The Last Suppers

by Mandy Mikulencak

  “I can’t let it alone,” she said.

  This wasn’t pigheadedness on her part. It was something physical that wouldn’t let go. Planning the meals plagued her thoughts and brought on headaches and stomach pains. Ignoring them wasn’t an option. She had tried on occasion in the early days.

  Truth be told, Roscoe was partly to blame for her fervor. He’d said yes the first time she asked to prepare something special for an inmate’s last meal and had agreed another sixteen times in eight years.

  “Don’t you see how it affects you?” he asked. “You stayed in bed for three days after the last execution. It’s wearing on you, girl. You just won’t admit it.”

  Ginny ignored Roscoe’s reasoning. She’d just been tired, dog-tired. The execution had nothing to do with it.

  “Jesus Christ. If the Superintendent of Corrections knew, I’d be out of a job,” he continued. “Then where’d I be? There’s already too many folks nosying around.”

  She wanted to press her face against his chest and hug away his worry, more for herself than for him.

  “We could marry and move to Alabama. I’d have seven kids and you’d sell vacuum cleaners door-to-door.” She was only half joking.

  He looked up and down the hallway, the furrows easing from his brow. “Ain’t nobody want to live in goddamn Alabama.”

  She leaned in and pecked him on the cheek tentatively. “Ask him again, Roscoe. Please?”

  As she ran down the hall, the haunting urgency that came with each execution nipped at her heels.

  * * *

  Dot was elbow deep in flour by the time Ginny reached the kitchen. The old woman’s scowl indicated Ginny was in trouble even though she was technically the kitchen supervisor.

  “It’s ’bout time you showed up,” Dot mumbled. Unable to keep up the pretense of anger, her scowl lifted into a grin.

  Ginny pulled an apron off the hook near the door. “I guess those sheet pans greased themselves this morning, huh?”

  “Well, if you were already here, where’d you run off to?” She put her hands on her ample hips, sending flour onto the cement floor.

  A guard arrived with two inmates who ignored the bickering women and got to the business of peeling potatoes. Jess and Peabody were several moons past seventy, their faces like shriveled apples. Their failing health kept them from being useful in the fields. They would have worked in the license plate operation or at the canning plant, but Ginny recruited them. Two guards stood watch over the kitchen because Dot and Ginny were the only women allowed in that part of the prison compound. One guard paid special attention to Jess and Peabody, as if they posed a danger, but Ginny wasn’t afraid. Their crimes were unknown to her, but the men exuded gentleness, or maybe just plain resignation.

  “You with your boyfriend, huh?” Dot loaded the trays with biscuit rounds, not looking up.

  Ginny ignored her and started the gelatinous gravy her daddy had called Shit on a Shingle. It seemed the best use of the prison’s ration of fatty ground beef because it could be stretched by adding a roux of flour, milk, and beef broth. Enough black pepper and she could get away with using milk on the edge of sour. She usually served it on plain white bread, but biscuits were cheap to make and the men appreciated it.

  “Not talking to me?” Dot continued.

  “Talk about something I want to talk about and then we’ll see.”

  “You don’t want to talk ’bout anything but the death row boys. Most are headed straight to hell. Worrying about what they eat before they fry is a waste of all our time.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Dot questioned her motivation relentlessly. There weren’t words to describe the vicious churning of Ginny’s gut when executions were scheduled, or the heart-pounding terror that she might fail the inmate in some way. Dot chastised her for worrying about such details; that a man about to meet his Lord and Savior wouldn’t taste the food in front of him anyway.

  Roscoe thought she might be a tad touched by madness, maybe inherited from her daddy. But his affliction was brought on by alcohol, nothing more. Ginny’s madness started the day she was forced to witness the execution of her father’s killer. Roscoe had said no eight-year-old should’ve been subjected to that horror, but the warden gave his permission since Ginny’s mama insisted she be there. Roscoe was just one of three dozen prison guards and other staff who’d crammed themselves into the small, cinderblock room to see justice had been done in the name of their fallen brother. She didn’t remember seeing Roscoe, but he said he remembered her being there. And it brought him a greater sadness than the fact his friend was dead.

