Page 27 of Coach
“Yeah,” Slash said, sighing. “I can ask Detroit to ask his brother for a name. He’s not usually someone to relay information. But for something like this, he might bend on that. For the safety of everyone.”
“It’ll be on the news first thing in the morning anyway. If they don’t find him by then.”
“Yeah. Alright. Is anyone there not shitfaced? Otherwise, I’ll head over to keep an eye on things.”
“I haven’t been drinking.”
“Good. Keep it that way. If anything seems off, I want a call.”
“Got it.”
“Thanks for the heads-up.”
With that, he ended the call, and I dipped back inside to grab a gun before doing a tour around the grounds.
Several more cars rushed their way toward the prison. The sirens had gone silent. I couldn’t help but assume it wasn’t because they’d found the escapee, but because they didn’t want the other prisoners to think someone actually got away, that it was possible, that they could potentially do the same someday down the line.
I clicked off my light and made a wide circle around the clubhouse grounds, letting my eyes adjust to the dark, listening for any strange sounds.
But there was nothing.
The absence of anything else to focus on allowed my mind to wander. Unsurprisingly, it went right back to a stalled elevator, a heavy breath in the dark, the way the air grew thick with Este’s panic.
The club, my brothers, even my family, all assumed the yoga and meditation were just a simple personality quirk. They didn’t know it was something I turned to out of desperation, as a way to cope.
First, there was the anger that could sometimes get the better of me—the very thing that sent me to prison in the first place. I didn’t regret beating the shit out of the man who’d been beating on my sister. But I did regret the rage that had been able to overtake me, making it possible for me to get caught for the attack and sent away in the first place.
When I’d been out on bail and going through my trial, I knew I needed to do something about my anger; I had to learn to control myself.
But then I’d gotten sent away, been led to a small box that I had to share with another man, with barely enough room to spread out my arms.
And I’d always had an issue with enclosed spaces, with not being able to leave them.
Then there I was.
Trapped in one.
For years.
Meditation and yoga had become necessary to keep my sanity as the walls seemed to shrink, close in, press down on my chest, making it impossible to breathe.
Luckily, by the time I was closed into my cell that first night, I’d watched several introduction to meditation videos online. So I did my one-nostril breathing. I grounded myself with my senses.
It worked so well that I found myself hooked. When I got access to the library, I went straight to the self-improvement and spirituality sections.
I read everything I could get my hands on: every translation of theTao Te Ching, theDhammapada, theUpanishads, theBhagavad Gita. I studied yoga sutras, Zen koans, Tantric texts, tai chi manuals, and even some obscure martial arts philosophy. I binged on Stoic philosophers, Sufi poetry, indigenous wisdom,and monk diaries. I’d become obsessed with anything that offered some glimmer of balance, of peace, of discipline.
Slowly but surely, it all became a part of me. It was the energy I put forward. The anger slipped back and got tamped down.
I wasn’t naive enough to believe it wasn’t still a part of me. It was there, creeping closer to the surface in tight situations, in times when those I cared about were in danger. And, sure, it even crept out in smaller ways. Like pulling pranks on corrections officers who’d made our lives hell inside once I was free to fuck with them.
But as a whole, that ugly burning heat inside me that had been a part of me ever since I was a little boy getting whipped with a belt for any small, childish offense, was neutralized.
And that little spark of panic in the elevator was the first time in months—maybe even years—when the claustrophobia had reared its ugly head.
It was something I needed to work on more. Even if I’d been glad that its presence allowed Este to not feel so alone with her struggles.
It wasn’t an uncommon fear—the dark. Even in adults. But I got the feeling that Este’s fear stemmed from something a little deeper than the fear of the boogeyman following her into adulthood. It read to me as something more acute, more based in reality.
