by Ashley Smith
For a minute or two, I just zoned out on the couch and smoked my cigarette. My pocketbook was still sitting on the coffee table next to a chunky purple candle. Just to my left was the tan recliner that belonged to the guy from Augusta; and next to that, the door to the front porch. My keys were sitting out on Paige’s toy box. In the partially lit room, the TV was making shadows on the walls, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Brian shift a little where he was sitting.
“I wonder what my family’s thinking right now,” he said, still staring at the TV. “My mother—she’s probably watching this in Africa right now, going, ‘What’s he doing? That’s not my son.’ ”
I thought: “All right. He’s feeling alone. Totally alone. Like nobody can relate to him. So that means I’ve got to keep relating to him. I’ve got to keep talking straight to him like he’s a regular person with responsibilities, so he doesn’t flip out and want to go hurt himself or something.”
“I just—” he said, sitting up over his knees on the edge of the sofa and watching the screen, “I just can’t believe that’s me up there—on that TV.”
Okay. Here I go. Talking straight now. Talking to him like he’s a man. “Well, yeah,” I said, reaching over to the coffee table to ash my cigarette in the ashtray. “It is you. It’s you up there, Brian, and you’re gonna have to pay for what you did. You know that.”
I wasn’t feeling scared of him really—scared that he would hurt me for saying what I said. He hadn’t touched the guns since doing the drugs. They were still all spread out on the bathroom counter. And he was so calm—just shocked maybe—that, I don’t know, I just didn’t feel he wanted to hurt anybody else. At least not right then.
So I kept going. “You know, you have to take responsibility for your actions here. That’s what you have to do. I’ve had to take responsibility for my actions. I’ve made bad decisions, and I’ve had to face those. And now I’m learning to correct the bad decisions with good decisions.”
I was thinking about how much I hated that ride out to recovery with my mom. She had told me she wasn’t going to make me go. I’d been sleeping on her couch in Atlanta for ten days—sleeping eighteen hours a day trying to dry out. I didn’t need any help, I told her. I could dry out and get it together just fine by myself. I’d already gone without drugs for ten days.
Really, though, I was scared to death. John had just gotten busted in Augusta, and Aunt Kim would no longer let me see Paige. I had left town for Atlanta because I didn’t know what else to do. Lying on my mom’s couch all those days, I kept remembering the lights flashing on those police cars the night of the bust as I sat in John’s car in front of that house. The cops were rounding up people, and they said to me, “We know you’re pregnant. We know you’re going to rehab. Just get out of here. Just go.”
I was pregnant, all right. And I was doing ice like nuts then. I couldn’t even stop for my baby. Couldn’t even come close to stopping. I might have tried for a couple of days, but I didn’t try all that hard—I just went back to hot railing every several hours. And I knew I was really in trouble, really in deep with those drugs, because I wasn’t just destroying myself now. I was destroying my baby. All the time I would ask myself, “You can’t even stop for a life God’s given you, Ashley?” And the answer was no. I was so weak. Every time, the answer was no.
After the bust and those first few days of drying out in Atlanta, I learned that I had lost the baby; I miscarried at five weeks. And I was just wrecked over it. I knew it was my fault. Nothing but my own stupid, selfish, pathetic drug use had brought on that miscarriage. Facing that fact was just devastating. I mean, I couldn’t even stop for a child. Well, I was stopping now. I was scared to death. I was lying on my mom’s couch, and I was just going to sleep there as long as it took.
Finally, my mom said, “Look, Ashley, you’ve gotta go somewhere.” I was totally ticked off at her for saying that. Couldn’t she see I was doing this myself? I just wanted everybody to leave me alone and let me dry out.
But then she said, “You know, Aunt Kim’s never going to give Paige back if you don’t finish recovery.” So I had to think. I really had to think. Think about my choices. Think about the future. I had tried recovery programs twice already and failed to finish. Did I want Paige back or not? Did I want to be fit to be her mom? I had to think about those questions and be honest with myself. In the end I said, “Okay, fine. I failed those other times. I’ve gotta go to recovery. I have to finish. Fine.”
