Thread: [ Mercutio17 & Tortoise] We All Go A Little Mad Sometimes;;

Gerry Linden drug his feet as he walked the long corridors of the prison for the first time. Everything about it was uncomfortable to him- the chains on his legs and arms, the coveralls, the vaguely fitted shoes- not to mention the brutishness of the guards. Gerry had been in the custody of the prison system for almost a year now, but he was nowhere near getting used to it. It had all started eleven months ago when he was at work. Gerry Linden had been an executive at a prominent insurance company on the east coast. He had a family- a wife and two children. He made ends meet and always had a little bit extra to spend on his family. But all that had changed now. The company Gerry worked for had been approachedthreatened by a local gang who wanted to use their insurance to commit fraud and cash in on the payments. Gerry, being the local vice president, had been put in charge in dealing with these thugs, whom he obviously refused. Even after a tense face to face meeting with the gang's leader, Gerry stood firm that his company would not be involved. Not even a week later Gerry was met by a dozen squad cars in front of his driveway when he came home. In a panic, he forced his way through the police line and burst into his house. What he saw brought his world crashing down. His wife lay naked on the bed with a bottle of pills next to her, and his two children, his two beautiful kids, were both face-down in the bathtub, their bodies blue. Gerry had no memory of what happened next, but apparently he was caught by police officers as he fell down, and carried outside. At first Gerry wasn't a suspect, but then it came to light that his wife had a large insurance policy on her. Gerry tried to explain it by the obvious case of him being an insurance salesman- of course he had gotten life insurance for his wife. But when an anonymous person inquired about collecting on that policy, less than a day after his family's death, the police turned their wrath on him. Throughout the trial Gerry and his lawyer tried to explain about the extortion and threats from the thugs, who they argued had murdered the Linden family and tried to pin it on Gerry. The prosecution however, painted another story. They proposed that Gerry murdered his wife for the insurance money, and was forced to kill his own children because they had witnessed it. Despite his appeals for innocence, Gerry had been condemned again and again in courts, until he finally just gave up. He had been given the choice between death row or this new prison that had been set up in florida. While Gerry no longer cared much about his life, his lawyer had convinced him to take this deal and serve life in this new prison. Now, shuffling down the halls, escorted by two guards who stood over a foot above him each, Gerry simply stared at the ground, no longer fighting what had become of his life. Abruptly, he was stopped before a cell. The guards ordered the cell door open, and Gerry was led in. Sliding his arms through the food slot at the door, the guards removed his chains and began to head back down the cell block. Gerry could see there was someone else in the cell he was put into- a woman by the looks of it- but he didn't make eye contact. He simply sat down on the floor, leaning against the wall, and staring at his feet. He knew he wouldn't last the night anyhow.