More like a road that happens to have a river running underneath it. I pass over this river every morning after I hit up my corner Starbucks (grande pumpkin spice non-fat no-whip) and on most days, I see the perfectly sloped flood channel with a small trickle of water in the center. The past couple of days however have put me in a funny kind of mood. The river now is a raging torrent of mud and liquid, deftly managed because of the concrete slope, but before it gets there, it gushes through this thick web of tree limbs and brush, giving it the appearance of a broken dam.

Joe got in contact with his lawyer about Cesar's "early release". For Cesar to have gotten a five month kick off his sentence meant one thing in the back everyone's mind (including mine): he ratted someone out. When Joe's lawyer replied that the Cesar's hot shot attorney didn't exist, it indirectly confirmed what everyone already knew.

In the hierarchy here at furlough, there's a lot of petty offenders; it would have to be since it's minimum security. So you can lump all the drug offenders and DUIs and probation violators all in one pool. At the other end of the pool, though, are the scum. These are the orange-banders, so named because of the tag they must wear on their wrist if they were in County. Orange-banders are also known as PC, standing for protective custody. These are the weaklings who get punked. These are the rats who snitched on other inmates. These are the child molesters that everyone hates. The orange-band is Hawthorne's scarlet bracelet.

When Cesar first arrived, he was buddies with the sulfurous dude that slept below me, Robert. Robert was convicted of high volume sales of meth in a school zone. But those charges got dropped, and many speculate that he had ratted on others in order to get him out of County and into Furlough instead. I didn't piece it together at the time, but he and Cesar were good friends.

Cesar spent a lot of Mikey's final days taunting him, yelling out, "Ratta!" while we were in outside-the-door count. Methods of intimidation such as these, I can imagine, were used to deflect attention away from himself.

Joe doesn't really want to think about it anymore, because he and Cesar got along really well, as did I. He was one of the staunch San Diego supporters in the beginning of the autumn, back when it was just me and my Chargers pullover getting flak from all the Raider fans. Now, I'm heavily armored with a division-winning team, but his support was certainly greatly appreciated all throughout the season. He even recommended that I try out for the sports announcer job opening on a local radio station after hearing one of my SportsCenter-style analysis of a game (I suppose when all you watch is SC and Simpsons, you get good and emulating both).

I am not seeking early release from my sentence. I'm short timing it now, having only thirty-two more days. See how microscopic it looks even if I write it out?