“The Warden’s coming down.”
“Yes,” the Chaplain says. “Good. We have enough time to stop this thing.”
There is silence as the COs stare at him. All he can see is a pack of blue uniforms with numbers on them. Inside his cell, the Prisoner, his hands bound together, lies quietly on his cot.
The Warden arrives quickly. Blusters in smelling like cigarette smoke and warm sweat. Smelling like the outside, like life. He is red-faced and angry.
“What the hell did I tell you, Chaplain? What did I say? I said, ‘Don’t let him get under your skin,’ didn’t I? Isn’t that what I said?” He shakes his head around. Waves his arms in the air. “I knew this would happen. I told your mentor that you’re too young, too inexperienced. I knew he’d manipulate you. But, no, he said you were fine, that you’d do your job. Jesus Christ, Chaplain. All you had to do was listen.”
“I listened,” the Chaplain says. “I listened. In fact, you didn’t listen. No one listened. He didn’t do it. He didn’t manipulate me. He says he did it. I’m the one, I think he didn’t do it.” The Chaplain pauses and takes a deep breath. Slows down his talking, tries to sound calm. “Listen, Warden, you have to listen.”
The Warden sits on a chair facing the Chaplain. He puts his hands on the Chaplain’s knees. The Chaplain’s shoulders curl inward, protecting his chest. He holds both his hands together in his lap.
“Do you know how hard it is to get the death penalty?” the Warden begins. “Do you have any idea how hard it is for us to get a prisoner this far? How many hurdles we have to jump? How many lawyers and judges and politicians? You can be damn sure, Chaplain, that when we get to where we are now, with –” here he pauses and looks at his watch – “with two fucking hours to go, you can be absolutely sure that every, and I mean every, avenue has been explored. There have been appeals up the yingyang. Hell, there are even picketers out there right now. Join them if you want. But there is no way in the world that this asshole didn’t kill those three innocent people. He fucking sliced them up – didn’t you look at the files? – he was brutal. Supposedly,” the Warden pauses and looks down at the ground as if summoning the strength to say this, “supposedly one of those boys was still breathing. He was breathing, alive, when the police got there. Imagine him lying under his brother all night, stabbed numerous times. Imagine the pain he suffered. For what? To eventually die when they finally got there to save him?”
The Warden stands quickly and starts pacing the hallway. The COs watch him. Then they look through the Prisoner’s door. Then they watch the Warden. Like a tennis game.
“It doesn’t make sense,” the Chaplain says quietly. “Why would he kill her? He loved her. He didn’t really care about the money. And his brother was trying to get the money for drugs. He fought his brother right before Mona came in. What about that? That’s how he got the concussion. He was blacked out when they got there. He had to go to the hospital. They never found a knife. He remembers nothing. Jack must have come back, seen Mona there holding the money and killed her, killed her kids. Just because there was blood on the Prisoner doesn’t make him guilty. Did anyone find his brother, Jack, and see if he was covered in blood?”
The Warden stops walking and stares straight at the Chaplain.
“Every fucking avenue was explored.” The Warden runs his hands over his bald head. “He says he killed them. He says he did it.” He starts pacing again. “Why the hell am I even justifying your questions with answers? This isn’t up to you, Chaplain. And it’s not up to me. It’s done. He’s been a dead man for weeks now.”
“But –” The Chaplain stands. “There must be something we can –”
“Look.” The Warden stares up at the taller man. “Look, I’m going to take you off this now. You go home. Get some rest. It’ll all be over shortly. You’re finished with this, okay? Nothing more. Go home.”
“No. No, I’m not going home.”
“The guy tried to strangle you.”
“I am not going home. I promised I would be here for him. I’m going to be here for him.”
“Jesus Christ, man. You’re not in control right now. You’re no help to anyone. You’re overtired and you’ve been manipulated by a murderer and a thief.”
“I am. I am help to him. To the Prisoner. He has no one else. Only me.”
The Warden thinks about this for a while. He looks again at his watch. “It is ten-fifteen. They are coming for him at eleven-thirty.”
“I want to be with him. Please.”
The Warden holds a finger up, as if testing the air. Then he opens the cell, goes in, shuts the cell door behind him. Ten minutes pass. The Warden comes out carrying the ties that bound the Prisoner.
“He says you can stay,” the Warden says. “But, Jesus, Chaplain, if you cause any more trouble, if you upset him in any way, you’re out of here. And after this is done, I want you in my office.”
The Warden blusters out of the hallway the same way he came in – fast-paced and furious.
The Chaplain sits back down on the chair and puts his head in his hands.
“You going back in?” CO1 asks.
“Yes. Do me a favour, would you?”
“Sure, yeah, what do you want?”
“Will you get me my Bible?”
CO1 is wide-eyed. “You been in there for almost eleven hours and you didn’t think to bring your Bible? I thought you were a Chaplain.”
The Chaplain runs his hands through his hair. He shrugs. “Not a very good one, I guess.”
“Aren’t you a man of God? What the hell have you been talking about then? If you didn’t even have a Bible with you?”
