His early years were traumatic in so many ways.
Instead of a father he had an endless series of what his mother called “uncles.”
“Go with your Uncle Mike,” she’d tell him. “Mama will be back in a couple of days.”
Or, “Go get your Uncle Tony’s shoes. Go on now, be a good boy.”
Some of the uncles recognized Terry for what he was: generally helpless to fend for himself, and tried to protect him from all the world’s cruelty.
Others saw him the same way and helped pile on some of that cruelty.
The uncles never stayed long. A few days or weeks. Until they got whatever they wanted from Terry’s mother or she got what she wanted from them.
He learned not to get emotionally attached… to anyone. For every time he started to feel fond of someone they were suddenly gone from his life.
When he was ten his mother got popped for her third felony.
And under her state’s three strikes law it meant she had to do twenty years without parole.
It was a tough sentence for the three cases of beer she stole.
He went to stay with his Nana after that.
But Nana never really counted him as a relative.
“My boy wouldn’t have such a backwards kid for a son.
“And look at you. You don’t even look like him. Nothing at all. I think your mama was shakin’ the bushes with somebody else and just claimed you was my son’s.”
Her contention certainly did nothing to help his self-esteem, nor his development into a contributing member of society.
Neither did the schools he attended.
He was always placed in special ed classes because of his delayed development.
He always tested a grade or two behind his peers.
And he was big for his age, so he always towered over his fellow students.
One would think that wouldn’t be a bad thing. That it would prevent other students from bullying him.
But the opposite was true.
For bullies are, at heart, cowards.
They look for the weaknesses of others and exploit them to their own advantage.
In Terry’s case, they could see he was slow to respond to a physical threat. When swung on he didn’t react immediately and with overpowering force.
When he was punched he was dazed and confused. It took him a moment or two to realize he was under attack.
And another moment or two to decide to fight back.
Those precious moments were all it took to sucker punch him again and again.
By the time “Big Terry” realized he was under assault the fight was usually over. He was on the ground and bleeding, trying to shield his face from further pummeling.
Another thing about bullies: they feel better about themselves when they belittle and hurt others.
And the bigger their opponent the better. When they bring down a giant like “Big Terry” they can brag about how big and bad they are.
To their peers, but not to their friends, for bullies typically have no friends.
Terry managed to make it as far as the tenth grade before finally walking away from high school.
And he found out what a lot of high school graduates learn. That finding anything other then a dead-end job without a diploma is a very difficult thing to do.
He was walking back to his home at a halfway house after working his shift bagging groceries at a chain supermarket.
They only gave him the job to get a tax credit for hiring a handicapped employee.
He walked past a United States Army recruiter’s office and nodded a hello to a man in a sharp green uniform.
The man was a recruiter who was at the end of his month and still a body short of his monthly quota.
“Excuse me,” he called out as Terry walked past.
Hey, it was worth a shot.
“I’ve seen you bagging groceries at the supermarket. How much do they pay you down there?”
“Eight fifty an hour.”
“How’d you like to make eleven hundred a month?”
“Eleven hundred dollars?”
“Yep. Plus free food and free rent. Free uniforms and free medical and dental care.”
Terry rubbed his jaw. He did have a bit of a nagging toothache.
“You mean you want me to join the Army?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“But I didn’t finish high school.”
“That’s okay. We can help you get your GED.”
“But I don’t take tests very good.”
“No problem. I can take care of that.”
“But I was arrested last year.”
“What did you do?”
“I was sleeping at the park on account of I locked myself out. They said it was called vacancy or Valerie or something like that.”
“Vagrancy. No problem. I can take care of that.”
Two days later Terry Vega became Private Vega of the United States Army.
Chapter 52
The Army didn’t suit Terry any better than high school did.
He did better than the recruiter expected him to.
He even made it through basic training, but just barely.
He made it through infantry school too.
It seemed that in light of a war going on at two different fronts the Army was willing to lower their standards somewhat.
To Terry he was succeeding.
To Terry he was becoming something.
To Terry he was an American hero.
Then came the day his sergeant took him on a patrol in a remote village in Afghanistan and he saw the man in front of him blown to bits by an improvised explosive device.
Terry decided the Army wasn’t for him.
He left his post and decided to walk home.
The military police picked him up two days and thirty kilometers later.
“Desertion in the face of the enemy” was a serious charge.
It was a charge that Terry didn’t quite understand.
“I didn’t see their faces,” he maintained. “They were too far away.”
When he arrived at Fort Leavenworth Military Prison to start his twelve-year sentence he was asked if he wanted to take any classes.
“So when you get out you’ll be able to get a job and be a contributing member of society,” they said.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Can you teach me how to fix stuff?”
