Again he hears that groan coming from the storage unit two aisles over. It is late at night and Larry is resting at his desk, feet up, looking at porn on the laptop. Again he sneaks over, tries to see what’s up, see if he can even ask the guy to stop making the noise, it’s annoying, but the sound ceases the minute he comes near the door. Is he hurt? Is he sad? Is he angry? Is he turned on? Larry can’t tell. And now the noise has stopped.
And there is nothing.
9:01 a.m.
They will shave him first. And wash him. They will wash him of his sins. Or so the Chaplain imagines. He is hazy, confused. Sad. Tired, of course. The Prisoner asks them if he can shave his face, if he can at least go to hell without a day’s growth. They will not let him. Of course they won’t. They can’t leave a condemned man with a razor. And they don’t have time to shave him themselves. Why would they? Who has time for a dead man?
The Chaplain isn’t sure why the Prisoner didn’t shave before, when he had his shower. But that was almost ten hours ago.
“Not even an electric one?” the Prisoner says, scratching his cheeks. “Jesus, man. I’m itchy.”
“Won’t be for long,” a CO jokes.
It isn’t funny.
They shave patches on his arms, his legs. They give him soap and a washcloth and stand by while he washes his armpits and face in the small sink. A warm towel, fresh from the laundry.
“That’s nice,” the Prisoner says as he holds it up to his face and sniffs. “It’s the small things, you know. They make all the difference.” He laughs wildly.
The Chaplain watches this, his bowels churning. Concerned. Why did he agree to this? Why is he here? He attacked his girlfriend once and somehow this led him to become a prison chaplain, which led him here, to the final three hours of a man’s life. Right now, this moment, he can’t see the connections.
The Chaplain has comforted the sick at hospital beds. He has held hands as a life left a body. But he never thought he would be sitting by a man who will be purposefully killed. A man who is at the prime of his life – in his early forties – healthy, not a thing wrong with him. The Chaplain wishes now that the Prisoner was as violent as the Warden joked he was. Not laughing crazily. He wishes that the Prisoner would rage and swear and spit and rant. Go violently. The Chaplain wants to see criminal insanity in his eyes. As if that would make a difference at the end. Killing a monster, in the long run, is no better than killing a man.
Is it?
The Chaplain recalls the photos of the crime scene. He imagines the families of these three people. He imagines the lives they could have led. Graduations. Weddings. Children. Grandchildren. Gone in an instant. He imagines the final minutes, the pain they suffered, the fear, the confusion. The Chaplain imagines the blood, how warm it was, how much of it there was, how it would have smelled like rust or metal or fish. How sticky. Everywhere.
But still. Trading one murder for another?
“One murder for three,” Miranda says in his mind.
The Chaplain turns to the Prisoner and sees a fairly handsome man, boyish in features, slender but muscular. He sees a man covered in tattoos, with a smile that is quick and softens his face. Hair that sticks up because he runs his hands through it constantly. The Prisoner’s cuticles are bloody from picking anxiously as he waits. His jaw is muscular from gritting his teeth. This is a fairly intelligent human being, one who is able to spin a good tale, one who knows right from wrong. But his crime wasn’t an accident. It was purposeful. And violent. And horrific.
“We’ll come get you at about 11:30,” CO1 says to the prisoner. “Are you going with him?” He looks at the Chaplain.
“Yes, yes I am.” The Chaplain looks at the Prisoner. The Prisoner nods.
“You aware of what’s going to happen? You clear with it?” CO1 asks.
“Yes,” the Prisoner says, and his voice cracks.
“I won’t go over it then?”
The Chaplain wishes he would go over it, walk them through it, give them a practice run. Prepare him even more for what is about to come.
The Prisoner shakes his head. “No, I don’t need to hear it again.”
The COs leave, taking soap, towel, razor with them. The room suddenly feels large. The Chaplain sits back in his chair, the Prisoner lies back down on the cot.
“I really should walk around,” he says. “I mean, it’s the last couple hours I’ll ever walk. After that, I’m always lying down.” Again his voice cracks. He is crying now.
