Taking It on the Lam by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

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an undulating bird, which I found mildly amusing and helpfully relaxing under the circumstances.

I walked directly to the front door which I found not to be locked, this one not any particular surprise, and stepped out into the unlit, fog enhanced darkness. That left only ten feet to go to get to the stockade fence and the perched snipers stationed at close intervals thereupon. I could only semi-see one and he seemed to be sleeping with his noodle calmly and comfortably dangling awkwardly in his chest, like a grateful recipient of a lynching.

The workmen’s ladder left conveniently by the fence convinced me that I was doing exactly what they wanted me to do. When I got

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over the fence I crawled on my belly a few hundred feet making any shot more difficult, just in case some government, rogue, counter contra element was involved, until I was off the prison property and on the main road. Since no one had shot at me despite every opportunity, I was now certain that I was being tailed by the fed contras, and the only thing I could do about that was try to slip them or as a lesser but easier alternative, make their presence and operation obvious to the point of embarrassing absurdity. The problem with the latter approach were the heavy odds against being pursued by a corrupt fed agent bright enough to recognize the absurdity as absurd, thereby producing a profound embarrassment capable of making him not perform beyond the “legitimate and technically justifiable excuse for failure” modus operandi, most workable with the transferring Dingess, game playing types.

I wondered if I should take it on the arches or to try hitching a ride. Some people were chuckleheaded enough to pick up strays near the County jail, and some of those weren’t nutcases in search of a thrill. For me another uninformed decision was necessitated by what seemed to be the manifestation of a dictate of a metaphysically randomized fate.

That said, on another plane, I was still young and sufficiently conditioned or in condition that I could have walked home with

Taking It on the Lam