On a Cold Day in Hell

By Stephen Parkes

The stakes couldn’t be any higher. Stephen Parkes, a former Airborne Ranger and law school graduate, has been charged with a brutal crime. A career prosecutor has made him an offer of thirty years in prison in return for a guilty plea. He has a hanging judge and his own public defender wants him to die in prison. The circumstances have never been more grim!
So, he decides to take matters into his own hands. He drops more than eight feet into a noose. His heart stops beating. His lungs stop breathing.
But, somehow, Stephen Parkes lives.
Fresh off his own gallows, he finds that his problems are only beginning. Parkes is as guilty as sin. The case against him is perfect. Undeterred, Parkes fights back, hoping to be set free. The odds against him are impossible.
Set against a background of horrid child abuse, pitiful drug addiction, and brutal crimes, On A Cold Day In Hell provides a scathing indictment of the American judicial system, demonstrates the emptiness of mandatory minimum sentencing, and gives a first-hand look at the consequences of the unthinking cruelty payed out to a minor child at the hands of a Catholic priest.
Part jailhouse lawyer, part convict, and all human, Stephen Parkes stands his ground and makes his own case for freedom, which can only be found on a cold day in hell.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Feb 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9781685625894

Stephen Parkes

Stephen Parkes worked for 30 years in the City, the son of a bookmaker, and always an “outsider”. This story draws upon the experience, extraordinary individuals, and pitch-black humour that were part of his working life. He lives in Holborn.

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About the Author

Stephen Parkes was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1960. He earned a Ranger tab from the U.S. Army in 1986, served as a Weapons Platoon leader in 1988 and earned a law degree from Mississippi College School of Law in 1994.

While in active addiction, Stephen committed several armed robberies, was caught, convicted and spent more than four and a half years behind bars.

Since his release from custody in 2008, Stephen has remained in recovery from addiction. These days, Stephen lives on a small farm in rural North Dakota and rescues animals of all sizes, shapes and colors, including, dogs, cats, horses and cows.

Copyright Information ©

Stephen Parkes 2023

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

All of the events in this memoir are true to the best of author’s memory. The views expressed in this memoir are solely those of the author.

Ordering Information

Quantity sales: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Parkes, Stephen

On a Cold Day in Hell

ISBN 9781685625863 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781685625870 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781685625894 (ePub e-book)

ISBN 9781685625887 (Audiobook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022917651

www.austinmacauley.com/us

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers LLC

40 Wall Street, 33rd Floor, Suite 3302

New York, NY 10005

USA

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Acknowledgment

I wish to acknowledge David St. John (1956–2013) of Grants Pass, Oregon, for his work with me during the writing of this book. David took an interest in my story and spent hours with me on the telephone helping me write it.

If you enjoy reading this book, we both have David to thank for it.

– Stephen Parkes

April 2022

Prologue

The stakes couldn’t be any higher. Stephen Parkes, a former Airborne Ranger and law school graduate, has been charged with a brutal crime. A career prosecutor has made him an offer of thirty years in return for a guilty plea. He has a hanging judge, and his own public defender wants him to die in prison. The circumstances have never been grimmer.

So, he decides to take matters into his own hands. He drops more than eight feet into a noose. His heart stops beating. His lungs stop breathing.

But, somehow, Stephen Parkes lives.

Fresh off his own gallows, his problems are only beginning. Parkes is as guilty as sin. The case against him is perfect. Undeterred, Parkes fights back, hoping to be set free. The odds against him are impossible.

Set against a background of horrid child abuse, pitiful drug addiction, and brutal crimes, On a Cold Day in Hell provides a scathing indictment of the American judicial system, demonstrates the emptiness of mandatory minimum sentencing, and gives a first-hand look at the consequences of the unthinking cruelty paid out to a minor child at the hands of a Catholic priest.

Part jailhouse lawyer, part convict, and all human, Stephen Parkes stands his ground and makes his own case for freedom, which can only be found On a Cold Day in Hell.

Author’s Note: In the interest of privacy, some names in this book have been changed.

