The attorneys have been calling the lady, and for the first time she doesn’t call them right back. She can hear the panic in their messages. The time has passed and the hour is here. If they are going to file with the court, they have to do it now. They ask if she has found anything, if there is any hope at all.
The lady feels silenced. No, not silenced. Quiet. Listening. She sees the path Auntie Beth hobbles along to her porch. She sees the skies over Sawmill Falls. She sees York, real flesh and blood in the Dugdemona cage. Flesh and blood as real as the warden’s. As the priest’s. As hers.
She wishes she could talk to someone. She imagines talking to the priest.
She has danced with death these years, pulling some bodies from the flames, walking away, and letting others perish.
For the first time, she truly feels it. She feels the pull of life the way the lakes pull their streams into them, mixing the fresh with the cold. Like her mother must have felt with the stirrings in her belly that were knitting joyously into new flesh: her. She wishes she could feel that someday—the creation of new life inside her body. A new being, a water baby born of the blue forests.
She also feels the pull of death. Although she doesn’t know about them, she senses the flibber-gibbets waiting near the oven. She feels their implacable gray skins and the coolness and despair of their desire. Will she feed York into their oven? Will she let them steal his last kindling warmth?
Weeks have passed for the white-haired boy, and life is no different or the same.
Summer is here in force, the sky a bright hammered dome over the yard, but the boy doesn’t know it. He doesn’t feel the dust under his feet or the warm sun on his skin. It doesn’t matter to him if it is hot or cold. He gets letters from home, and they are like missives from a foreign land. His mother writes that his sister won the fifth-grade talent show and that she makes his favorite rolls for breakfast every Sunday, the orange kind with icing. She says his grandpa Frank is feeling much better, and their crazy neighbors got drunk on the Fourth and lit the lawn on fire with their stupid illegal fireworks. His dad adds postscripts that he intends to be funny but are not funny, like, Don’t turn into a career criminal, son. The boy reads the letters and wonders if he ever lived in that world and whether he can go back. He knows the answer: He can never go back.
His days, at least, are predictable. He goes to mess three times a day. He works in the clothing factory, where he gets paid forty cents an hour. He doesn’t complain about the work or the slave wages; the time spent at the clothing machines, slicing the blue denim, acts as a salve. It is the only time his brain is asleep. He beds in his cell with the snoring, guttering old man. And twice a week, sometimes more, a big beef will come to him—in the yard, in the mess, in the halls, anywhere they want, it seems—and tell him when or where. Or does it soon after, up in a stairwell or behind a door. The big beefs seem to walk with impunity, anywhere and everywhere, under the smiling sardonic eyes of that intelligence officer Conroy.
He tells himself he will not think about it when it happens. He will blank it out. That never works. He is wide awake and screaming inside through the whole thing. Always. He wonders who made up the lie that people can blank out such things.
Today he sits at lunch mess with the other broken men. He sits next to a thin reedlike man with sandy hair. The man might have been good-looking once, but now his face is lopsided, as if he were badly beaten and had his jaw reset. The man could be nineteen or he could be thirty. The boy realizes he doesn’t know the man’s name, though they have been sitting next to each other for weeks.
The man begins talking in a low, broken voice, as if he swallowed splinters. He tells the boy he worked as a landscaper. “Till I got sent here for drugs,” he says in his whispery, broken voice.
The boy looks at his tray. He thinks it is rice—if rice has round black spots in it, like bugs. There is a pile of damp, rotten shredded iceberg lettuce that smells like fish. The boy thinks of the meals his mother used to make—lasagna and garlic bread, bowls of buttered peas, brownies with homemade white icing, and tumblers of icy cold milk to wash it all down. He remembers coming home from school and filling a mixing bowl with cereal and milk and eating it all. He pushes down those painful memories with force.
