by Ted Dekker
“He announced that?”
“He announced that.”
“How?”
“A man with many questions.” He slapped Danny on the shoulder and stepped past him. “I like that, Father. I like that a lot. He told Randell, who told his bunch of knuckleheads, who told the rest.” Knuckleheads, prison slang for those bucking the system and doing hard time. Godfrey faced the metal toilet, unzipped his trousers, and let loose a stream into the toilet bowl. “Loudmouth works better than the loudspeaker inside. Problem with the loudspeaker is, no one listens. But put it out on loudmouth and in five minutes the whole club knows.” He zipped up and turned around. “Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Makes sense.”
“How long?”
“Fifty years.”
The man whistled. “Me, I got life. Do you want me to wash my hands?”
Danny found the man’s unpretentious audacity disarming and oddly comforting.
“I want you to do whatever it is you need to do.”
“Then I won’t bother,” Godfrey said. “Not to worry, I didn’t touch myself. Have a seat and let me tell you how it is before you head out to meet the wolves, though to be fair, there’s only one real wolf in this place and you already met him.”
He sat on the lower bunk and patted the mattress. Danny felt obliged to humor the man.
“You’ve been around, so you know that a priest has it coming from both sides. There’s those who assume you’re a sexual predator, and you know how that goes. And then there’s the rest, who think a man of the cloth breaking the law just ain’t right. So you’re screwed either way.”
“Assuming I’m a priest. Which I’m not.”
“I’m assuming you were at one time.”
“I gave it up before I confessed.”
“To what?”
Back to the start. He decided it wouldn’t hurt to leak the right story.
“Let’s just say I helped the wayward see the light using a little too much force.”
“Hmmm. And these wayward, did they deserve it?”
Danny considered the question only a moment. “No more than I did.”
The man grinned from ear to ear. “So now I really like you. Unfortunately, Bostich doesn’t, that much I can assure you. I’m assuming you got the speech from the warden?”
“We spoke, yes.”
“Two kinds of prisoners, right? Fish and indeterminate lifers. But there’s a third group in here: the knuckleheads he brings in for one reason and one reason alone—to test the rest. In his twisted way of thinking, you see, he has to make this grand sanctuary of his as similar to his understanding of the world as possible. That means there’s got to be a carrot and there’s got to be a whip, and he’s going to help you decide which one you want. But what fun is all that without temptation? So, yes, he brings in the knuckleheads to either entice you into wickedness or push you over the edge. If your edge was violence, he’s going to push you there again. Trust me on that.”
Perhaps. But Danny had lost his stomach for violence three years ago. The only edge Danny had now was Renee. As long as she was safe, he would not bend.
“I’m no longer a violent man,” he said.
“All I’m saying,” Godfrey continued, “is that Bostich, who’s a devil, has his orders, and unless I’m a fool those orders are to break you down before he breaks you in.”
None of this concerned Danny for the simple reason that he was powerless to change any of it. There was only so much the authorities could do to a person in an American prison, and none of it compared to the suffering he’d experienced in Bosnia as a younger man. His vow of nonviolence could not be compromised.
“They can try,” Danny said. “I suppose I deserve whatever comes my way.”
“You do realize what the carrot is, don’t you?” Godfrey asked, then answered himself. “The privileged wing. You follow the rules, all the rules, rules, rules, and you live life large until you get out on early release, assuming you still want it. All things become new, my man, that’s the carrot.” He formed an imaginary ball with his thin, blue-veined hands. “A paradise overflowing with milk and honey, that’s the ticket. The Pape’s kingdom, right here on earth. They live in apartments over there, man! With their own bathrooms and flatscreen TVs. They wear what they want, they get all the jobs. Better food, a cinema room, a full weight room, a gym with nets. Heck, if you believe the rumors, they get booty calls over there.”
“And yet you’re still here,” Danny said.
