Violence

by Timothy McDougall

  Anderson, for his part, liked Cannova as well, considering him to be a no-nonsense man of the cloth, albeit unorthodox, and genuinely without guile. He didn’t mind seeing him under normal conditions, but this was not normal.

  “Noel, how are you?” Cannova asked as he stepped forward to aid Anderson.

  “No contact, Father. Rules.” One of the guards croaked.

  Cannova backed away and waited while Anderson shuffled his leg irons around the front of his bench and took a seat across from Cannova at the table.

  The guards backed away a modest but respectful distance. They had to allow some room for Cannova and Anderson to speak in private. Cannova had requested this meeting as a matter of sacrament to bring into play the priest-penitent privilege that prohibits religious clergy from testifying or divulging issues you have discussed in confidence with them. There was even a statute on the books in Illinois protecting this expectation of privacy (although some courts had limited this privilege in cases where there was an admission of sexual assault and Cannova had noticed in the various newspaper reports that “genital mutilation” along with “other indications of sexual trauma” had been referenced in the death of Gabriel Lysander).

  Actually, it was somewhat unusual their meeting was taking place at all outside of the mandated confidential attorney visits and the two 15-minute “recorded” visitations allowed during normal visiting hours to each inmate. Normally, after his arraignment and “not guilty” plea, a “no bonder” like Anderson would have been thrown into the maximum security unit with the hardcores (not the Protective Custody Unit where he was now) and if he were allowed visits they would be strictly “non-contact”, taking place through glass with a mouthpiece or telephone hook-up in a filthy room where he would have to shout to be heard over a multitude of other inmates and guests.

  Anderson, though, was a special case. He was high-profile now and like it or not he had to deal with all that added or took from his life. Everybody was getting heat from above and passing it down. Even the Governor’s office called to tell prison authorities to clean up this problem, but nobody knew how to clean it up. They only knew there was a lot of light on this “problem” and while they were trying to make it as uncomfortable as possible for Anderson and wanted to throw him to the wolves, they also had to be careful in hassling him not to step in a large pile of shit which they wouldn’t be able to shake off their shoes. Anderson’s story had not only spread through the TV and print media it had also swept through the prison grapevines, and the fact it was heard he was putting a “finger in the face of the authorities”, that lent him some street cred, but it also left some hardcore egoists, which every prison had plenty of, who would be itching to take him down a notch. Prison officials knew they would be able to eventually give Anderson his comeuppance but short term they had to wait for his star to lose its luster. He was safe. For now.

  “I appreciate you coming down, Father, but I don’t need your help.” Anderson finally muttered in greeting after throwing a look over his shoulder at the guards.

  “I just thought you might like to have someone to talk to.” Cannova offered.

  “No offense, but I don’t feel much like talking.” Anderson bleakly informed him, demonstrating his discomfort by shifting the box on his twisted chained hands the couple of inches it was free to move in order to scratch an itch under the coarse beige fabric of the v-neck prison issue shirt he was wearing, the same shirt which had “D.O.C.” stenciled across its front.

  “Then don’t say anything.” Cannova insisted. “I just think you should know there are a lot of people who care about you.”

  “Oh, yeah…” Anderson tossed a cynical look around at the other guards in their manned gun towers who were keeping him under direct observation. “…I’m a pretty popular guy right now.”

  “Though you can’t see it at the moment, something good will come out of this.” Cannova continued. “Life is always emerging from death. Through death comes resurrection and you realize it’s just another invitation to live, to change, to start living your life the way God wants you to.”

  “Come on, Father, how old are you?” Anderson asked scathingly, hunching forward. “All the shit you’ve seen in your years of doing this, do you really believe in God? You’re not an accountant. You’re not a bus driver. You’re a priest. It’s what you know. It’s where you get your paycheck, so you got to stick to the party line, but don’t tell me you still believe in God?”

  “I know how you feel-” Cannova sympathized.