“How long have you been here?” the white-haired boy asks the man, tentatively spooning a little of the rice into his mouth. One of the black spots cracks unpleasantly under his teeth, spurting a vile taste in his mouth. His hunger lately is a raging, shaking force, and yet he cannot make himself eat this food.
“Four years,” the man whispers. He shows a fearful broken-toothed smile and rubs his pants legs nervously with his hands. The boy feels like scooting a little farther away. “It was supposed to be just one year,” the man adds.
“One?” the boy asks softly, looking at his tray.
“Yeah.” The man spoons the vermin-filled rice into his broken-toothed mouth, closes his rubbery lips, holds his nose, and swallows hard. “I got an infraction.” The man’s voice lowers even more, and he tilts his head down so that only he and the boy can hear, though none of the other men at their table listens.
“An infraction?” the boy whispers.
“That guard Conroy, he was behind it,” the man whispers, his brown eyes on the boy. “Planted my cell with dope. I got three years on top of the one I already had.”
“But—why?” A dawning horror awakens in the white-haired boy. It fills his work boots with terror and gives cold air to the sagging of his pants behind his hollowing thighs.
The man gives a loony, broken smile and says in his husky voice, “I was a favorite—just like you.”
The white-haired boy wanders the yard. He wanders the cellblocks. Men take him without recourse or reason. They can see his soul has left and there is nothing to feel bad about anymore. When they are done, the men turn away in disgust, scars on their cheeks showing the battles they have fought—and lost—for the same reasons.
The boy wanders late at night, long past lockdown. The classrooms are in shadows, the windowless Cellblock H a dark hole that swallows screams. He wanders through the clothing factory and sees the machines standing shrouded in shadows. He wanders into the mess, the moonlight coming in through the tall cafeteria windows, highlighting the tables wiped with smears of gray rag juice. The trash cans are filled to overflowing with rank food and blood-smeared napkins from men with rotten teeth and untreated gum disease.
The boy wanders, and it occurs to him that we have a sun and a sky, a moon and a cloud, a ground and a grave. Before he came here, he thought death was an innocent thing. Now he can see that death is a choice.
When the guards catch him wandering late at night, they sigh and lead him to his cell, where the wheezing old man rises to let him in his bunk. The old man and the guards exchange glances in the dark, the moonlight showing in the old man’s rheumy eyes.
No one bothers to demerit the boy for wandering. Usually, this offense would mean a month in the hole and, if caught again, a longer trip to the metal coffins of Cellblock H. Since the female guard died, the guards have become even harsher with the wanderers. But they take pity on the boy. They can see though he is a lost boy, he is a useful boy. Boys like him keep the men peaceable. They keep the men from rioting. The men spend time arguing inside themselves about the boy, whether he represents them or not, whether they want him or not, whether this is a line they should cross. A boy like him keeps the men from thinking about the revolting food, about working for slave wages, about the unfairness of a man like Conroy. One useful boy is like a lightning rod that moves the prison away from storms.
When the boy is at work, he loses himself staring at the sharp blades of the mechanical shears that cut the cloth. Chop, chop, the blades fall, slicing the heavy blue denim as it passes down the line. Farther down the line, other men run the pieces through sewing machines, while still others stamp the cloth with a heavy blue ink badge, turning out the clothes that are currently fashionable with g
angbangers and kids who dream of prison life like a romance.
The boy has heard how Risk and his crew make shanks out of these sharp blades and any other item they can use. He thinks about how such knives—hundreds of them—are hidden all over the prison, taped under desks, buried inside mattresses, tucked in the endless rat holes in the old walls. For a price, anyone can rent a shank. Anyone but the boy, that is. If he tried to buy a knife, even to kill himself, word would get back to Risk.
But he was a handy boy in his dad’s workshop. He looks at the glittering metal blades and thinks, I can make one.
The only question is, What will I do with it?
