The shrink was right. He was losing his objectivity, his professional calm. He was identifying with the boy.
This was dangerous and could only end in one way.
Maria and Ana Luisa stood outside the door of John’s room, waiting to see him. They were wearing the hospital gowns, masks, caps, and booties required for visiting a critically burned patient and they were listening to the nurse’s last-minute instructions with great care. They wanted to do everything right.
“What you have to remember,” Peggy said, “is that it might be a shock. His face has been damaged, badly, but Dr. Clark is doing everything humanly possible. And John’ll improve a lot more. He really will. All right?” Her voice was pleading. “The thing is, he needs to see you.”
“I understand,” Maria said, a touch of exasperation in her voice. After all, John was her son. She would love him no matter what he looked like. “We won’t be shocked. We won’t show any emotion at all.”
“Just be yourself,” Peggy said. “He’s such a sweet boy.”
She opened the door, and Maria went in. Ana Luisa followed, slowly, and Peggy stepped in behind them.
“John?” Maria said, her voice low and warm. “It’s me, Mommy. We’ve come to see you.”
John tried to lean forward, but his head was immobilized by the huge collar he wore. “Mommy,” he said, his voice raspy. “Mommy!” He sounded very glad. He tried to put out his right hand, but it was tied to the bedrail and he could only move it a few inches, his fingers jerking back and forth.
Maria took a step closer. She could not see his face, because his head was tipped back and he had no pillow. It would not be his old face, she knew, but it would be just as good. They did miracles today.
“Mommy?”
“It’s me,” she said. “I’m right here.”
She stepped up close to the bed and looked at her son for the second time since the burning. His neck and shoulders had undergone massive reconstruction, his mouth had been restored, and his lips too. But his face was swollen from the operations, and the grafts were raw and scarred, and Dr. Clark had not yet begun to reconstruct the nose. She had been told all this, many times, but seeing him now, she realized that this thing was her son and he would always look like this. She took a step backward, turned as if to leave, and fell into the arms of Peggy, who half supported, half dragged her out of the room.
Ana Luisa never blinked. “Poquito,” she said, and leaned over John’s bed. “You are so beautiful. You are such a good boy.”
And John, who had not cried all this time, began to cry now, saying, “I want to go home. I want to go home.”
“Hey, Firebug! Come over here. I want to tell you something. I want to tell you what they’re gonna do to you.”
Russell was still waiting to be sentenced, and the guy in the next cell—on trial for rape and murder—had just found out from the trustee who Russell was.
“They’re gonna set you on fire, Bugsy.”
No reaction from Russell.
“They’re gonna fuck you up the ass, a pretty boy like you, and then they’re gonna set you on fire.” He laughed, a low slow rumbling laugh of deep appreciation. “You’ll be in your bunk, trying to stay awake so that they can’t set you on fire, but they’ll outwait you—you know?—and finally you’ll fall asleep. You’ll be dreaming away about some hot twat in a bikini or your old lady, and all of a sudden you’ll wake up because you smell smoke, and you wonder what’s burning … and it’ll be you.” He laughed again, happy. “How many of those guys you think are gonna want to put that fire out? Hmm, Firebug?”
Russell sat on his bunk, looking at his folded hands, listening.
“You never been to prison, so you don’t know all the treats they got waiting for you, Bugsy. Do you want me to tell you about it? Hmm?”
Russell just listened. He knew he deserved everything they’d do to him, everything, and he would not resist. He’d let them punish him. He’d help them.
“Hey, punk. Hey, Firebug.”
“What?”
“You want a match?” And he tossed a lighted match at Russell, just to keep him on his toes.
At the insistence of his psychiatrist, Dr. Clark took the evening off and, instead of studying the journals or making rounds, he decided to see a movie. He went to the Bijou where they showed old films and where tonight they were showing True Grit. He left after fifteen minutes because, on film at least, he couldn’t stand the sight of blood.
“Guilty, of attempted murder,” the jury foreman said.
