Nothing to Lose

“You know I’m praying for you, Bix,” Deacon Green says.

“I know, Deacon. I know. I’d sure try to do things different, if I ever got the chance.”

“You will, Bix. You will.”

But Bix Dalton, 42, and so nondescript nobody would pick him out of a lineup, is not so sure of that. Weekdays from eight to three, Bix and five other inmates work in the Vocational Wing of the main prison facility under the tutelage of Thaddeus Green, the Small Engine Repair instructor who also is a deacon in a small Baptist church nearby. As part of the rehab process, he’s teaching them how to diagnose and repair small, air-cooled engines, the kind found in motorcycles, motorboats, and lawnmowers so that when they’re released, they can get a job. Theoretically.

It’s after three, and the other inmates have gone back to their secure dormitories, where they sleep on bunk beds, store their possessions in lockers, and share communal showers, toilets, and sinks. The instructor has kept Bix after class again to continue teaching him how to save the small engine of his soul.

“Do you know why it’s important to forgive others?” Deacon Green asks.

This is a novel concept to Bix, who hasn’t found life very forgiving since the sawmill accident when he broke every bone in his left foot while stacking timber. The worker’s compensation helped but it wasn’t enough for his family to live on. Bix tried but couldn’t find other work.

One afternoon while drowning his sorrows, he ran into Jamey Grigsby. Having heard Grigsby was mixed up in the drug trade, Bix was leery when his old high school buddy offered him a job driving a semi-truck. But Bix was desperate enough to take it.

Soon he was transporting coke, meth, and smack for the Sinaloa cartel. A month later, when the DEA busted Grigsby, he rolled on Bix, who was caught moving 25 pounds of meth. Convicted of trafficking, Bix has been in prison for four years now and faces another six without the possibility of parole.

“We must forgive others if we want forgiveness for our sins,” Deacon Green says. “Put aside our anger, bitterness, and revenge. Let God heal our spiritual wounds and bring us peace and love. Do you understand what I’m saying, Bix?”

Bix is about to say, I sure do, even though he knows he’ll never forgive Grigsby for ratting him out. Or Patsy Jean for divorcing him the minute he was sentenced and taking everything he owned, then marrying someone else. But before he can, Roy Bodeen sneaks up from behind and crushes the Deacon’s skull with a ball peen hammer. With the Deacon’s blood and brains splattered all over the place, Bodeen yells for Fast Freddy Finley to grab the warden’s lawn mower like they’re taking it out for a test spin.

“Get some bolt cutters, Bix. Move it,” Bodeen orders.

Bodeen wants to escape. But this is the Eastern Kentucky Correctional Complex, a medium-security facility with a razor wire fence perimeter, watch towers, and armed roving patrols. Bix knows he’d never try escaping from here on his own. But as he shudders at the red gore dripping from the rounded face of the hammer still clutched in Bodeen’s right fist, Bix caves. He’s always been a follower.

To distract himself, he imagines being in some hotel with a fine-looking woman, going to the picture show, lying low, maybe finding a job where they don’t do background checks. Bix knows it’s just a pipe dream, but dreams are about all he’s got left. By becoming part of this escape, he’ll also become an accessory to attempted murder, or worse if the Deacon dies, which by the look of his gross head wound he will. On the other hand, unless he helps Bodeen, this six-foot-five neo-Nazi with tats on his neck (a screaming eagle) and around his wrist (a ring of thorns) who’s done nothing but bully and pump iron for the past 14 years, Bix may not survive the next five minutes.

There’s less supervision and control over the internal movement of inmates here than in a high security prison, so they can probably sneak through the buildings to the fence without being detected. But Bix doesn’t know about the towers and patrols. Earlier that day, a convict three months away from possible parole was stabbed in the neck thirteen times, triggering a lock-down and a visit by the state police. After they hauled away the killer, who apparently flushed the shank he’d used in the toilet, everyone stood down and normalcy was restored. But not entirely. It might seem contrary to common sense, but Bix knows there’s always a brief lax period after an incident like that and Bodeen is cunningly trying to exploit it.

It’s cold, mid-March, when Bix and the other two convicts arrive at the fence in broad daylight. No guards. No patrols.

“Cut the wire, Bix,” Bodeen says.

Bix tries but can’t slice through the heavy-gauge wire fencing.

“Get out of my way.” Bodeen grabs the bolt cutters.

In less than a minute, they’re squeezing through a hole and running for their lives toward the woods. Because of his injury, Bix’s left leg is shorter than his right, and he must wear a raised shoe to stay balanced. It’s a hard slog for him through the fields with one shoe sticking in the mud every other step.

