“Am I doing the wrong thing? Is that what you’re saying?” She looked from side to side anxiously, her jittery movements out of her control.
Dot grabbed Ginny’s hand and sat her down firmly on a kitchen chair. Sitting directly across, she looked Ginny in the eyes. “I’m worried about you, child. You’ve worked yourself up good. Maybe I should bring the food over.”
“No, it’s my job.” The words echoed off the walls like the wails of a screaming two-year-old. The shrillness probably just worried Dot more. Ginny breathed and exhaled slowly, counting to ten to calm herself.
She never seriously thought of relinquishing this duty. Dot wouldn’t want to stay for the actual execution, or take down Samuel’s exact last words, which Ginny promised to share with Aida and Eileen.
“I’ll be all right, Dot. Hand me my apron.”
“I won’t,” she said. “Something horrible has gripped you. I always thought these meals were a poor idea, but now I’m certain of it. You’re the last person who should be messing with the death boys.”
Ginny grabbed the red gingham apron from the pantry doorknob herself and cinched it tightly around her waist.
“Here,” Dot said, handing her the photo of Samuel’s son that had been lying on the countertop. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
Ginny put the photo in her apron pocket and picked up the crate. It felt solid in her hands. Everything else in that moment, though, seemed amorphous. What used to be a straightforward process felt like a dark hallway filled with unnamed perils.
“Open the door for me, Dot. I need to be going.” She straightened her shoulders and drew in a deep breath.
* * *
Death row prisoners took their meals two hours before the execution and well before the execution room began to fill up with guards or press or family members. Ginny appreciated not having an audience when delivering the food. Victims’ families objected vehemently to those final gestures of compassion, and she really couldn’t blame them. Ginny knew firsthand the pain of having someone you loved murdered.
The walk never seemed so long as it did today. Her hip bones ached from the heavy crate. The tea and lemonade sloshed about, but never crested, because she’d only filled the glasses two-thirds full. Several executions ago, Roscoe had asked why she just didn’t drive. She found it impossible to explain that walking was her way of honoring the gravity of the day.
John saw her coming and rushed to take the crate off her hands.
A thousand pins and needles covered her skin. She shook out her arms to bring back some feeling into them.
“This smells mighty fine, Ginny. You bringing us leftovers tomorrow, right?”
“I always do.” She followed him through the execution chamber and into the corner room. Her forehead beaded with feverish perspiration.
“I’ll get Sam,” John said. “He’s with Roscoe.”
He placed the tray on the table. Ginny stood a few steps away, wringing her hands, which still felt prickly. The photo of Samuel’s son lay heavy in her pocket. She considered the best time to give him the news. While he was eating? Right before the execution? Roscoe’s words came back to her. Perhaps it was more cruel to tell Samuel about a boy he’d never see grow into a man, a boy who’d probably be ashamed his father was a murderer.
The creak of the metal door to the execution room startled her. Dot entered with a shopping bag in her arms.
“What are you doing here?” Ginny paled at her friend’s appearance.
“I thought you could use the help.”
“I told you this was my job.”
“Please, Ginny.” Dot’s worry sucked the air from the room. Her presence there was more than just a desire to be helpful. She was frightened about something.
Ginny turned her attention to the shopping bag in Dot’s arms. A box of cornflakes and a bottle of milk peeked out of the top.
“You told me I was doing the right thing!” Pain gripped her temples and pounded behind her eyes. The floor became less solid, wavy, and unsure like a carnival funhouse.
“What does it hurt to give him a choice?” Dot asked.
Before Ginny could protest further, the door to the cellblock opened. Roscoe led the way, his hand clasped around Samuel’s upper arm. The top of Samuel’s head had been shaved, revealing enough bare skin for electricity to be conducted properly. It gave him a clownish appearance, intensified by the redness in his cheeks and nose.
Both warden and inmate stopped abruptly, eyeing the tray and then Ginny at the same time. Roscoe’s eyes shone with defeat while Samuel’s held disbelief, then condemnation. The disappointment of both men hung in the air.