Godfrey lowered his hands and flashed his missing-toothed smile. “Because I can’t seem to keep my mouth shut. The warden doesn’t like my little slipups. He’s got all the privileged guys in tow, see?” He stabbed his forehead with a bony finger. “But I got too much up here for him. The only thing that keeps me out of trouble is that no one has the brains to listen.”
His confession made Danny wonder why he’d been placed with Godfrey. Clearly, the warden wanted him to hear all of this.
“How long have you been here?” he asked.
“Two years. Give me another two and I just might see it like the rest. It gets to you, you know. Don’t think it doesn’t. Once you buy into it all, you’re stuck. The strange thing is, the Pape’s philosophy actually seems to work. Basal is probably the smoothest-running correctional facility in the country.”
“Why wouldn’t it be? The warden handpicks his prisoners.”
“True. He’s even got the knuckleheads by the gonads. It’s not just the carrot, my friend. There’s more down in that basement than a cold hole. You buck the system and you pay a price.”
Godfrey glanced at the bars and lowered his voice. “In my time I’ve seen three men commit suicide, all of them knuckleheads, and I swear not one of them did it to themselves. That’s just the way it is. He’s got a little heaven and a little hell laid out like a smorgasbord, and he makes the choice pretty easy. Just like on the outside.”
“Hustlers?”
“Sure, we got all kinds, everybody has their thing, but it’s all pretty much either aboveboard or immediately exposed and punished. Nothing happens the warden doesn’t know about, trust me. If there’s a hustle going on, it’s only because he allows it. There’s no freedom here. Pape controls every syllable uttered in this prison. Sometimes I think half the staff doesn’t even know what’s really happening.”
“So it’s not all aboveboard.”
“I’m not talking about the hustles and tattoos or what not. I’m talking about what’s really going on. And visitation? Forget it.”
It was the first thing Godfrey said that struck a raw nerve.
“Unless you’re in the east wing, and then only if he can trust you. ‘Come out from among them and be separate,’ as the book says. Keeps you safe from what destroyed you, he says.”
“I’m surprised his policy isn’t challenged.”
“By who? You have an attorney?”
“No need for one.”
“Exactly. Like you said, he handpicks his prisoners. The ones who don’t have a case or the resources to bring a case. You have anyone on the outside who would help you?”
His mind filled with an image of Renee marching up to the gate upon learning that she was barred from visiting him. She would go ballistic if she learned that contact with him was being cut off indefinitely.
Danny stood and ran his fingers through his hair. On the other hand, if he could manage his way into the east wing and earn both visitation rights and an early release, he would be able to tend to her needs.
Dear God, he missed her. It was difficult to reveal the true nature of his longing to be with her without causing her more anxiousness. If she knew the extent of the suffering their separation caused him, she would never consider moving on to build a new life without him. And yet, considering her nature, he was sure she needed constant companionship. His own need for her loyalty and love was superseded by his need to see her at peace and comfortable, even if the transition proved to be difficult.
>
But now…what if there was a way to get out early? A legal way.
“How long does it take to get into the east wing? Assuming you play by the warden’s rules.”
Godfrey shrugged. “I’ve seen it done in six months. But he cycles them out as fast as they go in. Any deviant behavior, and I mean crossing-the-road-on-the-wrong-day kind of deviant behavior, and you’re back where you started from. Welcome to the sanctuary, Priest.”
“Please, don’t call me that.”
“No? Might as well get used to it, they’re already calling you that.” The older man stood. “If I was you—and this is just me, understand—I would learn the rules, follow his laws to the letter, and take your abuse. Let them think they’re breaking you. It’s in their blood. In the Pape’s universe, everyone is guilty and deserves punishment. Heck, he’d put the whole world in here if he could. Follow the Godfrey and you won’t go wrong.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“And so that you know, the only people who will talk to you during your so-called indoctrination are those the warden’s determined fit to speak to you. You’ll feel like a leper out there, but it’s by design. The good news is, you get me. If you let me, I’ll talk your ear off.”