The Chaplain wants to go to him, but by the way the Prisoner is holding himself, fetal position turned towards the wall, he knows to leave him alone. He says nothing. Lets the Prisoner cry it out. He waits. The Prisoner is shaking. After a while, the Prisoner stops crying, blows his nose on his arm, wipes his eyes, rolls onto his back and resumes staring up at the ceiling. His eyes are puffy and ringed red. They are wet. The Chaplain watches him.
“Do you want some time to yourself now?” the Chaplain asks. “Do you want me to leave?”
“No.” This is definitive. “No. Stay here. Don’t leave.”
“We could pray.”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you think your chaplain would have done at this point?”
“Prayed.” The Prisoner laughs. “Yeah, he’d have been praying all this time. Twelve fucking hours of prayer.”
“I guess I’ve failed you then,” the Chaplain says, smiling.
The Prisoner looks at him. Smiles back. “Yeah, well, you kept forgetting to get me things, like cookies, Pepto-Bismol, so, yeah, you failed me. But in the prayer department, you’ve done well. Not like a prayer is going to save me now. A cookie, however . . .”
The Chaplain laughs. “I could try and get you one now?”
“I’m not hungry anymore. Thanks, though.”
The Chaplain leans back on his chair. “So you were in love with her, then?”
The Prisoner stares at the ceiling, willing it to have the answers. His jaw tightens. His eyes water. “Yes, I was.”
Silence.
“She was wild, man. Just fucking crazy. Always came at me angry. And those kids . . .” Again, his voice cracks. “But there was a spark, you know, something there. I couldn’t get enough of her. And I think she loved me too. We didn’t talk about it, didn’t say anything, but you know how you can feel it, that warmth . . .”
“Then why –”
“I don’t know. I don’t know why.” The Prisoner studies the shaved spots on his arms. He runs his fingers over them as if petting himself, comforting himself. He breaks down. “I don’t want to die, man. I don’t want to die.” Shaking, he lies there staring at the ceiling, his eyes running tears. The Chaplain stands and heads towards him, but the Prisoner retreats within himself, moves away quickly and puts his hand out. “Don’t come close. Don’t touch me.”
The Chaplain returns to his chair.
The Prisoner calms himself again. Lies there quietly for a while. Then, “You know what I loved the most about my mother?”
“What?”
“She never touched me. She never touched any of us. Not me. Not Susan, Jack. Not even my father.”
“She never hugged you? Kissed you?”
“No. She let us have our space. We never sat on her lap. We never even held her hand. It was weird, I know. It sounds weird now. But it was nice. We had our space apart. We were ourselves and no one was hanging on.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good thing,” the Chaplain says. “People need human touch. Children especially.”
“She sometimes ruffled my hair,” the Prisoner says. He puts his hand up to his hair. “My father hated to be touched. He would say ‘Don’t touch me!’ all the time. He would shout if you reached for his hand or even bumped him in the fucking hallway. He never wanted anyone to touch him. Maybe my mother learned from that. Learned not to touch anyone.”
“I’m not sure –”
“The point is,” the Prisoner says, “the point is that Mona didn’
t like me to touch her. She would touch me, yeah, but she never let me touch her. And I think maybe that reminded me of my mom. It reminded me that my mom never touched us and so maybe, like Mona, she didn’t want to be touched herself. And maybe my dad caused that, you know. I mean, if someone was always shouting, ‘Don’t touch me!’ at you, you’d learn soon not to touch, wouldn’t you?”
“So that’s why you –”
“No. Fucking listen. Just listen. That’s not why. That’s not why.”
“Sorry.”
“I’m just saying that maybe that’s why I fell for her, you know. That’s why she was different. She was like my mom.”
“Yes, I can see that. I can see that the similarities to your mother would affect you. After all, Mona had two boys. Your mother had two boys.”
“She didn’t fucking leave, though. Mona never left those kids.” The Prisoner punches the wall with his fist. The Chaplain stiffens. “Why did she leave us?”
“I’m not sure. No one can be sure. There was obviously something wrong. It’s not often women leave their children.”
