by Jodi Picoult
Shay's fishing line swung between my own feet. "Try it," he urged.
I reached for the packet on the end of the line. Since six other men had already done the same, I expected to see only a fragment remaining, a smidgen of gum, if anything at all--yet, to my surprise, the piece of Bazooka was intact. I ripped the gum in half and put a piece into my mouth. The rest I wrapped up, and then I tugged on Shay's line. I watched it zip away, back to his own cell.
At first I could barely stand it--the sweetness against the sores in my mouth, the sharp edges of the gum before it softened. It brought tears to my eyes to so badly want something that I knew would cause great pain. I held up my hand, ready to spit the gum out, when the most remarkable thing happened: my mouth, my throat, they stopped aching, as if there were an anesthetic in the gum, as if I were no longer an AIDS patient but an ordinary man who'd picked up this treat at the gas station counter after filling his tank in preparation for driving far, far away. My jaw moved, rhythmic. I sat down on the floor of my cell, crying as I chewed--not because it hurt, but because it didn't.
We were silent for so long that CO Whitaker came in to see what we were up to; and what he found, of course, was not what he had expected. Seven men, imagining childhoods that we all wished we'd had. Seven men, blowing bubbles as bright as the moon.
For the first time in nearly six months, I slept through the night. I woke up rested and relaxed, without any of the stomach knotting that usually consumed me for the first two hours of every day. I walked to the basin, squeezed toothpaste onto the stubby brush they gave us, and glanced up at the wavy sheet of metal that passed for a mirror.
Something was different.
The sores, the Kaposi's sarcoma that had spotted my cheeks and inflamed my eyelids for a year now, were gone. My skin was clear as a river.
I leaned forward for a better look. I opened up my mouth, tugged my lower lip, searching in vain for the blisters and cankers that had kept me from eating.
"Lucius," I heard, a voice spilling from the vent over my head. "Good morning."
I glanced up. "It is, Shay. God, yes, it is."
In the end, I didn't have to call for a medical consult. Officer Whitaker was shocked enough at my improved appearance to call Alma himself. I was taken into the attorney-client cell so that she could draw my blood, and an hour later, she came back to my own cell to tell me what I already knew.
"Your CD4+ is 1250," Alma said. "And your viral load's undetectable."
"That's good, right?"
"It's normal. It's what someone who doesn't have AIDS would look like if we drew his blood." She shook her head. "Looks to me like your drug regimen's kicked in in a big way--"
"Alma," I said, and I glanced behind her at Officer Whitaker before peeling the sheet off my mattress and ripping open my hiding place for pills. I brought them to her, spilled several dozen into her hand. "I haven't been taking my meds for months."
Color rose in her cheeks. "Then this isn't possible."
"It's not probable," I corrected. "Anything's possible."
She stuffed the pills into her pocket. "I'm sure there's a medical explanation--"
"It's Shay."
"Inmate Bourne?"
"He did this," I said, well aware of how insane it sounded, and yet desperate to make her understand. "I saw him bring a dead bird back to life. And take one piece of gum and turn it into enough for all of us. He made wine come out of our faucets the first night he was here ..."
"Okey-dokey. Officer Whitaker, let me see if we can get a psych consult for--"
"I'm not crazy, Alma; I'm--well, I'm healed." I reached for her hand. "Haven't you ever seen something with your own eyes that you never imagined possible?"
She darted a glance at Calloway Reece, who had submitted to her ministrations now for seven days straight. "He did that, too," I whispered. "I know it."
Alma walked out of my cell and stood in front of Shay's. He was listening to his television, wearing headphones. "Bourne," Whitaker barked. "Cuffs."
After his wrists were secured, the door to his cell was opened. Alma stood in the gap with her arms crossed. "What do you know about Inmate DuFresne's condition?"
Shay didn't respond.
"Inmate Bourne?"
"He can't sleep much," Shay said quietly. "It hurts him to eat."
"He's got AIDS. But suddenly, this morning, that's all changed," Alma said. "And for some reason, Inmate DuFresne thinks you had something to do with it."
