The Prisoner and the Chaplain Page 5

  “Little devils,” Miranda said with a smile on her face.

  “Yeah, we hate them, don’t we? We should execute them.”

  Miranda threw a fork at her brother and he dove just in time.

  The Chaplain thinks of this now, this regular dinner he has with his sister and her husband and her kids. His lovely, crazy, wild niece and nephew. Even if he ever had the opportunity to have his own family, he doesn’t really need them – his own kids, a wife – not anymore. Not when he has Miranda’s family. He might have had the opportunity once, perhaps, but that is long gone. Who would take him now? Who would trust him now? Even after all he’s done to try to right his wrongs. Now the Chaplain spends his time adoring his sister’s children. Imagine, he thinks, if they had been the Prisoner’s victims?

  Miranda is the bully-fighter. She is the holder of right and wrong, black and white. The Chaplain used to be easy to sway, but lately he’s been standing up for his convictions. This man in front of him deserves to be treated like a human being. There is no debate. Being here, however, doesn’t mean that he believes in the death penalty.

  The Warden had said, “Don’t let the Prisoner talk you into saving him.” The Warden didn’t know how right he might be, how prescient those words. The Chaplain’s soul, his sister says, is soft.

  How strange to think that the next time the Chaplain sees his sister and her kids, the man before him will be dead. Killed by the government. The Chaplain’s quiet life – the one he attempted to build after university, after Tracy, after the charges were dropped, through years of his own therapy and counseling, after years of loneliness and anger, through all his studies, before he realized his calling and took his oath – seems to be a little louder now. He’s not sure if that’s in a bad way or a good way. He knew when he took this job as prison chaplain that he might be called to the last hours of a man about to die. This shouldn’t be such a surprise to him. But being here, seeing it, breathing in this room, well . . . it’s not what he was ready for.

  And it came on so suddenly. Cancer pushed him into it before he was ready.

  “Do you think that guy really stabbed himself in the eye with a pencil?” the Prisoner asks. Both the Chaplain and the Prisoner are still standing. Only feet away from each other. The air is hot and sticky, closed, in this room. Why won’t they give them a window, the Chaplain thinks, in their last hours? A breath of fresh air. A spot of sun? A moon? Why green walls?

  “Not sure. Seems likely, though.”

  “Why does it seem likely?”

  “Well, because anything is likely in here, don’t you think? I’ve heard some stories.”

  “I’ve seen some things,” the Prisoner says, a far-off look in his eyes. “You wouldn’t even believe.”

  “I’d believe,” the Chaplain says. “I’d definitely believe.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” The Prisoner sits again on his cot. He wiggles his toes in his canvas running shoes. “Before I was on Death Row, I had a roommate who tried to sodomize me with his toothbrush.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What happened?”

  “He sodomized me. Not only with his toothbrush. Nothing I could do about it. It hurt. Got a few days in the hospital, though.”

  The Chaplain has no response to this. He knows this, he hears it all the time when counseling the others. But they don’t use words like sodomize. They say, “bite the pillow,” or “butt fuck,” or “stir the peanut butter,” or “take it up the ass.” Never “sodomy.” The Prisoner is a stranger in here just by his choice of words. He is different from all the others even if the crimes he committed might seem to fit in.

  Not so unlike the Chaplain. He never fit in either. Still doesn’t. A prison chaplain who doesn’t quote the Bible that often. He tries, but always forgets to comfort with psalms and verses. He forgets to carry the Bible with him. It just doesn’t come to him naturally yet. Instead, he goes straight towards what makes him feel the best – consoling. If a prisoner tells him the correctional officers won’t let him out in the yard because he’s been fighting with his roommate, the Chaplain tends to nod his head in sympathy instead of counseling the prisoner to apologize, to avoid violence, to be humble and forgiving of others as well as himself. It’s not as if the Chaplain is not religious – of course he is, he is a prison chaplain – but he doesn’t naturally turn towards his religion first for all the answers. Not yet. He knows that will come with time. The Chaplain’s religion is, instead, in his soul, deep down, something so natural inside of him. It’s not something he feels he has to wear on his sleeve or quote continuously in order to understand. This is probably why he didn’t bring his Bible today. He doesn’t really need it, does he? Everything he needs is inside of him. His mentor used to roll his eyes at him when he passed by a counseling session in the common room. He would see the Chaplain with his Bible on his lap, unopened, nodding sympathetically to complaining prisoners.