  “There’s no way you could possibly comprehend how I’m feeling.” Anderson darkly hissed. “You ever been married, had children?”

  Cannova simply stared at Anderson. The answer was obvious. And it was “no.”

  “Then how the hell can you know what I’m going through?” Anderson seethed.

  “Wouldn’t your wife and daughter, if you could talk to them right now…” Cannova calmly continued. “…wouldn’t they want you to move on, let go of the anger, have a happy life?”

  “In here?!!” Anderson raged.

  Cannova gazed silently back at him.

  “To tell you the truth, I don’t think about them.” Anderson finally replied.

  “No?” Cannova asked disbelievingly.

  “This is my reality.” Anderson grunted disparagingly, rattling his chains. “This is what I think about – right now.”

  “When I lose my way…” Cannova persisted. “…I try to go back to my faith. Regain my innocence, trust, view the world as a child again.”

  “My childhood was a fucking nightmare.” Anderson sneered. “I’ve seen things I wish I could forget.”

  “You survived.” Cannova countered.

  “Yeah, I let everything go.” Anderson scornfully rebuked him. “If they wanted a little soldier, they got it. If they wanted a clown, I told jokes. If they wanted someone to clean up, I was a janitor. I sang for my supper every day, Father. Danced as fast as I could-”

  “This was in foster homes?” Cannova interjected.

  “I’ve never had a home.” Anderson snapped without self-pity. “There’s no such thing as home. This world is not a home. All my life people have been making decisions about me which I had no say in. I was dealt a shitty hand, I played it. I didn’t complain. I don’t give a damn about fair, but if this is the way it’s going to be, then fuck it. I’ll figure everything out. Leave me alone.”

  “Do you forgive the men who took your wife and daughter from you?” Cannova asked.

  “What do you think?” Anderson answered as if it were clear to see the absurdity of the notion.

  “I think you’ve touched a lot of people with your message of love and forgiveness.” Cannova ventured.

  “Good for them.” Anderson bitterly replied.

  “You know…” Cannova continued. “…sometimes we teach what we most need to learn.”

  “Your sayings and metaphors are interesting, Father…” Anderson curtly reacted. “…but I don’t know if I can apply them to my pain.”

  “Accept forgiveness from God.” Cannova suggested with heartfelt urgency. “The offer is always there. God will grant you total forgiveness, but only if you completely forgive others, and only if you completely forgive yourself.”

  “That’s great. Let’s call it a day.” Anderson bluntly announced as he stood up ending their visit, and called to the guards who escorted him. “We’re done here.”

  “Give us another minute, please.” Cannova asked the guards, putting his hand up gesturing for them to stop.

  The guards remained in place.

  “Please…” Cannova asked Anderson to sit down again.

  Anderson complied.

  Silence. Anderson sure wasn’t going to break it.

  “Your wife…” Cannova soon spoke. “…tell me about her. She loved you?”

  “Come on, Father, take off.” Anderson impatiently chided Cannova. “Go tend to your flock. The mass has ended, go in peace.”

  �
��Did you love her?” Cannova continued.

  “Yes…” Anderson answered brusquely but then softened. “…yes.”

  “When you pray, do you talk to her?” Cannova wanted to know.

  Now this question by Cannova sort of threw Anderson for a loop. It was like Karen was suddenly in the room for Anderson. Yes, she was always there but not in a real sense. Not recently. He had pushed her away. For sanity? For something. He didn’t know what. He stared off intently.

  “She kept saying there’s a place for me in this world…” Anderson softly spoke, reflectively, a million emotions pouring in on him. “…but I knew it wouldn’t last. She was…”

  Anderson shook his head pensively.

  “You miss her.” Cannova murmured quietly, leaning his head forward, closer to Anderson as if he were taking confession.

  “More than she’ll ever know…” Anderson replied guiltily. “There was a thousand times I could have hugged her, harder, longer. There was a thousand times I could have spent ten more minutes with my daughter, I just…”

  Anderson couldn’t fight back the waves of remorse any longer or the thoughts that pounded up like a thundering, roiling surf. He turned his face away.

