by Liza Palmer
“Yes,” I say, my eyes darting back and forth from the unmarked metal door to Shawn.
“I need you to never come over here to this side. I made that promise to Dee when she found out you took the job. So, we clear?” Shawn asks, his eyes boring into mine.
“Yes, sir,” I say, falling into line just like the rest of the crew. I refocus on Shawn and the task at hand and try to leave Yvonne Chapman in that far, faraway prison where she belongs.
“Good. Now come on,” he says, walking toward the kitchen and away from that unmarked metal door. Shawn swipes his key card and we walk into a makeshift dining area and the kitchen just beyond. It looks like any other cafeteria and kitchen. The kitchen is immaculate, I can smell the cleaning products from where I’m standing. Crisp lines of cabinets over slick white floors. There are high, barred windows that light shines through, but are frosted to make anything blurry just beyond. I walk through the kitchen testing and inventorying what it has to offer. A workable cooktop, a nice-size walk-in, and plenty of preparation areas. I set the brisket, still in its foil, down on one of the counters. I’ll reheat it (something I do, but other Texans swear against) and slice it about five minutes before everyone sits down. No passion, my ass.
“What’s through here?” I ask, pointing to a door.
“Our parking lot.” Shawn walks over, swipes his key card, and opens the door for me. Lot B. As in boy. Not D. Not D. Shawn closes the door and continues, “All right, then. I hear you’re cooking supper for us today,” Shawn says, leaning up against one of the metal counters.
“Yes, sir,” I say, poking around in the kitchen some more. Tons of space in the pantry, work stations for the infamous Dent boys.
“Well, that just made my day,” Shawn says, a smile breaking across his face.
“Mine, too,” I say.
“Jace is going to bring in the Dent boys for you. One of the guards will always be in the kitchen with you. So you don’t need to worry about that. They’re harmless anyway. They’re getting out in less than a year, so they’ve got no call to act out,” Shawn says, scanning the kitchen.
“Good . . . good,” I say, my mind mercifully busy. No time to think about yesterday. No time to mourn Everett. No time to fantasize about finding him and repeating yesterday over and over again. No. I have a meal to plan and the Dent boys to meet.
I hear the kitchen door click and Jace and LaRue walk through with two men just between them.
Guards. Guns. Convicts. Shackles.
Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore.
“These are them,” Jace says, ambling over to Shawn and motioning to the two men. LaRue stands at attention behind the men. The older man is balding and slight. His rangy frame swimming in the all-white uniforms the convicts wear. The other man is basically a younger version of his father. He’s taller and his head of hair is definitely on its way to going bald. They look like a couple of guys you’d see anywhere and not think twice about. If not for the shackles and chains, they’d look like a couple of hospital orderlies coming in to check on your bedpan. But I know better.
“All right, boys. This is your new work assignment. This here is Ms. Wake. She’s from up in Hill Country—North Star. She’s going to be cooking our last meals. Ms. Wake, this here is Harlan and Cody Dent,” Shawn says, presenting me to the two men. The men don’t make eye contact and nod their greetings. I nod back, not knowing exactly how to communicate with them. I don’t want to get them in any kind of trouble or, for that matter, get me into any kind of trouble.
“Harlan here worked at diners all his life and works in the prison kitchen when he’s not assigned here,” Shawn says.
“Cody here bartended, so if you need some limes cut up, he’s your guy,” Jace adds. Shawn shoots him a look and Jace immediately recoils.
“May I?” I ask Shawn, motioning to see if I can approach the Dent boys. He nods. I walk up to the father, Harlan, “Would you mind answering some questions?” I ask, looking from Harlan to Cody.
They look to Shawn, he gives them the okay, and they nod.
“Mr. Dent—Harlan—what kind of diners did you work in?” I ask, not getting too close.
“I was a short-order cook mostly, ma’am,” Harlan says, finally making eye contact. His eyes are a hollowed-out, dark blue. His skin is wan and he just looks tired.
