“How are you?” I asked.
He was looking down, seemingly deep in thought, eyes narrowed, lips pursed, hand absently rubbing the back of his head.
He lifted his head and looked at me. “Huh?”
“How are you?”
“I’m okay. Been expecting it—not this fast, but . . . I don’t know . . . it’s . . . to lose someone like him while I’m in here. Makes the rethink all my bullshit about suicide and death.”
“Really?”
It seemed sudden, unearned if not exactly insincere, but maybe he really had been shocked into reconsideration.
“It’s all so . . . out of our control, you know? How can I be so cavalier about my potential death when all he wanted to do was live a little longer and there was nothing he could do . . . Anyway, gives me something to think about.”
With this last statement, his demeanor changed with his posture. He sat up and perked up, even smiling at me. “Thanks,” he said.
“You sure you’re okay?” He nodded.
“Not angry? Frustrated? Don’t feel the desire to hurt yourself or someone else?”
He smiled. “I’m fine. I really am. I’m . . . It’s just that . . . I didn’t expect to feel anything at all . . . but—and it’s not sadness. It’s just . . . I don’t know . . . got me thinking.”
“You wanna call your mom?”
“Not now. I will later. From the dorm is fine.”
“I’ll make sure the dorm officers know about your situation. They’ll turn on the phones for you when you get ready. If you need me, just let them know.”
“Sounds good. Thanks again.”
He stood, seemingly a different man than when he sat.
He shook his head. “It just happened so much faster than I thought it would. I feel like someone just sucker punched me.”
I knew how he felt.
“Chaplain Jordan, I’m gonna be honest with you,” Chaplain Cunningham said. “I’m very disappointed in your behavior.”
He was an overweight, middle-aged white man with wavy brown hair and glasses. A Southern Baptist literalist, Fundamentalist, his narrow worldview and rigid belief system made my religion unrecognizable to him.
We were in Matson’s office. Just the three of us—me, Matson, and Cunningham. The door was closed. “You’ve always been on the fringes,” Cunningham continued. “Haven’t ever really fit in with the rest of us.”
There were about a hundred prison chaplains in the state and apparently I had never really fit in with them.
“I’ve tolerated a certain amount of unorthodox behavior out of you because . . . well, you’re liked and respected by your coworkers and the inmates you serve and . . . I guess I kept thinkin’ you’d find the way. But we’re here to help lost men find their way, not to give you time to find yours. How can the blind lead the blind?”
“What he’s sayin’, Chaplain,” Matson said, “you’ve been given plenty of rope but rather than climb up it you’ve hung yourself with it.”
I nodded. I knew this day would come. In truth, I had lasted longer than I expected.
He was right. I didn’t fit in with him, his agenda, or the other chaplains. And I never would.
“I’m just afraid you’ve lost your moral authority,” Cunningham said. “Living with another man’s pregnant wife. It’s a double sin.”
I didn’t say anything. Just listened.
“Now brother, hear me out on this,” he said. “I’ve prayed about it and I believe God wants you to step down, to resign your position. Chaplain Singer’s a good man. He can step in when he returns and see to the spiritual needs of the compound. The institution will be in good hands.
Whatta you say? Will you do the right thing? From what I understand you’d be happier being some sort of police officer anyway.”
Suddenly I was his brother and he was asking me not telling me to go.
“You’re asking me to quit?” I said.
“To find somethin’ that’s a better fit for you. You must feel that you don’t fit here.”
But must I feel I don’t fit anywhere?
“You’re not firing me? You’re asking me to . . . find a better fit?” I asked, hearing the incredulity in my own voice.
I had found somewhere I fit, hadn’t I? I fit with Anna. We fit as if formed for one another, as if we always had, as if what Rumi had written was particularly and uniquely true of us. Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.
“We’re giving you the opportunity to resign instead of firing you,” Matson said. “Why not do yourself a favor and leave with some dignity? If you will . . . if you’ll go quietly today, no fuss, no muss, I’ll give you a glowing letter of reference.”
“If I don’t quit, when will you fire me exactly?”
“Don’t let it come to that,” Cunningham said. “Do the right thing.”
“Do you have any idea how many times I’ve thought about quitting?” I said. “Do you have any idea how much easier my life would be if I did? You’re right, I don’t fit in with you and the warden and the other chaplains, and you all remind me of just how much every chance you get. But I do a lot of good here. I know I do. I see the fruit of it in the inmates and the staff in the trenches, in the grit and grind of everyday life here––somethin’ you’ll never see from your office in Tallahassee. You don’t like me. I get it. You don’t approve of me or my theology or my lifestyle. Fine. You don’t have to. But I’m not quitting. I’m not going anywhere until you finally force me to, which if you were able you would’ve already done instead of asking me to resign. If I’m wrong about that then fire me on the spot because you won’t get my resignation willingly––if only because you want it so bad and part of me wants nothing more than to give it to you.”
