by Beth Harden
“In God’s eyes, we are all children. Each a boy in need of a father. Those of us who have made the leap to maturity can speak to the rest of you,” says Rev. “We can demonstrate what respect should look like and those who have yet to grasp it can look to their elders as spiritual examples.”
“Hey man, no offense, but I wouldn’t look to you for shit. You’re an arrogant hypocrite. Religion is nothing without sacrifice. What the hell have you done in here but swindle people out of ramen noodles and Jolly Ranchers?” says Zimmer.
“I’m not talking to you, old man,” snipes Rev. Zimmer places both hands on the arms of his wheelchair and springs excitably up off the seat. He takes a few solid steps in the direction of the speaker and lifts an accusing finger at him.
“Why don’t you man up and join the rest of us? Who died and made you king over us? I’m sick and tired of hearing how much you love your wife of twenty years who’s dying of cancer. And how you’ve stood by her when we know you’re a cheating shitbag. Your kids are going to bed without a daddy just like ours. You sleep with a thousand other dudes no different than the rest of us. And worse, you dragged your old lady out of a car because she owed you a lousy sixty bucks. I’ve heard you on the phone bitching her out. You’re a goddamn hypocrite!”
“Hold up, guys!” I shout, raising my voice to counter the increasing hostility in the room. “Do I need to call the officer down and get you all tossed out?”
“I’m not going to stay and try to minister to people who can’t accept the truth,” pouts Rev. He folds his arms across his chest and tries to convict them all with a withering look of reproach.
“The truth is, you’re a prick,” Zimmer fires back. The class erupts with a few Amen’s and high-fives. The Rev is unable to maintain his composure.
“I don’t have to stay and listen to this. Pearls before swine,” he says.
“You do have to stay unless I deem otherwise,” I state. “But I think it’s a good idea if you take a nice little time-out right now.” I scribble off a hasty pass and hand it to him. Rev is stunned that I have the audacity to choose him as the scapegoat here.
“What about him? He started it,” he blurts.
“He’s not your concern,” I say. “Now go, please,” I add sternly. He is the crestfallen boy whose ego has been held up on shaky props of insecurity. A tantrum is foaming up underneath his skin.
“Just so you know you’re losing a valuable resource. I’m here out the goodness of my heart. I don’t have to care. It’s not like….”
“You’re here for the same reason we all are. For making bad choices,” replies Bowman.
“Well, it’s your loss,” he shouts in a pathetic wail, his voice trailing off into a pitchy, childish squeak.
“It’s only for today. You’re welcome to come back tomorrow,” I say. Narcissists are never in the wrong, never on the giving end of an apology. He must save face at all costs.
“I wash my hands of you,” he spits, but his venom falls short of its mark. . Zimmer is not a bit flustered by the attack and smiles benevolently. He stands in all his glory in a yellowed wife-beater tank shirt that bumps and sags over a scrawny chest of white hair. Some religious medallion dangles near his navel on a chain that is many links too long. He puffs up what little sinew and muscle he can and struts a fancy moonwalk across the floor.
“Shit! My lawyer would be yelling at me right now. I better get back in that bitch,” he says. Zimmer scrambles into his faithful wheelchair and resumes the pose of an invalid. “Not good for the lawsuit we got filed.” Though no one asks, he’s quick to fill the lengthy pause with an explanation, eager to separate himself from the legal beagle inmates who spend their library time deep in the volumes of General Statute reference books and file litigation as often as they swap soups for services. Their cases against Department of Correction jam the volumes of pages on the judicial website. “I jumped off one of the State vans when I was on an Outside Clearance crew and crushed all my disks into powder,” he adds, winking. “I’m not saying I’m any saint, Miss Abrams. But I always took my time to go down to the Children’s Hospital and buy the cancer kids stuffed animals and shit. Yeah, I got money by illegal means, swindling insurance companies and Big Pharma, but I would never steal from a regular person. I have a heart. I see myself as a kind of modern-day Robin Hood.”
It’s getting harder and harder these days to make out the bad guys from the good ones.