His counselor asked, “What kind of stuff?”
“I don’t know. Maybe computers and stuff.”
It turned out Terry had an aptitude for electronics.
Go figure.
He took several courses during his first few years at Leavy, and even earned a little on the side fixing the televisions of other inmates.
Not money.
He was paid in commissary rations: potato chips, cookies and other goodies.
It was while hustling he ended up in the cell of Joe Manson and John Parker.
The tiny television which sat on a high shelf stopped working several days before.
It wasn’t a big deal to Manson. Having the TV off meant he was free to talk more often.
And he loved talking, about anything and everything.
He was one of those guys who was an expert on everything, whether he knew anything about it or not.
Not having a television to watch, though, drove his cellmate crazy.
Because listening to Manson constantly boasting about things he’d done, and making up things he didn’t, got old after awhile.
At mess that morning Parker went to Vega and asked how much he’d charge to fix their TV.
“Depends on how much work it needs,” Vega said. “Sometimes, with these cheap commissary TVs, it’s cheaper just to toss it and buy another one.”
“Yeah, well I don’t have enough money on my books for a new one.”
“How about your cellie?”
Parker laughed.
“Are you kidding? Manson’s as broke as a thre
e legged dog. I have to share my commissary with him just to keep his pie hole shut occasionally.”
“Does it work?”
“Not usually. Usually he just eats and talks at the same time.
“How much would you charge me to look at it?”
“Two packs of noodles and a cherry pie.”
“I’m allergic to cherries and the commissary is closed until Tuesday. I can’t wait that long. Manson’s driving me nuts.
“I’ve got an apple pie. Would that do?”
“Deal. I’ll come by as soon as chow is over.”
It took Vega less than five minutes to determine the problem with the TV was an easy fix.
A burned out power switch.
“How long before you can get the part?”
“About ten minutes.”
“Huh?”
“Yep. I’ve got a couple spares in my cell. The switches burn out all the time on these pieces of junk.”
“How much to replace it?”
“Another apple pie and some mac and cheese.”
“Done.”
“I’ll be right back.”
As it turned out, Manson was impressed with Vega’s ability to fix electronics.
“When we break out of here we’re gonna invite him to go along,” he told Parker.
“Why?”
“Well, I can fix any vehicle they ever made. But sometimes the electrical can be a little tricky.
“The two of us together, me and Vega, we’ll be able to steal any car out there. Hell, if we can figure out which one is the warden’s car we’ll steal it.
“Just so I can have the pleasure of setting it on fire when we switch it out for a fresh one.
“Besides, the guy is built like a mountain. He could come in real handy in a fight.”
There was no dispute there. Terry Vega was big in his youth. It was one of the main reasons the bullies picked on him. They called him “big dummy” and “dummy the hulk,” among many other things.
In his teen years he kept growing.
Now in his mid twenties, walking across any college campus in America he might be confused as a lineman for the football team.
Manson went to Terry Vega a few days later and said, “Hey, if Parker and I ever get a chance we’re busting out of here. You want in?”
“Sure, why not? I don’t much like this place at all.”
It was only three weeks later the lights went out and the three joined many others in scampering out of the prison and into the countryside.
Chapter 53
Some things are easy to do in prison.
Getting drugs, for example. Prison guards who are struggling financially sometimes pad their incomes by smuggling in dope for the inmates.
So do girlfriends and family members who come to visit.
Getting into a fight is ridiculously easy. All one has to do is look the wrong way at another. In prison slang, giving someone the “stink eye.”
Want to get stabbed? It’s easy. Just tell somebody you once had sex with his girlfriend.
Or even worse, his mother.
Conversely, some things are almost impossible to do in prison.
Eating decent food is one.
Getting used to a prison’s stench is another.
So is sneaking one’s girlfriend from the visitor’s center back to his cell.
Probably the biggest thing that can’t be done in the modern prison system is keeping one’s skeletons buried.
It’s almost impossible to keep a secret in prison, no matter how hard one tries.
It’s a world where everyone knows everything about everyone else.
And if certain bits of information can be used to an inmate’s own advantage it will be in a heartbeat.
Blackmail is even more prevalent in a prison than bad food.
Well, maybe not that prevalent. But almost.
Gay men in prison are typically separated for their own protection.
A known gay man at Leavenworth Military Prison is always given his own cell.
Not necessarily because he deserves his own cell, but rather to protect him from a cellie who might not agree with his lifestyle.
And who might stick a shank in his cellmate’s heart in the dead of the night to show him so.
Not surprisingly so, many gay men try their best to keep their sexuality hidden. Either to avoid such a fate or in the hopes of finding another gay man to share a cell with.
