George Leroy froze. He didn’t dare move and hardly dared to breathe for fear of getting caught. He steadied himself by working out how he would make his escape once the warden left his office. He lay in the darkness looking down at the bald spot on the top of the warden’s head and pictured how he would climb out the warden’s office window, slip through the shadows along the side of the building and duck through the alleyways to the edge of town. From there he’d stick to the trees until he got to the little house he and Marlene rented with HUD money.
At last, the warden signed the last document and dropped it into his out box. He pulled on his jacket, turned out the light, and went out. George Leroy heard him lock the door. The room was plunged into complete darkness. George Leroy realized that the warden’s office was much like his own cell, in that it had no window. He was faced with sidling along the brightly lit halls of the jail in an orange jumpsuit. Then the problems of the lack of a window, the brightly lit halls, and even the orange jumpsuit faded as he grasped a vital point about the vent cover. He was on the inside. The screws were on the outside. He pushed against the cover with desperate might, even tried to kick it out. It remained firmly in place. With a lump in his throat, George Leroy slid back, back, back, all the way to his cell. That fool T.J. hadn’t even replaced the vent cover yet. George Leroy listened for the guard to pass before he lowered himself down into his cell.
“Thought you’d be back,” T.J. commented.
“Then why’d you suggest it in the first place?” George hissed.
“My bad. Didn’t think about how you were gonna get the cover off until I went to put this one back on.”
“Sunny’s never gonna forgive me if I’m not home for Christmas,” George Leroy groaned.
“We’ll think of something else,” T.J. said.
“No, I’ll think of something else. I like to’ve had a heart attack comin’ to a dead end right over the warden’s desk with him still there. Don’t know why I listened to a punk kid, anyway.”
“Who you callin’ a kid? In ten months I’ll be legal.”
“And if you don’t wise up, you’ll go to prison next time for doin’ stupid stuff like dope.”
T.J. snorted. “I’m stupid?! You’re the one who can’t figure out how to get out of here, even though it’s as plain as the nose on your face. Just tell the truth, man. That dime bag was mine and you were fishing.”
George’s shoulders slumped. “I don’t have the money for the fine.”
“Marlene’s working,” T.J. pointed out.
“Marlene pay my fine? Now don’t that just beat all. She’d never let me hear the end of it.”
“Which is worse?” T.J. asked. “Marlene paying your fine or breaking your promise to Sunny?”
With that, George Leroy Marlin knew that he was well and truly on the horns of a dilemma. He was going to be in trouble with both of the women in his life, no matter what he did.
“There must be some other way.”
“While you think it up, help me put the cover back,” T.J. said as he fished the screws out of the corner.
T.J. was asleep long before the guard came around again, but George contemplated the wrath of first one outraged female and then the other, long into the night.

When Marlene came to visit after church on the 5th of December, George Leroy looked down and mumbled, “Sugar, I been thinkin’.”
“What?” she said. “You gotta talk into that metal thing or I can’t hear you.”
George raised his head and said, “I been thinkin’ about pleadin’ guilty. I wasn’t fishin’ at the exact minute the game warden found me, but I was gonna.”
“Now you’re gonna plead guilty?! NOW?! You left me to do everything for more than five months and now you’re gonna plead guilty?! If you think my job at the library is gonna pay your fine, mister, you’ve got another think comin’.” Her blue eyes flashed as she sat back from the grill.
“I know, sugar. I talked to the lawyer. He said I can make payments.” He gulped. “I’m gonna quit fishin’ and get a job.”
This did not calm Marlene. “You bet you are. And you’re gonna keep it after you pay off the fine. We’re gonna pay our bills ourselves and we’re gonna put money in the plate at church.”
“Then can I have the pants back?!” George flared. It had been hard enough to say he was going to get a job.
“By then,” Marlene flared back, “they ought to fit you real good!”

A few days later, George Leroy Marlin pled guilty to a Class C misdemeanor of the Parks and Wildlife Code. He steeled himself for his punishment.
“Mr. Marlin,” Judge Conyers said, “you have spent a good portion of this year in jail on a minor charge. Have you learned anything?”
George Leroy thought a moment.
“Yessir. I learned that a seventeen-year-old pot head knows more about what’s important than I do.”
Judge Conyers deliberated for several long, agonizing minutes. “Then it seems to me you should spend some more time with him,” he concluded. “George Leroy Marlin, I hereby sentence you to fifty hours of community service, teaching T.J. Barnes to fish. A fishing license will be provided to each of you for this purpose. If you are able to keep Mr. Barnes on the straight and narrow, you will be hired by the Juvenile Probation Department to teach fishing to at-risk youth. Merry Christmas, Mr. Marlin.”