“Why do you need my
shoelaces?”
“So you don’t hang yourself.”
“Right.”
Even when he said that, the
gravity of my situation still wasn’t
sinking in. Walking to the station’s
holding cell, looking around at the
other six guys in there, I was
thinking, This is no big deal.
Everything’s gonna be cool. I’m
gonna get out of this. I thought that
right up until the moment the cell
door clanged shut behind me and
the guard yelled, “Lights out!”
That’s when I thought, Oh, shit.
This is real.