#
I know I shouldn’t bring work home. Among other things, I can come up with two very logical reasons. First is the confidentiality issue should a page flutter out of my satchel onto the parking lot where visitors walk; and secondly, it would piss off every other state employee that doesn’t do his job at work, let alone outside of it. But how can I ask these damaged men to take up a pen and spill out old wounds in no less than five hundred words and then dump these confessions in a cluttered ‘to be shredded’ carton? Every single moment of paid time is already taken up with babysitting the basic needs of this helpless menagerie. It’s like one huge dysfunctional day care. That’s why I squirrel the journal entries into a folder and discreetly walk them out through the sally port. Other people have kids with soccer games and dance recitals and spouses to quarrel with. My evenings are spent drinking wine and weeding through the written overgrowth of perennial filth. The names change, but the games are the same.
I pull the first essay out of my briefcase. The author forgot to put his name on the paper, but I recognize the handwriting. Terran Willis is very prolific when it scribbling out detailed journal entries, like those one would expect from a young female who loves to pour out her heart on flowery pages of flowing penmanship. These girlish confessions surprised me at first, coming as they were from a brawling, brooding man, but they appeared faithfully and with unfaltering candor. This type of transparency is risky, especially in the company of boisterous men who think nothing of trampling sensitive issues underfoot and ferreting out snitches. He’s dared to do it, share street secrets with staff and not only that but the incongruent whisperings of a black inner-city man to a white woman. The assignment handed out yesterday asked the men to reflect on this question: How did I get to this point? The response he’s turned over to me approaches the length of a novelette, or at least, an amplified short story. The tale chronicled here is instantly revealing and riveting. I concentrate on the narrative with growing intrigue. It reads like a gritty, truer-than-fiction memoir that Oprah might have launched on her must-read list. The details are dirty and somewhat disturbing, but the plot is graphically clear.
The girl said he reached up under her skirt. She claimed he put his finger in her vagina. The boy who she blamed was nine years old. None of the other four teenagers either denied or confirmed this; they probably had encouraged him on a dare. Off record, they let the accusation stand. They were not allowed to testify because they were all minors. The accused however was taken to trial and without a court stenographer in residence, was charged with illicit contact with a minor and remanded to a juvenile treatment center. While waiting for a bed to open up in a facility, they kept this boy in state custody. Nine long months later, he was taken to Athens, Georgia where he celebrated his tenth, eleventh and twelfth birthdays. His mother, frantic with worry and fueled with rage, fought the system at every move. The wheels of the machine continued to roll, totally unconcerned with the woman who kept throwing herself across its dirty rails. Before her boy disembarked at the Boston’s South Station three years later, Berea Willis suffered a major coronary and dropped dead at the corner of Rambler Road and Centre Street just as the city bus was approaching. Young Terran was taken in by an aunt who slept all day and worked third shift emptying the bed pans of dementia patients. As bright as he was, which was determined by achievement and IQ tests, Terran Willis scored way behind his peers on the Mastery Test and was socially stunted. He stepped out into his newfound freedom with a label big as day flapping behind him, the unwelcome sign of Sex Offender pit
ched out in front of his every move. He couldn’t work because of it; he couldn’t sign a lease because of it. The only place where his hidden brand made no matter was in jail and Willis became of legal age there on a bid for possession of narcotics. Back on the streets, he upped his game and returned to prison to celebrate legal drinking age on a robbery sentence. He was good at running game, doing time, winning respect and so he mastered the art of being a criminal over the next fourteen years, most of which he spent behind bars. He never challenged the judges or the many sentences he received.
But through it all, he never stopped giving voice to being railroaded as a little black kid at the mercy of four white adolescents. Based on their flimsy tattle-telling, his life had been ruined. He wanted one thing only. He cried out for that sex treatment score to be removed since he swore up and down that in no way was he guilty of premeditating or perpetrating a sexual crime. For Christ-sakes, he didn’t even know what a vagina was at that age. All appeals had been heard; all grievances denied. He was re-arrested for his failure to register the few times he had been discharged. Willis was denied opportunities for early release because of these two scarlet letters: S.O. Sex Offender. Through his writing, Willis eloquently connected the dots that mapped a steady progression of rage. Now decades later, the wrath had mellowed into a steady pain that motivated him towards meditation and dialogue. He still took up the struggle every day, but resorted to the Bible as his two-edged sword and tried with the word of truth to cut through conscience. Still he had run into deaf ears, even though he had taken his plea all the way up to the Commissioner and the office of the Governor.
