Free American Criminal by Shawn William Davis

all the enjoyable vacations he had taken. He thought of the people he went with and the fun things they did. It was hard to shake a good feeling when confronted with these positive images. He knew that switching tracks and thinking about the reality of his situation would destroy it. He hadn’t felt this good for at least four and a half months. Ironically, on the plane bound for prison, he felt the healthiest and most alive he had felt in the past half-year. He decided to continue the euphoria by imagining all the enjoyable destinations he had traveled to while he drifted to sleep in the airline chair.   
        Not surprisingly, he awoke feeling disoriented after dreaming of the golden beaches of the Caribbean. He looked around, anxiously, in an attempt to re-orient himself. At first glance, the plane looked like any other jetliner he traveled on; passengers were seated intermittently in front of him as the interior of the plane converged in a linear perspective. But when his gaze continued forward, he saw the steel cage that separated the prisoners from the guards. The sudden feeling of depression he experienced, after dreaming about exotic vacations, was indescribable. In an instant, he felt like he had suddenly lost all the people in the world he ever loved. It was a feeling of despair unlike any he had before and it washed over him like a black ocean.
        I have to think my way out of this if I’m going to survive.
        Burnside tried to dam the despair flooding into his brain.
        Things could be worse. I could be confined to a hospital with an incurable illness. I could be dead. At least now, there is some hope of getting out of this situation alive. There may even be hope for freedom if I keep my eyes open for opportunities. I’m going to make it out of this. I am going to figure out a way to make it to freedom. They are not going to keep me locked up for something I didn’t do, no matter how secure the prison allegedly is. I will follow their rules while keeping an eye out for weaknesses in their system. When I discover a weakness, I will exploit it.
        If he ever made it to freedom, he was planning to engage in what he considered to be a bold new experience: revenge.
        The people who put me here will not make it out of this without at least suffering as much as I have suffered.
         When he referred to the people who had put him here, he did not mean the judge or the jury. They were simply part of the automatic system that went into effect after the drugs had been planted and the lies told. The people who put him here were his corrupt partners on the police force; they were people he knew well and worked with for a number of years. He knew exactly who they were and where to find them. During his six years on the force, he had encountered several cops who were bending and sometimes breaking the rules for their own benefit. He always honored the Brotherhood and kept quiet about it. That was then. Now, if he had the chance, he would take them all down. Even if it took twenty-five years, he would take them down. That would be the motivating force that kept him going.
         Beware the fury of a patient man.
        It was a quote from the poet, John Dryden, and it was absolutely true. A tenacious part of his mind planned to eventually obtain justice for the past four-and-a-half months of pain and everything he would have to endure in subsequent years. 
        Payback is going to be hell.
        A bitter half-smile crossed over his face at this thought.
        Just like in the movies. My life is becoming a movie cliché. Maybe the movies don’t have it wrong after all. Maybe revenge is a legitimate motivator for survival.
        At the present, all other goals seemed petty by comparison. The many benefits and pleasures of freedom paled in comparison to the feeling he anticipated while enacting his revenge. The most enjoyable and delightful scenarios he could envision were