About the Book
What if prison was the only world that existed for you now and everything else was a story? What if you weren’t sure if you were guilty but wanted forgiveness in any form? The Prisoner and the Chaplain is about two men: one man awaiting execution, the other man listening to his story. As the hours drain away, the chaplain must decide if the prisoner’s story is an off-the-cuff confession or a last bid for salvation. As the chaplain listens he realizes a life has many stories, and he has his own story to tell. Each man is guilty in his own way, and their stories have led them to the same room, a room that only one of them will leave alive. If you had only twelve hours left to live, what would you have to say?
Other titles by Michelle Berry
Blind Crescent
Blur
How to Get There from Here
Interference
I Still Don’t Even Know You
Margaret Lives in the Basement
This Book Will Not Save Your Life
What We All Want
The Prisoner and
the Chaplain
MICHELLE BERRY
For Stu, Abby, Zoe, Mom and Dad
“My guiding principle is this:
Guilt is never to be doubted.”
– Franz Kafka
Contents
The Road
The Woods
PART ONE
12:01 a.m.
Larry
1:01 a.m.
The Figurine
2:01 a.m.
Davis Street
3:01 a.m.
Asthma
4:01 a.m.
Jack
5:01 a.m.
PART TWO
6:01 a.m.
Headaches
7:01 a.m.
Tinted Windows
8:01 a.m.
Two Aisles Over
9:01 a.m.
Coffee Cans
10:01 a.m.
Scum
11:01 a.m.
The Dream
Veritas
Acknowledgements
Notes
The Road
There is a road that leads through two cornfields to a prison on the outskirts of a town. There are concrete walls thirty feet high. There are motion sensors and dogs. There are trenches dug into the earth. There are rolls of barbed wire, doubled, tripled. Steel doors that clang shut. Correctional officers in dark blue uniforms with numbers on their chests. Prisoners in orange jumpsuits and slip-on shoes. There are cells, ten by ten feet, with furniture anchored to the walls and floor. There are common areas – the day room, the medical centre, the chapel, the yard.
And there is death row. In death row, there are heavy, closed doors. There are no views to the outside. There is a slot through each door for food delivery and a small window that can be opened from the hallway for monitoring. There are no common areas. No socialization. On death row, the prisoner wears a white jumpsuit with the letters DR on the back. The prisoner is allowed two supervised showers a week and one hour a day alone in a cage in the empty yard.
And then there is the death chamber, painted green. There is a digital clock on the wall, counting down the minutes and seconds until execution. There is a cot with a mattress on it. No pillow. There is a sink. Chairs can be brought in for the prisoner’s chaplain or support worker. There is a door with a window in it. Five correctional officers sit and stand outside the door. This is the death squad.
And then there is the execution room. It is right next door to the death chamber. It is steel-walled and heavily soundproofed. It is also painted green. There is sometimes a gurney, sometimes a chair, depending on what type of execution the prisoner has requested, depending on what is available to the executioner. There is a curtained, bulletproof glass window that, when the curtains are pulled back, reveals a gallery of seats. No more than twenty places to sit and watch the execution. There is a closet off the execution room with two doors for the executioner. He or she comes and goes anonymously; pulls levers, presses buttons, controls the execution.
If you walk away from the execution room, past the death chamber, down the hallway through death row, through the less constrictive regular cells, past the warden’s office, out the front doors of the prison, through the armed gates, past the wall, down the road between the cornfields and turn left, you will come across the rest of the world. You will come across families sitting down to evening meals, a baseball game on the screen, the dog keeping one eye open for squirrels. If you keep walking, you will end up somewhere else, far from the prison, far from death row. You will be on the road.