It’s undoubtedly a tragic tale, true or not. It’s difficult to know. These guys leach lies out every pore. Any solid truth is diluted with deceit and so much bullshit that what’s left is a standing pool of watered down waste. It’s a toss of a coin. True or false, or some combination of the two? I put down the homework paper and my red pen. There is nothing I can say in a few short notations that could address the length and breadth of the horrific treatment this boy had been subjected to. My stomach feels queasy. The dogs sense the unease and press closer, eager to take a walk. I decide to get in a good stroll and let the fresh air dissolve the sorrow I feel.
“Come on. Who wants to go outside?” I call out. The dogs jump and skitter to the door. The four of us head out on a brisk pace down the dirt lane. I try to dismiss the thought of this kid being set up, laughed off and screwed over. In a neurotic twist of conscience, it makes me feel ashamed to share the same demographic category as the little white bitch that took him down. But I mean it’s not my problem. We all have our back stories and reasons for straying off the straight and narrow. Although, I’ll admit this is a SNAFU of epic proportions. Situation Normal All Fucked Up. I know it well. I’m a card-carrying lifetime member of this crowd. Okay, fine. When Monday rolls around, I will delve a little deeper into this case.
CHAPTER 5: JAMMED UP
Phone calls at night, the solitary jarring ring that erupts out of clear calm. These are the ones that alarm us, calls that come from people accustomed to making them. Emergency room residents or police dispatchers who know how to regulate their tone of voice in order to do the difficult job of dispensing bad news before all hell breaks loose on the other end. Much like the call Detective Hughes made to 17 Casco Lane in the deep of the night, the one that sent Mom lurching to the toilet bowl and my Dad in long-johns straight to his set of car keys. And another just a few short years later, one that left me soaking in a lukewarm bath for three hours, stunned, tracing the face of my father over and over until the lone candle burned to a nub and wax dripped and congealed down the sides of the claw foot tub like blood-red tears. But this was a run-of-the-mill ring in the safe shine of daylight and without any hesitation, I rush to greet my brother’s voice.
“Hey, little girl,” Dale says softly. We have a good laugh over a few off-color stories from work. He worries about his sister. He’s seen the television shows, Lock-Up and Oz, and like most normal folk, shudders at the sight of crude shanks made from clip boards and metal rods off filing cabinets. At the same time, Dale understands the irony of human nature and he knows by experience that life is hard. Anyone who can brave the unrelenting winters and deep economic recession with hands in icy ocean water for as many years as he has understands that gruff humor can be a lifesaver. We chat about the price of lobsters and oil. My brother is typically brief and not much of a talker, but today he makes a grand effort to keep a surface conversation going.
“So, hey! I wanted to give you an update,” he says, finally getting around to the real reason he called.
“On what?”
“Mom,” he says, mildly irritated.
“Oh, I’d almost forgotten. That was weeks ago. I figured no news is good news, right? Yes, of course I want to hear.”
““The X-ray was inconclusive, so she went in for a CT-scan.”
“What did it show? Does she have rheumatoid arthritis in that shoulder?” I say. He hesitates before clearing his throat and continuing.
“The news is not good, Elise,” Dale announces.
“What news?” My mother always played that little game. What do you want first, the good news or the bad news? “Give me the bad news first,” I implore.
“There’s no easy way to say it. Mom has lung cancer.”
What? This woman who’s never smoked or drank more than a half bottle of hard cider on the fourth of July? The one who treats her own soil with fermented compost, stocks her cold pantry with compote and pickled cukes and everything rinsed pure in the cold Maine rain? Her? It just can’t be.
“Dale, stop! C’mon, don’t…”
“Elise, I wouldn’t joke about something like this.”
“So, why the pain? And what’s the plan? Does she need help? Do you want me to come up?” I babble, asking questions before he can answer, filling up the pauses with sound bytes so he can’t replace them with something I can’t handle.
“Lissa. The cancer has already spread to her bones, specifically her shoulder and hips which is the cause of the pain. They are recommending chemo to halt any further progression. Maybe a clinical trial of something, but Mom wants to think over her options.”