Chapter One

Dania Beach, Florida

May 2007

The road is formally known as U.S. 1, a meandering two-laner, for the most part, that runs from Fort Kent, Maine, to Key West, Florida. Close to its Southern end, in Dania Beach, Florida, the road is simply referred to as Federal Highway. It is the morning of Sunday, 27 May 2007, and I am walking alongside it, up the sidewalk headed due north. It is a most unpleasant occasion for a walk.

Powered by a force that long ago originated in ugliness and has since mutated into a consuming taint of self-loathing, I am being driven up Federal Highway by hostility, the product of decades of pent-up rage. I am squeezed so tight that I have finally exploded. I am motivated this horrible day by an inescapable requirement to self-destruct. My conduct today is occasioned by a series of errant thoughts, the spawn of which is finding form in acts of addiction and crime, the ceaseless consumption of crack and a commission of armed robbery.

Wholesome is not a word I would use to describe the fractured idea ricocheting off the walls of my rattled brain. The Jones is upon me, and I am moving north up Federal Highway with only a single notion.

Smoke more crack.

Hours ago, I spent my last several hundred dollars on it. Now, the dope is gone, too. Only minutes ago, I was evicted from some scumbag motel by a guy whose native language I’ve never heard before. He wasn’t very impressed with me either, and for good reason. Look at me. I haven’t slept since last Thursday. Same goes for bathing. My clothes are fouled. My hair is unwashed and greasy. My hair is snow white and sticking straight out from my head. I look like some kind of mad scientist from a really bad Hollywood film, Dr. Frankenstein on crack.

I’ve done this before, been caught and imprisoned before. But I am not thinking of that now. I am not thinking beyond thirty seconds from now, not thinking beyond my next score, my next hit of crack. Crack is the only thing that matters now.

I understand well what lies before me. I know what has to be done. Robbery will give me the means I must have to score more crack. Robbery will supply me with money. Robbery is what I must do.

People have money that I can take. I need crowds now, crowds of people with money. My journey north along Federal Highway brings me to the intersection of Sheridan Street, a mini-hub of local commerce; automobile dealership, nail salon, gasoline station and grocery store, Publix grocery store. Publix is where the people are. Publix is where the money is. Publix is where I go.

My hands are deep in my pockets as I enter the store. My gaze finds the ground a few feet in front of my step, a very deliberate step toward that section of the store where a weapon will be found, the kitchen utensil aisle where knives are kept.

I pick out a good one. It has a black handle and a five-inch blade, an inch and a half wide where the blade meets the hilt. It is a very shiny blade, a very sharp blade. The knife goes into my right pocket. My hand goes on top.

I leave Publix the same way I came in and go find a place where I can watch the people, the people with money.

I find that place soon enough. I find it quickly because I brought it with me. It is a place where hatred and ugliness rule, a place where anger flourishes, controlling my every thought, my every act, a place I have called my own for a very long time now. There were times when this place was not so clearly defined, not so apparent, but that is not today. Today, this place is marked. Today this place is directly beneath me wherever I go, presently a small section of sidewalk just outside Publix where I now stand and watch.

Randomness seems to be the right word for it, the process whereby a victim of a robbery is selected. Only a few criteria need be met before the person becomes the victim. I search for one the same way any other animal would, looking for the weakling, the isolated and the vulnerable. It is not long before one catches my eye, pushing her little wagon full of bread and vegetables, headed for her car.

She stands at the rear of her car doing the little half-twirl necessary to remove her groceries from the shopping cart and place them into the trunk. She is utterly oblivious to the event that is only seconds distant. She is unremarkable in all aspects, attracting the attention of no one else. I know that I am about to terrify another human being, scare her near to death, take her money, and I don’t even care. I have arrived at the zenith of callousness.

It is time.

I pull the knife from my pocket and shred the see-thru plastic container that housed it. I toss the container on the ground, put the knife back in my pocket and step off the curb. Walk toward her doesn’t quite describe my movement. The closing moment of a stalk comes much closer. My pace quickens and the distance between me and my prey, the distance between me and my next hit of crack, evaporates.

