The room is small. Barely ten feet by ten feet. An underground parking space in a condominium building. Concrete walls. The ceiling seems low, but the Chaplain realizes that is only because there are no windows. You would think they would let him have a window, a last look out, to see the changing light, the weather. He thinks this oversight is unfair.
The floors and walls are thick. The walls are painted green, chipped with age. There is a small, rusty sink in the corner and a toilet with no seat beside it. A roll of paper rests on the floor beside the toilet. There is no soap for the sink. The Chaplain shakes his head. There is a digital clock on the wall, to count down the minutes. There are two chairs and a cot. Blue and green blankets, clean white sheets, the smell of bleach emanating from them. No pillow. The chairs are stiff, side by side. Black. They look out of place, like they should be in a dining room, or a modern living room. They should be in that condominium with the underground concrete parking space. Although the Chaplain and the Prisoner will spend twelve hours in these chairs, they look like an afterthought. The door has a small window in it, and at all times, he was told, the COs will be right outside, looking in. There will be five COs in each shift – a special, elite squad. Two shifts. The final shift will walk the Prisoner to the death chamber. The Chaplain looks at the window now and yes, they are all there. CO1 and CO2 have left. Their duty is over for now. Gone home to wives, babies, children, dogs, soft beds and open windows. They get their names back the minute they walk out of the prison. They will become human again. COs 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 look back at him. Numbers on their shirts. No one smiles.
Although they didn’t pass it, the Chaplain knows that they are directly beside the execution room. The final chair the Prisoner will sit in – be strapped into – is right next door. It’s an eerie feeling, being separated by only a wall.
Not every prisoner requests a chaplain. He feels lucky. And also cursed. Sometimes a man’s last twelve hours are spent on the telephone with family. Or alone. Or with the corrections officers. Watching. Always watching.
“Too bad about him,” the Warden had said earlier, before the Chaplain met COs 1 and 2 and escorted the Prisoner to his cell. “Who’d have thought he was sick? I mean, the guy was the picture of health. And then he’s down for the count.”
“Cancer,” the Chaplain said. “You never expect it, I suppose.” His mentor, the Prisoner’s original chaplain, had collapsed at work only a week ago, and the Warden had called the Chaplain into his office and asked him to take over. He was only halfway through his two-year mentorship, but there was no one else available on such short notice. The Chaplain had been ordained and certified and trained; all he needed was one more year with his mentor. But his time has been cut short. It couldn’t be helped.
“Yep. I hear he doesn’t look so good now. I always wonder, you know, if he hadn’t found out he had cancer, would he look so bad so quickly? I mean, he looked fine, he felt fine, until he found out.”
The Chaplain sipped his coffee and shrugged. Good question, he thought. The Chaplain’s own mother looked good right up until she was told she had breast cancer. And then she started to look haggard and tired. He always assumed that the stress of knowing you were dying took a toll on your body before the disease actually caught hold.
“I’ve got COs 1 and 2 taking him down with you. They’ve been on death watch since he found out. They like this kind of stuff. Makes their lives exciting.” The Warden laughed. The Chaplain cringed.
But the Warden took pity on the Chaplain. “So, you’ve only met him once?” the Warden said. “Yesterday?”
“Yes. Briefly. It’s such a shame that his previous chaplain got sick now. Just when he’s needed the most. And after all the years of preparation. All the time they spent together.”
“Believe me, this guy won’t really care who’s with him. He’s not a touchy-feely kind of guy.” The Warden laughed. “In fact, he’ll probably try to beat the shit out of you when he gets you in that cell.” The Chaplain’s face fell. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just that he’s a tough cookie. You saw that yesterday, I guess? He really doesn’t say much, unless he’s fighting.”
The Prisoner was quiet when the Chaplain met with him. But the Chaplain could feel it bubbling under the surface. The tension in the Prisoner’s jaw. One hour together, and the Prisoner said absolutely nothing. “Well, I suppose that’s what got him into this situation.”
