Chapter 7: "The Prisoner"

They say that prison is hard on a man, and even harder on an innocent man. A guilty man can resign himself at some point to the fact that at least in some way he deserves his fate but a truly innocent man never can. It takes a strong man to keep his sanity and not be tempted to take his own life under such circumstances.

Ethan knew that it would take every bit of his strength just to keep prison from changing him into the kind of man he did not want to be. Locked up or not, he refused to become what they had accused him of even if never saw his freedom again. He convinced himself that Becky would be better off without him and he didn't want her to cling to any false hopes.

And so, the last thing Ethan did before he left for the state prison at Columbus was to call Becky and tell her not to come and see him. "Forget about me," he told her as he struggled hard to fight back his own tears, "there's nothing you can do for me. Don't come see me, don't call, and don't you dare waste your time waiting for me." Then he hung up abruptly before she could protest.

In prison, no one believed him when he proclaimed his innocence. The other prisoners laughed at him saying "Everyone's innocent in here!" Some even tried beating him, thinking they might get him to say otherwise. And for the next ten years, whenever a particually hard case would arrive at the prison and hear about the "Innocent Man", the new prisoner would brag that he was going to be the one to get Ethan to admit he was guilty.

He started working out and lifting weights and it became an almost religious routine for him. He did it partly to have something to do, but mostly to keep his body in shape just so he would survive the beatings. As his body became more muscular and developed, the other prisoners thought that he was preparing to fight back; then when he didn't they became confused.

At first, they thought he was a coward, then they thought he was just plain stubborn and eventually they thought he was crazy. A few speculated that it was because he was really guilty and the beatings had become some form of penance for him.

Through all the beatings and trips to the infirmary, Ethan never fought back.

No one, not even the guards understood why. How could they? The fact is that Ethan had changed the day he killed Jimmy Oglethorpe. Ethan wasn't afraid of the men that beat him, far from it, he was afraid he might kill one of them. Ethan had killed once and he never wanted to do it again, even if it meant loosing his own life. He had taken a human life and he hated himself for it. In the deepest part of his soul he felt guilty about it. His mind was tortured, torn between the guilt from what he had done and the reality of knowing that he had been given no choice.