  Dot muttered something to herself, but obviously loud enough to be heard.

  “What now?” Ginny asked.

  “You’re a grown woman and wearing socks instead of stockings,” she said, pointing at Ginny’s bare legs. “If I would have caught you before you left your room this morning, I would have said something then.”

  “It’s ninety degrees in this kitchen. And who the hell cares anyway?”

  “You should care,” Dot said. “Coming up on thirty years old and still dressing like a teenager.”

  Ginny looked down at her wrinkled cotton dress, plain by anyone’s standards, but that didn’t bother her a bit. Her shoes were sturdy, leather loafers with rubber soles. The socks helped prevent blisters during the long days in the kitchen. Still, the gentleness of Dot’s never-ending observations on her appearance amused Ginny. Probably because her own mama’s criticisms stung like the cracking of a leather belt against her thighs.

  “You spend entirely too much time worrying about the appropriateness of my wardrobe,” Ginny said. “I’m going down to the larder. Need anything?”

  “No, but hurry on up. That pot on the stove will start burning.”

  The cool-storage pantry was just a twenty-foot-square underground room with a dirt floor that was accessible by wooden stairs from the kitchen.

  Flour, cornmeal, grits, and lard were cheap. Over the years, Ginny was able to get Roscoe to divert a portion of the crops to the kitchen as well: potatoes, sweet potatoes, beans, greens, and cabbage. The canning factory on the prison grounds also sent its discards, especially beet greens and overly bruised peaches.

  She knew she’d done well with the meager ingredients because it’d become common for the guards to eat what she was already making for the inmates rather than demand special meals as they’d done before her time.

  Sometimes, she’d buy spices like paprika and cayenne with her own money. The larder housed these and all the other nonperishable items. Now that she had a refrigerator in the main kitchen, she could store the eggs and raw milk that came from the livestock the prison kept. The slaughterhouse, while a revenue-generating operation, sent its leavings that were mostly used to make a fatty ground meat. Ginny had convinced them to also send unwanted pig skin and fat, which, when fried, provided grease for flavoring the thin stews she and Dot sometimes cooked to stretch ingredients.

  Ginny returned to the kitchen, a large bag of flour in her arms. “We need cornmeal,” she said. “Good on everything else.”

  Dot bent over to retrieve a large tray of biscuits from the oven. Ginny’s stomach growled, reminding her to eat something before they started on lunch preparations.

  “Set aside some biscuits for the warden, would you,” she said to Dot. “Walk them over to his office while they’re still hot.”

  “You do it. I ain’t his girlfriend.”

  Jess and Peabody lifted their eyes at Dot’s sassing.

  “Shut your mouth for once, Dorothy, and do as I say.” Ginny’s face flushed from the heat of the stove, as well as the flash of anger. She wasn’t herself today. Ginny rarely raised her voice in the kitchen. And it had been some time since she spoke so roughly to Dot.

  “Well, lookie there. Miss Polk’s finally putting that big darkie in her place.” Peabody’s toothless cackle rang out in the kitchen until the guard nudged him with a billy club.

  “Mind y
our own business.” Dot scolded the two men, and they turned their attention back to the bushel basket of unpeeled potatoes.

  During Dot’s interview for the job five years ago, she’d commented that Ginny was too young and tiny to run a big kitchen all by herself, that she needed a friend more than an employee. The comment had riled Ginny at first and she’d called the woman out on her impertinence. Dot had apologized, but said, “If you want a cook who keeps her mouth shut, I’m not the person for the job. But if you want a hard worker whose mouth sometimes gets ahead of her thoughts, then I can start tomorrow.” Recognizing the same trait in herself, Ginny hired her on the spot.

  They’d had rough patches, though, trying to sort out their roles. When Dot first joined the kitchen staff, Ginny tried to keep her distance and assert her authority. She didn’t need anyone reading her moods or questioning her decisions. It didn’t take long before Ginny saw that Dot’s age and experience were assets, and she was ashamed she’d dug her heels in so often rather than see Dot’s point of view.