"I didn't do anything."
Alma turned to the CO. "Did you see any of this?"
"Traces of alcohol were found in the plumbing on I-tier," Whitaker admitted. "And believe me, it was combed for a leak, but nothing conclusive was found. And yeah, I saw them all chewing gum. But Bourne's cell's been tossed religiously--and we've never found any contraband."
"I didn't do anything," Shay repeated. "It was them." Suddenly, he stepped toward Alma, animated. "Are you here for my heart?"
"What?"
"My heart. I want to donate it, after I die." I heard him rummaging around in his box of possessions. "Here," he said, giving Alma a piece of paper. "This is the girl who needs it. Lucius wrote her name down for me."
"I don't know anything about that ..."
Alma hesitated, and then her voice went soft, the flannel-bound way she used to speak to me when the pain was so great that I could not see past it. "I can talk," she said.
It is an odd thing to be watching television and know that in reality, it is happening right outside your door. Crowds had flooded the parking lot of the prison. Camping out on the stairs of the parole office entrance were folks in wheelchairs, elderly women with walkers, mothers clutching sick infants to their chests. There were gay couples, mostly one man supporting another frail, ill partner; and crackpots holding up signs with scriptural references about the end of the world. Lining the street that led past the cemetery and downtown were the news vans--local affiliates, and even a crew from FOX in Boston.
Right now, a reporter from ABC 22 was interviewing a young mother whose son had been born with severe neurological damage. She stood beside the boy, in his motorized wheelchair, one hand resting on his forehead. "What would I like?" she said, repeating the reporter's question. "I'd like to know that he knows me." She smiled faintly. "That's not too greedy, is it?"
The reporter faced the camera. "Bob, so far there's been no confirmation or denial from the administration that any miraculous behavior has in fact taken place within the Concord state prison. We have been told, however, by an unnamed source, that these occurrences stemmed from the desire of New Hampshire's sole death row inmate, Shay Bourne, to donate his organs post-execution."
I yanked my headphones down to my neck. "Shay," I called out. "Are you listening to this?"
"We got us our own celebrity," Crash said.
The brouhaha began to upset Shay. "I'm who I've always been," he said, his voice escalating. "I'm who I'll always be."
Just then two officers arrived, escorting someone we rarely saw: Warden Coyne. A burly man with a flattop on which you could have served dinner, he stood beside the cell while Officer Whitaker told Shay to strip. His scrubs were shaken out, and then he was allowed to dress again before he was shackled to the wall across from our cells.
The officers started to toss Shay's house--upending the meal he hadn't finished, yanking his headphones out of the television, overturning his small box of property. They ripped his mattress, balled up his sheets. They ran their hands along the edges of his sink, his toilet, his bunk.
"You got any idea, Bourne, what's going on outside?" the warden said, but Shay just stood with his head tucked into his shoulder, like Calloway's robin did when he slept. "You care to tell me what you're trying to prove?"
At Shay's pronounced silence, the warden began to walk the length of our tier. "What about you?" he called out to the rest of us. "And I will inform you that those who cooperate with me will not be punished. I can't promise anything for the rest of you."
Nobody spoke.
Warden Coyne turned to Shay. "Where did you get the gum?"
"There was only one piece," Joey Kunz blurted, the snitch. "But it was enough for all of us."
"You some kind of magician, son?" the warden said, his face inches away from Shay's. "Or did you hypnotize them into believing they were getting something they weren't? I know about mind control, Bourne."
"I didn't do anything," Shay murmured.
Officer Whitaker stepped closer. "Warden Coyne, there's nothing in his cell. Not even in his mattress. His blanket's intact--if he's been fishing with it, then he managed to weave the strings back together when he was done."
I stared at Shay. Of course he'd fished with his blanket; I'd seen the line he'd made with my own eyes. I'd untied the bubble gum from the braided blue strand.
"I'm watching you, Bourne," the warden hissed. "I know what you're up to. You know damn well your heart isn't going to be worth anything once it's pumped full of potassium chloride in a death chamber. You're doing this because you've got no appeals left, but even if you get Barbara freaking Walters to do an interview with you, the sympathy vote's not going to change your execution date."