The judge gave an angry speech about constraints of the law in California, the heinousness of this particular crime, the need for judicial reform. He sentenced Russell Whitaker to the maximum penalty for his crime, twelve years in prison, which meant that with good behavior Russell could be paroled in six. The judge shook his head, in despair of the law. “Next case,” he said.
Outside the courtroom, the photographers shot Russell from every angle, but each picture was the same: a grimly handsome young man whose face seemed made of stone.
The neck and chin were always a problem, and despite their elaborate care, a contracture had developed. Dr. Clark had no choice but to perform another operation.
Carefully, concentrating hard, he drew the scalpel across John’s throat from ear to ear, exposing a gap in the flesh that could now be given a new graft. They could begin again.
The operation took just under two hours. The neck would take six months to heal.
Every day there was another story in the paper and another batch of photographs. John at school. John at the beach. John with his mother and father—long ago, in the good times. What reporters wanted most was a photograph of John as he looked now, but so far Dr. Clark had prevented that.
This morning, when he finished the newspaper, Dr. Clark cut out the picture of John as he’d been on his sixth birthday, a handsome little boy, smiling shyly at the camera. He put it on his bureau where he could see it first thing each morning. He threw out the rest of the newspaper.
The next morning, however, he retrieved it from the recycling bin and cut out the picture of Russell Whitaker. He shoved it in under his handkerchiefs in the top bureau drawer where he’d never have to see it again. It was a kind of talisman. The face of evil smothered in a handkerchief.
The new prisoners, the fish, had to wear white for the first few days so the guards could identify them. The uniform was just a collarless shirt and loose drawstring pants, but it set them apart from everybody else and gave the old-timers a chance to check out the new meat.
“That’s all you are,” Nicoletti explained. “Meat.”
Russell was in his second week on fish row, and Nicoletti had just proposed.
“Call me Nick,” he said. “You want to hook up with me? I like my women big. And I don’t care what you done.”
Russell almost never spoke, and he did not speak now. He just looked at this man, another fish, who was in for three counts of murder. He was huge, with a belly that was solid and a head too large even for his big body. He looked like something in a circus. He was thirty, and this was his third jail term.
“Well, what do you say? No force. I’ll keep the others off you—no niggers, no spics. I won’t even sell you to anybody else. I’ll get you drugs, smokes, magazines, the usual. And you’ll be my kid.”
“Your kid?” Russell said. They were nearly the same age.
“Right.”
Russell didn’t know whether to laugh or to punch him out or what. “I’m not gay,” he said.
Nicoletti laughed. “You’re not gay,” he said, and shook his head in disbelief. “That’s rich. That’s funny. You’re not gay. You’re not anything in here. You’re inside, man. You’re just another piece of meat.”
Russell looked away.
“That’s all you are. Meat.”
Maria went to work and came home late and cried. What had she done to bring this on her son? What could she do to change anything? She loved him, she wante
d to see him, but she could only cry, and clutch her fists angrily to her breasts, and cry some more. She loved him. She loved him more than anyone in the world. Didn’t that count for anything?
New prisoners were kept segregated on the top floor—fish row—while they went through orientation. They learned the prison rules, saw the staff psychologist, found out what special programs were available for study and work. This was a modern prison, a model prison. At the end of three weeks, the fish would be moved down with the rest of the prisoners and assigned to a work detail.
On the night before the move downstairs, the guard handed Russell a sealed note and said, “It’s from your friends in D Block.” He watched as Russell read the note. It said only: “We’re waiting for you.”
The next morning Russell was sent to the laundry room to learn how to sort sheets. And, no surprise, he was assigned to a cell in D Block.
“My name is Emory and I’m an alcoholic. I’ve been in AA for over ten years now, but I’ve never gotten a cake because I always have a lapse, about once a year, and I go on a bender. It’s six months since my last drink.”
He paused for a moment and crammed his lips tight together, as if he found this very hard to do.
