“Ray,” Lester said quietly. “It’s okay, Ray. Everything’s okay. We’re going to eat and then go home. You’re going to sleep in a real bed tonight. It’s all going to be okay.”
I nodded. I wanted to get out of there. It was strange to be around so many people, to have my back to people. It made me uneasy. I ate quickly, and when we got to Lester’s house, I was happy to see Sia. She smiled at me, and I felt the anxiety leaving.
I was free. I was really free.
“Welcome home, Ray. Welcome home.” She wrapped her arms around me, and I knew that before this day was done I was going to cry again.
We stayed up until close to 2:00 A.M. laughing and talking. We watched the late news and talked about how good I looked in my suit. When we finally said good night, I lay down in the guest room in the softest bed I think I had ever felt.
I knew on the row they would be just getting ready for breakfast. I could hear the sound of the guards walking up and down the tier. The clang of trays against each other. Men yelling good morning. The smell of sweat and grime. I could see and hear and smell it all.
It felt more familiar than the soft pillow under my head and sweet-smelling blankets that I had pulled up to my chin. It was all so strange, and I could feel the anxiety start again. I began to breathe heavy and fast. What was happening to me? I wondered if I should wake up Lester and have him take me to the hospital. Was this how it ended? The day I get my freedom, I have a heart attack? I tried to steady my breath, but it was like the walls were moving in and out and the room was spinning. I didn’t like this. I got out of bed and ran into the bathroom. I locked the door behind me and sat on the floor with my head between my knees.
Immediately, my heart stopped pounding and my breathing slowed. I lifted my head and looked around. The bathroom was almost exactly the same size as my cell. I stretched out on the floor, my head resting on the bath mat.
I would sleep in here tonight.
This felt like home.
24
BANG ON THE BARS
Race, poverty, inadequate legal assistance, and prosecutorial indifference to innocence conspired to create a textbook example of injustice. I can’t think of a case that more urgently dramatizes the need for reform than what has happened to Anthony Ray Hinton.
—BRYAN STEVENSON
The water is the brightest turquoise blue I have ever seen. The beaches are made up of soft white sand that feels like pillows under your bare feet. Lester is playing with a lemur, and I’m playing basketball with George Clooney. I’m playing basketball with George Clooney and I’m winning.
It’s a good day.
I’ve had days like this before, when I was on the row, but I’m not traveling in my mind. I’m really playing basketball with George Clooney, and Lester is really playing with a lemur. Later, we will jump into Richard Branson’s swimming pool with all our clothes on, and it will be the first time I have been in a swimming pool in thirty years. I will forget that there are things called cell phones now, and I will also forget to take mine out of my pocket before I jump into the deep end of the pool.
Sometimes I wonder if I’m still imagining things and I’m actually locked down in my cell—but have had a complete break with reality. I tell people I’m the only man to get MVP in the NBA, the MLB, and the NFL. They look at me and some of them say out loud what all of them are thinking: “You really lost it in there, didn’t you?”
I’ve spent the year since my release telling my story to anyone who will listen. I was asked to come to Necker Island—Richard Branson’s private island—and tell my story to a group of celebrities and others who are working hard to end the death penalty. I go where I’m asked to go—churches, colleges, small meeting rooms, private islands. I’m a curiosity—the man who survived death row—but I’m also a voice. I’m a voice for every man who still sits on the row. “I believe in justice,” I tell crowds of people. “I’m not against punishment. But I don’t believe in cruelty. I don’t believe in useless punishment.”
At a church not too far away from Birmingham, a man raises his hand after I’m done speaking and asks me what advice I would give to someone who found themselves in my position. “Pray,” I say. “And when you’re done praying, call Bryan Stevenson.” People always laugh when I say that. They laugh when I tell them about my marriages to Halle and Sandra and Kim. But laughing puts people at ease in a way that helps them to listen. It was true on death row, and it’s true outside of death row.
Lester bought a house about two hundred yards from my mama’s house. I fixed up her house—not easy after it sat abandoned for over ten years—and now I live there by myself. I repaired the gazebo she loved so much. I still mow the grass the same as I did the day I was arrested. People ask me how I can stay in Alabama. Why wouldn’t I leave? Alabama is my home. I love Alabama—the hot days in the summer and the thunderstorms in winter. I love the smell of the air and the green of the woods. Alabama has always been God’s country to me, and it always will be. I love Alabama, but I don’t love the State of Alabama. Since my release, not one prosecutor, or state attorney general, or anyone having anything to do with my conviction has apologized. I doubt they ever will.
I forgive them. I made a choice after those first difficult few weeks at Lester’s when everything was new and strange and the world didn’t seem to make sense to me. I chose to forgive. I chose to stay vigilant to any signs of anger or hate in my heart. They took thirty years of my life. If I couldn’t forgive, if I couldn’t feel joy, that would be like giving them the rest of my life.
The rest of my life is mine.
Alabama took thirty years.
That was enough.