Brian was still staring at the TV, and I started talking again. God, just get him to listen to me here.
“It’s like what I learned in recovery,” I told him now, taking a long drag on my cigarette. “I had to face my failures and, you know, the mistakes I’d made and just quit hiding from them. Quit running. Quit wallowing in self-pity. I mean, nobody made me do those drugs up my nose. Nobody forced me. That was my decision. And I had to quit blaming other people. Quit blaming Mack for not listening to me. Just quit blaming everybody and own up. You know, take responsibility.”
Is he hearing me? I couldn’t tell. Maybe he was listening. Maybe he wasn’t. But I was going to keep on until I got through to this guy. I didn’t care if he wanted me to shut up or go crawl under a rock somewhere. This right here, this stuff I was telling him—I knew this was what he needed to hear. I knew what he needed to do. And I was starting to feel that it was my job to talk to him until he saw it. To just run my mouth, like Mack said, until he got it and really knew in his heart what to do and could make the right decision.
“I’ve had to correct my bad decisions with good decisions,” I said again, turning to face him. “That’s what I’m doing here trying to build a life for Paige. And that’s what you’ve got to do now, Brian. You’ve got to turn yourself in and pay for what you did. That’s a good decision. That’s the right thing to do. That’s what a real man would do. A real man would face up to his actions and step up and take responsibility.”
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t move. The TV was blaring, and I kept hearing his name while I was talking. “Brian Nichols.” I tried to ignore it and keep on.
“You know one thing that helps me sometimes is this verse—it’s on my screensaver. Philippians 4:13, ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.’ When I think about Paige and being a mother, it’s like I get scared to death of just failing and not making it. And I say that verse to myself, you know, to keep going. So maybe it might help you too.”
No response. Just the TV and the news anchor and the whole city wondering where Brian Nichols could be right now. Hello! He’s sitting on my couch watching you guys. In the apartment I just moved into. In the back section of this random apartment complex in Duluth. He’s not in Alabama. Not even close. I smoked and tried to tune it all out for a minute.
I was remembering being sent to the fence line at recovery. I’d broken the rules and said a few cuss words, and Miss Kate just let me have it. “You can go learn some humility,” she said. She was all about humility. “You go work over there by yourself, and you pull weeds.” I was taken off the pine forest crew and sent to the fence, where there were tons of weeds growing.
“This is so stupid,” I thought, yanking up the weeds. “I’m pulling weeds—how much humility is this? This isn’t bringing me any humility.” I was getting madder and madder, but I couldn’t leave that fence line. That whole “I don’t care about anything” attitude from the drugs wasn’t going to work here. If I got up from that fence, they would’ve sent me home in a heartbeat. And then I would’ve failed again. And I couldn’t do that. Because of Paige. I had to stay there with those weeds and get my humility and keep going so I could make it for her.
Suddenly, looking at Brian now, I thought, “I’m gonna ask him this question. Maybe if I ask it, he’ll start talking to me about what he did instead of sitting there looking like he could just blow his own head off. Maybe if he talks, he can start facing it and looking at his options and realize he’s got to stop now. Stop and own up.�
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I reached over and put out my cigarette in the ashtray. Then I put my hands in my lap and looked over at him. He was still leaning back. Still looking really low key. Really down. Maybe I shouldn’t do this. It might make him worse. But then I thought, “Yes. I’m asking, because he seems emotional right here. Like he’s feeling it. And I’ve got to get him to face his choices while he’s at least feeling something.” I’m going for it.
“So,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Why’d you do it?”
19
you’re not dead
Brian didn’t say anything. He didn’t move. He had laid his head back on the sofa, and he looked as if he was about to pass out.
I looked past him into the dining room. I didn’t know what to do with that mattress and box springs leaning against the wall. I wanted my mom to take them, but she didn’t have room.
