Friday, November 17th, 1972

McCarthy stands in a narrow corridor. Breathing deeply, he closes his eyes every once in a while, opens them again and stares at the featureless wall ahead of him. Closes. Opens. Closes. Opens. Like a sunbathing lizard.

He can hear rain against the skylight, above him and eight feet to his right.

Waiting, and then waiting some more. The past decade has been nothing but waiting.

McCarthy, if nothing else, can wait like a professional.

Romulus, Seneca County, upstate New York. Nothing of a place. Population running maybe three and a half, four thousand. Temperature, humidity, wind speed, precipitation, even the days of snowfall and sunshine falling within the United States average. Below average for unemployment, foreign-born residents, renting proportion and college students. Place for middle America to retire if they done good.

Perfect in all aspects, except for Five Points.

This is the New York Department of Corrections. Twenty three buildings, four hundred and fifty acres, out there along Route 96 between Ovid and Seneca Falls. Maximum security, seven hundred and fifty cells. Some of the worst the world had to offer had stayed up there at Five Points, and the good citizens of Romulus and other picturesque towns around the Finger Lakes liked to know that the place was locked down and secure before they went fishing for the weekend.

“McCarthy! Front and center!”

McCarthy turns and runs back to the office, stands there stock-still, his sock-less feet jammed into his shoes. He waits for the guard to come out of his office.

“Processing you out, McCarthy. Administration has your money, any valuables you signed in on arrival. I’m walking you to the end of this block and then someone will take you over. Until you’re out through the main gate you’re still the responsibility of the New York Department of Corrections…”

The guard leaned forward. McCarthy could smell garlic on his breath. “So don’t be an asshole, okay?”

McCarthy smiles. “Sir, no sir,” he whispers.

McCarthy stands in the walkway between two buildings, a narrow dirt run, five feet wide, an arched fence above him. He can hear the highway. It will be a while before he sees it. His ankles are cold. He wonders what happened to his socks.

The guard behind him says nothing.

When the buzzer sounds he steps forward and opens the door. “Move inside,” he says. “Door’s gonna close behind you with a helluva slam, okay?”

McCarthy nods.

The guard smiles. “See you next time, eh?”

The guard steps back. The door slams shut. McCarthy is in the narrow annexe. He waits for the interior door to open.

Within moments he is approached by a middle-aged guard.

“Daniel McCarthy?”

McCarthy nods.

“This way.”

McCarthy follows him, takes a corridor to the left, three doors down into another corridor; office at the far end, a wide window looking out towards the world. It takes him a moment to realise what is different. There are no bars.

“I have your pay dockets, your earnings, your watch, a pair of silver cufflinks, a lighter. That’s all, right?”

“You can keep the lighter,” McCarthy says. “I quit.”

The guard smiles. “Thanks for the offer, McCarthy. Can’t accept. Good you quit, though. At least something positive came out of this.”

McCarthy takes the cufflinks, the watch, an envelope with four years’ worth of prison wages inside.

“Sign here,” the guard says. McCarthy does so. “And here…and here.”

McCarthy knows the watch will not fit him. He puts it in his jacket pocket.

The guard walks around the desk, looks down, frowns. “Where the fuck are your socks?” he asks.

McCarthy shakes his head and shrugs. “Christ almighty knows,” he says.

“You can’t leave here with no socks.”

“You got a spare pair?”

The guard looks bemused, shakes his head.

“Looks like I’m going without them then, doesn’t it?” McCarthy says.

Admissions and Releases were done with McCarthy by 12.41 p.m.

He stands in the gatehouse for some time. He watches the highway traffic that crosses his line of sight beneath the horizon. The cars are small, almost invisible, but the trucks and freighters are big enough to determine colors. They appear and disappear before the sound reaches him.

“McCarthy?”

McCarthy turns, looks over his shoulder at the guard. Badge says Whitman, like the poet.

“You got someone to come get you?”

McCarthy shakes his head.

“Hell of a walk to the highway…and when you get there no-one’s gonna stop for you.”

McCarthy doesn’t reply.

“So what you gonna do…walk into Romulus?”

“I guess.”

“That’s the better part of eight miles McCarthy…you can’t do that – ”

“Sure I can.”

Whitman looks down. “Where the fuck are your socks?”

“Someone threw them out, maybe. I don’t know.”

Whitman sighs. “Eight miles with no socks.”

“Sir, yes sir,” McCarthy replies.

“Eight miles with no socks.”

A breeze comes through the gatehouse door and halts McCarthy in his tracks. Little nothing of a breeze but it stopped him like he was leashed.

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