about it. Once Miller caught on, his eyes changed, went from regular brown to cyclones, spinning black and deep. He come across that plastic table and ripped the dude’s throat out with his teeth. And I mean out. The airway tube, the voice box, and a lot more, too. All of it. Guy couldn’t even scream. Bone simply watched him as he fell to the floor and bled out. I didn’t see him much after that; he spent the rest of my stay in solitary. He’s a mean, unhinged bastard.”

“Believe me, I know. So like I said, Mike challenged Trent and Trent just smiled and nodded, not bothered in the least. Never even said yes! Mike said fine and that he had til midnight. One believer, he told him, or it goes the other way.”

Gordon shifted his weight and chuckled. “So let me guess, ole Mike tore him up? Bone, maybe?”

“No, bro. Oh, no, no no; see, that’s where it gets interesting. I guess he went to a guy in there named David, who was locked up for evading and possession and the regular shit. Guy was sitting in his cell during rec time, just minding his business. Shortly after Trent left this dude’s cell, the guy came out crying and laughing at the same time, screaming that he was free. He kept saying it, you know? I’m free! I’m free!”

“The hell you suppose he meant?”

Jerry laughed, a snively laugh that sounded more like a mouse than a two-hundred pound man with a pot-belly and brown, disheveled hair. “You aren’t getting it. Nobody had to wait long for what he meant. He told us that in his mind, he was no longer a prisoner. He could go wherever he wanted. Dance in the fields, swim in the streams, shit like that. We all suspected Trent had paid him with something to say what he was saying, but nobody could ever prove it so Mike backed off.

“What happened to the prisoner who thought he was free?”

“They transferred him three days later. Psych ward. Who knows, now.”

Gordon whistled again. “Goddamn. So this guy makes people crazy?”

Jerry shook his head. “No. No, Gord, you still aren't getting this. Just days after he said he was free, he was free, man. At least from that place and that time. Once he believed he was free, reality had no choice but to bend to his will. At least, that’s what the monk said.

“The monk?” Gordon asked.

“Yeah. Trent. That’s what we called him on the down low. You know, us guys or whatever.”

“I see. So you're telling me the fuckin' monk sent old dude to the loony bin and everyone just what, bought that he was free?”

“Not really. But I mean, he held up his end, yanno? That was the deal. Real, not real, didn’t matter. He’d made a believer and nobody could prove he hadn’t. But you're missing the point, still, I think.”

“I’m not missing any point, Jerry,” Gordon said, sitting forward in his chair. “He got out, went to the loony bin. I get it. But those two things can't be related. And besides, now he's just stuck there, rotting away with doctors and crazies instead of cops and felons.”

“I don’t know, man,” Jerry said. “You didn’t see this guy. He didn’t look like us anymore.”

“The hell does that mean?”

“His face, his features, they all changed, softened, in the days before they took him. His language changed, the words he used, he wasn't talking like he had before. We’d known this guy for eight months, Gord. That’s enough time to know when a man has changed entirely. And he had changed en-fucking-tirely.”

“Tell me how.”

“Well, that’s the thing, boss. We just didn’t know. The monk wasn’t in that man’s cell very long but the results were… well, they were crazy pants, is what they were. Nobody knew what to think. But I do, now. That’s the only reason I’m here, Gord. To tell you that this shit happened and that it’s real. Make of it what you will. We probably don’t have much time left. But there’s one more thing to tell. And it’s a biggie.” His eyebrows climbed up high on his forehead, and his mouth sat somewhere between a smile and a grimace—a child wondering if his approach had worked with a strict parent.

Gordon nodded, sat back again slowly, and crossed his arms.

“I did it, too.”

“Did what, exactly,” Gordon asked.

“I forced my way out, using only my mind.”

“Out of what?”

Now Jerry leaned in. “Listen, man, I’m here to change your life. After talking with the monk, it took me two nights to become free.” He laughed, and it grew louder until he wiped his nose and wasn’t smiling any longer. “I’m free, man. I got out.”