“You all know who I am, and who my son is, and what he did, so I suppose you can imagine why I go on a bender from time to time. They gave Russell twelve years in jail. People say that’s not enough time for what he did to that little boy, and maybe it isn’t, but I can tell you this. He’s got to live with what he’s done for the rest of his life. And I think to myself that I’m partly to blame for what happened too. Because the only example he had when he was growing up was mine. He saw me drunk and beating on his mother, and I probably beat on him too, though of course I would never really hurt an innocent child, and right from the start all he knew was drinking and fighting, so who is to blame? I take a lot of the blame on myself. I ask my higher power to forgive me every day, but I never thought I’d have to live with something like this. What I do is take it one day at a time, and I try to let go and let God. And I know that when I slip, I always got a place to come back to. Easy does it. Thank you very much.”
It was midafternoon and Russell’s cellmate, Boyle, was out in the yard at the weight pile and Russell was in his prison cell, alone. The cell was nine feet long and six feet wide, large by prison standards, and Russell was able to pace up and down if he felt like it. He didn’t. He stood with his back to the wall, facing out.
Russell had been in D Block for almost a week and he had received two more notes. The first one said: “Don’t lose any sleep waiting,” and the second one said: “See you later.” Harmless, apparently, but Russell got the point. He told himself that whatever punishment he got in jail was punishment he deserved, and so he had decided to put up no resistance, but the continual waiting had begun to wear him down. And in the past five days he’d learned from Boyle’s example that if they decided to get him, there was no way he could protect himself. The cell doors were opened at seven o’clock for breakfast, and they were not locked again until ten at night. During those hours, anybody who felt like it could come into the cell. Or two of them. Or ten. There was a desk at the end of the tier and an armed guard behind it, but the desk was some hundred yards away, and the guards didn’t care what happened anyway. They knew—everyone knew—that the gangs ran the prison. The guards just ran the prisoners. And even after lockup there was no way to keep a cell locked from the inside. There was always somebody with a key or, failing that, somebody who could pick a lock.
It was hot in the cell and Russell felt his eyes begin to close. He thought maybe he would lie down, but he didn’t want to be taken by surprise, asleep, so he continued to stand against the back wall, between the toilet and the bunks, and he let his eyes close just a little, to rest them.
Suddenly, they were there.
One was standing with his back to the closed door, guarding it. The other—a big guy—swung around and advanced toward Russell. He stopped a couple feet away. “You’re trapped between the shit pot and the bed, sucker. You’re gonna do what I say.”
Russell said nothing. He didn’t move.
“First, you’re gonna drop those pants and I’m gonna fuck you up the ass. Then you’re gonna suck my cock. After that, I’ll tell you what to do.”
Russell’s heart beat faster and faster. He stood there, paralyzed, unable even to think.
“Drop them.”
The one watching the door said, “Come on, Nails. Fuck him, for Christ’s sake.”
Nails reached out and grabbed Russell’s shirt and pulled him out from between the toilet and the bunks. He was taller than Russell and weighed at least twenty pounds more.
“Get on that bed,” he said, “and bend over.”
Involuntarily Russell’s fist shot out and struck Nails in the chest, hard. He staggered backward, surprised by the blow. A second later, though, he charged, and caught Russell in the belly with his shoulder. Russell’s head slammed back against the iron rail of the upper bunk. There was a dull thud and Russell slumped a little and tipped to the side, but then he righted himself and landed a blow to Nails’s face, making blood gush from his nose. Nails tore at him now, kicking at his groin, his ribs, fighting like a crazy man. Russell fought back, dodging the blows, until he landed a lucky punch to the neck, and Nails’s head snapped back and he slouched against the wall, his tee shirt red with blood. He struggled over to the door where his buddy waited, sneering at him, and then the two of them went away.
Russell lay on the bunk, trying to catch his breath. After a while he smiled to himself. He had resolved to accept whatever punishment they gave him, to help them punish him. What ever happened to that resolution? It hadn’t lasted longer than the threat of rape. Was being raped any worse than setting fire to your own son? Russell thought about that. What did it matter if he was raped? Didn’t he deserve it? Didn’t he deserve to be passed around from jocker to jocker the way Boyle was? Like a piece of meat? That’s all he was, really. A piece of meat, with malice. He waited.
