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2013.
Somewhere in Pennsylvania.

There's no point in me trying to sleep right now. I'm just too damn nervous, or excited, or both. In a few hours I'll be a free man, and all I can think about is what I'm planning to do with those first few minutes of newfound freedom.
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It wouldn't be an exaggeration to call me the oldest inmate at Greenville Penitentiary. I've been here since around 1963, maybe a month or two after Oswald played target practice with President Kennedy's head. The guy who held the record before me, this crusty old bastard named Dicky Jensen, had been sixty-two when they threw him in jail for aggravated manslaughter, his paltry sentence of ten years almost guaranteed to be a death sentence. He loved to talk about his granddaughter-he'd tell anyone who would listen about how she was studying to become a writer at Brown, and how beautiful and kind she was-and in the two years that I knew him before he died, he must've told more than three dozen times the story of how he blew away the guy who knocked her up and bailed immediately after. His '65 death in the prison infirmary was fairly peaceful-his granddaughter had been there holding his hand, if the rumors are true.

I was certainly no Dicky Jensen when I first came to Greenville, a young, dumb punk of about twenty-seven. A gal that I was sweet on back in those days convinced me to try for a job at the local steel mill, even though the employees were mostly white and carried a lot of resentment towards us blacks, who had picked up and settled up there when things got bad down South and began sucking up all the jobs. Looking back on the incident, I probably overreacted-all they really did was shove me around a bit-but I was still plenty steamed about it and looking for some payback.

I got drunk that night and stole my dad's gun, a .45 pistol he had kept for sentimental reasons from his time in the service, and tracked down the leader of the guys that came after me, this big Mick named Mickey Gerace. I was firing long after he died, and when all was said and done, I think it'd be safe to say I fired close to four dozen shots into that bastard. I sat on the curb for a good while afterwards, the guilt and awful reality of what I'd done dawning on me at the same rate that blood leaked from my victim, and waited for the cops to show up and haul me off. I could've tried to get away, sure, but I was sobering up by that point and figured surrendering peacefully might keep me on this earth a little longer than attempting to flee.

The trial was short and sweet, and though people down south who caught wind of it wanted to turn the case into a big circus, my attorney managed to keep that from happening. I pled guilty from the get-go, and the case was in court for less than a month, little more than a formality by that point. I arrived at Greenville about a week later, a bonafide hero to every colored fella whose families had fled Southern persecution in the same manner as mine and the new target of every racist cracker asshole in the place.

So yeah...That's the black and white of it. There may not be anything special about it-there are probably hundreds of stories out there just like it-but it's mine. And before you get around to ask what the hell an old con's sob story has to do with anything, let me ask you something...Does every good tale not require a bit of background? Me getting thrown into the joint is what caused any of this to ever happen, so I believe it quite necessary to include.
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The worst thing about prison is that you lose your faith in hope and fate, in things being meant to be and better days to come. When you're surrounded by the same damn grey walls every single day, it's hard to imagine much else.

I started believing in hope again right around the thirty-year anniversary of my arrival at Greenville. I was friendly with a kid named Charles Reed in those days, another Negro boy who was in on a five-year stretch for car theft. He was a nice kid, but always a bit naive in my opinion, at least until that day.

We weren't doing much of anything on that day, just sitting in the mess hall and shootin' the breeze, and out of nowhere Charlie starts up about the things he's gonna do when he's finally allowed to step foot outside this damn place again. They were more or less the plans that every fella has for when he gets out: kiss his wife, hug his kids, start looking for an honest job, that sort of thing. I'd heard what was virtually the same thing from so many guys before that I didn't pay much attention to him-I'd given up on my dream of someday getting out long ago, as my parole had been rejected three or four times already and my second lawyer was fairly close to dying on me-but then he said something I'd never heard before.

"The very first thing I'm gonna do once I'm out," he was saying, "is walk around to the field beyond the western wall. I've got a perfect view of it from my cell, every day from sunup to sundown." I inquired as to why he would do that, because I knew what field he was talking about and also that it was little more than an overgrown weed patch. And he said, "I thought that at first as well, but that was before I saw it." I asked him what he saw, and this strange little grin lit up his face.

"It was a rosebush, man." he whispered, giddy as a boy who'd seen his first girly magazine. "Amidst all that overgrown chaos, and the tangled limbs of plants overlapping in a vast, suffocating maze, there's a single rosebush right smack in the middle of that field. I never gave much thought to it before-hell, I'd never even noticed it until a few months ago, when winter finally broke-but on that day when I first saw it, I swore I was gazing at something far more beautiful, mysterious, and wonderful than a simple rose bush."

"Towering above the living mess, like a mighty warrior above a horde of his most terrifying enemies, the blood-red gems encrusting the arms of that plant were more marvelous and dazzling than the biggest, brightest diamond in the whole world. The dew resting on those delicate petals refracted the light of the sun, and gave those roses a sparkling, shimmery appearance." He spoke more quietly now, with a lower, huskier tone, as if he were recounting some sort of old legend instead of a story about a damned bush. "I wept at its beauty, and sat there staring out my window for nearly two days straight, scared to death that it would vanish if I looked away for even a second."