“I deserve a bullet in the back,” he said suddenly, kind of mumbling it. His eyes were half-closed. He was still looking at the TV, or at least looking in that direction. But he really was just in this terrible funk. I’ve got to talk him into another frame of mind here, God. I don’t want this guy blowing his brains out in that bathroom back there. I don’t think I could handle that.
I sat up Indian-style on the couch and turned toward him. “Look,” I said. “Nobody deserves to die. But you do have to pay for what you did. Everybody has to pay for the mistakes they’ve made and the wrongs they’ve done. I’m paying for mine like I told you. I’m not able to raise Paige right now. And that’s just the way things are. We have to take responsibility for our actions.”
I was thinking again about all of the back and forth with God over the drugs these last months—calling that guy and yet praying for him not to be there. I mean, why couldn’t I just have decided not to pick up the phone in the first place? Why did I keep making that mistake? I remembered saying to God, “Lord, I’m tired of making the same mistake. Please, please, please let me learn from the mistake, and before I make that same mistake again, let me step back and look at it and go, ‘Ashley, you’re about to make the same mistake.’ Let me think about it like they said in recovery, instead of just going ahead and acting and making that same old mistake.”
Looking at Brian all sprawled back on the sofa, I knew I was going to have to keep talking about paying for my mistakes and accepting responsibility and all of that stuff until I got through to him. He had to snap out of this haze and start thinking forward about the decisions he had in front of him. Let’s just face what’s happened here, buddy, deal with it, and move forward to what you’re going to do now. I didn’t want him having a breakdown. What could I say right now to help this guy get it together and see what he had to do and find some hope?
“Okay,” I thought, “maybe I should try asking that question again.” If I could just get him to engage with me, then maybe I could get somewhere. God, help me.
“Why’d you do it?” I asked him again.
He turned his head in my direction. Then he said, “I didn’t belong in there. I didn’t belong in there, and I had to do whatever it took to get out.”
Right then I thought maybe I was starting to understand a little bit of what had happened to him at that courthouse. I was thinking about what he had said earlier in the bathroom. She falsely accused me of rape. She went out with one of our ministers. Maybe his heart was just broken. Maybe he was falsely accused.
And his child had just been born—I mean, his son was born, and there he was in jail. Maybe he just exploded with frustration and anger. Maybe he just wanted out so badly he went crazy, totally flipped, and started shooting. I could understand how that could happen to somebody.
I was seeing Mack in that apartment complex again the night he died. He had been fighting those guys for what seemed like hours. Now he was going back for more, and he was carrying the pole he always kept in the back of his truck—it was a pole made for a closet; the kind you were supposed to hang clothes on.
“No, honey!” I called out to Mack. “You’re done here! You’ve had your say!” This had been going on way too long. “Honey, let’s go now! You’re done!” But Mack was really angry—something inside of him had just exploded and taken over. He wasn’t listening to me. He wouldn’t listen. He didn’t hear a word I said. “Okay!” he was yelling, carrying that pole. “Who wants some now?”
I looked over at Brian. His head was still back. His face looked washed out. His hands were on his knees. The khakis were riding up his calves. He just didn’t look good. Didn’t look good at all. This has got to end now. It has to end. He can’t go on like this. It’s done. It has to be done.
“You’re done,” I had told Mack that night. But he wouldn’t listen. Why couldn’t he just listen to me for once?
Sitting across from Brian on the couch now, I was starting to feel bolder—I felt that God was making me bolder. I don’t want to die. I don’t want anybody else to die. And I don’t want this guy to die, either. He’s done enough. He’s got to know that. I’ve just got to make him know that.
Right then I started to realize I was going to have to keep working until I didn’t have anything left. I was going to have to convince this guy to turn himself in so nobody else got hurt. That was what God wanted me to do. I saw it now. I really saw it. That was why I was here on my couch in this apartment in Duluth with Brian Nichols. That was why Brian had picked this apartment complex. That was why he had pulled up right when I was going out for cigarettes. This was my purpose right here—to help him stop hurting people. I was seeing it. This was my destiny. I just had to keep talking and do everything I could to get Brian to see what God wanted him to do. Just make me bold, God. Keep giving me confidence. Help me.
