Man Accused (Part I)

Part I

His name is Samuel Gawain. You’ve never heard of him. Sam never had a television show, never ran in a fifty yard touchdown to clinch the big game. Hell, he never even picked up your trash or put that can of Pringles on the shelf in your grocery store.

                Samuel had a family once, and I’m not here to tell you that they’ve completely forgotten about him. It wouldn’t be true. What wouldn’t deviate from the truth would be to inform you that even they began to wonder whether or not Samuel was as innocent as he claimed.

This didn’t happen overnight. They were there to answer the probing questions oozed by even the vicious members of the media. They (along with a large portion of their church congregation) picketed the courthouse before, during and after the trial. Through it all if his innocence was questioned, they shouted down the claimant with facts and faith, and love.

Loving husband of eleven years. Father of two kids. Deacon. Active volunteer with the Humane Society. Most of all; He’s never hurt a fly. There was one problem with all that.

In the latter portion of the trial, the prosecution had produced an eye witness.

Samuel’s family had a great deal of tools to combat those that seemed bent on locking away their loved one, but when this eye witness came forward Samuel’s family was stifled.  

The eye witness informed the court that Samuel had not only hit the victim with his car, but had not even bothered to stop and check on her status.

Samuel watched the eye witness with a measured look. He was not exactly an old man, but could no longer be described as young. He had thick black glasses and a pale blue faux leather jacket. The more the eye witness spoke the more his frizzy hair rocked precariously back and forth atop his head. His name; Detrick Bush.

Samuel continued to study him as he spoke. Bush wasn’t lying. At least in the typical sense of the word. Samuel knew he did not hit that woman. Further, he knew that this man Bush believed that Samuel was the cause of that woman’s death.

At first, Samuel abhorred the man, cursed Detrick Bush and his damn testimony. Worse still, on more than one occasion, pictured himself bludgeoning the eye witnesses’ already lifeless corpse. This feeling of hatred Samuel carried bottled-up inside him throughout the two week trial.  It wasn’t hard, only too pointless to act , Samuel just knew that if he was to make a move to harm Detrick or even only speak out in anger, he would prove the witness’ point.

So Samuel sat in silence as his freedom faded away. The days in the courtroom got longer, the thoughts bleaker. Within a few days, his sentence was rendered. Quite simply, he was separated from everything he ever knew and loved. 

Days became weeks, and after Samuel’s relocation his remaining relatives and friends became more distant. Those that visited did so less often after only a short time.

His wife and children came every Sunday, making the three and a half hour drive. Regardless of the hells he endured through the week, Sundays made it all worth it. He got an hour, in a large cafeteria-like visitation room. Samuel would hold hands with his wife, ask his children about what their weeks were like. He would give advice when it was prudent, but remain silent in order let them make their own mistakes in some cases. At the end of every visit, Samuel would be ushered away, as his family was escorted from the room. His wife would cry, he’d join her. And then, by force, his emotions would begin to wear away at his truths. Back in his cell, he’d question their love, their faith, their trust. Samuel realized he was breaking down the foundation of his own family in his mind. After further contemplation, he grasped that it was probably happening in the real world as well.

Weeks became months, some friends wrote. Though it was likely they did so out of some sense of duty and guilt. Though one acquaintance insisted that Samuel’s wife had begun seeing a fellow parishioner.  Samuel wrote back expressing his confusion as to why someone that called themselves a friend would see it fitting to communicate such news, true or otherwise. The letter was never sent, Samuel trashed it instead.

At the end of the first year, Samuel got to go before the parole board. A hearing was held. Samuel was placed before three directors of the prison. His counselor, and two individuals he had never met; the warden (Samuel has noticed a picture of the man at some place and time during his stay), and a man that Samuel had never before seen, but who was announced as a chief of security.

The trio lazily flipped through files that no doubt detailed every horrible thing Samuel had ever been accused of, a timeline of his behaviors and actions up to this point while incarcerated and several other partial truths. He was informed that although he had no instances of poor behavior, it was too soon for them to have an in depth understanding of what his sustained conduct may look like over time in comparison to his full sentence.

No reduction in time, no freedom.

Liberty had become a vague and mythic concept. Something that was talked about but never seen, or held by only the extremely rich, and thus unattainable by the common man.