“But she took him. She took Jack.”
The Chaplain nods. Yes, she took the Prisoner’s brother. She chose Jack instead. His whole life mourning her and hating his brother.
And Tracy chose David and the Chaplain has spent years hating himself for it.
The smallest choices affect everything, he thinks.
“The thing is,” the Prisoner says, “the thing is that I spent my whole life mad at Jack for this. But it wasn’t really his fault. Sure, he’s an asshole, but he was a kid. He was only nine. And he missed out on having siblings. Susan and I had each other. Jack had no one. But our mother.” He pauses. Thinks. “I guess I’ve come to that,” he says. “Finally. Jack was all alone and me and Susan had each other. And I feel kind of bad about that. It just, well, it explains a lot about him.”
“Do you think Jack forgives you for what you’ve done?”
The Prisoner laughs. “What does Jack need to forgive me for? This has nothing to do with him. I should be forgiving him for all the fucking concussions. Maybe if he didn’t give me all those concussions, I wouldn’t have blacked out. I wouldn’t have killed –”
“I’m just saying that maybe you should say goodbye to him. Call him. I can get you a phone.”
“You won’t let it go, will you? How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t want to see anyone I know at my fucking execution? I don’t want to see anyone. Not Susan. Not Jack. Not Susan’s brats. I came into this world alone. I’m going out alone. This isn’t about them. It’s about me. Me. I’m the one facing this. I’m the one doing this.”
“I –”
“You’ve got a one-track mind, you know. Has anyone told you that? You’re like some kid poking something over and over and over with a stick no matter how many times his mom tells him to stop. You won’t let it go. Dead animal. Dead animal. Poke, poke.”
The Chaplain smiles slightly. His sister used to say the same thing to him. He will tell her of this coincidence at their dinner next Sunday night. He will tell her this over red wine and steak, and Richard will be on his way home from the long haul, and the kids will be excited and wild. And when he tells Miranda about this, the Prisoner, this man in front of him now, will be dead.
“What if,” the Prisoner says, looking at his shaved spots, “what if it grows a little stubble in three hours? That could happen, couldn’t it? And then stuff won’t stick? And maybe it won’t work? Or the hair will catch fire?”
“Doubt it,” the Chaplain says. “Hair can’t grow that quickly.” And then he stops and realizes what he said. Not that quickly. The execution is coming fast and furious. Twelve noon. No time to grow hair.
In the silence, the Chaplain can hear the prisoners now. In the yard around the death chamber. In their cells. He can hear them like he would hear a hive of bees. Not really a sound, more like a feeling. Feeling them in your body. Humming and buzzing. The prisoners are awake now, all around, off and about their days. They are talking and shouting and screaming. The Chaplain can feel it around him. It’s life. Even if it’s meaningless life – waiting out their sentences – it’s still life. If this were any other day, the Chaplain would be arriving at the prison, checking in with the Warden, attending a few meetings – maybe talking about behaviour issues or who needs help, some counselling – then out into the common rooms and a group therapy session or two. Sometimes one-on-one visiting. Sometimes meeting with the prisoner’s families. A few hours in the chapel. At the end of the day, he would be climbing into his car and driving back to his apartment. He would watch his screen a bit and make something with noodles or rice for dinner. Eat. Read later. A glass of Scotch before bed. Maybe write a bit. Then bed. Over and over, his days are like this. Until today. And until now, he has always hoped he was doing something worthwhile. Listening when no one else listens. Hearing them. Helping them. Even if most days, driving home, he felt like he might not be making a difference – he always had hope.
Now he wonders, What good is all of this? Again and again, the Chaplain sees reoffenders. Back again. Second, third, fourth time. It seems that on the outside, no one listens to these men. So they use fists and crime to solve that problem and he, once again, hears them out. Tries to help. Gives them occasional words of wisdom. Shows them there is a power higher than themselves. That if they only had faith, patience, hope, if they were only kind to others . . .
Now what, though?
“We are the same, you and I,” the Chaplain says, suddenly, to the Prisoner.