“You know,” I said, “if you don’t stop and turn yourself in now, lots more people are going to get hurt.”
He had come into my apartment saying he didn’t want to hurt anybody else, and right now he actually looked like he didn’t want to do it anymore. So I was going to keep bringing that up, keep going back to what he originally said. Just elaborate on his own desire and let him see what the consequences would be if he didn’t stop running.
“Nobody else needs to get hurt, dude,” I said again. “And if you don’t turn yourself in, somebody else will get hurt. You’ll keep going and you’ll kill more people and you’ll probably die too.” I knew that if he kept running, he would need money, and I could just picture him robbing the bank like he said or holding somebody up and then something really, really bad going down.
“I don’t want that,” he said. Thank you. He’s starting to think now. Think about his choices. He’s hearing me. I just kept on with it. Kept saying what I wanted him to do.
“Okay, so you’ve got to turn yourself in and pay for it. You don’t want it to get worse. Either you’ll kill more people or somebody’s going to kill you.”
He turned his head toward me again. Then he paused for a few seconds. “Look at me,” he said. “Look at my eyes. I’m already dead.”
For a minute I felt my face flush. This was heavy. He was in a total pit of despair. What if I couldn’t do it? What if I couldn’t convince him to turn himself in? I mean, what he ultimately decided to do was his choice. I couldn’t make him listen to me. I couldn’t make him turn himself in. Mack didn’t listen. That was his choice. He didn’t listen—and he died. What if this guy keeps going, God? What if he doesn’t let me leave? You’ve got to work with me. I can’t do it alone. I just can’t do it alone.
Brian went back to watching TV, and I leaned back into the corner of the sofa. He already feels dead. He has no hope. I knew what that felt like. My life was turning around now, and I was on my way back up; but I had been there at the bottom with no hope. Feeling dead in my heart, dead in my spirit, just dead.
I was remembering that terrible year of hot railing—going to that place we called the crack house and making drug runs to Atlanta with John. I was so wigged out, so crazy and paranoid, that I thought I literally was a ghos
t walking around. I thought I was dead and nobody could see me. When I would call my mom and she wouldn’t answer her phone, I would think, “She’s not picking up because it’s not even ringing because I’m a freakin’ ghost and this isn’t even real what I’m doing here trying to make this call.” I was probably having a nervous breakdown, just completely losing my mind.
I knew what it was like to feel dead, gone, off the planet, totally hopeless; and I didn’t want Brian to feel that way. He needed hope for his life. I mean, he was going to prison. He couldn’t really raise his child. I knew how that felt. But there still had to be hope. If there wasn’t hope, then what reason would he have to stop running and hurting people? What reason would he have not to hurt himself? I sat up now and looked hard at him.
“No,” I said. “You are not dead. You’re alive. You’re alive, and you’re sitting right here in front of me. If you want to die, you can. It’s your choice. But you’re not dead now.”
He kept staring at the TV. After a few seconds he said in that low, flat tone of voice, “I’m gonna fry. I’m really gonna fry.” Then he turned to me and said, “You know, I’d rather you go in there and get those guns and shoot me yourself. I’d rather you shoot me than them.”
This was not good. I shook my head at him. “No way, dude,” I said. “I’m not doing that. I’m not gonna be your assassinator. I’m not breaking that commandment. And I don’t want anyone else to die—not even you.” God, don’t let him get some crazy idea that he can make me do that. Just take that out of his mind right now. You know I’m not doing that. And I’m walking out of here in the morning.
“No,” I went on, “you’ve got to turn yourself in and pay for this. You’ve got a son now. And it’s gonna take more of a man to turn yourself in than it is not to turn yourself in and kill me or hurt more people or hurt yourself. You’ve got to see that now. You’ve gotta be a man. Don’t you want to make it for your son?”