The warden then introduced him to three counselors who would be available to help make his life in prison as personally rewarding and enjoyable as he could possibly want. The quality of his prison life and the number of achievements would be strictly up to him.
He left the warden's office with a good feeling. Before he was dragged out of the get-away car at the bank, he had never given a thought to what prison life might be like. Why would he? However, after that, and until his meeting with the warden, he had imagined that prison life was horrible, dangerous and degrading. Now he was feeling very upbeat and optimistic that prison life might not be so bad after all. It might even be enjoyable and rewarding.
It was strictly up to him, and he intended to consider it a miracle rather than a curse.
Like Mr Adams had told him, he’d avoided the chair, and he was going to spend every day of the rest of his life … yes, in prison, but also thanking the good Lord for sparing him at this young age. As he was led back to his solo cell, Charlie determined to count his blessings in every way possible.
Feeling less overwhelmed and depressed, Charlie straightened up as the prison guard led him past the other prisoners to his cell. For the first time, he felt able to look around. He passed the cell beside his own, number 248, and slowed to see his neighbor. To his astonishment, he found himself looking into the prominent eyes of a man with skin as black as coal.
The guard pushed him forward. ‘Doesn’t do to stare in prison, boy.’
The eyes behind the rails dimmed immediately as the black man dropped his gaze down to the floor.
Charlie swallowed. ‘I never saw a colored man before,’ he said softly.
‘Ain’t never robbed a bank before, neither, right? It sure is a time of new experiences for you, boy. Just don’t have any more on my watch, okay?’
The guard was opening the door to his cell with his enormous chain of keys. He waited for Charlie to walk past him and clanged the door closed behind him.
Charlie hesitated, then turned around.
‘Sir?’
The guard’s face re-appeared in the small aperture that opened, Charlie thought, like his mother’s cuckoo clock.
‘I just want to say that I didn’t rob the bank, sir,’ said Charlie. ‘But I know it looks like I did, and I’m going to make sure I spend every day remembering that fact and trying to make amends for it. I won’t make any trouble, not on your watch nor anyone else’s.’
The guard raised one eyebrow. ‘Is that so? Well, in that case, we’ll get along fine.’
‘I hope so, sir.’ Charlie sucked in a breath, before blurting out: ‘Also, I would very much like to know the name of my neighbor so that I can introduce myself.’
‘His name is Two Four Eight,’ said the guard.
‘I … I would like to know his actual name, sir, if I may?’
‘I’m not entirely sure I know it,’ said the guard, scratching his head, ‘or that you should either. Folks keep themselves to themselves in here, boy.’
But suddenly a deep voice rang out from the small cell beside him. ‘Amos,’ said the young man. ‘My name is Amos. And your name is Boy, right?’
Charlie laughed. ‘No, sir. My name is Charlie. It’s a pleasure to meet with you, Amos.’
Still shaking his head, the guard closed the cuckoo-clock door. ‘No more talking, d’ye hear?’ he called from the other side of the metal. ‘You’re not in here to cosy up and make friends.’
But Charlie thought that it was possible he was here to do precisely that. Learn, and help, and make some friends. It would be an unusual life, for sure.
But at least it would be a life.
After a few weeks in which he did manage to get to know Amos at least a little (he’d been caught stealing groceries from a township about seventy miles away, where the Depression had really taken a hold), Charlie was moved to a permanent two-man cell, which was already occupied by another lifer. Justin was twenty years his senior and had already been in prison for more than ten years. He had been told by one of the counselors that Justin was a model prisoner, exceptionally active, and the kind of man whom all the other prisoners looked up to and respected.
Charlie liked Justin right away, and asked his advice and recommendations on everything he did. Over the many years to come, their relationship was to become one of father and son, which was just as well, given that his own father had disowned him. In fact, in the thirteen years between Charlie’s initial incarceration and his father's death, his father never once visited him and he had absolutely no communication with his father, either directly nor indirectly.