“He looks familiar,” Diane said, “but . . . the name’s not ringing any bells.”
Richie extended his hand to Anna. “Hi I’m Richie Cox. I’m part of the gay agenda trying to destroy the world and keep my dad from being reelected.”
“Nice to meet you,” she said. “Let me know any way I can help you with that.”
“This is his sister, Dirty Diana,” I said. “The one who said you were lucky to be with me.”
They shook hands.
I looked at Diane. “Sure you don’t want to amend your opinion on the subject?”
She shook her head. “You guys are so lucky to have each other.”
“Yes we are,” Anna said. “This was fun,” Richie said.
“Wasn’t it?” Anna said. “And to think I almost didn’t come.”
“I love my dad,” Diane said. “And I think he’s a pretty good judge, but . . . I don’t know . . . maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if none of them got reelected.”
Richie shook his head. “I’m gonna be honest. I’m not ready for the lifestyle change. The way the economy is . . . If the judge didn’t supplement my income . . . yours too . . . No, my gay agenda is to keep his homophobic ass in office.”
Diane looked over my shoulder, her eyes widening as she did.
I turned to see Hugh Glenn approaching from one direction and Chris Taunton from another.
Hugh reached us first.
“You need to reason with your dad,” he said to me. “He’s making some outlandish accusations.”
“Such as?”
“Such as me having somethin’ to do with that girl’s death in order to win the election.”
“Who was the first person to bring it up tonight?” I said. “In an attempt to win the election.”
“Think about what you’re sayin’,” he said. “Talk some sense into your dad.”
“It’s the father that needs to talk some sense into the son,” Chris said as he reached us.
I turned toward him, stepping in front of Anna. “You don’t have to protect her from me,” he said. I didn’t respond.
“That’s my wife.”
“I’m not your anything,” she said, coming around to stand beside me. “And if you don’t stop acting so petulant and stop stalking me, I’m gonna make a few public statements of my own. Understand? I’ve guarded your dignity so far, kept your secrets, but you ever pull another juvenile stunt like that again and I’m gonna shine a very bright light on you. Now walk away without another word.”
He thought about it without saying anything. She had gotten through to him.
“Walk away, Chris,” she said. And in another moment he did.
38
My mom died the next day.
I couldn’t be sure, but there was no evidence she took her own life. And even if I could know for sure she didn’t, it wouldn’t mitigate the guilt and regret I felt.
I had gotten so wrapped up in my relationship with Anna and what was going on inside the prison with the Suicide Kings and outside with the missing blonde murder victim, that I had neglected her during her final days.
Sometimes it seemed as though I was surrounded on all sides by death. Daily, I received reminders that long life is an illusion, that our existence, regardless of the length, was but a vapor, quickly floating up to vanish into nothingness. Here then gone.
As I drove over to meet Dad and Jake at her house, I recalled the one time in the last few days I had made it by to see her . . .
It hadn’t been late, but Mom was sleeping, waking occasionally for brief exchanges before drifting off again.
I sat by her bed thinking about death and dying, about how very brief our time here was, how we lost everything eventually, inevitably, and what a tragedy that was.
Her eyes fluttered open. “Sorry I can’t wake up.”
“Don’t be.”
“I’m just so tired today.”
“Just rest,” I said. “I’m gonna sit here a while. I’ll slip out later.”
She dozed off again, her breathing labored, her rest fitful, her body constantly twitching and jerking.
I had been watching Mom die for quite a while now. Now that she had, it wasn’t unexpected, I wasn’t shocked or caught off guard, but I also wasn’t prepared for it. There was nothing I could’ve done to be, nothing I knew to do anyway.
“I’m not going to,” Mom had said.
Her eyes had been closed and at first I thought she was talking in her sleep.
“If you’re worried about . . .”
She opened her eyes and looked over at me, straining to keep her heavy lids from falling shut.
“Ma’am?”
“I’m gonna let things take their natural course . . .
I’m not gonna . . . put an end to this myself.”
I nodded and smiled and took her hand in mine. “Thank you, John,” she said. “For everything. For all you’ve done. For . . . everything.”
Those had been the last words I would ever hear her say.
Over the next three days of dealing with Mom’s death and preparing to officiate her funeral, I only entered the institution twice. Once to meet with Brent Allen. The other to meet with the warden and the chaplain supervisor about my immorality.
“My granddad?” Brent Allen asked when he walked into my office.
I nodded. “I’m very sorry.”
I had been called back in to the institution to notify him that his grandfather had died. He had been escorted to my office by an officer, who remained in the hallway.
The officer accompanied him not only because it was dark and the yard was closed, but in case he became crazed or violent. It was standard operating procedure. Inmates receiving death notifications were accompanied by officers whether the yard was open or not. But I didn’t expect any behavioral problems from Brent.
“That was fast,” he said, sinking down into one of the chairs across from my desk.
I nodded.
Except for the officer in the hallway, we were alone in the chapel—alone in the upper compound except for Medical. Like the compound, the chapel was dark and quiet, the only lights on were in the hallway and my office, the only sounds, the ones we were making—and we weren’t making any at the moment.