Only one step more remains before contact when my left arm comes up and out and reaches for the strap that attaches her purse to her right shoulder. Her back is to me. She never sees it coming. My left hand grips the strap and I pull it hard. She knows I am here now.

She startles horribly. She did not come to Publix to feel her handbag ripped from her shoulder. She did not come to Publix to see a wild-eyed madman next to her tearing at her pocketbook. She did not come to Publix to engage in physical and emotional confrontation over her worldly goods. She does not understand the why of any of this senseless violence. She only understands what needs to be done next. She resists.

For a moment, we lock eyes, she and I. We stand opposed to one another in a bizarre tug-of-war over her purse in a Publix parking lot. My right hand still clutches the thing in my pocket, and it is time for this confrontation to end. It is time for me to have her money and be gone with it. It is time for me to make her go away.

Out it comes, and her eyes are drawn to it, focus on it in a way that reflects both horror and confusion. She is beginning to understand. She sees the shiny blade, its black handle clutched in my fist. The length of the blade is not lost on her and she takes in the full measure of its meaning, absolute persuasion.

Not a single word is spoken in all of this, only a single sound. It is the sound made when air is suddenly and unexpectedly pulled into the lungs, the sound of panic, hers. She gasps and then lets go. In an instant it is over. There are at least eight people in our vicinity, milling about. We are standing in front of the Dollar Store next to Publix. She is parked in the front row. Despite the people around us, despite the high visibility location we occupy, there will be no witnesses to this brutal event. Not even one.

Her pocketbook is clutched in my left hand, the knife still held in my right. I turn on my heels and run. I turn my back to the woman, and I begin a sprint to nowhere in particular, just away from all this. I round the corner of the Dollar Store and head to my left, toward the service drive that runs along the back of the stores. I cross the pavement quickly and find the grass on the other side.

Twenty feet later, I crash through a wall of something, just green leaves and twigs are all I see. I bulldoze through a thicket and come to a halt. I have left the Publix shopping complex, crashed through a hedge, and invaded an apartment complex. I try to take a bearing; try to figure out which way to go next. To the right, about a half mile, is the ocean, to the left, Federal Highway. As I stop, I sense the adrenalin leaving me. I begin to weaken.

I can feel my heart racing, my lungs heaving.

I am beginning to worry, becoming frightened. I know I’ve done bad and that I’m in trouble and I have made no plan for escape. I have no car, don’t know the neighborhood or which way to go next. I only know I can’t stay put. The cops will be arriving here in droves any second and I have got to go, go somewhere, anywhere, and fast.

I look down at my hands. The woman’s purse is still in my left, the knife in my right. Even in my present state of mind, even through a mental fog of confusion and fear, I recognize that I cannot travel through a neighborhood clutching a lady’s handbag and a knife. No, even my rattled brain understands that my present configuration is a bit too obvious. I tuck the handbag high up under my left arm. I put the knife back in my right pocket and decide that I am less overt now, as close to invisible as I am going to get. I turn to the left and pick up a trot through the apartment complex.

I don’t get through the apartment complex clean. A car is coming at me, driving slow up one of the streets. There is a lady in the car who is staring at me. She sees the madman running down her street with a lady’s handbag tucked up under his arm, but I don’t slow down. I keep on running through the apartment complex and pass all the way through it, slowing down only when I reach a fence at the far end.

It’s six feet tall and classic galvanized chain link. I come at the fence on an angle, toss the pocketbook over it and place both hands on the bar that runs horizontally along the top. I throw both my feet to one side, lift them up, and vault over the top of the fence. I land on the other side, scoop the pocketbook off the grass and keep moving.

I’ve passed from the apartment complex and into a schoolyard, but it is Sunday, so I am the only one on the playground. I keep on running, running to nowhere, running away. I am running, but I am still thinking, and I figure it is time to claim the money and dump the pocketbook. I find a corner of the school building that offers a little concealment and duck into it. I squat and pull the wallet from the purse. I open the wallet, and I see the money right away, see the green. I grab it, open the wad, and sink into despair.