“You slow down, I’ll shank you,” Bodeen growls.

Although Bix knows you can’t believe anything another inmate tells you, he believes him. Bodeen’s over sixty years old, but he’s in great shape and meaner than a wounded wolverine. He knows that Ninja stuff from Nam, too, and would slit your throat for a Happy Meal.

Because cons are liars, all innocent people with bad lawyers, nobody really knows what anybody else is even in prison for, unless it makes the news. Bodeen’s and Fast Freddy’s crimes did. Bodeen is in for armed robbery and criminal confinement, a fancy way of saying that after a stick-up he kidnapped and raped a clerk. He’s locked up in medium security only because of overcrowding at the state’s maximum-security prison at Eddyville. Bix assumes Bodeen must figure he’s got nothing to lose by trying to escape, having already served fourteen years out of a 40-year sentence.

As for Fast Freddy—a long-haired boy with a soul patch, blue eyes, and an angelic smile, except for one missing tooth—he’s only 31 but has already served eight years for burglary and is due out in seven. Bix knows recruiting Fast Freddy was easy for Bodeen because, as a registered sex offender, Freddy finds prison a special kind of hell. Bix himself feels he’s here only because of the bad luck of being in the right place at the wrong time. He wonders if Deacon Green would agree with him. Or give him some crap about how it’s Bix’s destiny, that God has a purpose for him, if only Bix can find forgiveness in his heart.

“Forgiveness, my ass,” Bix says aloud, drawing odd looks from the others. But they’re too busy running for conversation just now.

Bodeen’s plan, if you can call it that, is to high tail it through the woods into the hills until they hit a stream and then go to ground. They’ll be well camouflaged under the leaves, he says, thanks to the khaki jumpsuits the prison replaced their bright orange ones with to raise inmate self-esteem.

They slip and slide along a trail muddy from recent rains. From the ridge, they descend to a green valley, seeking cover and concealment under a tunnel of tree branches over a rushing creek. Listening for search dogs and helicopters, they follow the creek until it reaches a hollow bend where they burrow in like muskrats beneath the leaves and lie there, shivering and breathing mold and cobwebs for hours.

Up at dawn after a miserable night, they head east, deeper into Appalachia, floundering along muddy flats and rocky ledges through the woods because Bodeen believes the authorities won’t expect this. They’re on the move all day, following whatever horse trails or foot paths lead east. While Bodeen mutters about what a big war hero he was over in Nam, Bix wonders if Bodeen’s bronze star and purple heart really exist. And what kind of freaking war hero comes home and burns down his elementary school?

After dark, they burglarize a sorry little old farmhouse where nobody’s home and pilfer blue jeans and flannel shirts. Dressed in their new duds, they discover the dumb trusting farmer has left his keys in the ignition of his Chevy Silverado pickup. They steal that, too. With Freddy behind the wheel—they don’t call him Fast for nothing—they change directions again, heading south toward Paintsville and Prestonsburg. Probably an even dumber thing to do, since, as Bix knows, they all have relations in that direction. But you don’t question Bodeen unless you want your fingers broken.

Sure enough, when they turn on the car radio, Bix hears, “Law enforcement sources say that the ringleader of the escape, Roy Bodeen, has ties to the area.”

Ringleader? It’s not like Bodeen’s some kind of criminal mastermind. Yeah, he’s big and strong, but he eats his soup with a fork. In Bix’s estimation, Fast Freddy’s not much brighter. Bix considers himself the smart one. He reads a book every now and then and can think more than one move ahead at a time. So how come he’s mixed up in this disaster in the making? Seeing the Deacon in his mind’s eye, Bix mutters, “Now don’t you start.”

“Shut up,” Bodeen says.

“Warden Johnson at the prison says Bodeen has a reputation as aggressive and short-tempered. Due to this, plus his extensive criminal history, Bodeen is considered extremely dangerous,” the radio announcer says.

“Short-tempered?” Bodeen repeats. “You think I’m a hothead?”

“Well, you ain’t exactly Cool Hand Luke,” Bix mutters.

For this, he gets an elbow in his ribs. Bix wonders why Bodeen gets all the attention. Probably because it’s not his first escape. But if he’s so smart, how come he got caught?

When they run out of gas, Bodeen says, “We’ll have to abandon the truck.”

“Why don’t we just go find some gas?” Bix asks.

