by Darrel Bird
Fields Of Grain
By
Darrel Bird
Copyright 2010 by Darrel Bird
Fields of Grain
Part 1
Steve Gentry strolled through a golden field of grain to the top of the hill. The wind blew through his hair, cool and soothing. Shadows of dark and light played over the knee-high wheat, and the wind gave it the appearance of ocean waves. The old tree stood at the top of the knoll, as it had for hundreds of years. The voices of the leaves rose and fell in the breeze.
His golden retriever bounded up to him through the wheat for a pat on the head, and Steve reached down and hugged him. Satisfied that Steve loved him, the dog bounded off again, following some scent on the wind.
Steve looked back at the farm from the top of the hill. The old white farmhouse was shining in the sun. The tractor shed sat behind the house and off to the side, where the old John Deere tractor stood patiently, waiting to once again plow up the stubble in the fall.
His mother appeared on the back porch with a basket of just-washed laundry. She waved to him as she walked through the yard to the clothesline that stood next to the tire swing. She was wearing a flowered dress; the breeze kissed her long hair, blowing a wisp across her face as she reached up to pin a shirt to the clothesline. He smelled the odor of fresh-baked bread, and he thought it was strange that he could smell her bread this far.
Part 2
Steve's eyes flew open as he became aware of four dirt-green walls, and he realized he was still in his cell. A guard coughed as he walked by, and Steve could hear the murmur of voices coming from the adjacent cells. A TV blared an old "I Love Lucy" episode, and further down the cellblock he heard the blood-curdling scream of the dude who had gone mad and wouldn't shut up. Steve hated the crazy fool for making so much noise.
He lay there and tried to reclaim the vision, but it had evaporated. Oh God! How did I get myself on death row in Huntsville prison? he wondered.
He remembered the events of that day, though the whole thing seemed surreal, due to the drug-induced haze he and his girlfriend had both been in. They had gotten high on crack cocaine, and then broken into a house, breaking down the flimsy door with an axe. They thought there was nobody home, but they were wrong.
An old man and woman came out of the back of the house just as they were pilfering the living room. The old man started to yell at them, telling them to get out of their house. Steve's girlfriend had just gone berserk and began chopping at them with the axe. She did not quit until they both were dead.
What a nightmare! There was blood everywhere. The old couple lay sprawled in grotesque fashion, the sightless eyes of the old woman staring up at the ceiling as if she had just spotted a big spider. The old man's fingers twitched as his arm reached for his wife. Then his fingers were still. Blood ran from the hole in his stomach and spread over the carpet like a crimson tide. Steve and his girlfriend had fled to a motel on the outskirts of town, taking the old couple's car.
Steve's parents had done their best to raise him right. His dad and mom always took him to church. His old man always made sure he sat quietly through the service, although he did succeed once in taking a ten spot out of the offering plate by pretending to put money in. He had bragged to his friends about it later. He enjoyed the Sunday school because he could always get something going; however, the teachers weren't really amused at the confusion he caused.
Whenever he needed money, he worked every scheme he could think of on his parents and his relatives. He read the Bible so he could quote scripture to them; a well-chosen scripture quotation could mean more money and gifts.
He always fancied himself an outlaw, and fantasized about robbing and shooting up banks for gobs of money. He was fast with his hands. He ought to be; he had been stealing long enough. He had been in and out of trouble with the juvenile authorities since he was thirteen years old. He'd done a year at a juvenile prison on the Oregon coast, and then a seven year stretch in Folsom. After that stretch, he thought he could go straight, but it did not work out. He was covered with tattoos, which he had done himself. He had even tattooed a bandana on his head, and he carried the coveted name 'Outlaw.' Even the guards called him that.
Steve always figured he would go out in a hail of lead and gun smoke. Hah! When the cops burst through that motel room door to seize them, he wet his pants. He and his girlfriend were splayed out nearly naked on the sweaty sheets when the cops came pouring into the room. They had them both cuffed before they were fully awake. The stuff they had stolen from the house littered the room.
It hadn't gone down nearly the way he thought it would - no Bonnie and Clyde stuff. Now here he was on death row, and Huntsville prison was no picnic. There was no love in this place, only hate. The prisoners hated the guards and one another, the guards hated the prisoners, and the warden hated them all. It was no place to be, but he was here just the same.
One morning at ten, a guard came to take him to the exercise yard. As he walked outside, he noticed three gang bangers on the other side of the yard. He could tell by the tattoos that they were part of the Mexican Mafia.
Steve did his chin-ups, and his biceps bulged as he sweated on the bars in the Texas sun. Afterwards, he walked around the yard to cool off. As he passed close to one of the gang members, he felt a sharp pain in his side, and he looked down in disbelief at the blood soaking his T-shirt. The banger had stabbed him in the side with a sharpened toothbrush.
Two guards rushed in and grabbed the dude who stabbed him, pinning him against the wall, while the other two gang members dropped to their stomachs with their hands behind their heads. The guards carted Steve off to the infirmary, where he stayed for a week. He had been stabbed three other times while in prison, and once he had even tried to cut his own throat. He had also hacked at his wrists until they were covered in scars.
None of that mattered much now, because they were going to kill him in two months, even though he wasn't the one who actually killed the old man and woman. His girlfriend had done the honors all by herself. But she was to be put to death, too, and he felt like she had it coming. He would have liked to kill her himself for causing him to end up on death row.
He was tired now, tired of being locked up and tired of prison, tired of the hate, tired of doing slow time. He missed his home and family. His parents lived too far away to come see him very often, and they could not afford it anyway. They had only seen him twice in Folsom before he had been paroled. They wrote to him, and he received letters from his brothers and sisters every once in a while, and the letters were like gold. He read and reread the letters from home.
He looked back on the life he had forfeited - a life with his brothers and sisters, Mom and Dad. They all had homes and families, and he had nothing. But he knew he had only himself to blame. Sometimes, when the loneliness was at its worst, he pretended he was home, happy, with his family.
This morning was one of those times. He was so lonely and so tired. There was no point in trying again to kill himself; they were going to do the job for him. His outlaw life just was not what he imagined it would be at all. Fear gripped him as he envisioned what was coming. What lay beyond the walls of that death cell?