It hasn’t been easy to get used to life outside of death row. Computers and the internet and Skype and cell phones and text messaging and email. I had none of that. A whole world of technology happened while I was in my cell, and it’s been difficult to catch up. And as much as I try to change it, my body and my mind still stick to the routine it learned on death row. I am up at 3:00 A.M. and ready for breakfast. Lunch is at 10:00. Dinner is at 2:00 P.M. I only sleep on one corner of my giant king-size bed. It’s hard to create a new routine, but I try.
Freedom is a funny thing. I have my freedom, but in some ways, I am still locked down on the row. I know what day they are serving fish for dinner. I know when it’s visiting day and at what point the guys are walking in the yard. My mind goes back there every single day, and I realize it was easier for my mind to leave the row when I was inside than it is now that I’m free.
The first time I felt rain on my skin, I wept. I hadn’t felt the rain in thirty years. Now when it rains, I rush into it like a crazy man. Rain has a beauty I never knew until it was gone. I walk every morning—three miles, or four or five miles—as long as I want and as far as I want. I walk because I can walk. That also has a beauty I never saw before.
I carry scars that only Lester and Bryan really see. I document every day of my life. I get receipts. I purposely walk in front of security cameras. I don’t like to stay home alone for too long without calling a few people to tell them what I’m doing. I always call someone and say good night. It’s not that I’m lonely or that I’m afraid to be alone. In many ways, I prefer to be alone.
I create an alibi for every single day of my life.
I live in fear this could happen to me again.
I don’t trust anyone but Lester and Bryan.
A few days a week, I go to Montgomery and work with Bryan and his staff at the Equal Justice Initiative. I travel around the country with Bryan or one of his staff and I tell my story. I’m sixty years old, and I don’t have any retirement. I don’t have the luxury of retiring, and I don’t think I would want to if I could. Retire from what? I had my retirement in my thirties and forties and fifties. Now I’m ready to live. I wake up every morning grateful to be alive and grateful to be free. I’m a voice for the men still on the row. I’m a voice for justice. I’m the poster boy for all that is broken i
n our prison system.
I want to end the death penalty.
I want to make sure that what happened to me never happens to anyone else.
I want to buy Lester an Escalade to pay him back for all the miles he put on his cars—for never missing a visiting day in thirty years.
I want to meet Sandra Bullock.
There are so many things left to do in this world that I pray to God I will have time to do. I talk to my mom’s picture every night and tell her that I’m home. I care for the place we called home, and I feel her presence every single day.
I sit in the gazebo she loved, every evening. When there is an execution at Holman scheduled, I bang my palm against the wood and murmur the words I said fifty-four times before. “Hang in there. Don’t give up. Hold your head high. We’re here. You’re not alone. It’s going to be okay.” Fifty-four times I never knew the right thing to say.
I still don’t know.
I have lived a life where I have known unconditional love. I learned on the row how rare that is. My mother loved me completely; so does Lester. Our friendship is rare and precious, and every time I’m invited somewhere to speak—like Necker Island or London—I bring Lester with me. It’s the least I could do, and every once in a while, we look at each other and smile at the craziness of it all. We are two poor boys from the old coal mining town of Praco, and they just shut down Buckingham Palace to give us a private tour.
I got to see a Yankees game.
We went to Hawaii.
I’ve kept busy, and I’ve been blessed. But I would trade it all to get my thirty years back. I would trade all the days with George Clooney for just one more minute with my mother. Sorry, George. It’s hard not to wonder what would have happened in my life—wonder who I would be—if they hadn’t come for me. I try not to ask, “Why me?” That’s a selfish question.
Why anyone?
Why do we judge some people less worthy of justice? Why does innocence have a price? McGregor passed away, and he wrote a book before he died. He mentions me in the book and says how evil I am. How clever a killer I was. How he knew just from looking at me that I was guilty. I forgive him. Someone taught him to be racist, just as someone taught Henry Hays. They are two sides of the same coin.
I forgive Reggie. I forgive Perhacs and I forgive Acker and I forgive Judge Garrett and every attorney general who fought to keep the truth from being revealed. I forgive the State of Alabama for being a bully. You have to stand up to bullies. I forgive because not to forgive would only hurt me.
I forgive because that’s how my mother raised me.
I forgive because I have a God who forgives.
It’s hard not to wrap your life in a story—a story that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. A story that has logic and purpose and a bigger reason for why things turned out the way they did. I look for purpose in losing thirty years of my life. I try to make meaning out of something so wrong and so senseless.
We all do.
We have to find ways to recover after bad things happen. We have to make every ending be a happy ending.
Every single one of us wants to matter. We want our lives and our stories and the choices we made or didn’t make to matter.
Death row taught me that it all matters.
How we live matters.
Do we choose love or do we choose hate? Do we help or do we harm?
Because there’s no way to know the exact second your life changes forever. You can only begin to know that moment by looking in the rearview mirror.
And trust me when I tell you that you never, ever see it coming.
AFTERWORD
PRAY FOR THEM BY NAME
If this court had not ordered that Anthony Ray Hinton receive further hearings in state court, he may well have been executed rather than exonerated.