“The hell do you mean, you got out? You’re here now, still a prisoner. It’s just another place and another set of assholes. What’s gotten into you? Trent has you all bent out of shape, brother. You ain’t the Jerry I remember. The Jerry I remember would have kicked that monk’s balls up through his throat and tossed his cell for whatever the hell he wanted to take.”

Jerry smiled. “Gord. Listen, okay? I’m not done. The monk told me how to do it. The real deal. And it really did work. I was released, official and legal.”

Gordon stared at Jerry a long time before speaking. “You’d better start making sense here, man, because I’m not so sure I like what I’m hearing.” His eyes narrowed and he sat forward in his chair once more, hands clasped in front of him, tattooed lovers writhing.

“You got it all wrong, bud. Just hear me out. Trent taught me how to astral project. Basically, I fly around in a dream that isn’t a dream at all. It’s real as the numbers on your chest. The first night, I just roamed around town like a moron, not knowing where the hell to go. I hit a bar or two, hung out in the women’s john, shit like that. By the time it dawned on me I could probably go out much further, the bartender yelled, “Look alive, gentleman! Get up, fold up, sit down. We’re tossing five random cells!” And boom, my eyes opened and I’m stretched out on my prison slab while Officers Friendly and Friendlier destroyed a few bunks. They skipped mine.

“By the second night, though, I was wise. I went right to the house of the judge who heard my case, like a hundred miles away, and whispered over and over in his ear while he slept that my case has to be a mistrial because the evidence wasn’t there and he knew it. By noon the next day, prison staff stormed in and told me to roll up, I was going home. My case was overturned with only a brief explanation.”

“Bullshit.” Gordon slowly shook his head. “What are you trying to pull?”

“Nothing, bro. In fact,” he said with a wry smile, “I’m not even here.”

“What does that mean?”

“This is a dream. You’re asleep, Gord. It’s the third night and I’m using it to visit you, tell you how to do this.”

Gordon’s eyes betrayed his rage. “Keep fucking with me, see where it gets you. Little punk.”

Jerry remained calm, never allowing the smile to slip from his lips. “Look, I know it’s hard to believe right now. But think about it. Where the hell are we? Where is this room? Have you been here before?”

Gordon studied the nondescript room, its drab green walls, the single burning light high up on the ceiling, and the steel table that sat between them, carved on over the years by other visitors. “I don’t know. Maybe. It’s in some lockup I was in, I know that. Has to be this one, right?” He pointed at Jerry accusingly. “Besides, look. You’re in you're blue prison jumps. How the hell would that be if you got out legit?”

Jerry’s eyes beamed, and he held out his hand. “You’re seeing me as you imagine I’d be, as you remember me. We did a lot of time together. But see? See this?” He pulled on the material of his jumpsuit. “This isn’t even the color I wore in the last joint. Those were orange.”

As Jerry’s words sank in, Gordon’s features softened. Could this all be a dream?, Gordon thought. Just a crazy dream?”

“Not really,” Jerry offered aloud.

Gordon’s head shot up. “What did you just say?”

“It’s not a dream. Not really. It is and it isn’t. I assure you, this conversation is very real.”

“Man I was only thinking that shit. How are you just going to answer me like that?”

“It’s different now. You’ll see. Here. Imagine me in street clothes. Then look at the floor and back to me.”

Gordon rolled his eyes but looked at the floor, then back up to Jerry. He jumped, nearly toppling over in his chair. “The fuck?”

Jerry looked down at his new attire and smiled. Gordon had put him in a maroon shirt with a skull on the front and baggy, dark jeans. “That’s more like it. Thanks!”

“I don’t understand any of this.”

“When you wake up, you’ll just know. All you have to do now, right now, is surrender to it. Let it all flow. Accept that it’s happening and accept that it’s real. Once you have, ask yourself this question: What would I do if I could go anywhere and do anything tonight?”