cmk418 | Five Offers Sean Murphy Turned Down

THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY

Christmas, 1995

Sean Murphy didn’t know what the call was about. Some guy was at the front desk, asking for him, and it was way after hours. He’d already done the holiday routine with his family, so he knew it wasn’t any of them. And no one who didn’t work here would be crazy enough to drive through a snowstorm to get here.

Nobody, except the man with the thinning hair, who stood at the front desk, chatting with the CO on duty. Tim McManus. After eighteen months, four days and five, no six, hours, he still looked good.

The last time he’d seen Tim was at his sister’s wedding; both of them fitted out in monkey suits. Tim hit on every woman there while Sean hung back and watched. At the end of the night, it was Sean who drove him to an all-night coffee shop where they talked for hours.

And now, Tim was here. “Hey,” said Murphy, drawing Tim’s attention away from the guard. Sean walked over to where Tim stood and gave him the standard male one-armed, no-lower-body-contact hug. “How’re you doing, Tim?”

“Good. Good. Better than good, in fact. Is there some place we can talk in private?”

“Sure”, said Murphy, biting back a smile. Santa was being very, very good to him this year.

Sean led Tim into an interrogation room and closed the door.

“You’re looking good,” said Tim.

Murphy willed himself not to betray any emotion. “You too.”

“Still happy here?”

“Happy is a relative term. I’m as happy as I can be working in a place like this. Except for you, all of my friends are here. And we’re just starting the boxing program. Tim, you’ve gotta see it. It’s really taken off.”

“That’s great. It’s wonderful when dreams become reality. That’s why I’m here.”

Sean couldn’t stop his mind from wandering in the direction of Tim’s dreams, wondering if they coincided with every fantasy he had since the age of twelve. McManus rambled on, but Sean wasn’t listening – he was too busy fantasizing about the part he could play in making Tim’s dreams a reality, and at the same time, doing the same for his own dreams.

“So... what do you say?” McManus asked.

Sean blinked. He’d lost track of the conversation and was trapped. “Well...”

“It’s just six weeks before they open EmCity. I need a C.O. supervisor that I can trust. Come with me.”

Those three little words. Too bad they didn’t mean what Sean wanted them to.

THE RING

“Hey, Officer Murphy, why don’t you show me some of your boxing moves?” Ryan O’Reily asked, attempting subtlety. “I bet you know some pretty good tricks.”

“I’m sure you know some yourself, O’Reily.” Sean responded, letting Ryan know that he knew the inmate was after something.

“Well, the thing is, I want Cyril to have some practice time with a real partner. Spending time on the heavy bag is fine, but he can’t really get a feel for what one of those fucks is gonna do. We’ve been trying. I put Kirk in the ring against him yesterday.”

“Isn’t he in the infirmary now?”

“I think he got out. Being in the infirmary doesn’t mean shit. I’m in and out of there all the time.”

“I’m aware of that.” Murphy smiled. Ryan’s crush on Doctor Nathan was no secret.

“Whatever. My problem is that no one else wants to train with Cyril. These other guys, they got their own fighters to represent. No way they’re gonna help us. Us Irish, we’re on our own.”

Ah, there it was, and in under a minute. Ryan played the Irish card with such stunning frequency that it amused Sean to count the time from when Ryan would start talking until he started waving the Irish flag.

“So you want me to volunteer to box with Cyril?”

“Yeah, no. Actually, I want you to volunteer to box with me.”

Deep in his mind, a voice was announcing, “In this corner, wearing baby blue boxing trunks and nothing else, Ryan O’Reily.”

Ding, went the starting bell in his brain, as he imagined hot, sweaty, shirtless, convict...

Damn, thought Sean, as he stirred himself out of his momentary daydream.

Ryan looked at him expectantly. “So how ‘bout helping me out... for Ireland.”

THE PROPOSITION

Murphy patrolled the corridors of Unit B. Timmy Kirk stood outside the bars to his cell, watching him as he neared.

