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Hide Park

by Bruce W. Anderson

248 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #03-2315; ISBN 1-4120-1937-0; US$22.50, C$25.95, EUR18.50, £13.00

Advance readers have called it fast-paced and gripping. The snowball starts rolling in the first chapter, sweeps you along like an avalanche, then slams you home at the finish.

About the Book

THIS BOOK HAS BEEN BANNED BY THE MASSACHUSETTS DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTION

Twelve years into a life sentence for the brutal murder of his fiancee, Jake Park grabs at the opportunity to escape from his Massachussetts prison. Consumed with a desire for truth and justice, he'll settle for revenge. First, though, he has to contend with a raging northeaster blizzard; no possessions but the prison clothes on his back; and being the target of a state-wide manhunt.

"Bruce Anderson's first literary effort turned out to be a realistic interest-keeper that spends more time in your hands than on the nightstand. It stood up to some of the world's most popular and readable authors in a smooth style that easily connects the turns but is not prematurely revealing. It makes you root for the main character. There's no hint of the work being a rookie effort."

Reviews

"By the time I finished the first chapter I was hooked. I couldn't put it down."

-Timothy J. Muise

"The conversational tone of the book makes it a comfortable and enjoyable read. The point of view of each each character is appropriate to the story and effectively portrays clear motivation. Mr. Anderson has a commanding style and the ability to intrigue the reader very quickly. Characters seem real and sympathetic."

-Al Phillips
-Judge's commentary, Writer's Digest

Dear Bruce,
Many thanks for your letter of January 4th. I can now report that I have finished and much enjoyed Hide Park and hope you are making progress with your screen version. I was especially struck by how well-drawn some of the minor characters are. Jake of course emerges loud and clear but the whole effect is buttressed by good, solid portraits of the supporting cast - in particular the two police inspectors. And of course the pace is riveting!
I gave my copy to the young American I've been visiting in prison here, who of course devoured it with great relish. "This man really does know about prisons!" was one of his many positive comments.

Nathaniel B. Harrison
U.S. Foreign News Correspondent
based in Paris, France

About the Author

Mr. Anderson has an Associate degree from Bunker Hill Community College and Bachelor and Master degrees from Boston University. He is recently completed the Hide Park screenplay and is working on a sequel. A world-class powerlifter affectionately known to his peers as "The Troll", he's also working on a lifting guide--an expansion of several articles published in Powerlifting USA magazine--while studying law as a pro se litigator.

You can contact the author at PO Box 8000 Shirley MA 01464.

Excerpts

When Buddy saw the glowing strip directly below him, he couldn't discern anything more than the brightness of the lights, the snow falling around him being that thick. Nor did he foresee them as coming from anywhere other than the airfield.

Maybe it was the beginning onset of panic, though that was unlikely for someone of Buddy's demeanor; more ostensibly it was just wishful thinking on his part. Whatever the reason, the same instincts that had led him to such heroics as a sports figure kicked in and he immediately dropped the plane down. After all, a little voice whispered in the recesses of his mind, it wasn't going to do any good to wait. If he was too near the end of the strip and hesitated, he wouldn't be able to land at all without circling around for another approach, and in that "snow soup" such a move might prevent him from ever finding the runway again.

As he closed in on the group, three thoughts travelled through his mind so quickly that they were practically merged into one. The first was, "What are fences doing in the middle of the field?" The second, "Oh, this is the prison!" And the last, which he never completely got to finish, was, "Serendipity my a-- "

While exercising these mental gymnastics, he was still trying to bring the plane back up, and for a moment it looked as if he might succeed, but then the landing gear caught hold of the razor wire strung out along the top of the middle fence.

* * *

Tommy McDougall had only been with the Department of Correction for a couple of years. He looked upon his position as Correctional Officer as a suck-ass job. Most of the time it was the most boring thing he had ever done in his life. He spent most of his shifts either standing around watching cons or sitting around watching cons. Once in a while some shit would go off where there'd be a fight or something, but even then there were usually a handful of guards for each inmate involved. Not that there wasn't the ever-present danger of something drastic going off that could put you in the position to get really fucked up, it was just that such times were so rare that he spent most of his time feeling like a glorified babysitter.

The inmates either looked upon you as if you were some sort of insect, kissed your ass like you had God's power to release them, or worse yet, ignored you like you were simply a part of the furniture.

Your co-workers weren't all that much better. Half were content to vegetize for eight hours every day and pick up their paychecks and keep their mouths shut. The other half were like holy-rollers out to save the world from the "dirty cons," and if they got any dirt on you or your buddies along the way, they hand no compunction about turning your sorry ass in to the administration, too.