The Woods
We are in the woods. A cabin somewhere. Sometimes it is made of wood. Sometimes it is made of glass. Or brick. Or steel. We are standing and sitting on a deck, or a porch, or sometimes on the ground, looking out into a forest, or looking out at a river, or a lake, or an ocean, as it rapidly churns and moves and sways. We are holding things – mugs of coffee, cans of beans, umbrellas. One time someone is holding a flamingo by a leash. It is mid-afternoon, the light in the sky is bright but low beyond the branches of the trees. A small boy drinks milk out of a sippy cup. There are children running around and splashing and jumping in the fast-flowing water, and there are dogs I’ve never seen before wandering around, roughhousing, snapping. A basset hound baying, a pug snuffling. A cat in a cage once. And a donkey grazing. Nothing makes sense, but everything makes sense. We are comfortable and the sun is hot and warm. The air feels thick, like the milk the boy is drinking. Our hands are sweaty. Someone drops a glass and it shatters and then reappears whole. We are in bathing suits. Some of us have towels wrapped around our waists as if we have just been swimming, which is odd considering the turbulent rapids below. Where would we swim? A woman’s hair is wet and hangs in long tendrils down her neck.
Although it’s a beautiful day, I can’t shake the feeling that something is going to happen. There is an electric current running through the scene, amplified, turned up, made brighter and more colourful than real life. The donkey brays. The dogs bark. The forest is darker, greener, blacker. The water is violent, foamy, white. The tide goes out and in. The swimsuits are sleek and shiny. I am holding something in my hand. I look down but can’t see what it is. A mug of coffee? A can of beans? An umbrella? I’m watching the small boy as he sips his milk. I’m watching the woman’s hair as it drips on her shoulders. I’m watching the children as they tempt fate at the water’s edge.
Suddenly mouths are open, but I can’t hear what anyone is saying. I shake my head as if there is water in my ears, but there’s no sound. Not even the low rumble of the water. No talking, not even muted humming. The dogs move silently close to the ground. The fur on their backs bristles.
And this is when it always happens. The familiar cry of a seagull comes into the scene, and everyone – even the small boy with his milk, even the children at the water – suddenly stops and looks towards the sound. The cry gets louder and louder, but no one can see it through the trees.
The cry becomes stronger, frantic. It is not the usual sound a seagull makes. I know, quickly, that this is the thing we’ve all been waiting for, the thing that made the day thick and hazy and silent. This is what made the trees still, the water wild, the people gather. This is that thing that was going to happen.
We watch the seagull fly. It doesn’t look natural. It’s much larger than a regular seagull, and it’s veering towards us. Wings flapping quickly. Head straight. Closer and closer until it’s almost at eye level. Everyone is frozen. The adults in their chairs, the children on the shore clutching the sticks they poke into the water. The gull is the only object in motion. There is no wind. The trees are still. The water is suddenly glass,
and even the foam in the current has calmed. As it comes closer, we all see what we are meant to see.
Through the seagull – from back to belly, through feather and hide and blood and bone – is an arrow. We can see the fletching at the gull’s back and the arrowhead at its breast. There is no blood. No other injury. Merely an arrow. Almost a joke, like those arrow-through-the-head hats. Or like the horses on a carousel with the poles that go straight through.
How can the gull possibly fly?
But the gull flies past us and continues through the trees, crying steadily. It continues on towards its death, flying until it collapses and dies with an arrow straight through its body.
We turn then, all of us, and look to the person next to us. We all look carefully and quietly at our neighbours, making sure what we saw was real.
No one says a thing. The wind picks up again, and I can hear the sound of the rushing water.
And that’s when I always wake up.
PART ONE
12:01 a.m.
The Chaplain thinks the inmates seem strangely awake and alert, not a tired bone in their bodies. He walks beside the Prisoner. Corrections Officer 1 and Corrections Officer 2, their numbers blazing on their shirts, walk behind them. CO1 has removed the Prisoner’s handcuffs, a small act of mercy, but he keeps his hand on his gun. The Prisoner walks at a leisurely pace, as if he’s got all the time in the world. The Chaplain keeps pace with him, but the COs shuffle awkwardly, not used to moving so slowly.
No one on death row is allowed a name. Not the Warden, the Chaplain, the Prisoner or the corrections officers.
Take away your name, the Chaplain thinks, and you are nothing. You are no one.