  “You might as well have gone into psychiatry,” his mentor would say and roll his eyes.

  Before this, before his life as a chaplain, he didn’t fit into school either. In university, he studied English literature and political science, hoping to eventually apply to law school. Instead, in his final year, just before the incident with Tracy, he became hooked on an elective course on world religion. And after Tracy, he wanted nothing more than to be a minister, or if not a minister, to at least minister to others. He wanted penance. To be forgiven for his sins. Miranda thought he was crazy.

  “Just because of Tracy, it doesn’t mean you have to be a priest, Jim.”

  “I’m not going to be a priest, I’ll be a minister. United or something. Something like that. And it has nothing to do with Tracy.”

  “How does this not have anything to do with Tracy? We weren’t even religious growing up, for God’s sake. You never even went to Sunday school.”

  “You did.”

  “Yeah, with my friend. But only because if I memorized a verse from the Bible I’d get candy.” Miranda laughed. “And Mom never gave us candy.”

  “It’s not like I’m going to be a different person,” the Chaplain said. “I just need something to believe in right now, and I believe in this.”

  “Sure. Until you meet another woman.”

  “Miranda. What woman would be crazy enough . . . ?”

  “Honestly, Jim, I don’t know what to do with you. Do you know what we should do with him, Richard?”

  Richard shrugged. He placed an arm around Miranda’s shoulders.

  “God, Jim. Religion? Being religious is not going to make you feel any better about yourself.”

  “Why does this matter to you?” the Chaplain said, insulted.

  “Because I don’t want you to be someone you’re not just because of what happened with Tracy.”

  Tracy and Jim. All through undergrad. They would dive into dorm rooms – hers or his – make love under the overbleached sheets, the scratchy blankets, try hard not to make any noise through paper-thin walls. Groaning and grunting, giggling, grasping. His body was sore, his mind was full. He was in love with this woman, his first true love. Tracy. Hair black and straight. Wonky teeth, a big grin. Beautiful eyes. Tracy hooked him the first day she sat next to him in his course on Thomas Hardy. She sat down and this smell, she gave off this smell, it sucked him in. Later he found out it was Chanel No. 5, and Tracy soon made the connection that his mother used to wear that perfume. The smell must have been in his memory channels, floating through his head, full of life and love and care.

  They were together for three years. He was sure they would graduate and find a house and get married and have children. They would live down the street from Miranda and Richard, and Tracy would talk to Miranda about children and everything else. They would have Christmases together, they would have barbecues. His father had recently died of a heart condition, his mother died when he and Miranda were in high school of breast cancer, and he was looking for a family to fill the gap. It was somet
hing he needed desperately.

  But Tracy met David and that was the end of it. It was amazing, actually, how fast it happened. She moved out of their apartment within weeks of meeting David and straight into his place. Recently separated from his wife, David was the teaching assistant for their Children’s Literature course. People told him later that David was sleeping with everyone, not just Tracy. But not everyone moved in with David, only Tracy.

  And so, after his court-appointed therapy, after everything that happened, he burrowed down into religious studies. Religion classes were the only classes that seemed to speak to him then – they made life seem less complicated and more doable. They filled a gap in his body and soul, a gap he didn’t realize was there. A black hole, a chasm that opened after Tracy (but which the therapist also quickly linked back to the death of his mother). And he soon graduated, got his master’s degree, trained in psychology and pastoral counseling, got ordained, got well and a year ago started here, at the prison, being mentored as a chaplain. He is even certified. He even did that. His mentor’s cancer has catapulted him into a position he wouldn’t have been put in for another year, but he knows you can’t always plan your life, you have to take it as it comes. This experience, what happens in these next hours, will affect him for his life. But these hours will also make him a stronger chaplain, a stronger man of God. And he’s grateful for that.