“Would you like a blow job?” The inmate deliberately kept his voice low, but Sean had become used to the question. One thing about Kirk, he got right to the point. He’d asked Murphy the same question every day for the past three weeks. Sean wasn’t sure if the kid was dumb, persistent, or intuitive.

“You know, if I was any other hack, your ass would either be in the hole or in the hospital right now,” remarked Sean.

“Maybe that’s why I don’t ask them.” Kirk smiled at him.

What did the kid see in him? Protection, maybe, but from what? Most of the dinks in this joint left Kirk alone. Was it the Irish thing? Sean pushed the idea from his mind as quickly as it came. This inmate never played the Irish card, not like Ryan O’Reily, who would have phrased his proposition, “Let me blow you. For Ireland.”

The thought caused Sean to crack a smile. He looked over at Kirk. The kid was cute enough, but there was something there, in his eyes, that was very dark and equally dangerous. Sean thought of McManus and his problems with Kenny Wangler that led to both of them being stuck here. He sure as hell didn’t want to bring anything like that down on himself by giving into a fleeting moment’s temptation.

Not with this one, at least. Sean’s eyes swept down the corridor to McManus’ station, across the floor, taking in a group of Aryans playing pool before finally moving back to Kirk. The inmate smiled, winked at him and moved away, whistling.

Sean let out a sigh of relief and headed in the opposite direction.

THE LIAISON

“Officer Murphy, could I talk to you for a moment?” requested Eleanor O’Connor.

“Sure. And call me Sean.”

“Sean,” she began, putting her hand on his arm in a way that was too friendly for his comfort. “I’d like to get your thoughts on how we can improve communication with the CO’s here at Oswald.”

Murphy eyed her suspiciously. She had an agenda, he was sure of it. “Isn’t that what you’re here for?” he asked. There was a slight edge in his voice as he tried to shrug off her touch. “We have something we need to communicate, we talk to you. Easy.”

“And do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Have something you need to communicate?”

“There are lots of things, but I’ve got to be back on duty in the next five minutes so...”

Eleanor smiled at him. “Then have dinner with me.”

“Dinner. That’s in the State’s budget now?”

“Let’s just say, I think you’d have some very good ideas.”

She touched his arm again. Sean looked down at her. It had been a while, more than a while, but he would swear the woman was hitting on him. This was Tim’s ex-wife. He was Tim’s best friend. All that whining last year about not quitting after Tim was fired would be a drop in the bucket compared to the shitstorm that would develop around this little scenario.

“Ms. O’Connor,” he began.

“Ellie,” she corrected.

“You might not know this, but Tim and I have been friends for a lot of years.”

“Oh, I get it,” she said, stepping away from him. “Tim told you about me, didn’t he? Probably painted a not-so-flattering portrait.”

“Tim didn’t mention you until an hour ago.”

“Wait a minute. Sean Murphy. The Sean Murphy. I don’t know why I didn’t realize that. It’s funny. He used to talk about you all the time. Sean, this, Sean, that. I used to think you were a figment of his imagination. And here you are. In the flesh.” Eleanor reached over and touched him again. “I used to think you were the only person that he loved.”

Sean went still.

Eleanor smiled at him, going in for the kill. “Come. Have dinner with me. I’ll tell you some things about your best friend that I bet even you didn’t know.”

It took all of Sean’s willpower to turn her down.

THE PROMOTION

New Year’s Day, 2006

Murphy turned the envelope over in his hands for the fourteenth time during the meeting with the warden. “With the unfortunate incident two weeks ago and the sudden resignation of...”

Sean let Querns drone on while his thoughts drifted to a recent phone conversation.

Tim McManus’ voice came through the phone. “Merry Christmas, Sean.”

Murphy tried to focus on the digital clock by his bed. 2:15 AM.

“It’s not Christmas anymore.”

“It is here.”