“What have you done?” Roscoe asked. The words, although soft and resigned, slammed into her as if they were shouts.
Samuel wrenched his arm from Roscoe’s grasp and ran straight at the table. Hooking his shoulder under the table’s edge, he lifted it like a football linebacker lifting an opponent. The table hit Ginny square in the belly, sending the tray and its contents down her body before shattering on the floor. The hot stew and ice-cold lemonade created an odd sensation as they soaked her apron and dress.
She didn’t move, even when it looked like Samuel was rushing directly at her. But she wasn’t his target anymore. He dove at the floor near her feet instead. Picking up a large shard of the broken mixing bowl, he stabbed viciously at his neck, looking at her all the while. Roscoe and John lunged for him, slipping on the stew and lemonade and blood that slicked the floor. Samuel’s movements slowed as the blood rushed out of him. His eyes no longer focused on Ginny but on some distant place beyond the room they occupied.
The three men were joined in a horrific wrestling match, their clothing absorbing the copious amounts of blood Samuel was losing. Ginny groped at the wall behind her as if digging through the cinderblock was her only escape.
“Dorothy, get her out of here. Now, Dot!”
Roscoe’s voice had an underwater quality, muted and protracted. Ginny became a rag doll in Dot’s arms. The large woman supported most of Ginny’s weight while her feet dragged behind, almost useless. Darkness overtook her before they even left the building.
* * *
“Lift your arms, Ginny. We got to get you outta this dress.”
She ignored Dot’s instructions and slumped against the mattress. Dot had gotten her across the prison yard and into her room, but Ginny didn’t remember the journey. All she wanted was sleep.
Dot yanked at the wet clothing covering Ginny’s unresponsive muscles. She turned to the desk, rifling through the drawer until she found a pair of scissors.
“Hold still,” Dot said. Carefully, she cut away the dress and apron.
“The photo,” Ginny mumbled and pointed to the floor. “The photo.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Samuel’s son. My apron.”
Dot knelt and searched the strips of cloth. She withdrew the photo Eileen had given Ginny, looking at it only for a second before swiping it across her dress. The stew had soaked through the apron, reaching the photo hidden in the pocket.
Dot set the warped photo against the lamp on the nightstand and pulled the bedspread over Ginny’s shoulders.
“You get some sleep. I’ll just be in the next room if you need me.”
She lingered for a moment, then closed the door quietly. Ginny stared at Thaddeus’s tiny, smiling face until it melted beyond recognition.
Chapter 8
Ginny’s life became long periods of stillness punctuated by occasional activity like going to the bathroom, sipping broth, or eating toast. Roscoe, Dot, and her mother came and went, but she lay in bed with her back to them, eyes and heart closed.
Miriam had been by almost every day since the incident with Samuel. Incident was her mother’s word, not Ginny’s.
It’s been a week since the incident, Ginny. You need to get up.
It’s been two weeks since the incident. Act like an adult.
It’s be
en a month since the incident. Are you going to stay in bed forever?
Ginny had not been able to sit with what happened long enough to name it. Awful images would flit across her consciousness and she’d sit bolt upright, as if from a nightmare. Then her mind would mercifully push them to a place where they held less power.
Some days her mother didn’t speak. Only Miriam’s perfume told Ginny it was her and not Dot who swiped a cool washcloth across her forehead or stroked her back through the blanket. Today, her mother’s voice rose and fell in the hallway in a familiar exchange.
“You should’ve known something like this would happen. Her foolishness has gone on long enough.”
“What do you want me to say, Miriam? How in the living hell would I know Sam would react the way he did?”
“You’re the warden. You could’ve stopped her ages ago.”