  In truth, Dot didn’t make it easy to compromise. The things they’d sparred over were mostly trivial: whose biscuit recipe was better, whether or not they needed to wear hairnets, whose turn it was to oil the cast-iron pans. Ginny found out the true nature of their relationship on one of the prison’s darker days. When violence erupted in the cafeteria and the inmates got the upper hand over the guards, Dot had immediately shoved Ginny into the kitchen’s cellar and planted herself in front of the bolted metal door. She shouted for the angry inmates to take their business elsewhere, that to do otherwise was disrespecting someone old enough to be their grandmother.

  Even though Ginny regretted her sharp tongue this morning, she couldn’t let it go. She moved closer to Dot so no one else in the kitchen could overhear. “You should take your own advice and keep out of my business,” she said. “And you might try treating your boss with some respect.”

  Dot batted her eyes like a repentant child even though she was three decades older than Ginny. It was her trademark move to gain Ginny’s sympathy. Dot wiped her floury hands on the apron and then across her face, leaving a white mustache on her dark upper lip. Any other day, Ginny might have laughed at the sight.

  “Don’t be trotting out that ‘I’m your boss’ nonsense. You know I meant no harm,” Dot finally said. “Is something else bothering you? I can’t remember the last time you raised your voice to me.”

  “Well, I can’t remember the last time you deserved it.”

  Dot raised her eyebrows and stared.

  “What?” Ginny asked, shifting from one foot to the other nervously.

  “Deserved it?”

  Ginny’s hand covered hers. “I know you meant no harm. But I don’t want the warden getting into any kind of trouble on account of me,” she said. “We can’t be public about our . . . relationship.”

  “Everybody done know you’ve been with the man for years.”

  Dot’s bit of defiance softened Ginny’s ire. She’d grown used to her mothering. Or at the very least, she could put up with it because Dot’s intentions were good. When Dot started sleeping at the women’s barracks during the week, Ginny found herself happy for the company. Even though the two were always bone-weary at day’s end, they’d often stay up playing cards or checkers, and drinking instant coffee Dot made on her hot plate.

  The first time Dot asked Ginny to join her family for Thanksgiving dinner, Ginny hesitated, thinking they’d become too familiar. After she gave in that first time, Ginny looked forward to spending holidays with Dot rather than with Miriam. Those afternoons were like being in a Norman Rockwell painting, and the closest thing to a normal family Ginny had experienced. “Maybe everybody knows about me and Roscoe, but they keep quiet about it,” Ginny said. “And with the prison board folks making more frequent visits, I don’t need anyone to slip up.”

  “I don’t see the problem,” Dot said. “Quit your job, marry the man, and stop living in sin. Then you’re not sleeping with the boss man and there’s nothing to cover up.”

  “It’s not so simple.” The biggest complication was Ginny didn’t know if she actually loved Roscoe. She had deep feelings for him and hated those times when they couldn’t see each other in his room or at the residence. But she had a job to do. And giving it up for a man she wasn’t sure she loved didn’t seem like common sense.

  “Seems mighty simple to me,” Dot said. “I’d marry the warden in a heartbeat if it meant I didn’t have to work another day. I’d have me some kids and settle down. I sure wouldn’t be cooking for dead men.”

  “Those dead men don’t have anyone else,” Ginny said. “And Roscoe has never asked. He knows I’m not the marrying type.”

  “Does he?” Dot pressed. “You’re not exactly the best at letting people in.”

  In truth, Ginny didn’t know Roscoe’s feelings about marriage. Could be he didn’t love her. Could be their age difference or the fact that he was her superior. But if he happened to ask and she happened to say yes, she’d be stuck up at the warden’s residence, looking out over 8,000 acres of misery and wondering who was helping Dot in the kitchen and if they were using their resources wisely.

  She sure as hell didn’t want to raise children in this compound. It saddened her to see the dozen or so kids waiting at the bus stop near the front gate each morning. Were they eager to go to school and have several hours of respite from this place? Did they dread the moment they arrived back at the front gate as she had as a child?