In my hands I am now holding the fruit of my wickedness, the toll I extracted in terror from an innocent, unsuspecting woman. In my hands I am holding that which I have jeopardized my liberty and everything else I hold dear in life. In my hands, I am holding fifteen dollars, fifteen lousy dollars.

I leave the purse where it sits on the ground and stand up. I look into my hands at the lousy fifteen dollars. No way is this enough money to satisfy the crack beast. This isn’t enough money to last ten minutes on the pipe. More despair. I am up against the wall. I’ve committed an armed robbery, terrified another human being, and disgraced myself, again. And now the cops are coming. It is time to go, go somewhere, anywhere away from here. I take off running.

I plod toward the end of the schoolyard and meet a ten-foot chain link fence that marks its boundary. I reach the fence and stop in my tracks. There will be no vaulting this fence. No, it is way too tall for that. I have to scale the fence and my movements are awkward as I climb. The fence shudders and wiggles and rattles under my weight and commotion. I get to the top of the fence and jump. I don’t hesitate at the drop, not even for a second. I hit the ground hard, but my feet and knees are together, and I collapse onto the ground like a wad of balled up paper and roll to my right. By some miracle the knife in my right pocket doesn’t cut me when I roll on top of it, although I become aware again of its presence there.

I stand up with the lousy fifteen dollars in my left pocket, pull the knife out of my right pocket and pitch it.

I don’t do anything even remotely intelligent before I get rid of the knife, like wipe my prints off it or bury it. I just pitch it and start running again, running to nowhere, running away.

I cross the street and head for another apartment complex. Two or three or four minutes, I don’t know, have passed since I terrified some lady, plowed through shrubbery, jumped two fences, and destroyed my life again.

I reach the sidewalk that runs along the apartments and turn to the left and then I see it. I see it coming from a distance, maybe two hundred yards up the street. It is quiet from this distance, but it is closing very fast. It is the first response from the lady’s 911 call, a Broward Sheriff’s Office cruiser running silent, running with no lights. It’s headed my way, going to go right by me. I stop running but keep moving. I get up onto the sidewalk and I get lucky. By coincidence the sidewalk I’m on is shrouded from the street by a long, thick Ficus hedge. No doubt the cop has my description: white male, white hair, green shirt, tan pants, backpack. They know I was last seen on foot and which way I headed. BSO is looking for me, but the cop is gonna go right by me and not even see me. The hedge makes me invisible.

There is a tenant at the apartment complex getting out of his car. He is just off to my left and looking directly at me. He sees the madman walking quickly up his sidewalk. He is familiar enough with his surroundings to know I don’t belong here. The BSO cruiser is close now and the tenant hears the roar of its motor and looks over his shoulder, watching its approach. The tenant turns his head toward me, then back at the cruiser, then back at me again. The tenant is sharp, a quick study of things out of place, me, specifically.

The tenant has assembled the pieces of a puzzle that doesn’t belong in his neighborhood. He senses a correlation between the madman on his sidewalk and the cop in the car, but just as quickly as he makes the connection it disappears. The tenant turns his head one last time to see the cruiser fly past on its way to Publix and by the time he looks in my direction again, I am gone, gone around the far corner of the apartment building, running again, running to nowhere, running away.

I cross another street and head into a neighborhood of one-story homes, quiet, respectable homes, and a place where a madman does not belong. I keep on moving for another hundred yards until I see another one of those things, another BSO cruiser. This one is different. This one is sitting still at an intersection to my left front. He is part of some kind of perimeter, some kind of cop trap set for me. He doesn’t see me. He just sits there looking for me. I pick a path away to my right, hard right, away from him. I’m just walking now, not running anymore. I stay on this course for another minute or two or three or four, I don’t know. I’m losing track of things. I can’t concentrate. I’m tired. I’m thirsty. I’m scared.