The Prisoner is wearing regular clothes – work pants, a plain black T-shirt, canvas shoes. He is allowed work clothes for the occasion. No more white jumpsuit. Before the Chaplain arrived, the Prisoner was fingerprinted and allowed a shower. His hair is damp. He did not shave, and the Chaplain notes the stubble on his face.
The other inmates, hundreds of them, rows upon rows of caged men, shout as the group walks past. War cries. Wailing. Howling anger. They bang their bars with whatever they have handy, and the noise rains down upon them – the Chaplain and the Prisoner and the COs – like a sudden hurricane. It swirls around them. The Prisoner looks up at the chaos, and he lifts his hand slightly as if to wave goodbye. CO1 shouts, “Hands at your sides, Prisoner!”
He has been segregated from the general prison population for his entire stay here, for the ten years since he was sentenced to death, the ten years of appeal after appeal, and yet these other men, these strangers – these banging, shouting men – feel a solidarity with him tonight. The Chaplain marvels. Even caged, they perform a ritual to show support for their fellow man.
The COs brought him out at midnight hoping to avoid this. Hoping most of the other inmates would be asleep. But word travels fast – an execution is coming – and they wait to see the last of the Prisoner, bursting at the seams. Furious at the system. Adrenalin junkies high with excitement. The Chaplain can feel them. He can smell them, and it’s not the smell of sweat or body odour. It’s the smell of fear and rage. A sour, sickly smell.
The noise reminds the Chaplain of the soccer stadium, the games he watched in university, the gleeful anger of the masses, howling and chanting and sharing in the sport. He remembers Tracy then, as well. Of course he does. Before everything he did to her, when they were happy. Whenever he thinks of the past, he can’t get away from thinking about Tracy. He remembers the way she was before he did what he did. Before he hurt her. And then he remembers her after. What happened between them is getting farther away now, getting more and more distant. But it’s still there. At those soccer games, he remembers not paying attention to her. He was mesmerized by the sound around him, focused on everything else. As usual. She always tried to get his attention, talking, smiling, pointing things out, but inevitably left the game and went home by herself, back to their shared apartment to read a book. Whenever he thinks back to his time with Tracy, the Chaplain recalls not paying attention.
And he’s doing this now. His focus on the Prisoner is shifting quickly. Has he not learned anything from before, from losing Tracy? Today, he wants to pay attention. He has promised himself he will. To the Prisoner. To the moment. To the last few hours of this man’s life. The other inmates shout and rattle their bars as the Prisoner walks towards the death chamber. His last walk. The Chaplain reminds himself to pay attention. Even after his promise to stay present in the moment, he has failed already. Thinking of soccer, of Tracy.
Pay attention.
He figured it out yesterday after he met the Prisoner for the first time. How many minutes, how many seconds. There are 720 minutes in twelve hours and 43,200 seconds. He looks at his watch. It is 12:06. Six minutes gone already, 360 seconds.
The Prisoner is to be executed at noon.
On his way to the prison, before the Warden gave his lecture on not trying to “save” the Prisoner, the Chaplain stopped and bought a coffee at the all-night variety store. The clerk was startled to see him there so late at night. There were three other men in the store. One customer was buying a lottery ticket and cigarettes. Another was buying milk and diapers, and the third was looking at the antique adult magazines, pulling out the centrefolds from back when people dealt mainly with paper for their porn. The Chaplain bought his coffee and thought about how many seconds people waste shopping for diapers and milk and cigarettes and lottery tickets and porn. How many seconds does it take to stir his coffee and then throw out the stir stick and get back in his car and turn on the engine? How many seconds does it take to drive to the prison, the windshield wipers slapping, a summer storm hailing down upon him, the Chaplain cold and distracted from his dream of the seagull and the arrow. The black feeling that lasted until he stepped into the Warden’s office. How many minutes wasted on a dark feeling? On a dream?
“Don’t let him talk you into saving him,” the Warden had said. “I mean, shit, you’re supposed to ‘save’ him.” The Warden used air quotes as he said it. “Like religiously and all. You’re the chaplain, but I mean, don’t think you can save him in the real way. You know what I mean? It’s not possible. You know that, right? The execution is going ahead.”