“Your mentor has done this kind of work before, too. You haven’t. It’s pretty intense. It can really mess with you.”
“Yes, well, I’ve been trained.”
The Warden laughed and the laugh was like a soft cry, a gasp – like the seagull, the Chaplain thought, and shivered.
“Fucking training,” the Warden said. “Sorry, Chaplain, but that ain’t going to help you now.” The Warden leaned forward in his chair and locked eyes. “Training for this is like being told how to handle a gun without ever having seen one, if you know what I mean. It makes sense logically, but shit, it’s not the real thing.”
“Yes, well.” The Chaplain didn’t really know what to say. The training was a bit of a joke. An appointment with the psychologist. And he has had enough of psychologists to last him a lifetime. A couple of hours. Here is what you do. This is what you say. Listen. Always listen. Keep him talking. Keep him calm. All made-up scenarios that never take the real situation into consideration. A few book recommendations and a pamphlet or two, but no one can prepare for something like this. It has to be an instinctual thing, a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of thing. You have to have faith. There is nothing you can do to make it easier or turn things one way or the other. Just being there, the Chaplain thought, should be enough. Or not. In the long run, it probably doesn’t matter at all.
The whole thing, the Chaplain realized, as the Warden chuckled like his demented gull, was an exercise in futility.
The Prisoner settles onto the cot, his shoes where the pillow, if there was one, would be. He puts his hands behind his head and stares up at the ceiling. A lazy day in the park under a towering willow. A farmer resting in his field. A small boy engineering shapes out of clouds. The Chaplain sits down quietly on one of the two chairs. He adjusts his body so that he is comfortable for now, but he knows the chair will soon get the best of his lower back, and he wonders if he should have brought his Formed Back Relaxer and if that would even have been allowed. This all happened so quickly he didn’t have time to ask about small things such as comfort, food, bathroom breaks.
The Prisoner speaks. “Is my chaplain okay?”
“Pardon? Sorry?”
“The guy you replaced. The other chaplain. Is he okay?”
“Yes. Well, no. Not really. He’s alive, if that’s what you’re asking.” The Chaplain takes his foot slowly out of his mouth. He can’t believe he just said that. “He’s okay. Had surgery on his large intestine and they took out the tumour. They need to do chemo now. He’s not that old, you know, so he’s pretty healthy for the operation and such. He’ll be fine. I hope.” He curses internally – stop rambling, he thinks. Slow down. Breathe. “It’s only been a couple of weeks. I don’t really know all the details.” Be honest.
The other day, when they met for the first time, the Prisoner said nothing. The Chaplain told him why he was there, what he would do for him, how the Prisoner could tell him anything, could talk or stay silent, whatever he wanted. The Chaplain told him it might feel good to get things off his chest. He asked the Prisoner to think about whether or not he wanted the Chaplain to deal with things – where his body should be buried or if he wanted cremation and, if so, where would the ashes go? What about his funeral? What about any property he owns or family he needs contacted? Think about this kind of thing and we’ve got twelve hours in which to deal with it all, he had said, and the Prisoner had only nodded.
So now, hearing his voice shocks the Chaplain. It’s a clear, clean voice. No accent. Just a low thrum of a voice, almost like listening to a news
announcer or a radio host. A confident, deep voice. Sure of himself.
“So he’ll be okay, then? My chaplain?”
“No, not really.” The Chaplain looks around the room again, as if he’s missed something. “No. He’ll die of his cancer. That is for certain. It’s a bad kind. But he might have a few years left.”
“Sounds familiar” the Prisoner says.
“Yes, I suppose it is. The waiting.”
“Funny that he’d get sick right when I get called up.” The Prisoner rolls onto his side and looks at the Chaplain. “Like he didn’t want to spend this time with me. After all we’d been through.”
“No, no. That’s not true. It’s not . . . that’s not what happened. He got sick. It wasn’t fate that it happened when your execution order came through. It just happened that way. He would have wanted to be here. I know that.”
