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“There’s a typo in this crossword puzzle!” Amy says indignantly, pulling her pen away from the magazine with an affronted expression.
Jake looks over. He smiles — infinitesimally.
I’m going to marry her, he thinks, clear as day.
Nearly one month later, Jake gets arrested. Which, okay, throws a slight wrench in his plan.
1.
The first days are the worst ones. Of course they could be worse: at least Jake is in protective custody, so no one tries to beat him up more than once a week. That’s a relief. And Jake’s inmate is nice — his name is Caleb, and there’s something a little weird about him, but he’s at least friendly and doesn’t try to kill Jake.
But prison is hell. Every other minute, Jake’s mind strays to the Nine-Nine, to how Boyle must be holding up (badly), how Holt must be mourning the loss of the best detective in the Nine-Nine (badly), and above all, Amy.
Amy.
It keeps him going, though — the thought of proposing to her. Sometimes it sends him into a flurry of anxiety, but luckily that’s pretty tame for prison, so people just play it off. Which is good, because he thinks if they indulged his anxious spiral then he’d just become even more anxious and then he’d never get to actually marry Amy, because he’d have literally become her. (Gross.)
In his conversations with Caleb, he never brings it up. He tells him about Amy, his beautiful wonderful amazing girlfriend back in Brooklyn whom he loves and misses, and Caleb makes sympathetic faces and pats him on the back and says that she sounds simply delicious. Which is a weird thing to say. But also, prison.
But Jake can never say out loud how he’d been planning his proposal for almost a month. He can’t say how his whole plan has been foiled now, because of stupid Lieutenant Hawkins and her stupid stupidness. Stupid.
He does say (many times) how much he hates Hawkins.
“She’s stupid,” he says to Caleb in bed one evening. “She’s just so dumb!”
“I agree.” This is a standard answer. It means that Caleb’s not really listening anymore. Which is fine.
“She just comes in here, and frames me for her stupid crime, and makes me look guilty? Stupid!”
“You know, that does kind of indicate that she might be smart,” Caleb points out.
“Shut up, Caleb.”
“Gladly. I’m gonna hit the hay, Jake. See you on the other side.”
“Isn’t that something people say when they go to war?” Jake whispers.
Caleb’s already asleep.
2.
“Caleb. Caleb. Caleb! I have the best idea. Caleb, wake up.” Jake is shaking his inmate like a crazy person, but lots of things have become standard since being imprisoned. Like, for example, insane behavior e.g. shaking someone awake at like four in the morning.
It might be earlier than that. Or later. Jake’s internal clock is kind of whack right now.
Caleb’s eyes fly open and he sits up so fast that he smacks his forehead against the bottom of Jake’s bunk. “Ow! Damn it, Jake, don’t scare me like that!”
“Right. Crazy people in prison means death. Won’t happen again.” There’s a folder in his mind where he stores information like this, this sort of concept. The idea of a distorted reality in prison. It has things like don’t talk to the guards and don’t try to accessorize your jumpsuit, it will not end well and especially if you are holding any sort of heavy or metal object, people will think you’re attacking, which also does not end well.
“What the hell do you want? It’s the witching hours,” Caleb groans.
“I’m gonna do it during Halloween!” Jake says excitedly, the enthusiasm he’d been missing suddenly returning to him in a massive burst.
Caleb only frowns. “Do what?”
Oh. Oh, right.
“Uh —” he hesitates. “Great question, Caleb. Excellent question. Gold star.”
“Jake,” Caleb says, drawing out the a.
“Caleb.” Jake mimics. Then he decides. “Fine. I’m gonna propose to Amy, okay? I was gonna do it before, but then I had this tiny flaw in my life where I got framed for bank robbery, so I have to do it when they break me out.”
“Break you out?”
“Prove I’m innocent. Same thing. Focus on the important things, Caleb!” The cell is small, so when Jake attempts to pace, he just walks in circles. “I have to make it the most perfectly timed, perfectly planned proposal to ever propose in the history of proposal. Better than — who’s a celebrity with a great proposal story?”
“Prince William?” Caleb offers.
Jake snaps his fingers. “Lady Gaga! Oh my god. My proposal is going to be Gaga-worthy.”
Caleb crinkles his nose. “I don’t understand how you’re going to plan your proposal from prison, keeping in mind that you probably won’t get out of here for another five years.”
“You underestimate both my precinct’s total devotion to me and my ability to be ridiculously focused,” Jake says, grinning widely. “Shall we begin?”
“I’d love to, but it’s the middle of the damn night, and I would love it if I could get back to sleep,” Caleb says flatly.
“Oh. Right. Sleep. That’s important. Carry on. Start in the morning, then!”
3.
The Halloween proposal takes up a majority of Jake’s time. He doesn’t talk about it a lot, and Caleb is hardly invested in it. “I love true love, but I really think you’re wasting your time, man,” he’d say.