The warden stalked off I-tier. Officer Whitaker released Shay's handcuffs from the bar where he was tethered and led him back to his cell. "Listen, Bourne. I'm Catholic."
"Good for you," Shay replied.
"I thought Catholics were against the death penalty," Crash said.
"Yeah, don't do him any favors," Texas added.
Whitaker glanced down the tier, where the warden stood outside the soundproof glass, talking to another officer. "The thing is ... if you want ... I could ask one of the priests from St. Catherine's to visit." He paused. "Maybe he can help with the whole heart thing."
Shay stared at him. "Why would you do that for me?"
The officer fished inside the neck of his shirt, pulling out a length of chain and the crucifix that was attached to the end of it. He brought it to his lips, then let it fall beneath his uniform again. "He that believeth on me," Whitaker murmured, "believeth not on me, but on him that sent me."
I did not know the New Testament, but I recognized a biblical passage when I heard one--and it didn't take a rocket scientist to realize that he was suggesting Shay's antics, or whatever you wanted to call them, were heaven-sent. I realized then that even though Shay was a prisoner, he had a certain power over Whitaker. He had a certain power over all of us. Shay Bourne had done what no brute force or power play or gang threat had been able to do all the years I'd been on I-tier: he'd brought us together.
Next door, Shay was slowly putting his cell to rights. The news program was wrapping up with another bird's-eye view of the state prison. From the helicopter footage, you could see how many people had gathered, how many more were heading this way.
I sat down on my bunk. It wasn't possible, was it?
My own words to Alma came back to me: It's not probable. Anything's possible.
I pulled my art supplies out of my hiding spot in the mattress, riffling through my sketches for the one I'd done of Shay being wheeled off the tier after his seizure. I'd drawn him on the gurney, arms spread and tied down, legs banded together, eyes raised to the ceiling. I turned the paper ninety degrees. This way, it didn't look like Shay was lying down. It looked like he was being crucified.
People were always "finding" Jesus in jail. What if he was already here?
"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work;
I want to achieve immortality through not dying."
--WOODY ALLEN, QUOTED IN WOODY ALLEN AND HIS COMEDY, BY ERIC LAX
Maggie
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There were many things I was grateful for, including the fact that I was no longer in high school. Let's just say it wasn't a walk in the park for a girl who didn't fit into the smorgasbord of clothing at the Gap, and who tried to become invisible so she wouldn't be noticed for her size. Today, I was in a different school and it was ten years later, but I was still suffering from a flashback anxiety attack. It didn't matter that I was wearing my Jones New York I'm-going-to-court suit; it didn't matter that I was old enough to be mistaken for a teacher instead of a student--I still expected a football jock to turn the corner, at any moment, and make a fat joke.
Topher Renfrew, the boy who was sitting beside me in the lobby of the high school, was dressed in black jeans and a frayed T-shirt with an anarchy symbol, a guitar pick strung around his neck on a leather lanyard. Cut him, and he'd bleed antiestablishment. His iPod earphones hung down the front of his shirt like a doctor's stethoscope; and as he read the decision handed down by the court just an hour before, his lips mouthed the words. "So, what does all this bullshit mean?" he asked.
"That you won," I explained. "If you don't want to say the Pledge of Allegiance, you don't have to."
"What about Karshank?"
His homeroom teacher, a Korean War veteran, had sent Topher to detention every time he refused to say the Pledge. It had led to a letter-writing campaign by my office (well, me) and then we'd gone to court to protect his civil liberties.
Topher handed me back the decision. "Sweet," he said. "Any chance you can get pot legalized?"
"Uh, not my area of expertise. Sorry." I shook Topher's hand, congratulated him, and headed out of the school.