“Don’t think we can’t fire you,” Matson said. “This is my prison. I can––”
“Chaplain Jordan,” Cunningham said. “Our attorneys are looking into it. Eventually they’ll find a way for us to . . . but why not save us all the hassle and go quietly?”
“See previous answer,” I said. “Now, if you have nothing more to say to me, I’ve got to go bury my mother.”
Neither of them said anything and I walked out.
Chapter Thirty-nine
I really didn’t remember much of what I said at Mom’s funeral.
I remembered how sad the whole thing was, how pathetic and poorly attended, how awkward Nancy and Jake looked on either side of Dad, how bad Mom looked lying in the coffin, how the quiet church creaked, how everyone looked at me as I attempted to honor this woman I had had such a complicated relationship with, how I had mostly just looked at Anna.
I remembered confessing to the small crowd how lost and alone I felt, how numb, how inept I felt at doing something I had done so many times before.
I remarked on how surprised I was by how affected I was by the loss of her, how even given the grace of so much time to prepare, I wasn’t prepared at all. Not really.
I shared how I felt vulnerable in a way I never had before. Abandoned. Exposed. Like the last of the little barrier island between me and the vast senseless sea, between me and death, had finally finished its erosion and washed away forever, that between me and the grave gone.
I read the obituary I had written. And then the eulogy.
I tried to tell them, her friends and family, what she was like when she was controlling her addiction, and a little, for integrity and honesty’s sake, what she was like when it was controlling her.
I told them of the fun times and firm foundation she provided for me when I was young—something that had given me the strength to deal with the later ways her abuse of alcohol ravaged our lives.
I re-created the adventures she had taken me on—our day trips to Wakulla Springs and the Junior Museum, the capitol and the beach, the summer nights at Miracle Strip and the skating rink––the elaborate Christmases, the extravagant birthdays, the ordinary days at home building a tree fort outside or a sh
eet and blanket tent inside, making homemade ice cream and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and watching Saturday morning cartoons.
She had been a good mom when it mattered most, when we were young and forming, and a difficult and challenging mother when we were adults, something that, through grace, had been changing for some time now.
I did pretty well, held it together until Merrill’s mom, the woman who would always be Mama Monroe to me, came up to me after the graveside service and wrapped me up in her massive arms.
Merrill was there with her, beside her, but didn’t say anything. He had already said all he needed to say and I needed to hear, but what meant the most was what went without saying, what he didn’t have to verbalize because of the lifetime of his extraordinary friendship.
“I’m your mama now, boy, understand?” Mama said. I began to cry.
“You sort of already were,” I said when I could. “No sorta now, shuga,” she said. “I’m your mama.” Merrill nodded.
“Mama hear you need somethin’ a mama can do and you didn’t call her, Mama gonna be mighty unhappy with you. Understand?”
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”
“You really captured her,” Nancy said. “You were truthful and kind––something I’d’ve said couldn’t have been done where she was concerned.”
I had found her having a cigarette in the shadow of an oak tree cast in the back corner of the cemetery.
She had been out of my life so long, it was like I didn’t have a sister, and the too-thin, stylishly dressed New Yorker in front of me was as much stranger as anything else.
“I’m glad you came,” I said.
“Started not to. You can’t imagine how close I came to not coming.”
Most everyone who had attended the internment were still milling about Mom’s awning-covered graveside, visiting, comforting, reminiscing.
“How are you?” I asked.
“Don’t try to counsel me, John,” she said. “I’m not.”
“I was doing okay,” she said. “Things are goin’ well for me. Having to come back here . . . for this . . . is going to regress me some, but . . .”
She held her cigarette up slightly and considered it. “Haven’t had one of these in . . . a very long time. Had to bum it from creepy old Hugh Glenn. Can you believe he’s here?”
All of them were––all those in office, all those running for office, all the suspects from the killing at Potter Farm.
“Dad would be there if Imogene died.”
“He would, wouldn’t he?” she said, shaking her head. “Haven’t missed any of the polite political bullshit.”
“Didn’t think you had missed anything.”
“I’ve missed you, little brother,” she said. “That’s a fact. More now that I’ve seen you. Can’t believe you and Anna are finally together. That only took fuckin’ forever.”
“And you and love?” I asked.
“There’s someone,” she said.
“For a while now. Actually met in AA.” I nodded.
“You’re trying not to act surprised,” she said. “Didn’t know I was a friend of Bill W.’s, did you?”
“I’m not surprised,” I said. “I’m happy for you.”
“He’s good for me and to me.”
“I’m so glad to hear that,” I said. “So glad.”
“Though I’m having second thoughts now,” she said. “Since I arrived and found you with my best friend, thought it only fair if I get with yours.”
I laughed out loud at the thought of Nancy and Merrill.
“You’re right,” she said. “I’m probably too much woman for him.”
We were quiet a moment.
“She lasted longer than I thought she would,” she said. “Wonder how much longer we have Dad for? Not that her death will have any impact on him . . . but he’s gettin’ up there.”