Seven or eight or nine minutes have elapsed since I terrified a poor woman, robbed her at knife point and blasted a path through suburban Florida to nowhere. I don’t know how far I’ve traveled. I’m still very close to there, to Publix. I keep on moving toward Federal Highway. I am very thirsty now. I am very scared. I am very tired, tired of many things, tired of it all, but I keep on moving.

I can see Federal Highway now. It’s just up ahead, at the end of this street I’m walking on. Not too much further and I’ll cross Federal Highway. I’ll find crack over there on the other side of the road, only ten minutes worth, but for those few moments my pipe will stop screaming at me. I will make it worthwhile somehow.

I stop on the near side of Federal Highway. I’m tucked in on the side of some local store with its front on Federal Highway. I know that I’m not invisible anymore. I don’t want to cross Federal Highway without knowing what’s out there. I know there are cops out there prowling for me, lurking out there amongst the other cars. I peek my head out from around the corner of the building, and I look to the left and then to the right. No cops. I look both ways again; still, no cops.

Maybe ten minutes have passed since the madman took flight, and I think that I have covered more than a mile. I’ve come through bushes and fences and schoolyard, apartment complexes and neighborhood, too. I am scared. I am tired. I am very thirsty. Crack is on the other side of this road, and all I have to do is cross it, and I’ll be free. I will get the crack and for ten minutes my pipe will stop yelling my name. I make the decision to go. I wait for a break in the traffic and I step out onto Federal Highway. Then, I see it. And it sees me.

The thing scares me. It is parked right in the middle of Federal Highway, just sitting there in the center turn lane looking right at me. The thing is another one of those BSO cruisers, white and green with cop lights on top. The cruiser is only fifty yards to my right, and I didn’t even see it when I looked. It is not in the driving lanes, and my view of it must have been blocked by passing cars. The cruiser parked in the center turn lane of Federal Highway is part of that same perimeter cop trap, the outer most ring, and the one meant to catch me. The cruiser sees me first. By the time I notice it I am half-way across Federal Highway, and the cruiser’s front wheels are in motion even before the vehicle begins to move forward. The cruiser’s front wheels begin to turn. They are cocked, ready to move the car into the southbound travel lane of Federal Highway, move the cruiser right at me.

I see the cruiser’s wheels move and my heartbeat seizes like an engine with a shattered cam. In the span of an instant everything changes. I forget about tired. I forget about thirsty. I forget about crack. In the span of an instant, I come to know only a single thing, panic, mine. I’m caught, and I know it.

I finish crossing the street, a futile effort to convince myself that nothing bad is going to happen to me. I walk quickly up a little side street. I am walking and pretending that none of this is happening, that I might be mistaken about the cruiser seeing me, just imagining that the cruiser’s wheels turned to the right and that it began to enter the flow of southbound traffic.

No such luck. I don’t get fifty feet up the side street when I hear the roar of the BSO cruiser’s engine come up behind me. I know what time it is now. I hear one of the cops inside the cruiser open a door and get out. I look over my left shoulder at him and watch him point the finger of authority at me and hear him yell at me. He tells me to sit on the ground. I listen. I stop. And my gaze, along with all my hopes and dreams, goes down to the ground with me.

He comes directly at me, this dark-haired, dark-eyed cop. He walks up to me and cuts around behind me at the last second and tells me, Take off the backpack and throw it. I do it, and he tells me to put my hands behind my back. I do it and the cuffs go on tight. I feel the pressure on my wrists and listen to a ratcheting series of clicks.

The cop steps around to my front and pulls the sunglasses off my face, and we look at each other for the first time. I don’t speak to him. I don’t have to. My eyes tell him there will be no need for a fight here. I am very tired, very thirsty, very beaten. I’ve lost, and I let him know it with a single look, the look of complete and utter surrender, the look of the defeated.

__________

The cop in front of me stands, looks over his shoulder at his partner behind the wheel of the cruiser, and makes some kind of cop signal that says it’s over, that custody of the suspect has been achieved. His partner squawks something into the radio and, in less than a minute, the cavalry arrives at the corner of my little side street and Federal Highway.