He smiled at this and picked up a nearby cup, casually swirling the liquid inside. "It's a symbol, man. A symbol of hope, of perserverance and redemption. If something so beautiful and meaningful can come from a place so lost, disorganized, and ugly...Then perhaps something, or someone, beautiful and meaningful can come from this place as well." He rested his hand on my shoulder and knocked back the remnants of his drink. "You and I, man. We're men who perservere and are redeemed. We're men who'll someday walk out of here and into that field, and pluck a single blood-red gem rom that rose bush, and scatter those delicate petals into the sky as a symbol of our redemption. You and I, my friend...We're living symbols of hope."

His recitation concluded, he stood up and walked away, the same odd smile painted on his face that blatantly conveyed his absolute faith in everything he'd just said. I'd never seen anyone so sure of anything in my entire life, and I found that fact quite startling.
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Charlie died a month or two after that conversation, and I swear I've never wept harder than when I found out. There was a white supremacist who had it in for him (no clue why), this German bastard named Dietrich Himmler, and he and a few cronies stabbed him to death in the bathroom. A buddy of mine named Marcus Wagoner, knowing better than to involve himself but sticking around to hear the event through to the end, later told me that he hadn't given those bastards the satisfaction of making him scream or beg for mercy, and with his dying breath had wondered aloud what was to become of his beloved rose bush.

I sat up in complete silence all that night, wondering what I should do. Part of me wanted to just forget about it-that dream was Charlie's and should remain that way, even if it meant dying with him. Another part of me knew I could never do that, though. Charlie hadn't intended for that rose bush to be his dream alone...He would've left me out of his tale when talking of it on that day if he had. I resolved then and there to ensure that nothing happened to that living symbol of hope, for Charlie's sake and for mine.

I requested a cell transfer the next day, and to my great surprise it was granted. It wasn't Charlie's old cell, but it was fairly close and still had a decent view of the field. I waited until lights-out, when I wouldn't be bothered, to begin my naked eye search for that beautiful, priceless gem, that living symbol of hope. The dark hampered my efforts quite a bit, but around midnight I finally spotted it, right at the heart of the field like Charlie said it would be. I had to wait until morning to watch the sun sparkle off the beads of dew dotting the delicate petals of the blooms and the plant's supple body, but even in the vast blackness of night its beauty was immeasurable. Bright blood-red in color, the flowers stood in stark contrast to the limbs that held them up and the immense throngs of green teeming below. Not an hour later, the clouds had cleared and the moon sat fat and bloated in the sky, unusually vibrant and bright. It lent its light to the edges of the petals and created a dim, eerie glow that added exponentially to the haunting beauty of the sight.

A single tear rolled down my cheek as I looked at it, then more and more until I was openly sobbing and snivelling for everyone to hear. I wondered briefly if my emotional reaction was identical to the one experienced by Charlie, and then returned to my silent observation.
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For the next twenty years that plant was my source of strength, my rock in a hard place (and yes, I'm aware that's not how the expression goes). On those long, sleepless nights that every fella has once in a while in stir, I'd sit up and look at it, gently tracing and caressing its form with my eyes, unable to do so with my hands. I had been a decent artist in my day, and I began to make sketches of it, even selling a few of them for a pack or two of cigarettes each. It encompassed my thoughts, and every time I pictured it in my mind, it seemed that some small bit of good fortune would find its way to me. And then the fateful day came when my parole finally went through.

I couldn't believe it at first. I sat on the bunk in my cell for hours, gazing at the damned grey concrete walls and trying to convince myself that I was really going to leave within the next few weeks. The world was a big place, I thought, with no place for a washed-up old con, and for a split second I considered doing something that would stop them from letting me out before I remembered the rose bush. I had an obligation, to Charlie as well as myself, to make it out and into the field and to the rose bush, to keep the dream alive. And so I swung my feet up onto the bed and laid back, a facial expression that I imagined to be similar to Charlie's strange smile on my face, and enjoyed the first of my limited nights left in Greenville Penitentiary.
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They give me an old, plain white t-shirt and a pair of baggy jeans to change into on my last day, and at the gate the guards are all smiles, wishing me luck in my new life. The bus'll be here any minute, but I won't be there when it arrives. I've got other plans.

Burrs and pollen cling to my new pants as I make my way through the overgrown mess of the field just past past the western wall, and I could already see it, not only the physical heart of the labyrinth of shrubbery but also the figurative heart of our dream. When I reach the plant, I hesitate to touch it, afraid that doing so will ruin the magic it's held for so long, but eventually summon my courage and pluck two delicate blood-red blooms, one for me and one for Charlie. Slowly, meticulously, my fingers work to remove the petals, and the gentle breeze teasing the leaves of the treetops surrounding the field scatters them up and away into the sky tinged gold by the setting sun. I watch them flutter away, then start down the road, redeemed and free from my promise to a friend long gone...Free to walk the road home.

The End