“That’s good. What’s your specialty?” I ask.
“I can cook anything and cook it fast,” he says, his chin rising just a bit.
“I bet you can,” I say. Short-order cooks are masterful. To watch one of them in their element is to watch a genius at work.
“And you? Cody?” I ask, my voice strong and level.
“I didn’t do much of nothing, but I did hold down a job at a couple of bars,” Cody says.
“Before he robbed ’em,” Jace says. Shawn shoots him another look. Jace recoils again. Cody tenses and deflates.
“Okay, we can work with that,” I say.
“Yes, ma’am,” Cody says, still averting his eyes.
“Now, boys, I’m going to need you to clean this kitchen while Ms. Wake meets with Warden Dale and goes out and gets what she needs for supper,” Shawn says as LaRue and Jace bring out cleaning supplies and mop buckets. How much cleaner can this kitchen get?
“Yes, sir,” the Dent boys say together.
“Come on with me now,” Shawn says to me. I follow him back through the kitchen and out into the main room, past the unmarked door of horrors.
“They’ll be perfect for you. A kitchen assignment, especially in the Death House, is a real plum. They won’t want to mess it up,” Shawn says as we walk outside in the purgatory between high prison walls and barbed-wire fencing. The heat beats down on us as we walk back into the prison.
“I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed,” I admit as we walk down the Hall of Echoes.
“Yeah, that happens,” Shawn says, his voice strong and sure.
“Are they going to be in shackles the entire time?” I ask, trying to get my bearings, to hold on to some normality about this new setup.
“No, they won’t need to be, although that has been done in the past,” Shawn says.
“How do they do anything?”
“Slowly and without killing anybody,” Shawn says, leading me into Juanita’s office. I just nod. Shawn continues, “But Jace’ll be in there with you, so it don’t matter.”
“Warden Dale is ready for you,” Juanita says, thanking Shawn. He says his quick good-byes and leaves us.
I walk through to Warden Dale’s office still in a daze, exuding a false sense of first-day bravado. I notice we’re not alone.
“Queen Elizabeth Wake, I’d like to introduce you to Professor Hudson Bishop.” Warden Dale is practically bursting his buttons with pride at this professor person. I extend my hand to him. He takes it and smiles as we shake hands.
He’s clearly not from here.
“Queenie, and it’s nice to meet you,” I say as Warden Dale motions for me to sit.
“And you,” Hudson says. He’s the sort of man whose appearance you don’t have time to inventory because you’re too busy trying to assess whether you should dive in or run for your life. Someone other than himself cuts his thick, black hair, and it’s not the ancient barber in town who believes the only options are: (1) going into the military, or (2) just getting out of the military. Eyebrows that are naturally and quite dangerously shaped into a roguish arch set off his piercing blue eyes. His entire wolfish bearing was born to tempt. He exudes a confidence bordering on arrogance. I immediately feel out of my depth.
Once again, Professor Hudson Bishop is not from ’round here.
“Hudson here is a professor over at UT,” Warden Dale says, walking over to the drinks cart. It’s ten AM.
“I hear you’re an alum,” Hudson says, taking a glass of bourbon from Warden Dale. He continues, “Thank you, sir.” Warden Dale nods and walks back over to the drinks cart.
“Hook ’em horns,” I say, extending my p
inky and index finger as if miming my very own shadow puppet. This man has turned me into an idiot.
“Hudson is writing a paper on death,” Warden Dale says, handing me a glass of bourbon. He walks back over to the drinks cart.
“It’s more about how knowing you’re going to die—whether it’s terminal patients or the men and women of death row—affects the human brain,” Hudson says, lazily swirling his bourbon around in the glass.
“I imagine not well,” I say. Warden Dale pours himself a glass and stands behind his desk.
“You’d be surprised,” Hudson says, with a quick smile.