“We,” the Chaplain sighs, “are all men of God.” He stands and enters the cell again. CO1 puts a call in for someone to deliver the Chaplain’s Bible. “He says it’s on his desk,” CO1 says. “How the hell would I know why he wants it now?”
Into the cell. The Prisoner is standing against the far wall by the toilet. He has just flushed. He is standing there, every muscle in his body alert. The Chaplain takes note of this and tries to enter casually, sit down, remain relaxed.
“Look,” the Chaplain says. “I just –”
“If you say it one more time, I will kill you.” The Prisoner’s voice is low, violent, wild. He is a bundle of nerves. “I’ve got no time left to hear how sorry you are.”
No time left.
CO1 enters the cell with the Bible. He hands it to the Chaplain. He leaves.
“What’s that?” the Prisoner asks.
The Chaplain opens the Bible. Flips through it. Finds his place. “I think it’s time,” he says. He signals with his head to the cot. “I think it’s time I did my job properly.” The Prisoner walks slowly towards the cot and sits down.
He begins. His voice is monotone and soothing. Quiet.
“Psalm 51:1–12.”
He clears his throat. The Prisoner looks at him without any interest. With a look of pure disdain.
“‘O loving and kind God, have mercy. Have pity upon me and take away the awful stain of my transgressions. Oh, wash me, cleanse me from this guilt. Let me be pure again. For I admit my shameful deed – it haunts me day and night. It is against you and you alone I sinned and did this terrible thing. You saw it all, and your sentence against me is just. . . . Create in me a new, clean heart, O God, filled with clean thoughts and right desires. Don’t toss me aside, banished forever from your presence. Don’t take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me again the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you.’”
The Prisoner almost laughs. “Fuck,” he says quietly.
The Chaplain pauses. Shuffles the Bible around, looking for something else.
“John 1,” he reads. “‘This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowsh
ip with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.’”
The Prisoner stares at him. Not impressed, the Chaplain thinks. Of course not. After all, the Prisoner has confessed. In the Chaplain’s Bible, there are pieces of folded paper, some of which fall to the floor. He reaches for the papers. He opens one. “This is a Tibetan prayer,” he says. The Prisoner suddenly looks interested. “From the fourteenth century.” He begins, “‘When my time has come and impermanence and death have caught up with me, When the breath ceases, and the body and mind go their separate ways, May I not experience delusion, attachment, and clinging, But remain in the natural state of ultimate reality.’”
“That’s not bad,” the Prisoner says. “I like that one. What was it? ‘The natural state of ultimate reality.’” He lies back on his cot, slowly relaxing his body. “Let’s hear more.”
“From Martin Luther King Jr.’s Eulogy for the Martyred Children in 1963,” the Chaplain reads. “‘Now I say to you in conclusion, life is hard, at times as hard as crucible steel. It has its bleak and difficult moments. Like the ever-flowing waters of the river, life has its moments of drought and its moments of flood. Like the ever-changing cycle of the seasons, life has the soothing warmth of its summers and the piercing chill of its winters. And if one will hold on, he will discover that God walks with him, and that God is able to lift you from the fatigue of despair to the buoyancy of hope, and transform dark and desolate valleys into sunlit paths of inner peace.’”
The Chaplain is standing now, waving his arms, reading from the papers in his hands. His Bible is down on the floor beside him. When his voice stops, he realizes his position and once again sits down.
“You got more?” the Prisoner asks.
“I’ve got a lot more. From school. University.” The Chaplain pulls out more paper, stretches it out, smooths it on his lap. All his paper is thin from being handled over time. His Bible, on the other hand, crinkles with stiffness, with neglect. “Here’s a good one: Norse mythology – ‘Fearlessness is better than a faint heart for any man who puts his nose out of doors. The length of my life and the day of my death were fated long ago.’”
“That’s good,” the Prisoner says. “That’s right. Fated. Give me more.”
“Sayings of the Buddha,” he reads. “‘I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old. I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape having ill health. I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death. All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them. My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground on which I stand.’”
“Well,” says the Prisoner, “that’s not very helpful considering I’m not sick or old.” He laughs slightly. Looks at the clock. It is 10:53 a.m. “This is good, though. I appreciate this.”
The Chaplain reads, “This is a Catholic prayer for the dying: ‘God of all Creation, Be with us now and at the hour of our death. Shelter us from harms’ way and lead us on the path to eternal life. Receive our life, all that we are, and everything we do. May the Angel of Mercy stay near us this day and always.’”
“Amen,” the Prisoner says. The Chaplain isn’t sure if he’s being sarcastic.
“Okay, how about Psalm 23? You’ve heard this one. Psalm of David.”
“Go ahead, though. Even if I have heard it before.”
“‘The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want’?”
The Prisoner nods.
The Chaplain continues, “‘He maketh me to lie down in
green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death; I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.’”
The Prisoner is still. Thoughtful.
“I sort of see why you studied religion,” he says. “They all have a lot to say.”