“Then ‘Merry Christmas’, Tim.”

“Is it snowing there?” McManus asked. It was becoming obvious to Sean that he wasn’t going to get back to sleep for a while.

“We got about three inches yesterday.” After all this time of not hearing from Tim, they were talking about the weather. Sean rubbed his eyes.

“Oh. That’s nice. A white Christmas.” Sean couldn’t put his finger on it, but Tim seemed a bit hesitant to talk, even though he had initiated the phone call. Maybe his old friend had been drinking.

“Are you at home?” Sean asked.

“Yeah.”

“Good.” Because going three thousand miles to bail out his buddy was not an option.

Another pause, then Tim asked, “You happy?”

Sean thought about it for a moment. “Happy is a relative term. What about you?”

“Blue skies every day. Nice warm weather. Not needing to shovel snow out of my driveway to get to work in the morning.”

“Sure, Tim, but are you happy?” There was no response for a long time. So long in fact, that Sean thought Tim may have gone to sleep on the other end. “Tim?”

A yawn came through the phone, causing Sean to yawn too. Thanks a lot, my friend, he thought.

“So, how are things at Oswald?” Tim asked.

Sean sighed. Tim was evading the question, retreating into the safe territory of work talk. Still they hadn’t spoken in three months. Maybe this is what it took to catch up. “Oz. It’s pretty bad. We had a little incident in EmCity last week. Couple of prisoners went down, a few more were injured. Mineo couldn’t take it anymore so he’s retiring. Querns is looking for a new Unit Manager now.”

“Do you think he’ll hire somebody from the outside?”

“You interested? Actually, he’s gonna talk to me in a couple days. There’s not going to be any weirdness between us, is there? You know, if I decide to take the position.”

“Nah. If I had to pick anybody besides me to run EmCity, it’d be you.”

“Thanks, Tim.”

“Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas.” Sean hung up and set his cell phone on the nightstand. He looked at the clock. 2:37 AM.

Before the display changed to 2:38, Sean’s cell phone whistled out the beginning notes of Guns N’ Roses’ “Patience”. He reached for it.

“I knew you weren’t right with me possibly taking over.”

“It’s not that.” Tim’s voice had gotten quieter all of a sudden. Sean glanced at the phone’s display to make sure the signal was still coming through.

The next words came through quietly, but so clearly that Sean nearly dropped the phone in response. “Come to L.A.”

Sean ran a hand through his hair. “Well, I got some vacation time in February.”

“Not for vacation.”

This man is either going to kill me or drive me mad, thought Sean. “For what?” he asked. “Doing prisoner advocacy, like you?”

“Actually I could use you. If you’re willing.”

You do use me because I’m willing, Sean thought. “No thanks. I can’t keep following you around,” he replied and hung up the phone.

“Asshole,” muttered Sean, but he couldn’t exactly say if he was referring to himself or McManus.

The “Patience” ringtone began to play. Sean let it go and hummed along with the music for a few bars before answering.

He sighed. It had come to this. The frustration was evident in his voice. “What do you want, Tim?”

The answer took several seconds in coming. “You.”

Sean closed his eyes, mentally counted to ten, and waited. C’mon, Timmy, drop that other shoe. Part of him wanted this conversation over with, and the other part of him was content to let that silence go on forever.

The silence on the other end was broken by Tim’s voice, full of uncertainty. “Sean?”

Sean took a deep breath. “Yeah, buddy, I’m here.”

The buzz of the intercom brought Sean back to the present.

“Warden, the Governor is here.”

“I’ll be with him in a minute,” responded Querns.

Querns was watching him, waiting for something. “I’d like to be able to tell the Governor that we’ll be appointing you as the new Unit Manager of Emerald City. So what do you say?”

“It’s an honor, Warden. But I’m afraid I’m going to have to take a pass. In fact, I got a better offer.” With that, Murphy got up, handed Querns the envelope containing his letter of resignation, and left the office.