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“Fill me in, Bill.”
“Sylvia Stone’s disappearance is the top story.”
“I figured that much.”
He continues, “The fact that she is missing is immediately followed by the fact that you were just released from prison and thatyouwere the last person to be seen with her—you know, the daughter of the woman you supposedly killed.”
“You don’t believe I did it, do you?”
“Naw, man. Never did. But everyone else did, and does, and everyone thinks you’re involved in her daughter’s disappearance now.”
I jab my fingers through my hair. “What station aired it? KNWV?”
Billy works a deep swallow. “Naw… national news.”
“What?”I stumble backward, slamming into a file cabinet. Papers spill onto the ground.
“Jesus, dude, move.” Billy surges off the chair, steps around the desk.
I stumble to the side, words catching in my throat. Billy kneels, begins gathering the papers.
I stare down at him, gaping like an idiot.
The story has gonenational.
Just then, the front door chimes. Billy replaces the papers to their rightful place on top of the file cabinet, then grabs his coffee from the desk. “Duty calls. Just stay in here until I close, wait for things to cool down a bit. Help yourself to anything you need. There’s some leftover pizza in the mini fridge under the desk. Oh, and a cell phone, a burner phone I used while they were working on my other one. Got some minutes on it and can even connect to the internet. It’s in the bottom drawer. Take it, I don’t need it.”
“Thanks.”
“I’d offer you to stay in my house—I heard you ain’t got a place yet—but I just got these Doberman puppies and shit, man, they shit everywhere.”
“Didn’t figure you as a puppy kind of guy.”
“Where I live, out in the sticks, you need dogs, man. Guns and dogs to guard my property.”
“Whereabouts?”
“I own twenty acres out on Black Bear Mountain,” he says, a hint of pride sparkling in his eyes. “Out in the middle of nowhere.”
“Good for you.”
“Thanks.” He starts for the door, pauses, and turns back. “Hey… I’m sorry. I can’t imagine… I’m just sorry, dude.”
“Thanks.”
The moment the door closes, I beeline it to the mini fridge. Sure enough, a grease-stained box of pizza sits crookedly between the slats. My mouth waters.
I am starving.
Since being released from prison, my appetite has come back tenfold. The moment I realized I had the freedom to choose my own food, suddenly that’s all I want. Food. Doesn’t even matter if it’s good. I just want to eat and eat and eat. I am absolutely ravenous, constantly, this insatiable appetite reminding me of who I was before prison, like that man is slowly coming back.
I have mixed emotions about this.
Before I went away, I was a mess. A 24-year-old country boy with little direction in life and zero ability to balance a checkbook. But this is no excuse for the financial pitfall I found myself in. I look back on that kid, the snotty, ungrateful little punk who thought he was invincible, and I want to punch him in the face. Young Rhett lived day by day, no passion, not grateful for a single thing, even though I had very little. But therein lies the point, doesn’t it? I lived in a constant state of want. Wanting this, that, more, less, you name it.
In prison, I read this quote: Unhappiness is being in a constant state of wanting. It is so true. I watched too many men shrivel and die to this kind of victim mentality while behind bars. They hated everything about their life, blamed others, the system, the country. Wanted anything and everything that was just out of their reach. This never-ending cycle of discontentment slowly poisoned their brains.
I vowed, very early on, that I would not be like those men.
