Loser

Eustace Crowley lay there calm, relaxed for the first time in weeks, waiting for the night guard to make his rounds and take final count. The television had been turned off and Rumosi, ol’ Rum Nose the cons called him because of the frequent odor of alcohol that wafted about him and the red patchwork quilt of veins that covered his nose and cheeks, was due to come through the tank. After that, lights would dim, the other prisoners would go to sleep, and Eustace could leave. He wished there was some way he could be here the next morning to see their faces; unfortunately, he thought with glee, that would not be possible.

Although intelligent, Eustace was a loser, had been all his life, always coming up with one get-rich-quick-scheme after another and failing. He had finally bitten off more than he could chew when he was forced to kill a man who caught him in a con. He had been in County Jail for six months now, awaiting trial, and the judge’s final words, “This court sentences you to the Texas Department of Corrections for the rest of your natural life,” were still ringing in his ears from this morning. He was scheduled to be on the next bus to Huntsville.

Not me, thought Eustace. Not this time. The authorities, the other inmates, even the world was in for a big surprise. Eustace Crowley was going to be a winner this time and there was nothing they could do to stop him.

The sound of keys turning in the lock broke into his thoughts, bringing his mind back to the present and the task at hand. ESCAPE! He did not intend to spend the rest of his “natural life” as a guest of the State of Texas. Instead, he was leaving tonight. Sitting in the County Jail for six months had given him plenty of opportunity to practice—something he would never do on the streets—and Eustace, whose father was an escape artist in the mode of Harry Houdini, had finally perfected something his father always swore was possible.

Night after night he had worked, focusing his concentration to a fine edge, honing it until he was able to accomplish the impossible. Eustace could disappear….and reappear in another place.

Ol’ Rum Nose walked by the cell, keys jangling, but Eustace kept his eyes closed, feigning sleep. Soon he would be able to take up his lotus position on the floor and begin. This time, however, he would not simply transport himself from one side of the cell door to the other and back. His sentence was in, with no possibility of parole for at least fifteen years, so he was going through the brick wall to the outside. FREEDOM!

Quiet!Finally. Rumosi had gone, the lights were dim, and everyone was asleep. Easing off of his bunk, careful not to disturb the three other men in the cell, Eustace sat down in the middle of the floor and folded his legs into a classic lotus position. He had been very fortunate when they placed him in Tank 11-S-N, because it faces a small south window. The jail’s original windows had been translucent, but in this tank the original window was broken out and replaced with plexiglass. As luck would have it, in the process of replacing the window a large chip had been left in the brick at the window’s upper left corner.

Now he fixed his eyes on that spot and focused, allowing his mind to flow into the fissure. Small cracks slowly became discernible, widening, growing, and flowing away. A large vein on his forehead became visible, pulsing rhythmically. His eyelids were fixed, frozen in time, and a white line of pure energy snaked out from his brow to probe at the fissure with a delicate touch, slowly injecting itself into the molecular structure of the brick. The pulsing vein grew larger, throbbing intensely, and the composition of the air seemed to change, forming a ghostly ectoplasm around the filament of energy.

The spectral essence began pulsing in conjunction with the vein, taking on a life of its own as it slowly became a ghostly twin of Eustace Crowley. With infinite patience the energy creature rippled along the pulsing strand of light, finally coming to the small chasm in the wall. Now one with the line, the shimmering phantom throbbed wildly, a silent scream that pierced the atomic structure of the brick itself like a high-pitched note beyond human range breaks glass, and the mortar in the fissure melted away until the hole was open.

Turning slowly, the apparition continued to pulsate throughout its length while drawing energy toward itself through the glowing white line. Eustace, still sitting on the floor in his trance-like state, began to fade, infinitesimally at first, but as the line grew even brighter and the ghostly being took on substance, he began to disappear. Slowly his body became transparent, until it resembled the ectoplasm on the other end. Then it dimmed even more, faded still further, sputtered and blinked out. The white line pulsed with renewed strength, growing shorter with each beat until it, too, was gone.

All of this was witnessed by Eustace who watched the transformation take place as first his mental energy, then his physical energy flowed through the lifeline. The line grew shorter and shorter, pulsing with the rhythm of Eustace Crowley’s adrenaline charged heart. When at last the strand of energy and the wraithlike form coalesced there was a brilliant flash of light, a loud clap, and Eustace was outside the wall.

He screamed with glee and threw his arms high in celebration, ecstatic over his hard-fought freedom. But the scream quickly changed from one of glee to one of terror, for once again Eustace had not thought his plan through. When he physically re-materialized outside the wall he realized it, too, but it was too late. There was no time to think. No time even to grab something had there been anything to hang onto.

He had forgotten that one must ride an elevator to reach the cellblocks of the County Jail and Eustace Crowley, the loser, fell eleven stories to his death.