In less than an hour Nails and his buddy were back. They stepped inside, and the buddy closed the door and locked it. Nails advanced on the bunk where Russell lay.
Russell sat up, Indian style.
Nails stood above him and said, “Take off those pants, roll over, and spread your ass.” When Russell said nothing and just kept sitting there, Nails reached into his pocket and pulled out a knife. It was crudely made from a wooden coat hanger and a spoon handle, but it was sharp and would cut deep. He held it up where Russell could get a good look. Then instantly, before Russell could react, Nails slashed with the knife and Russell’s pant leg was slit from his knee to his ankle. A line of blood appeared on the white skin.
“Take them off,” he said. “Or do you want me to cut them off?”
They stared at each other for a second, and then, as Nails slashed with the knife, Russell’s foot shot out and caught him on the forearm, sending the knife spinning across the cell. Nails dove at it, scooped it up, and turned, but by now Russell was off the bed and in a fighter’s crouch, ready for him. Nails laughed, tossed the knife in the air, caught it, and made as if to lean against the wall. But instead, his left hand flew up and, as Russell swung to counter the blow, Nails’s right hand, the hand with the knife, cut straight across Russell’s chest. His shirt fell loose and blood appeared and Russell pulled back, stumbling against the toilet bowl. Nails lunged at him, aiming at his belly, but Russell twisted away and the knife sank into the soft flesh of his side.
For a minute everything seemed to stop. Nails stayed bent over, still holding the knife in Russell’s side, and Russell’s arms flew up as if he were surrendering, and the guy at the door took a single step forward, and paused. All three of them stood like this, waiting.
Then Russell brought his fist down and punched Nails in the side of the head. With a short gasp of surprise, Nails pulled out the knife and, slowly, reluctantly, sank to the floor.
Russell crouched beside the toilet while the buddy dragged Nails from the cell. A minute later he came back and picked up Nails’s knife. Before he left, he leaned over and whispered to Russell. “Now you’re in trouble,” he said. “Now you’re really gonna get it.”
Russell sank to the bed, unconscious.
When Boyle came in, he patched Russell up as best he could. He got out a bottle of iodine he kept hidden for his own emergencies and patted it on the wounds. Then he put little Band-Aids in a long row across Russell’s chest and a couple bigger Band-Aids on the wound in his side. “You’re not gonna make it,” he said. “That chest wound keeps bleeding. You need stitches.” Later he said, “Do you want me to get the guard? You need the prison hospital. Let me get the guard, before lockdown.” And later he said, “They’ll come for you, you know. Once the guard goes, there’s only the night guard for four whole blocks. You’ll be alone for eight hours.” And much later, lying in the dark, he said, “What’s that X on your chest? Did they do that to you in reform school? Did your father do it?” Russell said nothing, and Boyle said, “I suppose your father did it. Or your mother. It’s a weird thing to do.” A minute went by. “Listen, do you hear how quiet it is? It’s never this quiet.” Another minute went by. “When I came in, I was nineteen years old. Nineteen. I’d had sex with a girl once when I was fifteen, behind the school, and then I had my old lady when I was eighteen, and that was the only sex I ever had. My second day in here, I had it up the ass twenty times. They just beat me up and did it to me. After that I got a jocker to protect me. Sharkey. Sharkey’s all right, except he trades me around. For cigarettes. I hate it. When I get out, I’m never gonna have sex again, period. You know?”
Russell started to get out of bed.
“What are you doing?” Boyle said. “You’re gonna kill yourself.”
“They’re coming.”
Russell stood by the bed, one hand clutched to his side, waiting.
There was a scratching sound at the door. Then the slow, heavy rubbing of metal on metal, the shuffle of feet, and the blinding glare of a flashlight in Russell’s eyes. There were four of them, maybe five.
The Shrine at Altamira Page 11