Roscoe’s voice dipped lower, sparing Ginny the rest of the conversation. In the past week, he’d become increasingly angry at her mama’s accusations. Some were as ludicrous as saying Roscoe seduced her all those years ago and she had no choice but to remain working at the prison “under his spell.” Or that their relationship had sickened her mind because she was essentially sleeping with her father every time she slept with someone as old as Roscoe. Or that Ginny’s insanity would surely rub off on Roscoe, bringing heartache upon them both.
The door opened and closed. Not Mama this time. The smell was yeasty and fresh, as if someone just opened an oven door.
“You’re going to eat today or we’re going to have ourselves a proper fight,” Dot said. “With the weight you lost, no way you’d win.”
Her large hands grabbed Ginny’s shoulder and forcibly turned her. Then Dot pulled her to a sitting position and pointed a finger. “You stay put.”
Dot dragged the desk closer to the bed. On it was the basket she’d brought. Its contents included a loaf of piping-hot bread wrapped in a dish towel, a small plate and knife, a stick of butter, and a jar of jam. She moved the desk chair over and sliced a thick hunk of bread.
“You always clamoring for the end piece. Here. It’s yours. Eat it,” Dot demanded.
Ginny’s hands rested limply in her lap. She stared at the items but couldn’t look in Dot’s face. Her friend’s eyes were sure to show the searing disappointment so apparent in her tone.
“Fine.” Dot pulled the knife across the stick of butter and slathered the bread. She thrust the slice in Ginny’s face. “Now eat it.”
Dot looked full of anger and exasperation at her unwillingness to cooperate. Ginny had been mute for more than a month. Nothing she could say would make any difference, so she shook her head no.
Lightning-fast, Dot smashed the butter-laden bread into her face and ground it with her palm until Ginny sputtered in protest.
“Goddammit, girl. It’s time to end this foolishness. That man of yours is heartsick, beside himself because he can’t help you. Your crazy mama is stepping on our last nerves. And I need you back in the kitchen. I need you, period.”
Dot’s chest heaved with the pain Ginny caused her. Every muscle in her face and neck tensed. Even her artery bulged with exertion.
“Do you even know what you mean to me?” Dot asked, breathless. “I would’ve left this place ages ago if it weren’t for you. This place makes a person hard, but you manage to make me smile almost every damn day. Now look at you. Where’s my Ginny gone to?”
Ginny wiped her face with the edge of the bedspread and brushed the bits of bread from her lap onto the floor. Tears stopped at the back of her throat, although she wanted them to escape in a deluge, filling the room until grief poured out the window and floated away for good.
“I ain’t going to come back until you pull yourself together,” Dot finally said.
At the sound of the door slamming, loud hiccups of air escaped from Ginny’s chest. She tore a piece of bread from the still-warm loaf and gouged the butter with it. The soft dough filled her mouth only for a second before she swallowed and stuffed in a second and third piece. Holding the jar near her lips, she used two fingers to scoop the preserves onto her tongue. Then she sucked the red, sticky fingers, catching her breath before attacking the rest of the loaf.
* * *
Night and day passed. The room was dank and stifling. Even with her face against the pillow, Ginny couldn’t escape it. Roscoe came that evening and carried her down the hall into the barracks’ shared bathroom, where he’d drawn a scalding-hot bath. He lowered her into the water, keeping a hand under one armpit so she wouldn’t drift below the surface. The rough nap of the washcloth traced every inch of her, causing the skin to prickle to life. Never had anyone touched her so gently. Her mama’s baths were rough and obligatory. After her daddy died, Miriam would just point at the tub and tell her she was grown enough to take her own baths and she better not slosh dirty water over the clean tile floor.
“Ginny, you got to come back to me.” Roscoe’s lips touched her ear as he spoke. “Put Sam behind you. It wasn’t your fault.”
She looked into his face for some sign he was telling the truth. How she wished his words could absolve her from the sins committed against Samuel, against Aida and Eileen.
A soft knock on the bathroom door preceded Dot’s muffled announcement she’d changed the sheets and that the bed was ready.
“Bring something to put on her, would you?” With one arm, Roscoe lifted Ginny from the tub like she weighed nothing at all. The other arm reached for a towel.