But Bodeen’s running the show, so instead of sitting pretty, they hide the truck in the woods and head across open fields on foot to a hay barn behind a dark house. Not exactly the Holiday Inn, Bix thinks, but at least he can spend the night indoors in the hay instead of freezing to death. Lying there, Bix recalls the times he yelled at Patsy Jean for no good reason, other than being grumpy and high, and a thousand other bad decisions he’s made. Deacon Green always said it’s easy to relive moments we aren’t proud of. That it’s Satan trying to get at us by making us feel regret. If so, Bix thinks it’s working.

In the morning, he is awakened by footsteps on gravel outside the barn. In three seconds, Bodeen’s up behind the door with a shovel. It must be some hayseed checking to see if somebody stole his hay. Or maybe, Bix thinks, for three escaped convicts. When the farmer sticks his head into the barn, Bodeen clobbers him. They tie him up with his own baling twine and gag him.

“Let’s check out the house,” Bodeen says.

“Maybe we ought to just grab his vehicle and put some miles between us and the law,” Bix says.

 “I knew you were a gimp, but I didn’t know you were gutless.”

 “Don’t call me that, Roy.”

 “What you gonna do about it, you gutless gimp?”

Bix considers the odds against him taking the shovel away from Bodeen and hitting the big ape upside his head. If he misses, Bix will be dead meat.

“That’s what I thought.” In a show of his utter contempt, Bodeen flicks his index finger against Bix’s forehead none too gently.

Leaving the farmer in the barn, the escapees approach the house. It’s still dark, but not for long, so they move fast. Parked around the side is a big green John Deere tractor, plus not one but two pickup trucks, one fancy and new, the other old and rusty.   “We’ll take old and rusty,” Fast Freddy says. “People see us in that thing will think we’re just more dumb farmers.”

But when Freddy opens it up, he finds no keys. “Now what kind of trusting farmer doesn’t leave his keys in his truck?”

Satellite dish on the roof, but the farmhouse looks so old and rundown it’s no wonder they assumed it abandoned. No sign of a woman’s touch, no window curtains or flowerpots, and definitely not spick and span. As Bix slips through the back door into the kitchen, he hears snoring. He peeks in the next room and spies another farmer stretched out in a recliner and snuffling away in his sleep. They’re about to take him, until Bix trips over his own feet and sends a lamp crashing to the floor.

Farmer wakes up and goes for the shotgun on the wall, but Bodeen gets the drop on him.

“Who else is here?” Bodeen demands.         

“Nobody.”      

“You better not be lying.”

They tie him up like the one out in the barn. Bix is glad that so far nobody, except maybe the Deacon, has got killed. If they get caught—and let’s face it, he thinks, we probably will—he’d rather not be looking at another possible murder rap, though kidnapping’s bad enough. They ransack the place, which turns out to be an arsenal. Besides the twelve gauge, they find hunting rifles, nine 9mm handguns and enough ammo to waste half the county. They each grab a nine and stick it in their belt.

In the kitchen, they find plenty to eat—canned goods, sodas, frozen TV dinners. Best of all, some leftover chicken pot pies in the fridge.

“Maybe they was gonna eat this for brunch,” Fast Freddy says, turning on a burner to warm it up. “Maybe their mama made it.”

“Probably lives nearby then,” Bodeen says. “That’s how these clucks are, all clannish and tied to the land. Might as well be locked up in jail.”

While they wolf down the pie, the mastermind switches on the TV news. Turns out the newscaster is interviewing the local sheriff about their “daring” prison break and how the search area for them has been expanded to several nearby states and that a bevy of law enforcement agencies are engaged in the manhunt.

“Did you hear that?” Fast Freddy says. “A bevy—he said a freaking bevy.” After a pause, he adds, “What’s a bevy?”

“It means everybody from Eliot Ness to Dirty Harry is after us. Maybe we ought to split up before we all get caught,” Bix says.

But the mastermind says, “Leave the thinking to me, Bix.”

Oh, hell yeah, I’ll be sure and do that, Roy. Bix keeps this reply to himself, thinking that the sooner he gets away from this psycho, the better. When he finds the truck keys hanging on a nail rack inside the hall closet, he’s about ready to take off on his own. But another farmer arrives in a cranberry Dodge minivan, and when he gets out, they rush him, and Bodeen clubs him down.

“How you like that, you goddamn son of a bitch?” Bodeen says, and keeps on beating him.

“Jesus, Roy, don’t kill him,” Fast Freddy says.

They pull Roy off, but not before farmer number three is covered with blood. They drag him into the barn and tie him up.

Well, as they say, Bix thinks, we’re armed and dangerous men.

“We’ll take the minivan,” Bodeen decides.