Six or seven BSO cruisers now occupy my little corner, own it, actually, and the right-hand lane next to it. There are cop cars with cops in them, and cop lights on top going round and round, everywhere. A significant arrest has occurred, a madman apprehended. The southbound, right-hand lane of Federal Highway closes temporarily to mark the occasion of my capture.

A very big cop stands at the nose of a cruiser with his arms folded across his chest. He has cop sunglasses and the cop bald head that was issued with them. He is all grimace and self-righteousness. We look at each other with me on the ground and him standing, and he says, Oh yeah. Oooooh. Yeeeeaaaah.

Doubtless, the madman on the ground in front of him matches the description of the suspect perfectly, asshole with green shirt and white hair. His comment to no one in particular reflects his confidence that BSO has collared the right guy. He speaks to me slowly and in a voice that drips with satire. Can you say f-e-l-o-n-y?

I don’t answer the question. I just look down at the ground instead.

The cop who put the handcuffs on me is standing in front of me again. He is holding my backpack in his hand, and he wants to know what he is going to find when he opens it. He asks me, You got anything in here?

I tell him, I have a crack pipe in there, stuffed inside my cigarette pack.

He acknowledges my answer with a nod of his head, then reaches down and places a hand on my upper right arm. Stand up, he says and gives a pull.

He keeps his hand firmly locked onto my arm and walks me forward a little bit and around his cruiser until we are standing next to its trunk. I look up and see four or five deputies staring at me. One of them, a woman, makes a comment that I’m in pretty good shape and that I have made it almost a mile and a half in only ten minutes. She looks down at my feet and notes my shoes. She remarks with surprise, You did this wearing leather loafers? Are you a Marine? I don’t answer her question.

Other people are looking at me, too. The southbound lane of Federal Highway only has one lane open now and traffic down it has slowed to a crawl. Everyone and their brother, it seems, is slowing down to look at me. I’m standing at the back of a BSO cruiser surrounded by deputies, and I can see the faces of people who are driving south down Federal Highway. I am caught. I am ashamed. I am the madman in handcuffs, and I am a spectacle for gawkers.

Another BSO cruiser pulls up. No one gets out of this one, however. I can see two people in the back seat. One is a cop. The other, the lady I just robbed. She is here to make the identification of the criminal. She is here to identify me. Apparently, there are very few other assholes with white hair and a green T-shirt nearby, so the identification process is over in a second, and the cop car with the lady I robbed inside goes away in a hurry.

Now, it’s time for questions. The woman cop asks me again, Are you a Marine?

I tell her, I’m thirsty.

She does not offer me water. The dark-haired, dark-eyed cop, the one who cuffed me, asks, Where is the knife? I don’t speak to him at all. He waits a second and asks again, Where is the knife?

I tell him, I don’t know anything about a knife.

The dark-haired, dark-eyed cop and the woman cop look at each while silently digesting my words. Their expressions say they are not convinced with my answer. They have the same look on their faces an adult would have when a child, covered in finger paint, is asked, Who made the marks on the wall? and the kid looks up and says, Not me. They give up on the question for the moment and adopt a different tactic. The dark-haired, dark-eyed cop reaches into my backpack, retrieves my cigarette pack and pulls out my crack pipe.

He holds the pipe between his thumb and forefinger; holds it up right in front of my face like it is Exhibit A at my upcoming trial and says to me, Look at this. I can make this go away, like it was never even here. All you gotta do is tell me where you put the purse. He asks me, Do you want to help get the lady’s purse back?

It doesn’t take me long to understand what the deputy is offering. I get it right away. He is making me an off-the-books deal right here at the back of his cop car. He is letting me know he’ll make two charges go away; one, a felony—possession of a controlled substance in the form of cocaine residue on the inside of my crack pipe—and two, a misdemeanor—possession of drug paraphernalia in the form of the pipe itself. And all I have to do is show him where I dumped the pocketbook.

I know I’m hit. I’ve been ID’d by the victim, a solid, one hundred percent ID. There is no question in her mind at all, I’m the bad guy. Whether or not I give the handbag back or not, I’m screwed. Come Monday, the purse is gonna get found as soon as school opens. It’s lying in the open, in plain sight. The first person on the playground is going to see it and my fingerprints are all over it.