“Did you talk to him?” The Prisoner rolls onto his back again. “I mean, did he say that?”
“No. I didn’t talk to him. But I know.”
“Yeah. You guys are always so sure of yourselves, aren’t you? Guess it’s your faith or something. Guess it’s just your way of looking at things.”
The Chaplain doesn’t know what to say to that. He is certain of many things, that is a given, but he’s also very uncertain when it comes to a lot of questions about life. He questions many things, has always been curious. Just because he never questions his faith, because he never questions his God, it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t question other things. But then, the Prisoner is right about the Chaplain’s mentor. He was always so sure of himself, so sure of everything. And he made sure you knew it. Made sure you heard him.
The Chaplain realizes that he’s thinking about his mentor in the past tense, and then he thinks that this Prisoner before him, in a little less than twelve hours, will himself be in the past tense. He will be a was, as opposed to an is.
The Prisoner flops back and forth on the cot, attempting to get comfortable. The COs peer in the window, which, the Chaplain notices suddenly, has mesh between the glass. Not breakable, even if there was something in this cell you could break it with.
Two weeks ago, the Chaplain was working with prisoners in D block. Talking to them about forgiveness and guilt and empathy and faith. Telling Prisoner Dwight about the afterlife and about how to think about God and religion. Telling Prisoner Rusty about how he needs to forgive himself before others can forgive him. About how God will forgive. He was there to comfort the suffering. Two weeks ago, his life seemed fairly simple. A chaplain job at the prison. A few friends. His sister, Miranda, whom he loves dearly, and her two crazy kids and truck-driving husband, Richard. He had finally gotten past those things in his life that he needed to get past, those things that were torturing him. Simple. Until this. His mentor fell sick. Cancer. Death row. Twelve hours. An execution.
It’s his turn now. A turn he never really wanted to take. How do you stay calm in the face of this? When you don’t believe in what is happening? When you believe in forgiveness and acceptance and faith. An eye for an eye is not the way his faith runs. These are the questions he cannot cope with, the questions he isn’t sure how to answer. But the Prisoner is right about the Chaplain’s mentor. With his cancer, his many years in service over the Chaplain, his walk down this path before, the man always felt he had all the answers. He felt that his job was not to tell the system it was wrong, but to give hope and peace in those final hours. To smooth the head of the sinner and tell him everything would be all right. The Chaplain is not here to right the wrongs of society, but to comfort the sinner in his time of need.
Now he asks the Prisoner, “Why do you think he became sick right now?”
“I told you, man, because this is when I was called up. Maybe he just wanted to avoid having to talk to me for twelve hours.” The Prisoner laughs. CO4 looks in the door at the sound. The number on his uniform shirt seems to glow through the window. Numbers on the front. Numbers on the back. The man is branded, nameless, until the minute his shift is over.
“No, really,” the Chaplain says.
“I don’t know. I don’t really care. Maybe . . .” the Prisoner rolls to face the wall, “. . . maybe he’s going to die before me in order to save me a place beside him at the dinner table.”
He won’t die that quickly, the Chaplain thinks, but says nothing.
The Chaplain looks at the digital clock on the wall. The Prisoner says, “You got somewhere to go?” even though he is facing away from him. How did he know he was looking at the clock?
“No. Of course not. I’m here for you. We can talk about anything you want. We can be silent. We can pray together. Whatever you want.”
“What’s the time?” the Prisoner asks, without looking up at the clock.
“Twelve-thirty-five,” the Chaplain says. “Seems later than that, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, I guess.” The Prisoner yawns and rolls back to face him, and then he sits up on the bed. “I was wondering if time would go fast in here or slow. It’s something I’ve been wondering.”
“Me too,” the Chaplain says. “I couldn’t tell you. Right now, it seems to be going slowly. That’s good, I guess.”
“Is it?”