“He may not be the next family member to go,” I said.
“Did I tell you I had a meeting in the World Trade Center the morning of nine-eleven?” I shook my head.
She hadn’t told me anything in a very, very long time. “I should be dead. Really just a comedy of errors that I’m not.”
“I’m so glad you’re still here,” I said. “And here.
How long you staying?”
“Fly out this afternoon,” she said.
“You’re an amazing man,” Anna said.
It was late. We were finally alone for the first time since we had woken up together the morning before.
We were lying in our bed in the dark, her head on my chest, her thick, beautiful brown hair draped over me.
“I don’t know anyone who could’ve done what you did,” she said. “You were so graceful and elegant, yet honest and elegiac.”
I was exhausted, emotionally spent, spiritually depleted. Her kind, overly complimentary words were a soothing salve for my soul, her warm bare skin on mine, healing and whole-making.
“Thank you,” I said. “You can’t know what that means to me.”
“I’m showing great restraint in what I’m saying,” she said. “Holding back. Choosing every word carefully. Could easily add a hundred for each.”
“So sweet.”
“I’m not being sweet. I’m in awe of you. More now than ever. There’s no way what you did could’ve been easy or effortless, but that’s the way you made it look.”
“You know what I kept thinking today? It was no different than any other day these days. I kept thinking, I get to go home with Anna. I’m the lucky man who gets to lie next to her tonight.”
“Every night,” she said. “I kept thinkin’ the same thing. That amazing man, saying such beautiful and insightful things, that man who I respect and admire more than any other I’ve ever known, is mine. I get to go home with him tonight. Wake with him tomorrow.”
She may have said more, but those were the last words I heard before I succumbed to the heavy-handed demands of the sandman.
Good night, moon. Good night, Mom. Good night, sweet, beautiful Anna. Good night, world for a while.
Chapter Forty
I was headed to a crime scene when Hahn called.
“I pulled Bailey’s file from Personnel,” she said.
“What?” I asked in shock. “I really wish you hadn’t done that.”
“Not when you hear what I found out.”
I was on the mostly desolate highway that connected Pottersville and Panama City, the early morning light filtering down through the slash pines, shining through the rows onto the road in shafts of bright yellow and orange.
“She’s not licensed by the state.”
“What?” I said.
Up ahead on my right I could see an enormous clear-cut field where just days before there had been a thirty-year-old flatlands pinewood forest.
It looked as if a massive super storm had blown through and leveled the land, leaving a gaping swath of baldness where once had been life and beauty. The devastation of deforestation.
Skidders were crawling through the fallen forest, twisting and turning like mechanical animals as they pinched and pulled the felled trees toward waiting log trucks.
Pulling off the highway, I turned down a dirt road, where on each side slash pines were being harvested. “She was appointed with the provision she would obtain her license within a year, which ends next month. Somebody had to want her to have this job very badly.”
I thought about who that might be.
“And she doesn’t have a legitimate degree. Her PhD is mail-order. Unaccredited. Which is why she’s having trouble getting licensed. And she told me she could supervise me for the hours I need for licensure. Now I’ve got to start over.”
“Better to know now,” I said.
Very little was left standing for hundreds of acres—the occasional oak tree, a small stand of cypress trees rimming a small patch of wetland, a handful of homemade tree stands, and a small, one-room mobile home cut in half, the two pieces separated by a narrow debris field ab
out ten feet long.
“She’s had problems at her last two places of employment. Left in a hurry both times. She claims she’s been the victim of sexual harassment, but has never so much as filed a complaint.”
“Where’d she work?”
“Medical clinic in Pensacola. And get this. It’s the same one Alvarez was fired from.”
I pulled up not far from the last in a line of emergency vehicles and turned off the car.
“Thank you,” I said. “That’s very helpful, but please don’t ever do anything like that again.”
“Yes sir.”
“The hypnotherapy demonstration you did for me—was that a pretty normal session?” I asked.
“I haven’t done that many. But it’s pretty standard from what I’ve experienced. He’s easier to induct than most people. Why I chose him.”
“Raising his arm, his hand going numb––what all can you get him to do?”
“Well, they’re just suggestions. You can suggest anything, but his subconscious has to be willing to do it. Hypnosis puts him in a state of less resistance, but he can still resist anything that he normally would be uncomfortable with consciously. I only use it after several sessions of therapy, and then only to deal with what comes up during therapy. If he can’t remember anything before he was eight . . . I’ll regress him back and see what happened.”
“His subconscious will remember?”
“Every detail. It’s amazing. You’ve never heard detail like this. Our subconscious minds record everything. We take him back, let him remember it, relive it, then help him bring it up into the conscious so we can deal with it. But I do very little regression therapy. It takes enormous skill. You can do so much damage. Some patients remember things that they and the therapist aren’t prepared for, and it devastates them to such an extent they never recover.”
“So the patient remembers when they come out of it? I mean, what was said or remembered while they were under.”
“Unless the therapist tells them not to.”
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