  “Jesus Christ, Father, I’m lost…” Anderson almost imperceptibly lamented. He had muttered this through what looked like quiet sobs.

  Cannova wasn’t sure. Was Anderson actually showing sorrow? He could see Anderson’s body moving, the almost imperceptible shaking of his shoulders, but then Cannova was certain:

  The telltale teardrops were hitting the sealed cement floor beneath Anderson’s feet.

  * * *

  Even Crotty couldn’t determine what Anderson was doing as he sat in front of a bank of video surveillance monitors in the Cook County Jail security center watching Anderson’s meeting with Father Cannova in the multi-purpose room. Was he baring his soul? Admitting his guilt? Crotty used a control on a grid panel to zoom in with one of the ubiquitous prison cameras and get a close-up on Anderson. It told Crotty nothing. Anderson’s shoulders were hunched, his head down. Cannova’s expressions and body language gave nothing away either. Only one thing was certain. Crotty would have loved to have been able to activate a listening device.

  CHAPTER 35

  “BUILDER ARRESTED IN POSSIBLE VIGILANTE SLAYING”

  The newspaper headline said it all. There were also inset photos of Anderson and Karen within the body of the accompanying article. It was all above the fold. Anderson’s story had even kicked whatever local corrupt politico was currently in the crosshairs off the front page for the time being. Chicagoans love their sleazy politicians (it’s been an ongoing reality show cum love affair for decades that distracts the public and buries the real corruption that’s endemic in the clout-based citywide patronage structure), but Anderson’s growing legend, helped no doubt by his TV appearances, had touched a nerve, causing a wildfire of cathartic emotion for the flash mob generation which moved his saga to Page One. News editors had papers to sell after all.

  The heavily tattooed hand of a man circled Anderson’s inset photo with a pen and then drew a deep-cutting “X” across Anderson’s smiling face (the photo was a suit and tie headshot Anderson had professionally taken that used to be printed on Anderson’s construction company brochures when Anderson owned the business).

  The tattooed hand then slid over and crossed out the latest telephone number from a long listing of already crossed-out numbers for various “Chicago Vintage Clothing Stores” that had been printed out from a Yellow Pages online directory.

  “Thanks anyway.” The gravelly anger-infused voice of Derek groused as he pulled the cell phone from his ear and disconnected the call.

  Derek was seated in an internet café. He poured more sugar in his coffee and dialed the next number from the list. He stirred the coffee with the top end of his pen as he cradled the phone.

  “Hello, Rave, can I help you?” Lyndsey’s voice came over the receiver.

  “Yeah, hi, can I talk to Jeannie?” Derek asked sharply.

  “Jeannie?” Lyndsey echoed, then innocently offered. “She’s gone for the day, but she’ll be in tomorrow. Do you want to leave a message?”

  “No, thanks.” Derek replied and grinned. “I’ll call back.” Derek mumbled and hung up. But he was happy. He had located his prey. He smiled again, tapped the coffee drippings off the pen, licked the residue and circled “Rave Vintage Clothing and Resale Shop” on his phone list. And took a long slug of coffee.

  Everyone knows there are no nice areas of Cook County Jail. The visiting rooms were no exception. Jeannie was fortunate. She was called for her 15-minute visit after only a two-hour wait.

  She got there at 3:30 PM for the second set of visiting hours and had waited in the long line that perennially snaked down California Avenue under the barb-wire topped walls. She had her ID ready when she went through the metal detectors and pat down. She was going to bring cookies but the person on the phone when she called the inmate locator line told her gifts and food were not allowed. Jeannie forgot cell phones were forbidden, too, and had to lock it up in a coin-operated locker.

  Everything was overwhelming. Jeannie had felt she’d seen her share of the seamier side of life but this was the fetid jam in the belly button of the underbelly. The filth. The noise. The feeling of being herded and the vile smells as if you actually were in a holding pen. Family members and loved ones yelling over the shouts of other visitors. Babies that bawled constantly, who must have sensed the desperation and who should never be in a place like this even if it’s thought they are too young to remember.

