Unauthorized Vacation: Back to Georgia?

                Spratt was held at the Mecklenburg County Jail (downtown; Charlotte has two jails) for about a month so that he could be served with charges from Idaho and Georgia.  Idaho filed a fugitive warrant and sought to have Spratt returned to finish out his prison sentence and Georgia filed a ‘detainer’ against him for untried charges of ‘Motor Vehicle Theft’ and ‘Fraudulent Use of a Financial Transaction Card’.  Puerto Rico did not file any type of charges or detainers against him during his stay in Charlotte and it was finally decided that Spratt would be sent to Georgia to face the outstanding charges against him there prior to being returned to Idaho.

            On the date of his transfer, Spratt was escorted down to the ‘holding’ area of the jail and told to sit on a bench while he was served a bag lunch consisting of a mystery meat sandwich and an apple.  While eating, the Shift Sergeant came into the area followed by two of the largest cops that Spratt had ever seen.  Spratt could tell by the insignias on their uniform that these were Sheriff’s Deputies from the State of Georgia.  “I guess my ride is here”, thought Spratt.

            One of the deputies filled out some paperwork given to him by the Sergeant while the other walked up and down the corridor looking into the holding cells barely noticing Spratt sitting on the bench.  Done with the paperwork, one of the deputies, in a distinctively Southern Georgia accent that can only be described as similar to speaking with a mouthful of grits, asked the Sergeant where their prisoner was.  The Sergeant pointed at Spratt and informed the deputies that they could now take custody of him.  The deputies grinned at each other and ordered Spratt to stand up and face the wall.  One of them aggressively frisked Spratt before placing leg shackles, waist chain, and handcuffs on him.  They walked out of the holding area to a waiting police car where Spratt was deposited in the back seat and admonished not to try anything ‘stupid’. 

            Once the deputies found their way back to I-77 and started heading South, the one that had been strolling up and down the corridor back at the jail turned around to Spratt and said, “I couldn’t believe you were the guy we were supposed to pick up!  I was looking for some big, burly, mean looking dude!”  He continued with, “They said you were a very dangerous escape risk; that’s why they sent two of us to pick you up but you don’t look mean enough to have beaten up two cops and escaped.”  Spratt had grown tired of having to explain to every single cop since his arrest that he had NOT beaten up those two cops so he responded sarcastically, “Well, actually, I’m a specially trained ‘Shaolin Monk ‘and I can physically overcome you using nothing more than mental willpower…I can disappear from the back of this car in the blink of an eye leaving behind nothing but these chains and the jumpsuit!”  “You won’t have a clue what happened,” Spratt continued, “ You’ll be scrambling to find a trace of me anywhere!  They should have sent a couple more cops with you ‘cause I’m a slippery character!”  The cops laughed at this congenially and Spratt wound up telling them what had actually happened.  They were incredulous about the Puerto Rican cops’ lack of professionalism but decided that Spratt was probably telling the truth. 

            They carried on an amiable conversation for a while and, about an hour and a half into the trip, stopped at a convenience store in Lexington, SC for gas and snacks.  They allowed Spratt to get out of the car and have a cigarette and one of the deputies said, “Look, it’s going to be a long drive; if you promise not to overcome us with your mental powers and escape then I’ll take the shackles and waist chain off of you so you can be a little bit more comfortable…handcuffs have to stay on though.”  Spratt was constantly amazed at the naïveté of supposedly trained police officers.  He didn’t have any plans of escaping from these cops but, if he had, did they think that he would actually promise not to do so?  Did they expect him to be honest and say, “No, I intend on kicking your ass and stealing  your gun and this here patrol car so you’d better just keep me hog-tied like you have me now or you’ll have a lot of explaining to do”?  Of course he would promise to behave!  Spratt chuckled and informed the deputy that his mental skills are only effective in Spanish and, even then, only when the subject was fairly inebriated.  He told them they would be safe from his powers and they removed the shackles and waist chain before putting him back in the car. 

            After a while, there was a lull in conversation and Spratt began thinking about his current situation.  He still wasn’t sure what would happen to him regarding any charges from Puerto Rico and he wasn’t happy about going to face a Georgia Judge.  Georgia is a strict State and are fairly generous when passing out years during sentencing proceedings.  What would get you five years in one State may get you twenty in Georgia AND you won’t serve that sentence in some cushy air conditioned prison…Georgia sends their inmates to ‘chain gangs’!  Although they don’t actually chain the prisoners together anymore, each inmate is expected to work a minimum of eight hours a day in all types of weather for absolutely no pay.

            Spratt remembered that Georgia was the first place that he had ever run afoul of the law (fourteen years earlier) when he was arrested for writing a couple of bad checks (one to Eckerd’s for thirteen dollars and one to Sear’s for thirty-seven dollars).  For that, he was sentenced to eighteen months of “forced labor at the County work camp”.  He remembered the horrendous conditions and how horrified he felt at being sent to the ‘chain gang’ for a misdemeanor charge; especially as it was his first offense.  He grinned to himself though as he also remembered that it was the first time he had ever escaped as well and that was the first chapter in Spratt’s history of making the cops look foolish.  “Damn!  They make it so easy sometimes!” Spratt thought as he fell into a reverie of memories regarding his first escape.