Take this son-of-a-bitch he got stuck with for this shovelling crew, Russell Gagne. In prison, PC had a whole different meaning from what it meant on the street. It wasn't "politically correct," or even, "personal computer". It was a derogatory term for "protective custody". An inmate who was a snitch or pervert was the usual candidate to be PC'd, and once he got PC'd, he carried the reputation of being a wuss, along with whatever other disparagements labelled upon him for his crimes, throughout the remainder of his bid. And any subsequent bids that might follow, as well.

Gagne was considered by many on both sides - inmates and staff, alike - as the lowest of the low. At his former position at another prison, he had pissed off his fellow C.O.'s so badly by ratting them out on every little issue that presented itself, that they had taken a brick and hurled it through the driver's side of his car's windshield. Unfortunately for him, he had been sitting in the driver's seat at the time.

After his vacation in one of the State's out-of-the-way hospitals, it was decided that his life wasn't in any great danger; that whomsoever had committed the deed had gotten his revenge and was now getting along with his life, satisfied with the outcome and no longer a threat. Nevertheless, it had happened in the prison parking lot, and Gagne was working on a nice little settlement. It would have been folly to place him back into the very environment where the attack occurred.

So it was that the two of them were standing in the south yard when Buddy made his grand, dramatic entrance. Like Jake, Tommy hadn't given the sound of the plane much thought any of the times he'd heard it, either. Apart from directing the inmates as to where to shovel, which didn't consist of much more than telling them to "start here, and shovel down to the end of the fence, there," he hadn't been paying very much attention to what else was going on around him. He wasn't in the mood for talking with the cons, and striking up a conversation with that punk, Gagne, wasn't an option he cared to exercise.

Instead, he was daydreaming about the Criminal Justice courses that he was taking and what he was going to do after he got his degree. He had plans for his life, and they didn't include working as another near brain-dead C.O. for the next twenty or thirty years. He felt there was more to life than just the security of a decent salary and some rather generous benefits. If nothing else, there was being the guy who told those C.O.'s what to do, and in telling, made an even better salary with more generous benefits. The State was not adverse to paying its C.O.'s well - what with a strong union and large turnover of people unable to stand the monotony and the bullshit - and the largess that the guards received only served to pump up management's end.

It was in the middle of his mental meanderings that he was forced to digress to what was going on with the plane. Suddenly there was an increase in the noise from its engine and he looked up in the direction of the sound. He couldn't see it at first, and then just like that, it broke out of the snowfall's concealment and was no more than twenty feet above the fences. As it plummeted downward, it seemed to skirt the top of the middle fence. Then it began to rise again, only now it was trailing something. The razor wire. It had hooked it somehow, and the plane's nose rose back up for a bit, then tilted to its left side and spun nose-first into the ground between the middle fence and the inner one.

Tommy was standing only about twenty yards from the crash and it happened directly in front of him. He'd seen all those Hollywood blow-everything-to-hell-and-kingdom-come movies, of course, who hadn't, but nothing in his experience had ever prepared him for anything like this. An ever-growing fireball rapidly headed his way, carrying chunks of debris in various and assorted shapes and sizes along with it. There wasn't any time to react to such a thing, naturally, but that was all taken care of for him. The concussion of the blast lifted him right off the ground and rather unceremoniously dumped him on his back some ten yards from where he had been standing.

His partner, Gagne, if such he could be called, was further down the fence. Far enough, in fact, that the fence between him and the plane appeared to be a solid wall, and it absorbed the brunt of the shock wave as if it had indeed been solid. However, instead of going to his fallen comrade's aid after seeing him go zooming through the air, being the fine piece of work that he was he chose to turn tail and race back across the yard to the entrance gate from the main building.

Later he would try to cover up his actions by saying how he was just going back to get help, but that excuse never went over very well. Whether he had run from fear of the explosion, because he was scared of being alone outside with four inmates, or for whatever other reason he may have had, no one knew for sure. What they did know was that if he had wanted to get help all he had to do was use his two-way radio, and when questioned as to why he hadn't, could only sit there with his mouth open and a look of guilt across his face. The consensus was that he had abandoned Tommy to save his own hide, pure and simple.

Jake had been down the fence toward Gagne, though not as far down, nor as well-protected from the blast. The little black kid, Tony, was there, also. Jake never actually saw what had happened. He had just finished digging the blade of his shovel into the wet snow, and was in the process of lifting it and tossing it off to the side, when something kicked him in the ass, knocking him face down in the snow.

He bounced right back up and turned around with his shovel drawn back, ready to engage his supposed assailant. The sight he beheld in front of him was barely comprehensible and he stood there momentarily dumbfounded. Then he jumped into action.

When the plane had spun its nose into the ground, the engine had started to bounce up, headed on a slanted trajectory towards the inner fence. The added impetus inflicted from the blast had sent it bounding into one of that fence's poles, cleaving it near its base. Then both the engine and the pole went through the fence as if they were a giant hand grasping a church-key and they peeled back a large section of its chain-link structure.