Robert Santos was such a man.
He’d only been at Leavy a few months before the breakout.
On the way from the Laramie County Jail to the prison he sat next to a man he suspected was also gay.
In a rather bold move the first chance he got, he asked him.
It turned out the man, named Turner, had suspected Santos of being gay as well.
The two became fast friends and the prison saw no reason not to grant their request to share a cell.
Not long after that they became lovers and had what every prison inmate cherishes the most but few ever have: a live-in sexual partner.
They were able to keep their homosexuality a secret for a considerable amount of time simply by not flaunting it.
They were careful to act as everyone else did, even when it came time to bashing gays and lesbians and saying they all deserved to rot in hell.
It wasn’t until a few days before the breakout that Terry Vega was walking past Turner and Santos’ cell and glanced inside through the tiny window slot.
It was at that moment that Santos, in a rare moment of fancy, stole a quick embrace from his cellie.
Neither of them saw Vega walking past the window.
But Vega sure saw them.
He kept it to himself.
And spent a lot of time trying to figure out how best to use it to his advantage.
He finally decided to go to them individually, to find out how much each would pay for Vega to keep their secret to himself.
He figured he could extort commissary goodies from both of them indefinitely and never have to buy his own commissary items again.
The trouble was, Turner started complaining of abdominal pains the very next day.
He was taken to the prison infirmary, where he was diagnosed with appendicitis.
His appendix was removed in a routine laparoscopic surgery and he was given the usual two weeks to recover.
On the day the lights went out he was still there, in bed in the infirmary.
Santos couldn’t go looking for him without raising suspicion.
And he wouldn’t have been able to get him anyway. The infirmary was well guarded and locked securely because of the medications it contained.
Vega held onto the information.
He knew how to keep his mouth shut, and had a deep personal hatred for snitches.
Unless, of course, he had something to gain from being one.
After the breakout, Manson and Parker gathered the men they wanted to be in their gang.
Santos made the cut, as did Vega.
The two had been through a lot together. Along with the rest of the gang they’d killed and robbed all over rural Kansas.
And Vega continued to keep his mouth shut.
As he saw it, Santos had nothing he really wanted.
There was no longer a commissary, and no more goodies which came from it.
Money was worthless.
And Santos didn’t have any anyway.
Santos didn’t have any fancy jewelry, or anything else of value he could see.
No, he figured now was not the time to squeeze Santos. He’d wait until another time, when Santos had something he really wanted.
Then he’d take the opportunity to play his blackmail card.
Chapter 54
On the fourth day after Santos killed Manson things were settling down again into a new routine.
Santos had earned a new respect among the others, for convicts covet such things as ruthlessness and daring.
And it took a lot
of guts to cut the throat of someone as vicious as Manson.
Vega was still struggling with the secret. He could ruin Santos if he wanted to. Probably have him cast out, expelled from the group.
He’d most likely be forced at gunpoint to leave the bunker. With no weapons, no provisions, no anything other than the clothes on his back.
Yes, he could ruin Santos.
But he didn’t want to. Ruining Santos by telling his darkest secret wouldn’t gain Vega anything. Except maybe the reputation as a stitch.
It would be much better to wait until Santos had something of value, and then to take it from him under threat of spilling the beans on him.
If only Santos had something he wanted.
And on the fourth day, as he was lying on his bunk and staring off into space, it finally occurred to the slow-witted man.
He did.
Santos did indeed have something valuable to trade for Vega’s silence.
Vega hopped off his bunk and walked into the corridor.
Parker passed by him. He was grinning from ear to ear.
“What are you so damn happy about?” Parker asked him.
“Oh, nothing. It’s just a beautiful day.”
Parker grunted and went about his business. Since they first met he considered Vega just a little bit loony.
He’d given up trying to figure the man out long before.
Vega walked into the galley and saw Sarah sitting there talking to her sister.
He said nary a word to either of them. They looked up at him as he passed them by to grab a bottle of water from a stack in the opposite corner.
He left the room and they went back to their conversation.
An hour or so later he hopped off his bunk again and retraced his steps.
This time Sarah was nowhere to be seen.
Karen was washing the dishes.
Lindsey stood next to her drying them.
Kara sat at the table not far from them, nursing her baby.
When she saw Vega approaching she looked down to make sure her breasts were covered.
She hated the way the men ogled her when she was feeding Misty.
Again, he grabbed a bottle of water and walked back out of the room.
On the way back to his bunk he passed by the first of two day rooms.
Parker was in there, playing cards with Gonzales and a couple of the other men.
In the next day room, two men fell asleep in separate recliners while watching a John Wayne western.
A Stunning Betrayal Page 17