  The Prisoner lies down on his cot again, puts his hands behind his head.

  “The one good thing about being put in solitary on death row,” he says, “is that I didn’t have to have a roommate again.”

  The Chaplain is amazed that the Prisoner never seems to look at the clock. The Chaplain has been watching each number turn. The red digital light is giving him a headache. It’s wonderful and strange, too, how the digital clock works, how it’s merely a rectangle with a line through the middle and each number fits into that – from one to nine. It’s only a matter of one or two red lines coming and going, here for a minute, then gone. A four becomes a five simply by the addition or subtraction of lines.

  “My father’s clock-and-watch business gave me a start in life. A hand up. Something my friends didn’t have. I mean, I learned a trade young. That was good,” the Prisoner says, suddenly, and the Chaplain realizes that they are moving back into the story, into the Prisoner’s life. “Of course, I never applied it. I never put any of that to good use.” The Chaplain takes the chair he was sitting in, pulls it into another position, sits on it and puts his feet up on the second chair. Leans back slightly, tilting. His back aches already and he has hours and hours left. But his physical pain can be overcome. He takes the Prisoner’s advice and thinks about his ankles, stretched to tilt him back, he thinks about his calves, his knees, he focuses on each part of his body – quickly, because he doesn’t want to be concentrating on himself while the Prisoner talks – and soon he is aware of the fullness and size of his body, of what it contains. He is suddenly unaware of his back problems. The Prisoner is right. This kind of focus does work. The Chaplain’s mind turns to the Prisoner’s voice, and he knows he can sit here forever.

  The Figurine

  When Larry is twelve years old, he is caught shoplifting. From his father’s store. He justifies this.

  “It’s not stealing when it’s yours,” he shouts.

  His father smacks him around. “It wasn’t your watch,” he says. “It was a customer’s watch.”

  Larry sold the watch for a hundred dollars. His first crime. Unfortunately, a stupid crime – he unknowingly sold the watch back to the owner, a local thug, Dwight, the guy who collected protection money from all the businesses in town. A drug dealer. A petty thief.

  “I had a watch like this once,” Dwight tells Larry. “Some little creep stole it.”

  Larry swallows hard, nurses his ribs where his father kicked him when he was down. It doesn’t matter, though, he needs the money.

  For what? He isn’t sure. It’s just something people need. Money. Lots of it. Supposedly it’ll make your life better somehow, Larry is never sure how. And even when he finally has it, he never finds out how money makes his life better, but he does spend most of his life wanting it, needing it, finding it, getting it. Money becomes a surrogate mother. He craves it, collects it, commits crimes for it. He rarely spends it.

  Coffee tins.

  But that comes later, he tells the Chaplain.

  Dwight pays for his own watch. Larry can’t figure out why until one day the large, mean man shows up at the store and wants a little help with a job. He needs small fingers, he says, a tiny frame. A kid who can slide through windows, who can look innocent if caught, who has no connection to Dwight.

  Larry’s first B and E.

  “You slide in through there,” Dwight whispers.

  They are in the dark behind the house. A kitchen window is slightly open. It’s a small window; Larry isn’t sure he can get in. He is small, but not that small. His bones aren’t liquid.

  “What about the screen?” he asks.

  “I’ll cut it. Like this. See.” Dwight takes out a box cutter and slices through the screen like butter. The knife is brutally sharp. Larry takes a breath. Swallows.

  “You get in. Don’t make any noise or I use this on you.” Dwight holds up the knife. “Then you open the back door for me. I’ll do the rest.”

  So Larry squeezes through the cut screen of the window. Lands with a tiny thump on the kitchen counter. A cat meows below him and he almost screams. A spoon on the counter rattles. Larry can feel his heart in his throat. The pulse drowns out his hearing. He panics. He can hear it in his head, so loud, beating so wildly, the blood rushing. He swears everyone in the house, sleeping, can hear his heart. He holds his breath. The cat meows again.

