âHe laid on the flimsy bed in his cell and tried his best to block out his prison-matesâ voices. He needed time to himself, time to think things through, but it was too damn hard to get a moment alone. There was constant yelling and fighting and the over-crowded cells made it hard to catch a breath. He had to get out of there. He didnât want to spend precious years wasting away in a prison when he could be out in the world, making endless money and a name for himself, intimidating his enemies and forming new alliances. He couldnât wait another 5 years for his release date. He wants an escape.â
Name: Everett âRhettâ Hughes
There was nothing remarkable about Everett, Rhett, Hughes. He was born in to a well-to-do family from Miami, Florida â at the height of the drug wars. His mother stayed home, to take care of the boy, and his father wandered out of the house when he pleased, no real job evident, though he had heard his parents bickering about his business. As he grew older, old enough to fend for himself, they would begin bouncing him from one private school to the next, ( whichever would put up with him ), his father never giving up on his dream to open up doors for his son â to live a legitimate life. He knew now that it was for this reason, and this alone, that kept him from having everything heâd dreamed of, everything he deserved. His father was selfish in sending him away, never teaching him the duties of a man; how to protect by cherishing, instead of neglect.
Everett had his whole life ahead of him â a wife at home, a baby on the way, and a job making nearly six-figures. The only thing he couldnât seem to shake was his innate ability to fuck everything up. In the blink of an eye, it was all gone â his wife, Imani, nothing more than a grave marker upstate and a precious child taken months before he could take his first breath.
Heâd seen it coming, the dark sedan, standing on the porch of their quarter-of-a-million dollar home, seeing her off with her sister at her side. With Amari, she was safe; it was a monthly check-up, ones she didnât mind him missing for those mid-day meetings. But things went wrong, just like they always did when Rhett had a good run of things. Sheâd had her back to him, arm up and lips taut in a smile, waving and calling out her temporary âgood bye.â It had seemed a lifetime to get to where they were, in love, starting a family, but only two minutes and two shots to end it all. One had lodged itself in Imaniâs neck, throwing her body around like a rag doll, the next nestling in the small of her back. The screech of tires peeling away from the scene drowned out the wailing of his sister-in-law, grasping helplessly at her sister as Rhett barreled down the front steps to scoop up the crumpled figure of his wife, eyes blown wide, yet lifeless.
        23-year-old African American female found at
        residence.    Pronounced dead at the scene.
        Two gunshot wounds,     first to lower back,
        second to occipital bone just below lambdoid
        suture.
In the weeks to follow, Rhett found himself falling away from the life he shared with Imani, cutting ties with their friends â everything reminding him of what he couldnât have. Soon, he was tracking down his fatherâs old associates, prying, selling his soul to find out anything possible on the man responsible for her untimely demise. A favour here, a favour there, it didnât seem so bad for the information he coaxed out of the low-lifes; until heâd woken up one day, on the outskirts of Orlando, knocking down doors, intimidating, stealing, killing, in the name of another. Suddenly, it wasnât about Imani anymore; it was about filling that god awful void. ( Papa would be proud. No, he wouldnât, but it was a lie that got him through the night. ) The cool steel of his Ruger was the first thing that greeted calloused fingertips in the morning, his barrel sinking beneath his waistline and pressing against the fabric of his shirt, daring to peek out from the white cotton.
He had been looking down the sights at a man heâd spent the last year hunting down, stalking like prey. It had taken two shots to end Imaniâs life, it would only take one to end his.He wouldnât run, instead, he sat down beside the manâs corpse, lighting a cigarette while he waited to accept his responsibility.
     He just hadnât realized how shitty that would be.
Prison seemed like a breeze; life was hell, why not? But the grass is always greener â unless you were in Florida, then it was probably brown.
          March 15th, 2016
             [ Somewhere in Tallahassee, Florida ]
The lights were flashing, sirens blaring, the undeniable shudder of chains pulling tight from the German Shephard snapping at the end, and their vicious barks filled the damp air â shouts of flustered guards clinging to the humidity as frantic prisoners made an escape through the woods. Seven men chanced ten extra years, but only one would find a new start. ( ONE that so quickly turned back to crime. )
The crack of the guardâs neck had been a symphony to Rhettâs ears, resonating through him, the shatter of bone shuddering through his fingertips and bringing him to life, knowing he was the last blockade standing in his way to freedom â seven years spent beneath the watchful eye of the warden and his goons, twenty-five hundred days stuck behind the barbed wire fence, praying the rain would flood the plains and drown every last one of the bastards in his block, sixty-one thousand hours of listening to men bicker, hard slaps of knuckles shattering against broken cheeks. One-hundred and thirty minutes to take it all back, two months to find asylum.
Rhett ran, ran until his feet ached, bled. He wouldnât sleep, not until bloodshot eyes settled on a sign â the only one for miles â that read:
      Welcome to Eden, Louisiana!
             May God bless your stay!
Why he chose to stay in Eden that night was as much of a mystery then, as it is now. Maybe it was the thrill of becoming someone, or maybe it was the money, but as he sat before fifteen men that all looked to him for order, Rhett couldnât picture it turning out any other way.
