Location: 👠 Massachusetts Correctional Institution – Concord
▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅There were few things in this world that brought a genuine disgusted look to Jade’s face. Places that didn’t allow smoking, being told to wait until certain things could be achieved and the sight of dirty pigs who she just
knew were crooked.
All of these things Jade hates to her core happened in succession as she waited in line to receive her visitor's badge at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution in Concord.
It was nearly a year from now when Jade first heard the name of this prison. She was at her uncle’s sentence hearing. Just a month before that, when her hellish junior year had ended and summer officially started, where most were looking forward to which beach they would party at, Jade came home to her Uncle Charlie in handcuffs. Later that night, she found out that he was busted on multiple counts of weapons-related charges. He claimed innocence and Jade believed he was.
Didn’t matter to the Boston District Attorney nor his so-called lawyer, because he was found guilty. His saving grace was a forgiving judge. Or at least, that’s what his PD said. Truth was, Jade knew the woman who oversaw his case. To most, she was Judge Wendy Knox, but she knew her as one of her Uncle’s friends. And she knew that he was be sent to a decent prison with a fifth of the time served that the DA was shooting for.
Instead of twenty-five years, Charlie Taylor was sentenced to five years, with the possibility of parole after half of that.
Two and a half years and he could be home. All because of her uncle’s fuck buddy did him a favor.
Still, making the journey -- a journey that was close to two hours from Edenridge to the prison and back -- had given her plenty of time to think, plenty of time to figure out what she was going to talk about when she got there. Having her uncle out of her life on the day-to-day, though she wouldn’t admit it to anyone, much less him, took its toll. And not just mentally, but ever since she barely graduated, Jade had been struggling to make ends meet.
“Yeah, don’t even go there.” She had to firmly remind herself. If nothing else, wasting time entertaining her financial woes wouldn’t do her any good, especially since her time with her uncle was limited to thirty minutes per visit.
“I.D. please!” A man’s voice called to her, devoid of any emotion.
Jade stepped forward, reaching into her red and black clutch. She pulled it out and handed it to him.
“Very good. Here’s your pass. Next!”
Without saying anything, Jade just stepped through the gate, surprised she didn’t trigger the metal detector considering she was giving every corrections officer that had a lingering gaze on her the dagger death stare, which seemed to do the trick because their unwanted eyes left her immediately.
So what if Jade didn’t
dress conservatively for this prison visit? That doesn’t mean you can stare at her ass.
“Fucking perverts,” Jade scoffed under a breath.
As she was led through a series of halls, she was led into a room where tables that reminded her of the ones at her high school were scattered about. And, of course, she caught the glances of the inmates already in there with their families. Their wives...or whoever was sitting across from them, flicked them in the forehead in unison.
She found some joy in that and she took a seat.
It would be only about five minutes, but in those five minutes, she was the subject of glances, whistles, and she felt her blood boiling. Over and over again, she had to deal with this shit. Whether it was the pigs at the club, the pigs on the street, her sleazy landlord who made multiple shameless offers to pay her rent in exchange for...favors, and just about every fucking type of advance that could be made, she felt like she was going to snap.
I swear to god..“Look at my niece again like that and a murder charge will be the least of your worries. Got me,
Clarence?Suddenly, the entire weight building from her severely-in-need-of-a-tan legs to her golden locks was lifted from her when she heard Charlie’s heavy Boston accent and she turned her blue-green eyes on the scene between him and
Clarence standing inches from each other. Charlie was tall, but he wasn’t very muscular, or at least in comparison to Clarance who had arms that could kill a man.
And he probably did. Talk about yikes.
But Jade just smiled as Clarence took the road less traveled and sat back down and stood up as Charlie practically came running and he lifted her into a hug. It must have been weird for everyone else, but Jade didn’t care. She absolutely loved when he hugged her like that. He always did it ever since he became her guardian. Sometimes he’d do it just for the hell of it, but most of the time, whether she knew it or not, he did it because he could sense something was wrong.
But that was not why he did it.
“God, it’s been nearly three months since they’ve let me have any kind of visitor.” Charlie would admit as he let his niece down. “It’s just so great to see you, kid.”
“I’ve missed you too, Uncle Charlie,” she said, smiling and taking a seat opposite of him. “I see you’ve been trying out a new look.” She laughed, pointing to his six-inch beard and the mop of a mustache and poorly-managed sideburns to go along with it.
He matched her laugh and stroked his chin in the way Jade fondly remembered and he knew that.. “Yeah, well they don’t offer much facial hair treatments in solitary confinement.”
Most might raise an eyebrow, but Jade knew her uncle better than she knew herself. She knew his sense of humor and how, even though he probably added another year on to his sentence, at the end of the day, she knew he always would find humor in grim situations. That’s just the kind of guy Charlie Taylor was.
“But enough about me.” Jade laughed as Charlie quickly decided to switch the subject, his cheery tone making her continue to smile and chuckle. “How are things for you?”
Well, I’m behind on rent, cable and internet got canned, and I’m pretty sure my landlord wants to fuck me over more than he has already. Jade’s masochistic brain entertained all of the things in her life that wasn’t the anniversary of the shooting for a short minute, finding a delightfully grim appreciation for it. And then she shrugged it off.
“Things are okay. Work sucks, but that’s to be expected given it’s a gentleman’s club.” Jade remembered the look on Charlie’s face when she told him she started working at Edge of Sin. He wasn’t thrilled but she could vividly recall how he recognized she was an adult. Something they both agreed on, however, was how they both didn’t want her doing anything more than stripping. But given how the bills are stacking up…
“Shit Jade, I’m sorry. I’m sure if you hit up the MC, they would help you out. I mean, they owe me.”
She shrugged.
“I might do that.” Especially to help deal with a certain sleazeball.~ . ~
After catching up on what they had, Jade and Charlie spent the rest of the time talking about life before he was sent to prison. They chatted about their frantic schedules back then, the way Charlie always screwed up what was supposed to be the family signature strudel, and how Jade always found herself in trouble.
Yeah, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
But Jade was grateful for the thirty minutes she got to spend with her uncle. Especially with how things in her life had been falling apart. And it wasn’t just her landlord or the foreboding feeling she had every time her boss suggested she become a “VIP employee”. It wasn't even the fact that she would occasionally see Rod around town. None of that came close to the event coming to its one-year anniversary.
“Charlie Decker.” She uttered his name with a bittersweet note left in the back of her throat.
It was bittersweet because she still cared for him. Despite everyone he hurt, despite killing her kinda-sort-of best friend’s brother, injuring Rod, and hurting countless others, she couldn’t turn off her feelings about how. There was no way in hell Willow Jade Taylor could turn off the part of her heart that had always considered Charles Decker a friend. And no amount of horrible things done by him almost one year ago has changed that.
“Bet nobody else can say that.” She said with a slow, almost eerie laugh as she slid her helmet on and revved up her uncle’s red Shorttail Cruiser out of the prison parking lot.
The cruiser purred down the freeway, singing a bittersweet song as the humid, Boston summer wind hit Jade’s exposed body and she would make her way back to the trap that she called home.
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