Dot entered without knocking and set the cotton gown on the toilet lid. “Girl, you’re bright red like a cherry. You got any skin left?”
Dot had lied earlier when she said she wasn’t coming back. Even when a person felt pushed beyond a breaking point, friendship had a fiercer tug on the heart. And Dot had a big one. Both of them loved Ginny without reservation, yet no matter how hard she tried, a dense fog still separated her from life.
Together, Dot and Roscoe worked to pull the nightgown over her still-damp body. They each took an arm, forcing her to walk the few steps back to her room. The window was open and a breeze had dispelled some of the stale air. The sheets, smelling of detergent and bleach, were crisp and slightly scratchy, as if they’d just come off the clothesline on a hot day. Ginny burrowed into the comforting scent.
Roscoe bent over and kissed her wet hair. “I’m ready for you to come back to me.”
* * *
Sometime during the night Ginny woke up and found herself sitting on the floor with a pair of scissors in her hand. Scattered around her were pieces of black scrapbook paper, newspaper clippings, notes written in her own hand. Her screaming woke Dot and drew her into Ginny’s room.
“What have I done? What have I done?” Ginny grasped at the triangular pieces, putting them together, hoping they’d form a whole picture, but none of the edges matched up.
Dot knelt down, tears marring her cheeks. “Thank God you’re ready to talk again.”
“Help me,” Ginny whispered. “Help me put it back together.”
* * *
Once Dot got over her shock, she insisted on making instant coffee using the hot plate she kept in her room. She said she couldn’t be expected to act civilized at 1 a.m. without something to fool her into thinking it was morning. Ginny gladly accepted Dot was in charge and waited for her instructions, keeping her eyes averted from the carnage she’d wrought while not in her right mind. What other reason could there be for such destructive behavior?
Dot set two cups of coffee and a sleeve of saltine crackers on the floor between them. “What happened here?”
“I don’t remember.” Ginny’s body shook so visibly Dot touched her arm to steady it.
“Well, it’s obviously some kind of memory book you’ve been working on,” she said.
“I know what it is. I just don’t know why I did this . . . and why I can’t remember doing it.”
“You’ve not been yourself these past weeks. Who knows what you were thinking.”
“This ain’t about you, girl. This about the dead men.”
Ginny nodded. The scrapbook didn’t hold photos from her childhood or newspaper clippings about her school honors or magazine articles about the movie stars she’d idolized as a teen. The pages were memorials to the men executed by the State of Louisiana. Sometimes she’d included their mug shots, arrest records, and bits from their official prison files. Sometimes there were newspaper articles from the trials. Every inmate’s section included the recipe of the dish he requested as his last supper and the words he uttered seconds before dying in the electric chair.
Thirteen men were black, four were white. Six were in their twenties, five were in their thirties, five were in their forties, and one was seventy-nine. They had committed crimes like murder, rape, and robbery in parishes across the state: Vermilion, St. Charles, East Feliciana, Madison, Orleans, Tangipahoa, St. Landry, Jefferson, Caddo, West Carroll, West Baton Rouge, Franklin.
Eight had kin present when they died.
Nine had asked for savory dishes, most times a favorite food prepared by their mama or grandma like pot roast or gumbo or greens. Three asked for breakfast food like eggs or biscuits with sausage gravy. Four asked for desserts they’d remembered having as children. One asked Ginny for hard butterscotch candies. As a child, he’d been caught stealing a handful from a drugstore counter and felt too ashamed to eat them after that. On his last day on earth, he couldn’t think of anything else he’d rather have.
“This ain’t right, Ginny.” Dot shook her head. “You holding on to these men like they is your own family.”
“It’s not like that.”
“What’s it like then, huh?”
Ginny touched the pieces of paper tentatively. “No one else was going to remember them.”
“And that’s how it should be,” Dot said. “They did terrible things. Things those victims’ families won’t never forget.”
The Last Suppers Page 10