January 2015
(Post One)
I have a new friend.
Actually I met him for the first time in 2010, but he really only became my actual friend until a few months ago when I first wrote him a letter.
He is in jail.
He’s “awaiting trial.” He’s been waiting a long time, too – 4 years and 7 months so far. That is a longer-than-usual time to wait for your trial. It’s especially a long time if you sit inside a cell 22 hours day. My friend is being charged with “special circumstances,” so he can’t get bail, and the prosecutor is asking for the death penalty.
Let’s start by saying that I am NOT going to use my friend’s name in this blog; at least not at this point.
Obviously, anyone could Google what I’m going to tell you about the case. You could find out my friend’s name and all about his alleged crime. I’m not trying to hide anything, but I watch a lot of TV, and I figure if I don’t say his name, then nothing I write can be used against him in a court of law.
That’s my theory and I’m sticking to it.
I’m going to call him Pat. My friend Pat, who is in jail.
When I first met Pat back in 2010, he was acting in a play at my theatre. I’m calling it my theatre because I was one of the people who helped with the day-to-day running of the place. I was a company member and a director.
Pat was just around for one show. Even though he was the lead actor in a musical running at the theatre, it was Pat’s first time acting there.
The show was doing well and it was making money. That was all that mattered to me.
So, even though Pat was just a visitor, I liked him. I didn’t think he was the greatest actor in the world, but he was doing a good job in the show and audiences responded well to him.
I started eyeing him for my summer musical. He seemed like a nice guy. He was good-looking and personable. He was funny and polite. He was even engaged to one of the actresses in the show, and they were getting married the next week! He seemed like he had his life pretty organized (at least organized enough for an actor in community theatre).
I chatted up Pat when I was house managing for his show one night.
This theatre was really small. There were a lot of people in Pat’s show, and he ended up having to use the theatre’s office for his dressing room (he was the only man in the show). I was selling tickets and snacks from the front of the office, while Pat was hanging out “back stage” in the back of the office.
A makeshift curtain hid him from the audience. He made me laugh, because every time someone would order a soda, Pat would hand it to me through the curtain.
A few days after the show ended, Pat was arrested.
He was at a restaurant having an impromptu bachelor party with some of his buddies. The Sheriffs swarmed in and arrested him just as he’d finished paying the check (a fact that annoys him a bit).