“To the great state of Texas,” Warden Dale says, raising a glass.
“To the great state of Texas,” Hudson and I repeat in unison.
We drink.
“Where are you from originally?” I ask, holding my now empty glass.
“Is it that obvious?” Hudson laughs, holding his now empty glass. I’m impressed.
“I’m afraid so,” I say.
“Santa Barbara, California,” Hudson says.
“It’s beautiful there,” I say.
“Definitely,” Hudson says.
“Well, we’ve got some business to attend to, Professor Bishop, so I will see you at the end of the day,” Warden Dale says, standing and extending his hand to Hudson.
“Yes, sir,” Hudson says, standing.
“Are you coming to supper?” I ask, looking at both Warden Dale and Hudson.
“Supper?” Hudson asks, clearly thinking the word “supper” is adorable. He and Warden Dale are both standing and I feel awkward that I’m the only one sitting. Should I stand? Do I stand? Wouldn’t that be even weirder? And shall I stand, hand held aloft, while I proclaim that you will dine with me?
“Oh sure. That’s a great idea. It’ll be a good opportunity for Hudson here to talk to the guards. We’ll both join you,” Warden Dale says.
“I’m thinking five thirty?” I ask. Warden Dale nods.
“I’ll be there. Pleasure meeting you, Queenie,” Hudson says, excusing himself from Warden Dale’s office. Warden Dale takes my empty glass and walks over to the drinks cart with it. He does not refill it. He walks behind his desk and sits.
“Professor Bishop is one of my pet projects, Ms. Wake. It’s just another example of how, as a leader, I am also a futurist,” Warden Dale says.
“Yes, sir.” I breathe deeply, trying to keep from laughing. I vow to use the word “futurist” at least ten times a day from now on.
“Here is your budget and a schedule of the upcoming executions,” Warden Dale says, handing me two sheets of paper stapled to each other. I am jerked out of my concealed hysterics and reach for the pieces of paper. Please don’t let it be a list of names. Please don’t let it be a list of names. I scan the first sheet. The budget is not extravagant, but definitely something I can work with. Warden Dale has outlined how I will be paid. I will be paid hourly and will be expected to work the full day preparing the last meal. That sounds workable.
I gather myself and flip the sheet of paper over to look at the list. I exhale. It’s not names, but dates. The first couple of entries at the beginning have an order, as well. Fried chicken, potato salad, tamales, tacos al pastor, fried pies, and homemade biscuits abound. As I scan what I’m being asked to prepare, I find myself getting excited. In just a few weeks, I’ve gone from being midguidedly passionate about some pasty tourist putting ketchup on tasteless eggs to trying to remember where Momma put all those old family recipes. After only wanting Texas in my rearview, I’m now chomping at the bit to dig into five generations of North Star dirt for inspiration. Whatever I think of North Star and the past I thought I left here, this food has always been what comforted me. It made me feel as if I belonged somewhere. It’s where home was, especially when we had no home.
But then this darkness clouds over it all. Who I’m cooking for, when they’re going to eat it. Where I am. I need to stay in the kitchen—mentally and physically. I will get my order and cook it to the best of my ability. I’ll know that someone who really needs a little bit of comfort is receiving it. It’s not for me to judge what they’ve done to land here. I can’t get caught up in their crimes, the victims, and the victims’ families—like Shawn said, this is the law, this is my job, so I will do it with integrity. I know this feels like a cop-out, like a child pressing her hands to her ears and screaming at the top of her lungs so she doesn’t have to listen. And maybe there’s some of that simply because I can’t face the magnitude of what happens within these Death House walls.
It’s not as if I haven’t experienced violence in the past. I’ve been part of one of those victim’s families that were visited by police reciting their robotic apologies at “my loss.” It somehow seems fitting that I’m here. A part of this violent world again. As long as Mom was around, there were police in our lives: the sheriff driving her home when she’d had too much to drink, barroom brawls, jealous wives vandalizing our possessions (what little we had). The red and blue flashing lights outside our windows became less and less of an event and more and more of a common occurrence.