—STEPHEN BREYER, U.S. SUPREME COURT JUSTICE
As of March 2017, these are the men and women who sit on death row in this country. Statistically, one out of every ten men on this list is innocent. Read through the names. Each has a family, a story, a series of choices and events that have led to a life spent in a cage. Read their names. Do you know who is wrongfully convicted? Do you know who is innocent? Read their names. My name was once on this list. Just another name in a long list of names. Another person deemed irredeemable. The worst kind of cold-blooded killer that ever walked this earth.
Only it wasn’t true.
Read these names. Know their stories. Can we judge who deserves to live and who deserves to die? Do we have that right, and do we have that right when we know that we are often wrong? If one out of every ten planes crashed, we would stop all flights until we figured out what was broken. Our system is broken, and it’s time we put a stop to the death penalty. As my good friend Bryan Stevenson says, the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice, but justice needs help. Justice only happens when good people take a stand against injustice. The moral arc of the universe needs people to support it as it bends. And yes, it also needs people to pick a side.
Read the names out loud.
After every tenth name, say, “Innocent.”
Add your son’s or your daughter’s name to the list. Or your brother’s or your mother’s or your father’s name to the list.
Add my name to the list.
Add your own.
The death penalty is broken, and you are either part of the Death Squad or you are banging on the bars.
Choose.
Seifullah Abdul-Salaam
Abuali Abdur’rahman
Daniel Acker
Stanley Adams
Michael Addison
Isaac Creed Agee
Shannon Agofsky
Nawaz Ahmed
Hasan Akbar
Rulford Aldridge
Bayan Aleksey
Guy S. Alexander
Billie Jerome Allen
David Allen
Guy Allen
Kerry Allen
Quincy Allen
Scott Allen
Timothy Allen
Juan Alvarez
Brenda Andrew
Terence Andrus
Antwan Anthony
William Todd Anthony
Anthony Apanovitch
Azibo Aquart
Arturo Aranda
Michael Archuleta
Douglas Armstrong
Lance Arrington
Randy L. Atkins
Quintez Martinez Augustine
Perry Allen Austin
Rigoberto Avila, Jr.
Abdul H. Awkal
Carlos Ayestas
Hasson Bacote
John Scott Badgett
Orlando Baez
Juan Balderas
John Balentine
Terry Ball
Michael Eric Ballard
Tyrone Ballew
John M. Bane
George Banks
Stephen Barbee
Iziah Barden
Steven Barnes
William Barnes
Aquila Marcivicci Barnette
Jeffrey Lee Barrett
Kenneth Barrett
Anthony Bartee
Brandon Basham
Teddrick Batiste
John Battaglia
Anthony Battle
Richard Baumhammers
Richard R. Bays
Jathiyah Bayyinah
Richard Beasley
Tracy Beatty
Bryan Christopher Bell
Rickey Bell
William H. Bell
Anthony Belton
Miles Sterling Bench
Johnny Bennett
Rodney Berget
Brandon Bernard
G’dongalay Parlo Berry
Donald Bess
Norfolk Junior Best
Robert W. Bethel
Danny Paul Bible
James Bigby
Archie Billings
Jonathan Kyle Binney
Ralph Birdsong
Steven Vernon Bixby
<
br /> Byron Black
Ricky Lee Blackwell, Sr.
Herbert Blakeney
Roger Blakeney
Andre Bland
Demond Bluntson
Scott Blystone
Robert Bolden
Arthur Jerome Bomar
Aquil Bond
Charles Bond
Melvin Bonnell
Shaun Michael Bosse
Alfred Bourgeois
Gregory Bowen
Nathan Bowie
William Bowie
Marion Bowman, Jr.
Terrance Bowman
Richard Boxley
David Braden
Michael Jerome Braxton
Alvin Avon Braziel, Jr.
Mark Breakiron
Brent Brewer
Robert Brewington
Allen Bridgers
Shawnfatee M. Bridges
Dustin Briggs
Grady Brinkley
James Broadnax
Joseph Bron
Antuan Bronshtein
Romell Broom
Arthur Brown
Fabion Brown
John W. Brown
Kenneth Brown
Lavar Brown
Meier Jason Brown
Micah Brown
Paul A. Brown
Michael Browning
Charles Brownlow
Eugene A. Broxton
Jason Brumwell
Quisi Bryan
James Nathaniel Bryant
Laquaille Bryant
Stephen C. Bryant
Duane Buck
George C. Buckner
Stephen Monroe Buckner
Carl W. Buntion
Raeford Lewis Burke
Junius Burno
Kevin Burns
William Joseph Burns
John Edward Burr
Arthur Burton
Jose Busanet
Edward Lee Busby, Jr.
Ronson Kyle Bush
Steven A. Butler
Tyrone Cade
Richard Cagle
James Calvert
Alva Campbell, Jr.
James A. Campbell
Robert J. Campbell
Terrance Campbell
Anibal Canales
Jermaine Cannon
Ivan Cantu
Ruben Cardenas
Kimberly Cargill
The Sun Does Shine Page 27