“What’s that?” The Prisoner rolls over on his side and looks at him.
How do you get a man to confess, to ask forgiveness, to tell the story of his crime? You share your own failings.
“I became a prison chaplain because a judge recommended that I do something to atone for my sins. She told me to go to therapy. And my therapist agreed with the judge.”
The Prisoner laughs. “A judge told you to become a chaplain? Your therapist? Your sins? Fuck. And this makes you the same as me?”
The Chaplain is startled. He is confessing. “They didn’t say that exactly, my therapist, the judge – that I should be a prison chaplain – but they both mentioned that I needed a higher purpose, that I needed to give back to society. I was taking religion courses at university. It seemed the right choice.”
“Yeah, that makes sense.” The Prisoner rolls his eyes. “You couldn’t think of any other job you’d rather have? Garbage man is giving back. Keeping the streets clean. Christ, anything would be better than this. Hanging out with a bunch of assholes all day. Reading the Bible.”
The Chaplain pauses. He stands. “I beat up my girlfriend,” he says. “I was charged with assault, but she dropped the charges. I did therapy. Anger management stuff.”
“Holy shit.” The Prisoner sits up. “I’ve known you all this time and you just tell me this?” He laughs. “And here I thought we were close.” He smiles. Pauses. “I didn’t think you guys were allowed to have girlfriends.”
“The point is . . . the point is not what I did.”
“Sure it is. That’s the whole point. What. You. Did. That’s my point. That’s why I’m here. What. I. Did.”
“The point is that you and I, we are alike. We have both felt anger, intense anger. And we have been punished for that anger.”
“Seems that your punishment is a little easier though, doesn’t it? You weren’t charged.” The Prisoner is leaning with his elbows on his knees. “You’re going home tonight. With no record.” He is looking at the floor. Suddenly he looks up into the Chaplain’s eyes. “Why’d you do it?” he asks. “Why’d you hit your girlfriend?”
And the Chaplain thinks about this. Hard. He knows why he hit Tracy – because of David. Because he was humiliated and hurt and she took their lives, what he thought was their lives, their future, and she turned it all on a dime. Suddenly they weren’t Jim and Tracy anymore, and he was alone. Without warning
. Or if there was warning, he wasn’t paying attention. He hurt her because she hurt him. And the only way he could think of hurting her was to be physical. It was fast. Easy. Simple as that. But he doesn’t say all of this. Instead he says what he really feels now, what he knows to be true:
“I hit her because it felt good at the time.”
The Prisoner stares hard. It feels to the Chaplain as if the Prisoner is taking the Chaplain’s soul into his soul, swallowing him. The room is small and spins. There is silence all around them now, the Prisoner and the Chaplain. Silence that is overwhelming.
“What I did,” the Prisoner finally speaks. Clearly, slowly. “What I did did not feel good at all.”
Coffee Cans
Mona has an ex-husband. She tells Larry nothing about him, just that he’s crazy, that she keeps away from him. That she hasn’t seen him in a couple of months.
Larry figures that something bad is going on when he sees Mona on the phone in the summer on the steps leading up to the office. She is crying and waving her arms around hysterically. Larry can see the twins the next aisle over, and they are standing completely still and staring at their mother. The look on their faces tells Larry that this happens often. Mona is shrill and furious, she smashes her hand down on the railing and almost throws her phone away but then sees Larry watching her, looks down the aisle at her kids and sees them staring, and turns on her heels and goes back into the office. The boys scooter off.
She won’t talk to him about it. No matter what he asks her, how he phrases his questions, she tells him to shut up, stop bothering her, leave her alone.
“None of your business,” Mona says. “This has nothing to do with you.”
But the more he falls in love with Mona, the more this has everything to do with him. The calls are more frequent now. The man haunts her, screams at her on her phone and is beginning to demand visits with the twins. He takes the twins away for the weekend. Mona must let him. Larry has never seen him. One weekend the boys are with Mona. One weekend they do not come to the Storage Mart and the aisles echo, empty without their noisy play.
The Prisoner and the Chaplain Page 17