  “Fucking cat,” Dwight whispers from the window. “Get down and open the door.”

  Larry climbs down from the counter. He can breathe again. So far so good. He goes over to the back door, the cat following, meowing, and he unlocks the lock. Dwight comes in slowly and quietly – for such a big guy he is, well, cat-like. The cat disappears out the door, with a small kick from Dwight. Dwight puts his finger to his mouth. Larry wants to leave but Dwight signals that Larry should come with him. They move together throughout the main floor of the house. The kitchen, the living room, an office, a small bathroom.

  There is a moon, perhaps it’s full, the Prisoner can’t remember now, but everything seems lit up, clear in his mind.

  Dwight collects pills and prescription bottles from the bathroom. He takes a laptop computer from the office. He pockets a watch and a ring that were lying on the kitchen counter. In the living room, he takes whatever he can – another computer, a clock, a few odds and ends. Mostly he’s there for the pills, he’s told Larry, but he might as well fill up with other things too.

  Dwight encourages Larry to take something. He mimes putting something in his pocket and he points to Larry.

  There is a noise from upstairs. A door opens. A creak of the floor. A thump, thump as someone walks down the hall.

  Larry makes as if to run but Dwight holds him back. Shoots arrows from his eyes. Stay, his eyes are saying. Don’t move.

  Another door closes. The sound of water. Then a toilet flush and the same thump, thump back down the hall, creak, the door to the bedroom closes. Silence.

  Larry is wide-eyed. Terrified.

  Dwight shrugs.

  Larry pockets a statue that is resting on the fireplace. A small figurine. A young boy, fishing, leaning back on a log. It’s delicate, yet heavy. The boy’s fishing pole and fishing line are made out of wood and string. The boy’s expression is one of contentment. His eyes are half closed. Larry puts it in his coat pocket, careful not to break it. Dwight shakes his head.

  “What the fuck are you going to do with that?” Dwight says, later, when they are back at his apartment, pulling everything out of their pockets, out of Dwight’s bag. “It’s not even worth anything.”

  Larry shrugs. “I don’t
know. I just liked it.”

  “Idiot. You can’t even sell it. You should always take something you can sell.”

  Larry will always remember that first B and E. He will remember the thump, thump as those footsteps came down the hall upstairs. He will remember the way the cat meowed at him, looking up at him with wide, glowing eyes as he crouched on the kitchen counter. He will remember the look in Dwight’s eyes, an adrenalin coursing through him that Larry realizes later in his life is more addictive than crack or booze. The feel of getting away with it. Dwight was high on it. Later, Larry knows that feeling and can’t get away from it either. No matter how hard he tries.

  Sometimes, when Larry has squeezed into a window and is standing in a darkened house, he thinks about Jack and what he might be doing. He wonders if Jack is taking care of their mother or if he’s left her and gone off on his own. He wonders if Jack is still alive. Jack would be fourteen when Larry is twelve. Hard to believe. The asshole brother of his youth – last time he saw Jack, he was nine and Larry was seven. Susan was eleven. Larry can’t imagine Jack being older than he was then. He can’t imagine him having to shave or being taller or broader or having a deep voice.

  Larry wonders if Jack would be proud of his prowess, proud of the money he is saving. Dwight gives him some, sometimes – after Larry pays off the one hundred dollars he owes Dwight for his watch. They work most nights after Susan and the baby have gone to bed, after his father has passed out on the living room couch. Dwight throws pebbles at Larry’s window and he sidles down the drainpipe of his house and goes out into the night. When he is older, Larry merely walks down the stairs and out the front door.

  No one ever asks him where he’s going.

  No one ever asks him what he’s doing.

  When Dwight shows Larry the gun, things change. The box cutter was one thing. It kept Larry in line, made him aware of Dwight and his power and his need for Larry to be small and quiet and fast. But when Larry is fifteen and Dwight shows up with the gun, things change drastically.