They load all the firearms plus $700 in cash the dumb yokels hid in a coffee can. As they’re leaving, Bodeen warns the three farmers that he’ll come back and kill them if they don't wait two hours before calling the cops. Bix shakes his head, wondering why he got mixed up with such an idiot. Is it God’s will, like the Deacon says, or just bad luck?

Fast Freddy pivots west toward Jackson, which makes more sense since they don’t have any kin folk down that way. If they keep to themselves and stay under the radar, their chances should improve. Halfway there, the sky turns a dismal gray, and the temperature begins to drop. When the windshield fogs up, Fast Freddy turns the heater to the defog setting and the fan to high. But frost soon covers the windows, reducing visibility.

From the radio, they learn that snow is falling across central Kentucky. A winter storm warning is in effect, with hazardous driving conditions.

“Snowing in March, goddamn it,” Bodeen snarls.

The white flakes drop slowly at first, coating the two-lane highway as the minivan’s motor dies. They coast to a stop.

“We out of gas?”

“No, Roy,” Fast Freddie says, “we still got about an eighth of a tank left.”

“Get out and look under the hood.”

“I’m a driver, not a mechanic.”

“Then you do it, Bix,” Bodeen says.

“What the hell’s wrong with you?” Bodeen says when Bix hesitates.

What’s wrong with me? Despite his Small Motor Repair class with the Deacon, Bix knows next to nothing about engines of any kind. Bodeen tells him to get out there anyway, so he does. When Bix opens the hood, he astonishes himself by finding the problem, a loose battery cable, and tightens it up with a few twists of an adjustable wrench kept in a small roadside emergency tool kit.

“Hot damn,” Bix says triumphantly as the engine starts on the first try.

“How’d you do that?” Bodeen asks, impressed despite himself by this heroic feat.

“It’s easy when you know how, Roy,” Bix says, getting some extra mileage out of it by pretending to be more intelligent and resourceful than he really is.

With driving conditions deteriorating, Bodeen decides to stop in the next town at some backwoods motel that takes cash and asks no questions. As Bodeen stretches out on the only bed and Fast Freddy flops on the floor, Bix realizes this little room isn’t so different from their prison dorm. But he’s happy just to be alive. Discovering a hard-bound book with a red cover in a nightstand drawer, he takes it over by the window where there’s more light and examines it. It’s a Gideon Bible, which reminds him of the Deacon’s words about how Bix would get another chance someday.

As Bix vows to use it to get away before Bodeen kills him, a State Police car prowls slowly through the motel lot.

“Cops,” Bix says.

Bodeen and Fast Freddy jump up. “Have they spotted us?”

“I don’t think so.”

The cops don’t stop, but now everyone is more on edge than ever.

Snow or no snow, Bodeen decides they’ll hit the road again at dark in case the pigs might return. When Fast Freddy turns on the local TV news, they’re interviewing the local sheriff again, who reports that two of the farmers they robbed are brothers. The one Bodeen nearly killed is a retired state trooper.

We are probably dead men if the state cops catch us, Bix thinks.

“Weapons were stolen during the break-in, which means that these guys are dangerous and probably well-armed. Whoever confronts them, I believe there will be a fight,” Sheriff Hayseed says.

The hell with that, Bix thinks. He doesn’t want to fight.

Hearing his own description broadcast, Bix suggests it’s time for a change in appearance. He shaves his head, but there’s nothing he can do to lengthen his left leg. He convinces Bodeen to shave, too, but he’s always going to be six-five. Fast Freddy gives himself a buzz cut and eighty-sixes his soul patch, but he’s still missing an incisor and looks like a little thug.

They sit around in their stolen jeans and flannel shirts watching The Shawshank Redemption on TV until Bodeen says, “Time to go eat.”

“Ah, c’mon, Roy, it’s almost over,” Fast Freddy says. “Morgan Freeman is about to meet up with Tim Robbins at the beach in Mexico.”

Bodeen shuts off the television.

As they walk through the parking lot and cross the street to the diner, Bodeen orders, “Keep your mouth shut in there. Don’t draw attention to us.”

Half a dozen customers are seated at tables, a couple more at the bar. A redheaded waitress with a cute ass and long legs shows them to a booth at the back. The waitress, whose name tag says Jackie Nell, asks if they want water.

“That’s a mighty pretty name, Jackie Nell,” Fast Freddy says.

Bodeen kicks him under the table.

“Where you boys from?” Jackie Nell asks.

“We’re dairy farmers from Ohio,” Fast Freddie says.

Jackie Nell gives him a funny look and takes their order, three chicken fried steak specials.