He wanders the prison, his eyes unseeing. He knows the cellblocks where Risk and his cronies roar with laughter at night, drunk on pruno. He knows the stairwells where the smell of old blood drifts from the stone like a cold afterthought. He knows the quiet hallways of the administration building where the guards and staff have offices. The building is locked at night, but the boy knows there are windows that cock open to the sultry summer nights, and sometimes he drifts under the shadows of those windows, along the dark walls where the guards in the towers cannot see.
The boy wanders out to the yard. The men turn to look at him and glance at the rape shed and shake their heads. The boy just stands there like a ghost, his white hair hanging in a halo around his vacant face, the red lips standing out like punch, his legs two thin sticks under his pants. The tender belly of youth has disappeared into a hollow cavern under his uniform, and sometimes when he reaches to his privates to piss, he thinks there is nothing there. That little snail shell has just gone up and disappeared.
The boy stands there, swaying. He is watching Risk and his cronies at the weight pile, hearing the slap of metal and the hooting call of a dead lift done well. The men flex their muscles and laugh, and Risk throws back his tangled hair. Risk doesn’t see the boy anymore, unless he wants to see him. The boy is no more than a wet carcass to them.
The boy watches Conroy leave the administration building and cross the yard. The men part for him. The tallest trees in the yard sway, and at their center is Risk.
Conroy walks toward Risk with a small, knowing smile. He wants a call on the yes phone, and he knows what to tell Risk. A new shipment of men is coming in. There is a boy on the transport bus, a tender little Hispanic boy of fifteen, a boy with soft velvety skin and fine black hair, a boy so young that he has down on his cheeks. Conroy knows what Risk likes, and he knows how Risk will pay for it.
The white-haired boy watches the dust rise around Conroy’s dress shoes as he makes his way to Risk. He watches the two slap backs and laugh and walk off together. The entire enchanted place sighs.
The heart of the boy holds one last hope. It is an idea so precious, he cannot name it. The idea will not fix things, because nothing can be fixed. The idea will not make him happy or whole, because he will never be happy or whole again.
But this idea—he holds his emaciated hands out in front of himself to see if there is a tremble. There is none.
The boy watches as Risk and Conroy finish their walk and talk with a handshake. Risk unconsciously flexes his shoulders in anticipation. The other men at the weight pile see this and smile with pleasure.
But it is not Risk whom the white-haired boy is watching. It is Conroy, with the black dress shoes and the guileless eyes. It is Conroy, waiting for a call on his yes telephone.
The lady visits York. Her face is drawn. She has not slept.
York is waiting in the Dugdemona cage. His execution date is only a few days away. He is no longer interested in the fraction of sky in the window. He stares at the lady. “So?” he finally asks.
She sees the fear in his dark eyes. He is scared she has come to say she has saved him, that a court date has been set. He is terrified he will be led to the Hall of the Lifers, blinking at the sunlight, to wait endless years for death, unless he is stabbed to death first. He will have to worry about being sent to the metal coffins of Cellblock H, or catching the fury of Risk and his friends. If death row is a sharp punishment, life without parole can be an endless torture.
Death was his safety net. It was the answer to all the inner confusion, to the secret knowledge of the unspeakable harm he caused others. It was his way out of whatever hell he lives in.
She sees this now. She sees it is truly what he wants.
She thinks about how strong the life urge was in her mom, despite all those who would extinguish it, and how that urge gave birth to her. She sees the opposite in York, made of stronger cloth but full of evil, resolved to leave.
Has she made the decision before? She is not sure. She will ruin her career if she does as he asks. She looks at the thick folder in her hands. “I have something for you,” she says slowly.
“What?” His voice is quiet.
She rises up, trembling, and slides the folder toward York in the Dugdemona cage.
“I want you to decide.”
The lady and York end up talking for hours. Knowing he is barely literate, she gently explains all she has found—the medical records, the interviews, and the abuse. Above all, the blood test.