I was just sixteen when Momma was murdered. She was beautiful. Flaming red hair, big boobs, and porcelain skin like you couldn’t believe. She had clear blue eyes that seemed mysterious and compelling. People couldn’t help but stare at her as she swayed her curves to and fro down North Star’s streets. Merry Carole’s figure was clearly inherited. But Momma was someone I stopped trying to figure out long before she died. Those blue eyes that were so intoxicating to me as a child weren’t mysterious at all. They were cruel and heartless. People were either stepping stones or obstacles, and that included her kids. Love wasn’t something she was even capable of. It was an act she put on so a man would think she was the marrying kind, only to tell us to wait at the Dairy Queen while “she had company.” Most times, the manager at the Dairy Queen would have to call Fawn or Yvonne Chapman when Momma didn’t come for us. They’d come get us and we’d spend the night at their house, sharing a guest bed or curled up on the couch. Momma wouldn’t come for us for days.
I’m sure there’s scar tissue and buttons being pushed all through the rubble of what my life has become. But for me it was always clear: my family was Merry Carole and now Cal, too. And when I couldn’t turn to Merry Carole, I had Everett. I also had Dee. Mom was someone we carried to bed, filled in for at the burger shack, and apologized for every day of our lives.
But that day.
The day the principal walked into my classroom, whispered in the teacher’s ear, and motioned for me to follow him without so much as a smile is burned into my brain. I remember following him down the hallway and trying to inventory what I’d done wrong. I was sixteen. I thought, maybe they figured out I’d been forging Momma’s signature on all my permission slips. Maybe Everett’s parents had found out about us and we were going to be disciplined for that. But what would we be “charged with”? I had the tiniest of fears that something had happened to Merry Carole and the baby. She was pretty far along with Cal at that point and things had gotten almost unbearable for her at school. It was Laurel and Piggy Peggy’s mission to make Merry Carole’s life as excruciating as possible. Of course, Whitney was pregnant and shipped off to her grandparents in Houston at that point anyway, so . . . hindsight and all that. It never occurred to me that it was about Mom. Her domain was in the outside world and she rarely infected my school life. That was about to change.
I remember walking into the front office and seeing Merry Carole there. She was sobbing and inconsolable. I ran to her, crouching in front of her, pleading with her to tell me what was wrong. Please. What’s going on? I remember saying.
“Mom’s dead,” Merry Carole said, through sobs. It made total sense and no sense at all. I remember taking a deep breath and thinking, there it is. The news I’ve been waiting to hear for years.
“How?” I asked, not a tear falling from my eyes. I remember being eerily calm.
“Yvonne fuckin
g Chapman shot her!” Merry Carole screamed. Merry Carole rarely swore, and I kind of loved that she screamed the F word right in the front office. It was freeing and wonderful. And no one could reprimand her for it. It was just going to be another trashy thing we Wakes did instead of behaving like “proper folks.”
“Yvonne Chapman? But where . . . where are we going to live now?” I asked, unable to process Mom’s death, so I reached for the next big issue: shelter. Merry Carole was only becoming more hysterical. I pushed my fears aside and focused on calming her down. She was too worked up. She was going to lose control, if she hadn’t already. Her crying had escalated into hysterics and she was struggling to breathe.
“Yeah! Her best friend whose husband Mom was fucking,” Merry Carole said, her voice cracking and breaking as it shrieked through the school.
“Okay, now . . . if we can just take this into a more private place,” the principal interrupted.
“Eat shit,” I said, my head whipping around at the man who seemed to be annoyed by how two girls were handling their only parent’s death. I remember hating that I hadn’t said something more cutting and brilliant in the heat of the moment. But I was sixteen, and despite wanting to be a grown-up, I wasn’t. And I’d just learned that my mom had died.