  When Ginny was young, she had imagined other students going home to find their mamas tending a flower garden, or waiting with homemade bread and jam. She daydreamed about being invited to birthday parties and sleepovers. But Ginny had been born at the prison and daydreams never kept reality at bay for long. Her mama and daddy may have pretended they had a normal life, but normal wasn’t hearing the wails of men being beaten long into the night or watching inmates shuffle in heavy, iron chains on their way to tend the prison crops.

  School wasn’t exactly easy either. Prison kids bore a stain that couldn’t be washed off. She learned that hard lesson on the first day of first grade when the teacher segregated them to one side of the room. As unwelcoming as the students and teachers had been, Ginny saw her time outside the prison gates as an opportunity to reinvent herself. She pretended to be a transfer student from another state, sometimes accidentally writing her made-up name on a test or homework assignment.

  Ginny shook the memories from her mind and pointed to the oven, reminding Dot of her original request. “Cover them with a dish towel to stay warm and put some butter on the plate. Hurry now, before he’s finished his coffee.”

  The Shit on a Shingle had already started to scorch, forcing Ginny back to the stove.

  * * *

  Dot had been right. Ginny’s mind chewed on something that wouldn’t let her be. Less than a week until Samuel LeBoux’s execution and the boy wouldn’t talk. And Roscoe wasn’t eager to serve as the go-between. Other men on death row had been reluctant to talk to her, but they always came around. And it’d never come down to days. She always made sure there was plenty of time to try a recipe, sometimes twice, to make sure it was as close to the inmate’s description as possible.

  After breakfast, Ginny left the kitchen and walked to the administrative offices. Roscoe wouldn’t be there. By midmorning, he and a couple of guards were out checking the crops and then the slaughterhouse. She was there for someone else.

  At eighteen, Tim was the youngest and skinniest of Roscoe’s newest guards; too young to oversee the cellblocks or fields. He sat hours at the desk, answering a phone that rarely rang and pushing papers that had no urgency to them. Ginny thought Roscoe hired him as a favor to some prison board member, but he never confirmed her suspicions.

  “Morning, Miss Polk. The warden’s not—”

  “How many times have I told you to call me Ginny? And I’m not here to see the warden. I’m here to see you.”

  His already ru
ddy cheeks flamed as if she’d said she had come to have sex with him. She pulled up a chair to his side of the desk, which only caused him more discomfort. Ginny found this laughable considering she had the body of a thirteen-year-old boy. But there were only five women working at the prison, so maybe it made sense she could get the same reactions as the girls in the pin-up calendar behind the desk.

  “What . . . what can I do for you?” Tim asked.

  “I need you to take me to the Waiting Room.”

  No one could remember when the wooden barracks reserved for death row inmates got its nickname, but it was apt. All those men did was wait. Ginny had never been there on her own before. That is, without Roscoe as a chaperone. But she didn’t have time to wait out his stubbornness.

  “The day crew is on,” Tim said. “John or Terrence can help you.”

  The guards who watched over the death row inmates during the day shift were good men, calm of mind and spirit, and handpicked by Roscoe. They never questioned why it was important for her to cook the last meals. But they sure weren’t about to let her in without Roscoe at her side—or at least accompanied by another guard.

  “You know I need an escort or I won’t get past the fences,” Ginny said.

  “But why . . . why does it have to be me?” he stammered. “We could both get in a lot of trouble.”

  “I promise if Warden Simms ever finds out—and he won’t—but if he does, I’ll take full responsibility. I’ll say I forced you.”

  Tim’s laugh held more confidence than it should have. “I’m a man, Miss Ginny. And I have a gun. Why would he believe someone as itty-bitty as you could force me?”

  She leaned in close enough to notice the boy hadn’t bathed in a couple of days even though he was freshly shaven and his nails were clean. Made her think he was reluctant to go into the men’s communal showers and relied more on the washbasin in his room.

  “But, Tim . . . Lord knows what you might have tried when you realized the two of us were alone in the admin office. After all, you’re a man and you have a gun.”