“Speak all you like. Although I’d prefer it if you didn’t snore too loudly.”
“Then we’re good. I’ll sleep with my blanket over my head.”
Danny chuckled. “No need, my friend.”
Godfrey gave him a whimsical look. “You may insist, my priest.”
“What do you know about an inmate named Peter Manning?”
“Members, not inmates. Remember that. And the guards are facilitators. They’re just here to help us see the light. The warden’s very particular about words. And whatever you do, don’t swear. It took me three months to learn how to speak right.” He walked to the bars and peered down the tier. “Why do you ask about Peter?”
“The warden asked me to help him out.”
Godfrey looked away, frowning. “Pete’s in for statutory rape. He’s twenty years old and his story’s going to break your heart and get you in trouble, mark my words. He moves like clockwork—he’ll be in the dining room in half an hour. You can hear the story from him if you can get him to talk. But I’m warning you, tread carefully. You can’t save him.”
“I’m not here to save anyone.”
The man didn’t respond, but his eyes betrayed his thoughts clearly enough. We’ll just see about that. You never knew what kind of cell mate you would find in prison. Danny couldn’t imagine a better one than this old character who spoke what was on his mind.
“Just curious,” Danny said, “since you asked me, what’s your story?”
“Me? I was once a philosophy professor at UCLA. That was sixteen years ago. I’ve been serving Father Time ever since for a crime I didn’t commit.”
“And what crime was that?”
“I was framed for the tsunami that killed all those people in Indonesia. Unfortunately, I no longer have the resources to appeal the verdict.” He said it without the slightest hint of humor. “But don’t you worry about that, Priest. You have bigger worries.”
“Is that right? And what would they be?”
“Bruce Randell,” Godfrey said. “You’re not careful and he’ll kill you.”
5
SEEING THE MANGLED, bloodied finger in a shoe box, I reacted as any normal person sent a piece of her husband’s body might. I rushed to the sink and threw up.
My illness came at the thought of that finger belonging to Danny, but whether it actually was Danny’s finger, I couldn’t know. It was way too mangled to tell. Either way, my world was caving in on itself. Danny’s life was in danger. So was mine.
I stood over the sink, shaking, mind racing. I couldn’t go to the police, that much I knew. Whoever was behind this knew too much about our past. Questions would be asked. People would talk. Both Danny and I would go down.
I didn’t have time to figure out who Bruce Randell was by researching the particulars of his incarceration and looking for details about his case. That was a long shot at best. I had to get to Danny, and there was only one way I knew to get to him. I had to go to Basal.
Impulsively, without even taking the time to look again, I wiped the vomit off my lips, grabbed the shoe box, and dumped the contents, tissue and all, into the garbage disposal. I flipped the switch. Three seconds of chunking and scraping later, the thing was gone, and only then did I wonder if I’d sent valuable evidence into the sewer system.
Danny had once cut things off of people. Maybe someone was returning the favor.
I had to get to Danny. He had to be alive. I knew that from my call to Basal earlier. If he was alive, I would find a way to get to him.
Basal was located in the high country, north of Rancho Cucamonga, far beyond my regular stomping grounds, which pretty much consisted of my condo, north Long Beach, and Ironwood State Prison. I wasn’t one for exploring just for the thrill of it. For starters, I hated the traffic in Southern California, especially the freeways, which were anything but free. They were their own kind of overcrowded prison—thousands and thousands of steel boxes crammed together on concrete with their prisoners staring ahead for hours on end. Then again, I suppose we all live in one kind of prison or another. Mine was my head.
Following the Google map I’d printed earlier in the week, I drove my white Toyota Corolla down the Riverside Freeway and caught the 15 headed north, cursing at the trucks when they barreled down my tailpipe or pushed me to the shoulder. But the hour drive with all of its hazards didn’t distract me from a larger reality pressing in on me.