“You’re killing my groove, dude!” Jake would reply. Caleb would stop answering.
So Jake plots in solitude, writing with a flimsy half of a pencil across the top of his desk and using swiped condiments to make colored illustrations on the walls of his cell. The best part is that nobody thinks he’s bonkers: or rather, they might think so, but everyone in prison is bonkers. The guards are used to stuff like using food to draw on walls. Honestly, they probably assume it’s blood.
Sometimes Jake reflects on the poor state of prisons in America.
It’s all-consuming, the obsession to make the most amazing goddamn proposal in all of human history. A Gaga-worthy proposal isn’t just any proposal, after all. But Amy is the best girlfriend in the world, and she deserves the best proposal in the world.
Jake ignores that tiny little part in his gut that’s insistently repeating, What if she says no? Because there’s just no way she will.
He loves her, and she loves him. Imagining an end to that is like imagining the end of the world. Jake can feel it, deep in his bones, when he thinks of it. So he knows .
He also knows that if he’s going to make an epic plot, he’s gonna need some inadvertent help.
The moment he gets back, he vows, he’ll enlist Charles.
The hardest part at the moment is figuring out what he’s going to use for the proposal. It’ll have to be a thing — like a plaque, or a certificate, or a binder. Amy would love that. A binder that just says marry me?
Jake laughs, realizes he sounds a bit insane, and then laughs again because in a few ways he feels insane.
He’s in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, planning for a proposal that might be rejected, on a day he might not be there for. And his inmate is a fucking cannibal.
“I’ll drink to that,” he says aloud, grinning even more because now he definitely sounds wacko.
4.
So they’ve been transferred to gen pop. And this definitely poses a small problem, namely, they’re going to get fucking annihilated!
Jake has been rotting in this hell for upwards of a month, with the marriage proposal to Amy sometimes the only thing keeping him adrift, keeping him sane. The idea that he’s now going to be shivved by some psychopath in a gang gives Jake this horrible sinking feeling in his gut.
And for the first time, doubts creep into his mind. Not flimsy ones. Real ones.
What if they’ve given up trying to prove your innocence?
What if Amy met someone?
What if they just can’t prove that Hawkins did it?
What if she’s too good?
What if she screws them over and sends them to jail, too?
What if I have to stay in prison for my entire sentence?
And Jake knows the answer to that last one.
He’ll go insane.
Batshit crazy.
“This is not good,” Jake tells Caleb, pacing back and forth in a terribly distraught manner.
“You think I don’t know that?”
“Not for you! You’re fine, you just keep blending in,” Jake snaps. He takes a breath. “Sorry. You’re a valid and wonderful inmate, Caleb. Even if you did eat some people, which is super weird and kind of creepy.”
“I actually almost ate a dog once,” Caleb adds.
“Ah, dude, you really don’t have to correct me when I say things like that.” Jake pinches his forehead. “What are we going to do?”
Caleb shrugs. “Try and blend in?”
Jake blows the air out through his nose. “No chance. I’m a cop. Criminals are wired to hate cops, it’s basically in their DNA.”
“Do you know what DNA is?” Caleb asks.
“If you’re asking if I passed ninth grade biology, the answer is no, I did not.” Jake wrings his wrists, the harrowing feeling returning to him. “Oh my god, I’m gonna die before I ever get to propose to Amy. Oh my god. Caleb, if I die, will you tell Amy I love her? — You know what, never mind, that’s really weird and you’re a cannibal.”
“I actually take some offense to that term,” Caleb interjects.
Jake exhales loudly. “Alright. Okay. Showtime.”
5.
By God’s will and God’s will alone, Jake does not get shivved or have to shiv anyone, although he comes remarkably close. Possibly the only reason he survives gen pop is that the moment before they’d left protective custody, Jake had said a silent prayer to God.
I know I haven’t been a great Jew, and I’m not saying I’m gonna give up bacon, but if you just let me survive this, I swear to God — I mean I swear to you — that I’ll be a better Jew. I’ll even join a synagogue! Amen.
Jake’s not positive what his stance on God is, but it seems to have gotten him through prison.
And all of a goddamn sudden — Jake is free.
The first breath of fresh, prison-free air that fills his lungs cannot even begin to compare to the moment his eyes meet Amy’s and there’s no space between, no dividers and no guards and no tinny voices on shitty phones.
Just him and her and hugging and kissing and warmth and the life slowly seeping back into him.
“I love you,” he says softly, feeling the words like they’re resonating deep inside of him, throwing him off-balance.
“I love you too,” she answers, the earnesty in her voice instantly erasing any doubts crowding Jake’s mind.
For this, Jake would gladly be in prison another five years.
For Amy, Jake would do anything.
Including pull of the most epic proposal Halloween stunt of all time.