“True,” the Chaplain says. He notes that the COs are all looking into the room, staring into the window. They can’t hear the two men in the cell, but they sense something is calmer, more peaceful now. They sense something – the Chaplain can feel it too. The electric energy in the air has settled.
The Prisoner stands and stretches. Then he kneels in front of the cot, places his hands together in prayer, and begins to speak: “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.”
Like a small child with bowed head and slumped back, like a child right before bed, before lights out, before the glow-in-the-dark stars grow dim on his blue wall, the Prisoner prays.
And then the Prisoner and the Chaplain are silent, both thinking their own thoughts.
Scum
Larry doesn’t remember anything until he is woken by the shouting.
By the time the guy at the front desk comes in for his early morning shift, by the time he walks into the office but turns and looks down the aisle and sees, strangely, that Larry Gallo’s door is open, the light inside shining out, by the time he realizes that Mona’s car is there but Mona is not in the office, by the time he walks towards Larry’s storage unit – every step anxious because something is in the air, he can feel it, he can smell it, he can taste it – by this time, the blood has hardened into a sticky mass on the victims, on the floor, on the walls, and Larry is passed out beside it all.
And the guy at the front desk begins to shout.
Larry tries to get up. He slips slightly, he bends at the waist, dry heaves, stumbles down onto the floor again. The front desk clerk is still shouting but Larry can’t make out the words. “Help,” or “Hell,” or just a long line of shouting nonsense, with no words, no sense attached to it. Larry falls again and again backing out of the shelter, trying to get away.
Then nothing. He must have passed out again.
Then suddenly there are lights and sirens and an ambulance. Other people shouting and touching him – carefully, as if they think that he, too, has been stabbed. There are police who are asking so many questions he can’t formulate answers, he can’t talk, he has nothing to say. The coffee tins are opened, the bodies are suddenly gone, although Larry knows now that they would have been photographed and catalogued for hours. Larry is ignored and then scrutinized. The desk clerk won’t stop shouting. They tell him to shut up, to calm down; he’s given oxygen or something, Larry can’t figure it out, and then the clerk is sent back to the office, a cop holding onto his shoulders, comforting him, guiding him.
Larry is taken away, in the police car. Nobody is holding his shoulders, no one is comforting him. Once they discover that the blood isn’t his, he is forced into the car, pushed ungracefully in, and driven upright to the hospital – slumping down every so often, tugged up again and again.
“Help me,” Larry hears himself say.
“Scum,” a cop whispers. “You scumbag.”
And then everything is over. And everything begins.
11:01 a.m.
He walks towards the execution chamber, the Chaplain by his side. This tall man who has spent the last twelve hours of his life with him. His mind is scattered and crazed
. Dead man, he thinks. Jesus Christ. God. Help me. Part of the Prisoner wants to grab the Chaplain’s hand and hold on tight, part of him wants to just stop walking and make the COs drag him. His head hurts, the lump on his forehead from his fall pulses. His legs are liquid, rubbery, wobbly.
That’s not the way it happened, he thinks.
The Prisoner remembers now. He remembers everything so clearly.
Who says you don’t see your life flash in front of you right before you die? For several days now, he has remembered. Everything. He has the scene before him now. That piece of the night that was missing, as if cut away from his brain with a knife. It’s back. That piece.
He wanted to tell his story to someone. That’s what he thought. He thought if he invited the Chaplain in, no matter which chaplain it was, and told him his story, then he would be free of everything. The burden would be off him. But then he started from the beginning, and now it’s the end. And still he didn’t say anything, he didn’t tell the whole story. He didn’t tell the right story.
Jack came back, that night, to the storage unit. Larry was stumbling, dazed, coming back again, once more, to load more of his cans in his car. Mona had asked Larry too many questions, he had pushed her, he had grabbed her phone and he had brushed her off. She was shouting at him. Larry had just delivered six more cans in his arms, balanced precariously, to his car. “We’ll figure it out. Just fucking shut up,” was the last thing he screamed at her then. Dizzy, disoriented, he was coming back from the car. Hearing her shout “No,” he looked towards the open storage unit. He saw a figure, Jack, come from the dark and go quickly into the light and disappear inside. And then he saw the boys, Frankie and Bennie, holding hands, crying, shouting something, running in behind the figure. As if to protect their mother. Larry now remembers thinking Fucking Jack, but he didn’t move forward. He could barely move. His body, his head ached. Everything was confusing. As if all the concussions over the years added up to this final one. He didn’t head towards them fast because he was going to pass out, because he thought that if he could just get his head straight, he would sneak back in and take Jack out without him realizing Larry was coming. He would be stealthy and sneak up on the scene – Jack was probably threatening Frankie and Bennie, maybe knocking concussions into those two wild, scootering kids, holding Mona hostage, waiting for Larry. Larry’s head was on fire and he wasn’t thinking clearly; he needed a few more minutes to figure it all out. He would come in and knock Jack out and then he and Mona and the kids would leave with his money. They would leave as a family, the four of them, with his coffee cans. A family. Into the wet, dark, hot night.
The Prisoner and the Chaplain Page 19