The Warden is aware of his past, the Chaplain knows this. He had to be made aware of it in order to hire him. The Chaplain still cringes at the memory of meeting the Warden for the first time. He had said, “Funny that you’d end up in prison anyway, even when the judge let you off.” The Warden has never mentioned any details, never really come out with what he might know, but the Chaplain feels it lingering there in everything he says. The Warden toys with him, plays with his feelings, makes him ashamed and provokes the anger still within him. The Chaplain has worked hard the last several years to rid himself of all these feelings, to tone down the surging swell, to make himself worthier of what he has become, of his calling, yet the Warden has a way of making the hair on his arms bristle. It’s almost as if the Warden wants him to fail, to satisfy his ridiculous certainty that everyone in prison is here for a good reason. That no one could make a mistake, or no one’s circumstances could put them here. Or that someone could take the blame for someone else. The Warden is convinced that once guilty, you are always guilty. Because the Chaplain destroyed Tracy, because he let his anger get the better of him, the Warden thinks he deserves to be locked up.
“I will save him,” the Chaplain had said, fingers up. “But I won’t ‘save’ him.”
Soon they have walked through too many heavy, metal doors to hear the shouting of the inmates, and now the only sound is the footsteps of the COs and the Chaplain and the Prisoner. Heavy footsteps. Two in boots, one in slip-on dress shoes and the Prisoner in slip-on canvas running shoes. No laces. The Prisoner swings his arms casually, freely. The Chaplain can feel CO1 and CO2 tense behind them, ready for trouble. But the Prisoner acts as if he’s heading out to a club, going for a late-night drink with
friends. He even has a shy, sly smile on his boyish face. But the Prisoner’s eyes are deeply circled black holes. This is a man who doesn’t sleep, no matter how much he smiles. The Chaplain wonders about Death Row Phenomenon. Men go crazy from years in solitary. Perhaps the Prisoner has already broken through this reality and is there now, on the other side. The Chaplain’s primary job, he thinks, is to keep the Prisoner here, in the real world, in the present. His job must be to make sure the Prisoner doesn’t stray into that other realm. A man might not go gentle into that good night, but he might at least go sanely.
“Fucking noise,” CO2 says softly. “Shouting and banging. Every single fucking time.”
“At least they aren’t flinging their shit,” CO1 laughs.
The Chaplain clears his throat and both men shut up quickly. Who are you, the Chaplain wants to say, to complain about anything? The corrections officers often forget he is there. The Chaplain thinks that it’s because he is young. They are used to older chaplains, grey-haired and milky-eyed. In fact, the Prisoner seemed shocked to see the Chaplain when they first met. No one respects youth.
Again, silence and only the sound of their shoes. The Prisoner’s grin is larger now, toothier, the Chaplain notices, as if he appreciates the COs’ banter. The Chaplain can feel the tension around that grin. A spooky feeling, like when a dog bares its teeth. The tattoo around his neck gives the impression of a collar.
“Left here,” CO2 says.
The Chaplain is suddenly distracted by the CO’s title – CO2. Carbon dioxide. He thinks of the silliness of it and wonders how often he is teased. “You’re sucking the air out of the room . . .”
The Prisoner doesn’t turn wide; instead, he makes a sudden left and cuts the Chaplain off. They bump shoulders hard. The Prisoner swings his head quickly towards the Chaplain. He is as tall as the Chaplain, so their eyes meet squarely. The Prisoner looks as if he’s going to kill him, but then his eyes focus on the terrified eyes of the Chaplain, and the Prisoner immediately swings his head back down and stares at the ground. The Chaplain knows that the corrections officers are armed with truncheons and pepper spray and guns and will keep any danger at bay, but for that one brief moment, he felt his insides contract, his heart speed rapidly, his throat seize. The look in the Prisoner’s eyes was enough. This man, the Chaplain reminds himself, is here for a reason.
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