Candlemoth

by R.J. Ellory

  I listened to him silently. I barely breathed. And when he had gone I waited until the lights went down and then I sat on my bed in the darkness and imagined I was elsewhere.

  Port Royal Sound.

  Panama City.

  Anywhere but here.

  Eventually I lay down and slept, slept like Nathan used to sleep.

  No dreams.

  No nightmares.

  Nothing but the sound of my own breathing whispering back at me from the dark.

  But for that I could have been dead.

  The following morning I woke before the bell. I knew it wasn't yet six, but I had no way of telling the time. From where my cell was situated I could not see the clock.

  Mr. West was on the Block, you could tell that right away, for as soon as the bell went everyone was up and making noise, getting busy. Mr. West did not, would not, tolerate late sleepers.

  Plenty of time to sleep when you're dead, he'd say.

  The Duty Second came down and told me I was on exercise time at nine, a half-hour round the yard and back. He said if I had cigarettes I could smoke out there.

  I shaved, washed and dressed. We went up for breakfast, three at a time, an evolution that took more than an hour and a half for twenty-one people. D-Block could hold forty in all, but it seemed they were slightly more willing to consider life terms these days. Why, I didn't know. Didn't make any difference to me.

  Breakfast was cereal, skimmed milk made with powder, two pieces of dry toast, no butter, a couple of spoonfuls of overcooked eggs and a cup of coffee that tasted like tepid raccoon piss.

  It didn't take long to eat such a meal. It went down due to necessity alone.

  Nine o'clock came and went. The Duty Second came down maybe fifteen, twenty minutes later and told me exercise time had been cancelled. Mr. West had decided on a cell search instead.

  Duty Second should never have told me. Duty Second would have gotten his ass kicked if Mr. West knew. To tell me was to give me warning, and though I didn't carry drugs or a knife or anything else, I did carry a small wooden moth. Not exactly dangerous contraband, but Mr. West was a man who would have taken his time breaking it to pieces and kicking it out into the corridor. He would have done such a thing for the revs, no other reason, and he would have gone home later and jerked off about how excited he'd been.

  Though I had seen him many times, though he had spoken to me on many occasions, I found it impossible to find the least understanding of Mr. West's passionate desire for cruelty. He was a precise and systematic thug, a vicious and uncompromising sadist, and I wondered what could have driven a child to become such a man. From what he'd said, his father had been killed, murdered by blacks someplace, but I knew West well enough to be convinced that West was merely a reflection of his father. I had no doubt that his father had been killed by people defending themselves, and perhaps he thought that all men were responsible for how his own life had been. Thus his life had become a means by which he could exact revenge, and what better place to do that than the Federal Detention system? What better place to find victims who were incapable of fighting back, men who had long since given up all hope of reprieve, who were already beaten and broken and cowed? He was singular in his predilection for ridicule and abuse, exacting in his demands for subservience, and with every word that passed his lips he would find a target. This was his life, this was who he was, and he took the greatest pleasure in practising until perfection was achieved.

  I didn't see Mr. West until after my cell had been searched. I was given clearance without any question. The moth I'd held in my hand the whole time. They didn't look at my hands. They felt along the cuffs of my pants, around my waistband, they checked inside my shoes, the collar of my shirt, but they didn't check my hands. Figured perhaps that anyone stupid enough to actually hold something during a cell search was ballsy enough to get away with it.

  And I did.

  After they'd gone I lay on my bed and slept for an hour or so.

  Father Rousseau would come later, mid-afternoon, and between now and lunch there wasn't anything to interest me.

  Lunch came and went, another revolving evolution of three men in, three men out, and by the time the meal was over it was close to 2.30 p.m.

  Rousseau would be here within the hour. I wanted him to come. I needed him to come. He'd told me he'd read the trial records, that he'd come away with the feeling that I'd never fought back. He was right. I went down, and I went down easy. They weighted evidence against me. I even gave them a confession, a bullshit confession granted, but good enough to get me here.

  But Rousseau was right about my not fighting back. And now? Now, for the first time in more than ten years I was angered by what had happened. Talking about these events had made me resentful and bitter, and though getting angry about facing execution less than a month before the due date was kind of pointless, it nevertheless felt right to be so.

  I was going to die. Least I could do was tell people how pissed off I was about it.

  Why had I not fought back? Why had I let the law graduates and pro bono paralegals come and go? People had read of my case. People had gotten all righteous about the injustice, the extent of circumstantial evidence, and they had come down here determined to get me out. I had answered their questions, perhaps not to the degree that I had responded to Father John Rousseau, but answering at all had been a formality. As if I hadn't wanted the distraction. As if I was so tired of all the bullshit I just wanted to wait it out. Wait until the lights went down for good.