  Once Jeannie signed in and was finally called by a correctional officer her eyes were red and sore from crying: but she was not alone. Everyone there, if they weren’t crying on the outside were weeping on the inside.

  “Your conversation can be recorded.” The officer told her. “Number five. No hands on the glass.”

  Jeannie nodded and dabbed with a wadded tissue at her nostrils where her nose ring was reattached.

  Anderson arrived with the next large batch of inmates, all dressed in their tan-colored prison issues. All were shackled. However, Anderson this time didn’t have the extra box affixed over his handcuffs and could actually move his hands some. He adjusted the elastic waistband on his bottoms as he sat down on the other side of the Plexiglas.

  Jeannie sat down on the bolted-to-the-floor stool at position “5” opposite him.

  They stared at each other for a long moment.

  He looked contrite.

  She looked like she’d been up all night.

  Neither of them knew how to start the conversation.

  Jeannie fought back more tears, sat up on the edge of the stool to speak into the small round microphone that was set in the cloudy, foggy, snot-smeared glass, made murky from eons of spit and exhaled breath. She was going to brace her trembling hand on the glass but remembered that was forbidden.

  Anderson spoke first so she could compose herself.

  “How are you?” He asked, leaning forward and shouting to be heard over the din.

  “I’m fine. Just great. Couldn’t be better.” Jeannie answered loudly, airily.

  “You look good.”

  “Yeah, right, thanks.”

  “It’s good to see you, but you shouldn’t be here.”

  “Well, this is the first and last time I’m coming.”

  “That’s alright.” Anderson assured her, and raised his voice even more to make sure she could make out his next statement. “I don’t want you hurt in any way.”

  “I’m not in any pain. Do I look like I’m in pain?” Jeannie declared, dabbing now at her sad, tired eyes. “I’m not going to kill myself over you or anybody.”

  “I didn’t mean-” Anderson cried out with some alarm.

  “Damn cold.” Jeannie lied trying to cover up her increasing panic as she wiped her runny nose with the back of her hand. “Did you do it?!!” She asked pointedly, distraught, then remembered. �
��No, don’t answer! Who cares, right?” She threw a look at the correction officer closest to her. “I know they record everything. That’s so stupid of me, saying that! I don’t want to get you into any more trouble than you’re in!”

  Jeannie reached in and took out some over-the-counter cough medicine from the pocket of her jeans.

  “They didn’t make me check this, thank God.” She said as she popped out the last three liquid-filled cough gel caps from the 12-count blister pack and tossed them in her mouth, chewing them up. “I used to take antihistamines but now I just take this cough stuff. I’ve had shots for most everything. I’m allergic to cat hair, dog hair, dust. See, you don’t know everything about me!”

  The active drug ingredient in the cough medicine was dextromethorphan, which acts as a dissociative hallucinogen. The intoxicating “high” recreational users of the drug achieve ranged from confusion and dizziness to rapid heartbeat and euphoric, psychedelic “out-of-body” experiences. The “dissociation” trippers experience has been said to help victims of physical, psychological and sexual abuse find relief. Some addicts say you need 60 mg to get you buzzing. Each gel cap Jeannie just pooped was 15 mg. Who knows how many she had before she got there. Whatever she took, her manner was increasingly edgy.

  Jeannie tapped the empty blister pack against her thigh and shot looks at the other visitors around her with their tense, heartbroken faces: people who had probably been doing this for a long time.

  “If you get convicted of what they’re saying you did…” Jeannie asked rat-a-tat. “…how long…” She couldn’t keep it together anymore, the floodgates burst forth and she wept openly.

  “This has nothing to do with you!” Anderson insisted, leaning as close to the glass as he could get.

  Jeannie sniffed, dabbing at her nose again with the tissue as she started anxiously peeling apart the blister pack packaging.