“How are you?” I asked.
He was looking down, seemingly deep in thought, eyes narrowed, lips pursed, hand absently rubbing the back of his head.
He lifted his head and looked at me. “Huh?”
“How are you?”
“I’m okay. Been expecting it—not this fast, but . . . I don’t know . . . it’s . . . to lose someone like him while I’m in here. Makes the rethink all my bullshit about suicide and death.”
“Really?”
It seemed sudden, unearned if not exactly insincere, but maybe he really had been shocked into reconsideration.
“It’s all so . . . out of our control, you know? How can I be so cavalier about my potential death when all he wanted to do was live a little longer and there was nothing he could do . . . Anyway, gives me something to think about.”
With this last statement, his demeanor changed with his posture. He sat up and perked up, even smiling at me. “Thanks,” he said.
“You sure you’re okay?” He nodded.
“Not angry? Frustrated? Don’t feel the desire to hurt yourself or someone else?”
He smiled. “I’m fine. I really am. I’m . . . It’s just that . . . I didn’t expect to feel anything at all . . . but—and it’s not sadness. It’s just . . . I don’t know . . . got me thinking.”
“You wanna call your mom?”
“Not now. I will later. From the dorm is fine.”
“I’ll make sure the dorm officers know about your situation. They’ll turn on the phones for you when you get ready. If you need me, just let them know.”
“Sounds good. Thanks again.”
He stood, seemingly a different man than when he sat.
He shook his head.
“It just happened so much faster than I thought it would. I feel like someone just sucker punched me.”
I knew how he felt.
“Chaplain Jordan, I’m gonna be honest with you,” Chaplain Cunningham said. “I’m very disappointed in your behavior.”
He was an overweight, middle-aged white man with wavy brown hair and glasses. A Southern Baptist literalist, Fundamentalist, his narrow worldview and rigid belief system made my religion unrecognizable to him.
We were in Matson’s office. Just the three of us—me, Matson, and Cunningham. The door was closed. “You’ve always been on the fringes,” Cunningham continued. “Haven’t ever really fit in with the rest of us.”
There were about a hundred prison chaplains in the state and apparently I had never really fit in with them.
“I’ve tolerated a certain amount of unorthodox behavior out of you because . . . well, you’re liked and respected by your coworkers and the inmates you serve and . . . I guess I kept thinkin’ you’d find the way. But we’re here to help lost men find their way, not to give you time to find yours. How can the blind lead the blind?”
“What he’s sayin’, Chaplain,” Matson said, “you’ve been given plenty of rope but rather than climb up it you’ve hung yourself with it.”
I nodded. I knew this day would come. In truth, I had lasted longer than I expected.
He was right. I didn’t fit in with him, his agenda, or the other chaplains. And I never would.
“I’m just afraid you’ve lost your moral authority,” Cunningham said. “Living with another man’s pregnant wife. It’s a double sin.”
I didn’t say anything. Just listened.
“Now brother, hear me out on this,” he said. “I’ve prayed about it and I believe God wants you to step down, to resign your position. Chaplain Singer’s a good man. He can step in when he returns and see to the spiritual needs of the compound. The institution will be in good hands.
Whatta you say? Will you do the right thing? From what I understand you’d be happier being some sort of police officer anyway.”
Suddenly I was his brother and he was asking me not telling me to go.
“You’re asking me to quit?” I said.
“To find somethin’ that’s a better fit for you. You must feel that you don’t fit here.”
But must I feel I don’t fit anywhere?
“You’re not firing me? You’re asking me to . . . find a better fit?” I asked, hearing the incredulity in my own voice.
I had found somewhere I fit, hadn’t I? I fit with Anna. We fit as if formed for one another, as if we always had, as if what Rumi had written was particularly and uniquely true of us. Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.
“We’re giving you the opportunity to resign instead of firing you,” Matson said. “Why not do yourself a favor and leave with some dignity? If you will . . . if you’ll go quietly today, no fuss, no muss, I’ll give you a glowing letter of reference.”
“If I don’t quit, when will you fire me exactly?”
“Don’t let it come to that,” Cunningham said. “Do the right thing.”
“Do you have any idea how many times I’ve thought about quitting?” I said. “Do you have any idea how much easier my life would be if I did? You’re right, I don’t fit in with you and the warden and the other chaplains, and you all remind me of just how much every chance you get. But I do a lot of good here. I know I do. I see the fruit of it in the inmates and the staff in the trenches, in the grit and grind of everyday life here––somethin’ you’ll never see from your office in Tallahassee. You don’t like me. I get it. You don’t approve of me or my theology or my lifestyle. Fine. You don’t have to. But I’m not quitting. I’m not going anywhere until you finally force me to, which if you were able you would’ve already done instead of asking me to resign. If I’m wrong about that then fire me on the spot because you won’t get my resignation willingly––if only because you want it so bad and part of me wants nothing more than to give it to you.”