  Maybe I would have felt like this whether Father John had appeared or not. Maybe it was the fact that I had a date. Now it was real. Now it was going to happen for sure. I didn't know. Would never know. Couldn't go backwards…

  'Ford?'

  I opened my eyes, turned onto my side.

  Duty Second stood in the corridor. 'Father John's here, time to go confess.' I sat up, rose to my feet.

  The Duty Second hollered down the corridor. The buzzer went, the door slid back and clanged against its frame.

  Duty Second came in and put the belt around my waist, cuffed my hands to the belt, shackled my ankles together. He walked me out, hollered again for the door to be closed, and together we went down the corridor to God's Lounge.

  Rousseau looked tired, dog-tired.

  He was already smoking, already had a cup of coffee in front of him on the table when I entered the room.

  Duty Second un-cuffed my wrists, removed the belt, unhooked my ankles and took the hardware away. I sat down.

  Best part of twenty-four hours had passed since I'd last sat here. Seemed like five minutes. I wondered if the next twenty-something days would go this fast. 'How you doing?' Father John asked. 'As good as.' 'You sleep okay?'

  I smiled. 'Better than you it seems.' He smiled back. 'Lot of work to do.' 'Lot of souls to save, right?' 'Right.'

  'You got a new tape in?' Father John frowned.

  'In the video through there,' I said, indicating the one-way window. 'Sure, yes, a new tape.' 'Where do the tapes go?'

  Father John shrugged his shoulders. 'Christ only knows.' I leaned back, slightly surprised. 'Christ only knows? That's a little blasphemous isn't it?' 'Well he probably does know… I sure as shit don't.'

  'Maybe you should go sleep a couple of hours and come back later,' I suggested.

  Father John shook his head. 'I'm okay. I'm fine. Let's just pick up where we left off yesterday, okay?'

  I nodded. 'Okay.'

  I walked back from Eve Chantry's house. I took the path where I'd seen the deer watching me before. I remembered the moment vividly. The emotion I'd felt back then was the emotion I felt now: insignificance.

  I didn't know what to say to Nathan. Or to Linny.

  Hell, you know what, guys? A couple of heavies came down and saw me at Eve Chantry's place. Said as how Linny's daddy didn't like his little girl hangin' round with no niggers. They said as how I should pass that message onto you guys loud and clear, so you ge
t the point an' all. Whaddaya figure huh? Ain't some folk prejudiced or what?

  I thought not.

  I decided I would speak to Nathan alone. Speak to him after Linny had gone. He would perhaps understand the situation better than she. After all, he'd been there in Florida, in Panama City. He'd been there when someone had taken such offense at his pool-playing they'd kicked the crap out of the pair of us.

  I reached home within ten, maybe fifteen minutes. I stood at the end of the path and looked up at the house. The house of my childhood.

  Even as I entered I knew there was a situation. I sensed it, couldn't tell how, but I sensed it.

  I heard them before I reached the end of the hallway.

  The door to the front room was slightly open, and peering through the gap between the edge of the door and the frame I could see movement on the floor behind the chair.

  She came up then, Linny Goldbourne, and from where I stood I saw the upper half of her naked torso, her head thrown back, her eyes closed, a sound escaping from her open lips like an animal.

  Stepping forward a foot or so I could see over the chair.

  Nathan was on his back on the floor, she was straddling his waist, and as I looked his hands came up and enclosed her breasts.

  Such big hands. Hands big enough to floor Marty Hooper, sensitive enough to fold an origami bird in Benny's Soda Shop.

  Now they were hanging onto Linny Goldbourne like she'd levitate if he let go.

  Her back arched, she continued to moan, and then she was moving back and forth, her hips rotating like a carousel at the County Fair.

  All aboard!

  I stepped back.

  I felt the color rise in my face, my cheeks burning with embarrassment, with rage, most of all with jealousy. I felt hatred - real hatred - rising inside me like a wave, a gagging, spinning tortuous wave of something I could barely contain. I stepped back, almost lost my footing, and when I regained my balance I felt the stinging anguish of tears flood my eyes. My throat was tight, constricted, my breathing short and sharp, and when I stepped closer to the door once more my mind was filled with something dark that could have killed them both.

  I pressed my face against the cool surface of the woodwork.

  I could hear them - every word, every sound, every labored panting breath - and I wanted to burst in there, wanted them to know, to really know, to really understand, what their complicity and betrayal had done to me.

  I wanted them to hurt like I was hurting.

  I really wanted them to hurt.

  I leaned forward one more time as Nathan came upwards and closed his mouth around one of her nipples.

  She screamed and started laughing.

  'Don't bite!' she hollered. 'Ow, ow, ow, you fucking animal!'