A corrections officer knocks on the door and enters. He has a six on his shirt. “You got to fill out the form about your last meal and when you want it and all,” he says, thrusting a piece of paper and a pencil at the Prisoner. He stands there, waiting, while the Prisoner looks at the form and then looks at the Chaplain.
“I’ve got to decide now? With you watching me?”
“I can’t leave you with the pencil. The last guy tried to stab through his eyes to his brain with a pencil.”
The Chaplain opens his mouth to say something, but can’t think of anything to say. The irony of trying to stop someone from killing himself so that you can kill him yourself.
“Man,” the Prisoner says. “That’s fucked.”
He writes something on the form and then hands it back to the CO. CO6 leaves the room. Locks the door behind him.
The Chaplain wants to ask what the Prisoner ordered and what time the food will be coming, but he decides not to say anything. He wonders, though, if he’ll have anything to eat himself. They didn’t give him a form.
As if reading the Chaplain’s thoughts, the Prisoner says, “I should have ordered you something,” and lies back down upon the cot.
There is silence then. It fills up the room and the Prisoner’s eyes shut. The Chaplain shuffles on his chair but tries not to make too much noise. He tries not to squeak the chair or move the chair over the floor. He isn’t sure if the Prisoner has fallen asleep. Time clicks on.
“I suppose,” the Prisoner says after about five minutes, his eyes still closed shut. “I suppose I should start with the beginning.”
The Chaplain looks at him. “Sorry?”
“My story,” he says. “That’s what you’re here for, right?”
“Well, I’m not sure. I’m here for whatever you want me to be here for. Whatever you want. Religious guidance? Comfort?”
“But you want my story, right?” The Prisoner opens his eyes and turns his head towards the Chaplain, curious. “I mean, why else would you be here?”
“You asked me to be here.”
“I asked my chaplain to be here and I got you.”
“Yes, that’s true.”
“If we’ve got twelve hours,” the Prisoner says, “then I might as well start with the beginning.”
“I’ve read your files,” the Chaplain says. “You don’t need to tell me what happened if you don’t want to. I know about your robberies, the storage unit, I know what happened. The murders. You don’t need to waste any of your time thinking about me. Whatever is good for you.”
The Prisoner thinks about this. “I’m not telling you the story of what happened,” he says slowly. “Everyone knows that. No sense in rehashing it. No, I’m going to tell you why it happened. I think that’s a better story.
”
“Sure. Of course.”
“I mean, we might as well pass time, right? Better than praying for twelve hours. It’s not like my prayers are going to be answered.” He laughs almost gleefully and the Chaplain wonders, for a brief instant, about his sanity.
“I do want to hear your story. But a little prayer never hurt anyone.”
“We got time for both,” the Prisoner says. “All the time in the world.”
The Chaplain thinks this is curious. They have the absolute opposite of all the time in the world. The clock is ticking.
“Too bad your chair is so uncomfortable. Too bad I don’t have a pillow.”
The Chaplain pulls the other chair up across from him and puts his feet upon it. The Prisoner smiles.
“That better now, Chaplain?”
“Yes,” he says. “Much better.”
The Prisoner faces the ceiling, closes his eyes, and begins. “I had a pretty average childhood,” he says. “Normal house. Normal life. Even had those fucking glow-in-the-dark stars on my bedroom ceiling.” He laughs. And the Chaplain suddenly pictures his own childhood room. The train set in the corner, the thick pile carpet where, if you dropped a tack or a pin, you’d find it eventually with your bare feet, the door that adjoined his room to Miranda’s, where they would knock secret codes back and forth pretending to be spies. He thinks about his childhood – perfectly normal. So what made the Chaplain do what he did to Tracy? What made him take his anger out on her that way? And, more importantly, what made the Prisoner kill? “You know what I mean,” the Prisoner continues. “Normal. White-bread sandwiches for lunch. An older brother, Jack. An older sister, Susan. My dad was an asshole but everything was okay for a while. Until my mother left . . .”
The Prisoner and the Chaplain Page 2