“What’s the good news?” I ask hopefully.
“She is in healthy fighting spirits,” he says.
“Can I talk to her?” I ask.
“She’s not in a mood for conversation right now. I think she just needs to process the facts and consider all her options. You understand. I’ll tell her we’ve talked and you’re on board to help in any way she needs, okay?”
“Yes, oh yes. Tell her I love her, will you? Please?” I can hear the same crack in his voice that seems to have overtaken mine, as if our vocal cords are losing their charge and can no longer be trusted to flap open and shut on steady command. The volume has grown flimsy. It is time to hang up
“Update me as soon as you can. Promise?” I ask.
“Of course I will,” answers Dale. Something in my gut stops me from believing him. There is no telling how long they’ve all known, but what is suddenly clear is that it’s far longer than I have by a long shot. This pronouncement is not news to them. It’s been simmering in silence for many weeks in a conspiracy kissed with kindness. It’s a reckless business though, playing God without the omniscience he has to pull it off. Mom herself is the architect behind the construction of this lifelong filter to bad news. The things we can’t or shouldn’t have to handle are kept out, but it’s only so long before the windbreak’s resistance powders like old plaster. When that happens, the incoming force of truth hits us twice as hard, and along with it comes the burl of resentment at having been held back for so long.
After we hang up, I sit in the dark and try to imagine what it is like to be told that your death is on the radar, somewhere in the scope and range of the mortal eye, waving under a microscope lens. I believe in miracles; in fact, I am one. But I only know about my own death in retrosp
ect, after I had passed over and by it and woke to watch it fade away in my rear-view. I never saw it coming, only going away.
I don’t want to go to work tomorrow. I can’t be Delilah to hundreds of whining, needy men that have brought their stinking problems on themselves when this one righteous, stalwart soul has been forced to suffer needlessly and asks not a thing of anyone but her own private God. Assholes! Why can’t one of these guilty bastards be taken? Who’s going to notice the empty slab of cardboard and dirty rolled-up sleeping bag that’s missing if one crack addict begs off this earth? I feel guilty for thinking such things. And I know full well that any spiritual quest for fairness would keep me up long after Elijah’s lamp of eternal oil finally snuffed out. There is nothing to be solved in looking for logic. This is where the giants of faith were at their best, lost in the wilderness, crawling with locusts or teetering on the walls of a city that threatened to tumble down. I could follow suit like the martyrs and cry out. Or just plain cry.
Sleep doesn’t come that night. The super moon claims the entire sky with its prizewinning power throwing flood lights on the corn fields, the rustle of deer meadow and the crooked line of dying spruce on the horizon. It creeps closer than it should, barring any comforting darkness from descending on this hill, this homestead, or this heart.
#
Class is dismissed. Chulo immediately steps in and starts to rearrange the desks back into a neat semi-circle. Any stray hand-outs are collected and placed in the file cabinet. He erases the board, too quickly, before I have a chance to tell him that I had intended to keep that day’s wisdom to review on the next.
“You good?” he asks, as he always does at the beginning of the class when he hovers nearby hoping I’ll be short on copies or need pencil stubs sharpened, and again at the close of the group. His presence is a regimented warning bell, a faithful alarm that reminds the men who are exchanging gum in the corner to snap to and get out. The inmates are supposed to leave en masse back to their blocks, but there are always a few who linger behind to ask questions. I’m patient to a point. Most of the counselors dismissed them long ago and routinely give them the brush-off, but it is our job to be the conduit to the outside world. We are the information highway that has access to the answers whether they come in English or Ebonics, Spanish or sign language. In one way or another, directly or indirectly, whether it’s stammered or shouted, all the requests boil down to the same basic question: When is my time to go? Each man desperately hopes he can get his hands on the get-out-of-jail-sooner card he believes we have the power to offer him. Chulo warned me. ‘These fuckers just want to get up close to a female,’ he had said. It’s their chance to inhale the scent of a woman and jiggle in their pants later on. Back the fuck off is the message his five-foot-six posture communicates as he stands between me and the door and stares them down. It’s not his size that deters them. The two tears inked below his left eye tell them more than enough about the bodies he gunned down on a city sidewalk. The men move on and give preferential treatment to the more infamous convict.