All the time, Bix is looking at her but seeing Patsy Jean. He realizes he’d sell his soul for one more kiss, one more night together. Back in those days, he thought he was so smart, but now he knows he was plain dumb. Why, he could be sitting at home with her right now, watching TV instead of being on the run. When Jackie Nell brings their food, they devour it. They’re almost finished when somebody turns on the TV behind the bar. And there they are, unshorn, in their prison finery.

“Think they recognize us?” Fast Freddy whispers.

“Shut up,” Bodeen hisses.

Nobody else at the diner is paying any attention to them. As far as they’re concerned, Bix thinks, we’re just three dumb farmers eating the special. Jackie Nell comes to ask if they’d like dessert. “The apple pie is good tonight,” she chirps. Bix looks into her big green eyes, and something clicks, and he knows they’ve been spotted. Bodeen rises, signaling it’s time to go. Jackie Nell backs away with a strained smile on her face. Keen-eyed predator that he is, Bodeen recognizes that she’s made him and is going to narc on them the second they’re out the door. Out comes the nine.

“Nobody move,” Bodeen yells.

 The other customers freeze looking startled, then horrified.

Gun in hand, Bodeen seizes Jackie Nell by the arm and says, “Let’s take a ride, sweetheart.” He forces her, trembling and crying, out of the restaurant and into the back of the minivan.

In a moment of blinding insight, Bix realizes he doesn’t give a damn if they’re caught, so long as nobody else gets hurt, especially this waitress. He tells himself to do something. After all, he’s armed, too, but Bodeen has a reputation as a crack shot and look at all the people who might get caught in the middle of a gunfight. Paralyzed by indecision, Bix does nothing but get in with Fast Freddy.

The cops must’ve been close by because they’re barely out of town before law enforcement shows up and tries to pull them over. But even though this minivan is not known for its acceleration, Fast Freddy jams his foot to the floor, and they’re launched like a moon rocket. He keeps it there, squeezing every ounce of thrust out of the 96-horsepower engine, and Jackie Nell screams as the unwieldy vehicle fishtails on the glazed highway. They almost leave the pavement, but somehow Freddy gets control back in time, and the high-speed chase is on. Jackie Nell keeps up the caterwauling until Bodeen reaches over and slaps her face. After that, she’s silent, slinking away from him as far she can get.

Fast Freddy proves that, behind the wheel, he is no one to be trifled with. Somehow, perhaps on sheer driving ability alone, he outdistances the more powerful patrol cars. But cops don’t play fair, and they radio ahead to set up tire deflators on the road outside the next town. Fast Freddy’s good, but spikes are spikes and when he runs over them, the minivan’s tires explode. This could, and probably should, result in a nasty collision with some immovable object like a tree or a building. Instead, running on the rims alone, Fast Freddy keeps them going long enough to coast into town and skid to a stop in a hail of sparks.

Time to split up.

Fast Freddy leaps out to make a run for it.

While all the cops chase Freddy, Bodeen forces Jackie Nell out of the car to use as a human shield. Bix, having decided at long last that it’s time to do things differently, tries to stop him. But Bodeen clubs him in the forehead with the handle of his 9mm and Bix goes down hard as Fast Freddy ducks into an alley and attempts to jack another car.

This time, deputies prove too quick for him and Fast Freddy is subdued, none too gentle. The cops are yelling, everybody is yelling, as Bix, dazed, looks in the near distance up ahead and sees Jackie Nell still struggling with Bodeen, who backhands her. He grabs her around the waist and drags her at gunpoint toward the highway, which somehow the cops have not managed to shut down and secure.

Bix can’t figure out what Bodeen thinks he’s doing. Maybe flag down an incautious motorist? He knows one thing. Bodeen is desperate enough to try anything to avoid returning to prison. Bix feels worn out, nearly exhausted, but knows that his time has come. This is his moment to prove he’s a changed man.

Pushing himself up off the icy pavement, he high steps it through the snow, running all out, as fast as he can. As Bodeen and Jackie Nell reach the highway, Bix flies at them, slamming into Roy from behind. The impact breaks Bodeen’s grip on the girl and the gun. Now it’s just Bix and Bodeen, punching and biting and choking, pulling each other’s hair, locked in a struggle to the death, which isn’t settled until a mad bull of a semi neither man has seen coming around a curve out of the twilight swerves into them, its horn blowing and air brakes hissing, and ends it.

© 2024 Rick Neumayer

“Nothing To Lose” will appear in the forthcoming THREE FOGGY MORNINGS: Stories by Rick Neumayer. If you like this one, I’d love to hear from you.