It was a day for celebration--I unrolled the windows of the Prius, even though it was cold outside, and turned up Aretha on the CD player. Mostly, my cases got shot down by the courts; I spent more time fighting than I did getting a response. As one of three ACLU attorneys in New Hampshire, I was a champion of the First Amendment--freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to organize. In other words, I looked really great on paper, but in reality, it meant I had become an expert letter writer. I wrote on behalf of the teenagers who wanted to wear their Hooters shirts to school, or the gay kid who wanted to bring his boyfriend to the prom; I wrote to take the cops to task for enforcing DWB--driving while black--when statistics showed they corralled more minorities than whites for routine traffic stops. I spent countless hours at community meetings, negotiating with local agencies, the AG's office, the police departments, the schools. I was the splinter they couldn't get rid of, the thorn in their side, their conscience.
I took out my cell phone and dialed my mother's number at the spa. "Guess what," I said when she picked up. "I won."
"Maggie, that's fantastic. I'm so proud of you." There was the slightest beat. "What did you win?"
"My case! The one I was telling you about last weekend at dinner?"
"The one against the community college whose mascot is an Indian?"
"Native American. And no," I said. "I lost that one, actually. I was talking about the Pledge case. And"--I pulled out my trump card--"I think I'm going to be on the news tonight. There were cameras all over the courthouse."
I listened to my mother drop the phone, yelling to her staff about her famous daughter. Grinning, I hung up, only to have the cell ring against my palm again. "What were you wearing?" my mother asked.
"My Jones New York suit."
My mother hesitated. "Not the pin-striped one?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I'm just asking."
"Yes, the pin-striped one," I said. "What's wrong with it?"
"Did I say there was anything wrong with it?"
"You didn't have to." I swerved to avoid a slowing car. "I have to go," I said, and I hung up, tears stinging.
It rang again. "Your mother's crying," my father said.
"Well, that makes two of us. Why can't she just be happy for me?"
"She is, honey. She thinks you're too critical."
"I'm too critical? Are you kidding?"
"I bet Marcia Clark's mother asked her what she was wearing to the O.J. trial," my father said.
"I bet Marcia Clark's mother doesn't get her daughter exercise videos for Chanukah."
"I bet Marcia Clark's mothe
r doesn't get her anything for Chanukah," my father said, laughing. "Her Christmas stocking, though ... I hear it's full of The Firm DVDs."
A smile twitched at the corners of my mouth. In the background, I could hear the rising strains of a crying baby. "Where are you?"
"At a bris," my father said. "And I'd better go, because the mohel's giving me dirty looks, and believe me, I don't want to upset him before he does a circumcision. Call me later and tell me every last detail. Your mother's going to TiVo the news for us."
I hung up and tossed my phone into the passenger seat. My father, who had made a living out of studying Jewish law, was always good at seeing the gray areas between the black-and-white letters. My mother, on the other hand, had a remarkable talent for taking a celebratory day and ruining it. I pulled into my driveway and headed into my house, where Oliver met me at the front door. "I need a drink," I told him, and he cocked an ear, because after all it was only 11:45 a.m. I went straight to the refrigerator--in spite of what my mother likely imagined, the only food inside of it was ketchup, a jar of pimientos, Ollie's carrots, and yogurt with an expiration date from Bill Clinton's administration--and poured myself a glass of Yellow Tail chardonnay. I wanted to be pleasantly buzzed before I turned on the television set, where no doubt my fifteen minutes of fame was now going to be marred by a suit with stripes that made my already plus-size butt look positively planetary.
Oliver and I settled onto the couch just as the theme song for the midday news spilled into my living room. The anchor, a woman with a blond helmet head, smiled into the camera. Behind her was a graphic of an American flag with a line through it, and the caption NO PLEDGE? "In today's top story, a winning decision was handed down in the case of the high school student who refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance." The screen filled with a video of the courthouse steps, where you could see my face with a bouquet of microphones thrust under my nose.
Dammit, I did look fat in this suit.
"In a stunning victory for individual civil liberties," I began onscreen, and then a bright blue BREAKING NEWS banner obliterated my face. The picture switched to a live feed in front of the state prison, where there were squatters with tents and people holding placards and ... was that a chorus line of wheelchairs?