  Nathan was laughing too then, and suddenly she lifted herself free of him, pushed his shoulders back and her head disappeared towards his stomach, lower to his groin.

  Nathan moaned.

  I stepped back. I imagined my fist driving through his face like a jackhammer. I pictured my knuckles whitening as my hands stretched around her throat and choked every last cheating breath from her lungs.

  I wanted to scream, to burst open with rage and take both of them with me.

  I knew, I knew then, that if I didn't leave I could not contain myself; that if I didn't run from the house, I would do something that I could only ever regret.

  I grabbed the handle and slammed the door shut.

  And then I ran.

  'They must have heard you.'

  'Sure they must have heard me. I wanted them to hear me.'

  Father John nodded. 'You wanted them to know you were there.'

  'Yes, I wanted them to know that I was there, that I was angry, that it was all well and good they were gonna fuck each other, but for Christ's sake, in my front room, on my carpet… Jesus!'

  I looked at Father John. 'Sorry,' I said.

  He waved his hand. 'No problem.'

  He paused to light a cigarette.

  'And that's why you never said anything to Nathan about the men who came to Eve Chantry's house?'

  'Yes.'

  'Because you were pissed off with him and Linny?'

  'Yes.' 'How d'you feel about that now?'

  I paused, looked away for a moment. 'I think that whether I'd told them or not it wouldn't have changed a great deal in the end.'

  'But they were unable to make a choice for themselves,' Father John said.

  'That's right, but you'd have to understand a little of Nathan and something of Linny Goldbourne to understand that they more than likely would have ignored the whole thing.'

  'Or thought you'd made it up?'

  I frowned. 'Why would I have made it up?'

  'Jealousy,' Father John said. 'They could perhaps have read it as jealousy, that you wanted to see them split up because you wanted her for yourself.'

  'Could have,' I said. 'That wasn't the case… I was pissed off with them, more with Nathan than Linny, and once she'd left it seemed less important…'

  'So where d'you go then?'

  'Walked around,' I said. 'Walked back the way I'd come, turned around and went to the other side of town. Went to Benny's, had a soda, settled down. I was sure as hell angry for a while, just a while… and then I calmed down and went back.'

  'And when you got back?'

  'When I got back she'd gone.'

  And Nathan was standing in the kitchen drinking a cup of coffee. He nodded as I walked into the room. He could tell I'd left in anger. I waited for him to say something, got the feeling he didn't know what to say, and so I said something first.

  'It's okay,' I said. 'I was mad, and now I'm not.'

  He seemed relieved. 'Hell, Danny, if I'd known you were coming back… well, if I'd known you were coming back we wouldn't -'

  'It's okay,' I said. 'It's gone.'

  And what I wanted to say was well, friend, I got her for a month, and now you're gonna get her for a month if past experience is anything to go by. But I didn't. I shut my bad mouth, kept my thoughts to myself. 'You want some coffee?' Nathan asked me. 'Sure,' I said, and I sat down.

  'And you didn't speak of it again?' Father John asked.

  'No, we didn't speak of it again. Hell, it was Christmas Eve. We relaxed, we had a drink and a smoke. I think we even played cards or something.'

  'And when did you see her again?'

  'Not until after Christmas, a couple of days after Christmas.'

  'And that was the last day you would see her?'

  I nodded. 'Right, the last day.'

  Father John leaned back in his chair and sighed resignedly. 'Hell of a thing, Danny,' he said. I smiled. 'Hell of a thing, Father John.'

  * * *

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Christmas Day came and went.

  Linny, presumably with her parents that day, didn't come down. We didn't see her until the 27th, and by then I had spent enough time with Nathan for our friendship to have resurfaced.

  Christmas Day itself we ate hot dogs, relish and sweet- corn. We drank red wine, three bottles between us. We talked of things we hadn't spoken of for years, things like Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and though we discussed these monumental events the war was never mentioned. It never even crossed my mind, and though I cannot speak for Nathan, I believe I knew him well enough to have known if he carried some unspoken thought. There was no such perception.

  We were relaxed, at one with the world it seemed, and when I fell asleep across the chair with the radio playing Tony Bennett out of someplace in Virginia, Nathan left me there. He knew I would have wanted to be left.

  The day after Christmas I visited my mother's grave. I knelt there for some time, in my hand some flowers, and though I tried with everything I could to feel some deep sense of loss, I didn't. The guilt I had experienced when I'd heard of her death had gone. I had faced the fact that I had not been there, and wish though I might, I couldn't turn time backwards. She was gone, much the same as my f
ather, as Linny - if not in person then surely in spirit - and then there was Caroline. For some reason my attention turned increasingly to her, and the more I remembered what we had shared the more important it became.