“Don’t think we can’t fire you,” Matson said. “This is my prison. I can––”
“Chaplain Jordan,” Cunningham said. “Our attorneys are looking into it. Eventually they’ll find a way for us to . . . but why not save us all the hassle and go quietly?”
“See previous answer,” I said. “Now, if you have nothing more to say to me, I’ve got to go bury my mother.”
Neither of them said anything and I walked out.
39
I really didn’t remember much of what I said at Mom’s funeral.
I remembered how sad the whole thing was, how pathetic and poorly attended, how awkward Nancy and Jake looked on either side of Dad, how bad Mom looked lying in the coffin, how the quiet church creaked, how everyone looked at me as I attempted to honor this woman I had had such a complicated relationship with, how I had mostly just looked at Anna.
I remembered confessing to the small crowd how lost and alone I felt, how numb, how inept I felt at doing something I had done so many times before.
I remarked on how surprised I was by how affected I was by the loss of her, how even given the grace of so much time to prepare, I wasn’t prepared at all. Not really.
I shared how I felt vulnerable in a way I never had before. Abandoned. Exposed. Like the last of the little barrier island between me and the vast senseless sea, between me and death, had finally finished its erosion and washed away forever, that between me and the grave gone.
I read the obituary I had written. And then the eulogy.
I tried to tell them, her friends and family, what she was like when she was controlling her addiction, and a little, for integrity and honesty’s sake, what she was like when it was controlling her.
I told them of the fun times and firm foundation she provided for me when I was young—something that had given me the strength to deal with the later ways her abuse of alcohol ravaged our lives.
I re-created the adventures she had taken me on—our day trips to Wakulla Springs and the Junior Museum, the capitol and the beach, the summer nights at Miracle Strip and the skating rink––the elaborate Christmases, the extravagant birthdays, the ordinary days at home building a tree fort outside or a sheet and blanket tent inside, making homemade ice cream and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and watching Saturday morning cartoons.
She had been a good mom when it mattered most, when we were young and forming, and a difficult and challenging mother when we were adults, something that, through grace, had been changing for some time now.
I did pretty well, held it together until Merrill’s mom, the woman who would always be Mama Monroe to me, came up to me after the graveside service and wrapped me up in her massive arms.
Merrill was there with her, beside her, but didn’t say anything. He had already said all he needed to say and I needed to hear, but what meant the most was what went without saying, what he didn’t have to verbalize because of the lifetime of his extraordinary friendship.
“I’m your mama now, boy, understand?” Mama said. I began to cry.
“You sort of already were,” I said when I could. “No sorta now, shuga,” she said. “I’m your mama.” Merrill nodded.
“Mama hear you need somethin’ a mama can do and you didn’t call her, Mama gonna be mighty unhappy with you. Understand?”
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”
“You really captured her,” Nancy said. “You were truthful and kind––something I’d’ve said couldn’t have been done where she was concerned.”
I had found her having a cigarette in the shadow of an oak tree cast in the back corner of the cemetery.
She had been out of my life so long, it was like I didn’t have a sister, and the too-thin, stylishly dressed New Yorker in front of me was as much stranger as anything else.
“I’m glad you came,” I said.
“Started not to. You can’t imagine how close I came to not coming.”
Mo
st everyone who had attended the internment were still milling about Mom’s awning-covered graveside, visiting, comforting, reminiscing.
“How are you?” I asked.
“Don’t try to counsel me, John,” she said. “I’m not.”
“I was doing okay,” she said. “Things are goin’ well for me. Having to come back here . . . for this . . . is going to regress me some, but . . .”
She held her cigarette up slightly and considered it. “Haven’t had one of these in . . . a very long time. Had to bum it from creepy old Hugh Glenn. Can you believe he’s here?”
All of them were––all those in office, all those running for office, all the suspects from the killing at Potter Farm.
“Dad would be there if Imogene died.”
“He would, wouldn’t he?” she said, shaking her head. “Haven’t missed any of the polite political bullshit.”
“Didn’t think you had missed anything.”
“I’ve missed you, little brother,” she said. “That’s a fact. More now that I’ve seen you. Can’t believe you and Anna are finally together. That only took fuckin’ forever.”
“And you and love?” I asked.
“There’s someone,” she said.
“For a while now. Actually met in AA.” I nodded.
“You’re trying not to act surprised,” she said. “Didn’t know I was a friend of Bill W.’s, did you?”
“I’m not surprised,” I said. “I’m happy for you.”
“He’s good for me and to me.”
“I’m so glad to hear that,” I said. “So glad.”
“Though I’m having second thoughts now,” she said. “Since I arrived and found you with my best friend, thought it only fair if I get with yours.”
I laughed out loud at the thought of Nancy and Merrill.
“You’re right,” she said. “I’m probably too much woman for him.”
We were quiet a moment.
“She lasted longer than I thought she would,” she said. “Wonder how much longer we have Dad for? Not that her death will have any impact on him . . . but he’s gettin’ up there.”
Innocent Blood; Blood Money; Blood Moon Page 36
