I was doing time in the only prison just north of Industry, Maine, in 1967. I was just about your age, yep, and had gotten myself into a little bit of trouble when it came to playing the dunces…you don’t know what that means? Someday I’ll tell you, but that’s not what’s important here.
What’s important is when we went out for detail.
They didn’t have many workers in Industry, which makes it sound like it’s a lie. No industry in Industry. Just hunting. Lots and lots of hunting.
Well, our job that day was to go put up signs by the lake, which was actually a reservoir for the town. People weren’t supposed to go hunting there. But they did. So we put up the signs that said “no hunting’ even though we knew darn well they did. I later found out why we got to do it.
So off we go into the woods, and we’re supposed to stay within line of sight of each other, just to make sure we were on the up-and-up. Well, Tony “Fingers” Malloy decided to make a break for it when no one was looking. We were all dressed in brown, ya know, except for the deputies an’ all dressed in orange. The guards didn’t do anything, just let him go. We thought that was weird.
Then we heard a loud yell, someone in agony, somebody screaming for help. The guards didn’t go in either, just told us all to get back to work. “You can get lost in these woods, and there’s bear traps all over the place,” one said to me.
We never found Fingers.
Words: 270
“Bear in mind”…YOU JUST TURNED FOUR-HUNDRED YEARS OLD – HENCE THE ALL-CAP TYPE AND THE FIREMEN AT YOUR PARTY. AN EIGHTEEN YEAR-OLD NEIGHBOR ASKS YOU TO TELL YOUR FAVORITE STORY FROM WHEN YOU WERE HER AGE. YOU TELL HER THE TALE ABOUT “THE BEAR” SO YOU CAN SCARE HER A BIT.
The starting phrase for your story is: I was doing time in the only prison in…
From Take Ten for Writers, Exercise 06.