She tells York that he was born with syphilis. The disease notched his teeth, deformed his bones, and caused the strange fevers and rashes of his early health records. It germinated in his body, traveling up his spinal cord and into his brain, where it hatched into fervid, insane desires. Eventually, it will kill him, just as it killed his mother.
“If this had come up at your trial, you could have been found guilty except for insanity,” she explains. When he looks blank, she goes further. “It’s possible you would have been sent to a mental hospital. In the least, you would have gotten life without parole.” The lady pauses. “That could still happen, if I give this information to the attorneys.”
“They would get me a new trial?”
“Yes.”
“It’s possible I could even get out of here? Live in some mental hospital?”
The lady’s eyes are dark with contained fear. She is wondering how high the gates are in the mental hospital, how firm the fence. “Yes.”
He brushes the top of the folder and smiles a little. “My life is right here.”
“Yes.”
“Thank you.”
She blinks, surprised. “You’re welcome.”
He sits in the cage for a long time, just holding the folder. His face is more peaceful than she has ever seen it. Then he looks past her, out the small window to the scrap of sky over her shoulder. The sky is soft blue today, and he thinks he can almost feel the warm sun.
“Here.” He passes the folder back to her, and she takes it with careful hands. He leans forward. Their dark eyes meet.
“Let me tell you what I want,” he says.
When we have a publicized execution, people line up outside to chant.
On one side are the Advocates. On the other side are the Victims. The warden thinks the Advocates are more like victims of their flagellation, and the Victims are more like advocates for death.
The warden stands at his window and watches them all show up in the blazing sun, each side driving cars blazoned with bumper stickers. They haul signs from their backseats on sticks of wood so fresh, they bleed sap. He thinks these demonstrators are ghouls, like people who leave teddy bears at shrines for dead children. They’re into it for the entertainment. After they are done, they will probably go eat pancakes.
Today they line up for York.
Most executions tend to happen without much notice. It is only because York wants to die that his case has gotten so much attention. This irony does not escape the warden.
It is only four in the afternoon, and the sky is a clear eye of heat, but already the two sides are in the parking lot outside the prison. For now they ignore each other. The Advocates wear red ribbons because York said that was his color. Don’t they see the joke? The Victims carry signs with pictures of York’s victims. The warden hates it when they do that. They did
n’t know those girls. They don’t know their families. They have no right to do that, he thinks. Give those poor girls some peace.
The warden has been in the prison since early morning. Since his wife died, he doesn’t want to be home. The once warm ranch feels dead to him. Once it sells, he plans to rent some anonymous place with beige walls and Formica counters and nothing to remind him of what he has lost.
The warden sighs. The day will be long. Execution days are always long. He has to stay in his office because the phone will be ringing off the hook and will ring until the execution at midnight. He sits down heavily at his desk. Sometimes he thinks the death penalty is one big jest. It is like a game where no one wants the killers like York to die. So they give them attorneys like Grim and Reaper, then watch as the game gets played out for decades and the families of the victims wait and suffer.
It is hot as blazes, he thinks. Two fans are running, but nothing moves the sluggish air in his office. When they have heat waves, the inmates drop like flies, and even staff members collapse from heatstroke. Lord, to have air-conditioning. Air-conditioning in the summer and decent heat in the winter—wouldn’t that be fine?
The phone rings. It is a call from the chamber. All systems are ready to go. The black shirts are ready.
He catches up on reports and paperwork. He sees Conroy has busted another drug smuggler in the visiting room—good work. He shakes his head at his final report on the dead female guard. Apparently, there was information that she was mixed up with inmate corruption. He’s disappointed. He liked her. He reads a report on Cellblock H. He asked a commission to look into the building. The commission found that the inmates needed to be given time out of their cells for their mental health. He nods in agreement and writes some suggestions. If they keep having the problems of suicide and death in Cellblock H, he will shut the place down and start fresh. He is annoyed that he inherited the program. Any reasonable person can see that locking men down like that is no good.