Where the plane exploded, the wire ties had already been weakened from the plane pulling on the razor wire, and the force of the blast combined with the tugging to bring down an even larger section of the middle fence.

The outer fence fared much better. It had an outwardly puckered gash of approximately four feet in length that was just opposite the wreckage. It was a diagonal slash that was caused by a section of wing that had strained through it before coming to rest in the driveway surrounding the prison.

* * *

Jake ran past the three bodies that were lying in the snow: Tommy the guard, and two cons - Myron and that Puerto Rican guy, what was his name, Rodriguez, Fernandez? He could not remember, nor did he care to. They were both turds in his opinion. One was a skinner who had raped an old lady, and the other had gone in the other direction, preying on children. If he had known he was going to be out there with them he would never have volunteered. He thought Tony was cool, though. He was a funny little prick, and the two of them had split off from the pervs nearly as soon as they had gotten to the yard. A move that all four had found mutually acceptable.

He ran down to the hole in the inner fence, then through it and back up toward the plane. The heat was searing and he had to skirt alongside the inner fence's outer edge. As he adjusted his eyes to the brilliance of the flames, he could see what appeared to be a body lying next to the remaining hulk of the shattered fuselage. It was clear of the fire, but not by very much. He raised his arm to cover his face as best he could and ran up to it.

The heat was intolerably scorching as he neared the man, for now that he was close he could see that was what he was, and he also saw that the guy's clothing had begun to smoulder. Keeping one arm across his face, he reached down with the other and grasped him by the wrist. Then he turned and headed back the way he had come, dragging the man behind him. When they were far enough away from the burning destruction that the flames could be endured, he stopped and turned around and gazed down upon the person he hoped he had just rescued.

At first it was difficult to clearly recognize just what it was that he was looking at. It hadn't dawned on him how light the body had felt and most likely wouldn't have even if he had given it some thought. Between being one of the strongest cons in the system and the situation shooting his adrenaline up like a rocket, he probably wouldn't have noticed if the guy weighed a hundred pounds or three hundred.

He was perplexed looking down upon this man who seemed inordinately short and who trailed a length of something rope-like nearly all the way back to what was left of his plane. When it became evident that what he was gazing down upon was a truncated person in much the same state of remains as the plane, he fell to the ground on all fours and lost any inclination towards keeping his supper down. Later, some cons and guards would jokingly capitalize on just how abhorrent it must have been if a guy who'd been eating prison slop for twelve years couldn't contain himself, but at that moment, Jake had felt like anything but in a joking mood.

While in this most vulnerable of positions the two pervs darted past him. They seemed to have recovered from their unfooting without any ill effects, but they had their eyes targeted on something other than the now easily-assailable Jake.

Regaining his feet he stood with his back to the corpse. To his left, the disgusting duo were easing their way through the slit in the outer fence. Slightly to his right was Tony, still in the yard where he'd left him, just standing there leaning on his shovel and goofing on the scene. Further to his right, he could see Gagne at the gate on the far side of the yard, fumbling with his keys in his haste to get the gate unlocked. Turning still further right, he saw Tommy, who was sitting up now with his legs straddled in the snow, appearing somewhat dazed. There was what looked to be a runnel of blood from his right nostril to his lip. Similar rivulets sprang from both his ears, the blast having ruptured his eardrums, but Jake was unable to see the latter from his position.

As he absorbed all of this, he saw the approach of headlight beams on the farside driveway that led from the front of the institution to where they were in the yard out back. The vehicle they were attached to wasn't as yet visible, it still being blocked by the corner of the prison's housing unit. That would only be a momentary circumstance, however, as the DOC had the place outfitted with the best and fastest SUV's available, and the screws behind the wheels hadn't any compunctions against beating the crap out of them as they raced around the grounds.

Jake looked at the beams, then looked at Tommy, and then looked at the slice in the outer fence. In the same vein that Buddy had had his three near-simultaneous thoughts, Jake now had three thoughts of his own. The first was that Tony wasn't about to go anywhere: he was only doing a short bid for possession of marijuana or some such minor thing. His second thought was that Tommy was a screw, sure, but he was a decent dude. They had talked a number of times about college, lifting weights, and what-have-you, and he had always been open and straightforward. Not only that, but he had a reputation among both cons and screws alike of not bothering anyone that wasn't bothering him. You couldn't ask for much more from someone who controlled so much of your life.

Jake called over to him. "You all right over there, Tommy?" Tommy couldn't hear him, of course, but got the gist of what he was being asked from Jake's manner and the movement of his lips, and he managed to give him a nod.

Then Jake turned to Tony and asked, "Tony, do me a favor and see that Tommy's all right, will ya?" Behind Tony he could see the patrol car just coming into view from behind the shadow of the prison.

He looked again at the outer fence, then at the patrol car, then once more at the fence, and then - he took action on his third thought.

Jake was running down the snow-covered slope outside the fences for all he was worth.

The race was on.