Then, there’s the lady I robbed. She didn’t sign up for any of this. My spell of hostility broke, snapped clean in two the instant I saw the cruiser’s wheels turning back there on Federal Highway, morphed into panic, and now I am wearing guilt, shame, and remorse. I feel just like the real asshole I am. The right thing to do is give the lady her purse back. It’s got all her things in it. It’ll take her weeks to replace the credit cards, car keys, and cell phone. The pictures in there may not be replaceable at all. If I can get a deal out here from the dark-haired, dark-eyed deputy by telling him where I put the pocketbook, then even better.

I tell the deputy, Yes. I will show him where I dumped the lady’s purse. He eases me into the back seat of the cruiser. The door is shut. The dark-haired, dark-eyed deputy gets in and his partner turns the cruiser around and, with the female cop in tow in her car, we go back to the schoolyard.

I sit in the back seat of the cop car. My hands are bound behind my back. A combination Plexiglas-wire-cage assembly separates my back seat from the deputies’ front seat. As we drive back to the schoolyard in the cruiser, the world outside seems to go by in slow motion. The initial impact of my custody is overwhelming and extends far beyond the moment I’m in. It seems like my entire future was called into question the minute the cuffs went on. With the exception of the car I’m in, everything appears to have stopped. The world on the outside of the cruiser is visible but I am no longer part of it. I have left the world as I knew it and am now entering a different existence. Doubt, fear, anguish, and loneliness are here with me now and permit me to see both the life I knew, the life that I have just left, and the one that is to come. In the back seat of this cop car I am alone in my person and alone in my thoughts. I am not being driven back to a crime scene by the cops so much as I am being transported to another world.

The cruiser comes to an abrupt halt outside the fence I scaled only a few minutes ago. I tell the cops to look straight ahead at the bottom of a palm tree. I tell them that’s where I dumped the lady’s pocketbook. They see it right away.

Over my shoulder, I see the woman cop get out of her cruiser and walk up to the car I’m in. The motor of the cop car I’m in gets turned off and the two deputies inside it get out. They shut their doors. All the windows are up. It is almost June in South Florida. The temperature outside is a muggy ninety degrees. I haven’t slept in three days. I just covered a mile and a half on foot in less than ten minutes. I don’t remember the last time I drank water. The inside of my cruiser begins to get very hot.

I think a bit of comedy unfolds as three deputies stand in front of a ten-foot-tall chain link fence deciding who’s going to climb it and grab the lady’s pocketbook on the other side. I want to volunteer to climb it for them, but they never ask me. Instead, they just stand there deciding who among them will climb the fence. I look at the three of them standing there, outside in the breeze, and while I sit inside the cop car that’s turning fast into a sauna, and I think that less time was spent building the fence than it’s taking them to decide who’s going to climb it. I think all the cops are standing on the near side of the fence like they’re trying to figure out who among them will be the first to scale the Great Wall of China.

The woman cop goes up and over the top. She scales the near side of the fence with remarkable ease, left hand, left foot, right hand, right foot. She descends on the far side of the fence just as deftly, a real cat woman. I sit inside the cruiser watching this. She hits the ground on the other side and makes a short beeline for the handbag, picks it up, zips it closed, and walks back to the fence.

She stops there on the far side of the fence, winds up and throws the handbag over the top of it in a pronounced arc. It lands unceremoniously next to the cops on my side of the fence with a muted thump. She does the climb up and back down the fence thing again and then goes, modestly triumphant, back to where her partners are standing. Mission accomplished. Pocketbook recovered. Then, they just stand there. And keep standing there.

Five minutes goes by like it was five years. In four more days, it is going to be June here in South Florida. It is somewhere around three o’clock in the afternoon and the clouds have called it an early day and retreated into the Everglades. It is wet, hot, and nasty out there. The temperature inside my cruiser must be over one hundred degrees already. The motor and ac unit were turned off before the cops got out of the car