I’d just ground up a finger and rinsed it down the drain. Maybe Danny’s finger.
It’s difficult to express just how much I loved him. He was my rock, my adviser, my lover in better times. I leaned on him for everything and he seemed to return the favor.
Take my job, or lack thereof. At twenty-seven years old I ought to have had a decent job, and believe me, I’d given it a shot. Not because I needed the money—Danny had given me enough to buy the two-bedroom condo in a quiet corner of an upscale complex and live without working for seven years. I needed a job because we both knew I had to find a way to enter a thriving social context if I didn’t want to go nuts.
During one of my weekly visits to Ironwood, Danny suggested I try something that didn’t require too much interaction with complaining customers, and ease into the workplace that way.
“Like what?” I asked.
He shrugged across the table and gave me one of his crazy, blue-eyed grins. “Like a night watchman. Put your skills to good use.”
I sat up. “Seriously?”
His grin faded. “No, not seriously. It was a joke.”
“But I could do that!”
“You couldn’t do that. I was just having fun.”
“No, I could. The only people I would have to worry about would be the ones looking down my barrel.”
Now his face was flat, that determined expression he uses when he wants to cut to the chase. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re tiny. The first thug that comes along weighing three hundred pounds would smash you flat.”
“You’re saying I don’t have what it takes?”
“I’m only saying that you’d be putting yourself in the way of danger. Please, Renee, do not consider this. For my sake if not for yours.”
See, I liked that Danny tried to care for me even while locked up. And while a part of me loved the idea of going up against a three-hundred-pound thug who might crush me if he tripped in my direction, the thought of using a gun again did bother me some. And I was a bit small to do any real business with a nightstick, if that was all they gave me.
“Then what else could I do at night?” I asked.
“Anything, I suppose. Drive a truck.”
“You’re serious?”
“No, not really. Just trying to—”
“That’s it! I could drive a truck. Right?
One of those big 18-wheelers.”
“I think that’s pretty heavy work, don’t you?”
“Are you kidding? It’s all lifting gizmos and electric power stuff. It’s mostly listening to the radio and steering down a long road, right?”
“Hydraulic lifts.”
“What?”
“They’re called hydraulic lifts. The lifting gizmos.”
“Oh. Right.”
“So then try it,” he said.
And I had. The instructor thought I was a bit nuts at first, but he quickly learned that my mind wasn’t quite as frail as my body. I think it was during those few months trying the whole truck-driver thing that I first entertained the thought that I was too skinny. A lot of the best drivers have at least a few extra pounds of fat and muscle. Frankly, I was a bit jealous.
But here’s the thing about being a truck driver: once you get out of school and get to working for a real company (General Electric in my case, which was why I had GE appliances) you realize that you spend a lot of time with men in dirty warehouses. And too many of them don’t mind putting their filthy paws on your shoulder, your arm, your thigh, or your butt. Not a bad thing if you’re interested in them and their hands are clean, but I wasn’t and these weren’t.
I also tried selling magazine subscriptions from home, but the continual abuse was inhuman and I found myself fighting the urge to help ungrateful customers see their way to a better life despite repenting for my previous indiscretions.
All the while, my neurosis seemed to get worse, and after two years of periodic trials and failures I finally gave up. Point is, Danny supported my decision. He always did. I had been through a nightmare, he said. I just had to take some time and find myself.
Tears came to my eyes as I drove north, praying that Danny was still alive and had all of his fingers. My emotions ran a ragged edge, from rage to remorse to abject fear. I should never have listened to his nonsense about finding myself another, suitable man. The thought of living without him seemed profane now.
I still remembered every word of that conversation. It was on another one of my regular visits to Ironwood State Prison that Danny stared me in the eye and brought up the unthinkable. I knew he was working up to something critical in his mind because he gave me that long, I’m-sorry-for-what-I’m-about-to-say look and took my hand.