Take Me There

by Carolee Dean

  “The facts in this case—”

  “Forget the facts,” I yell, trembling now, realizing that when the cops eventually catch up to me I am going away for a very, very long time. “You know the facts don’t always add up to the truth. Just look in your heart and tell me what you believe about my father. You’ve met him. You know him. And somewhere in your soul, I think you know the truth. When you talked about mercy on the news the other night, was it real or was it just politics?”

  “It was real,” he says with a sigh, and I realize that underneath the title and the suit and the name is a man who really does want to do the right thing.

  “You’re right. I’m not gonna shoot you,” I say, slipping the gun into my back pocket and holding up my empty hands. They’re shaking so badly I’m sure he can see it. “But you already know that, just like you know my father didn’t shoot anybody. So think about that. Then decide what you gotta do.”

  He looks at me. Looks at the phone. Glances at the empty box. Looks back at the phone. Reaches for the receiver, but before he can pick it up, it rings.

  We stare at each other.

  It rings again.

  He picks it up. “Hello.”

  He listens to a voice on the other side.

  Looks at me.

  Nods.

  Hangs up.

  “I’m sorry,” he says, “Your father died at six twenty-one p.m.”

  I collapse on the couch. I would cry if there was anything left inside of me, but it’s all over now. All for nothing. I’ve come all this way, a journey of a thousand miles through hell, and it hasn’t made any difference.

  Maybe one difference. I know my father was innocent. But that doesn’t make him any less dead.

  “Go back to Quincy,” the governor tells me. “Get your mother and get out of Texas … as fast as you can. I’m sorry, but that’s all the mercy I have to offer tonight.”

  I nod my head.

  He looks at the empty box. “And just to make sure you don’t hurt yourself, I’m going to give you an escort.” He reaches for the phone, and I know he’s calling security.

  I run out of his office. Avoiding the elevator, I take the stairs, and then sprint as fast as I can to the truck.

  Set the gun on the dash and drive. Don’t know where I’m going.

  It’s all over now. Just a matter of time.

  Time.

  How much will I get now that I’ve threatened the governor with a weapon?

  I come to a busy, noisy place called Sixth Street. It’s lined with nightclubs, with live music blaring out of the opened doorways.

  Park in an alley.

  Open the chamber and find five bullets.

  Close it.

  I threatened the governor with a loaded weapon.

  It’s all over now.

  I hold the barrel up to my head.

  Hope it’s loud enough on Sixth Street so that no one will hear the sound of the gunshot.

  Imagine the police finding my body in the morning.

  Picture them asking my mother and Jess to identify me and when they can’t, because my face is gone, calling for my dental records in California.

  “Damn it!” I say. I can’t do that to them.

  I put the gun in the glove box.

  Get out of the truck.

  Walk out of the alley, onto Sixth Street, into a nightclub called Lucky’s. Catch my reflection in the mirror behind the bar. I look a hundred years old. The bartender doesn’t even ask for ID when I order two shots of tequila.

  I have learned there is more than one way to die.

  THE HEART OF TEXAS, 4

  In the heart of Texas nighttime falls,

  and there is silence in the WALLS,

  for there will be no mercy here.

  No second chance. No words of cheer.

  The prisoner says his last good-byes.

  He cannot hear his mother’s cries.

  Then flows the sodium pentothal,

  chromium bromide and his broad chest falls.

  The third drug comes to end it all

  from a henchman back behind the wall

  who sends the deadly killing drops

  that wrench and twist and squeeze and stall

  and stop

  the Heart of Texas.

  41

  I’M SO PATHETIC I CAN’T EVEN MANAGE TO GET DRUNK, because I end up in the alley, puking my guts out and crying. I go back to the truck. Look at the time on the dash. It’s nine o’clock.

  I’ve got to get to a phone and call the farm. Tell Jess to get out of there before the cops show up, if they haven’t already, and meet me somewhere. I walk over to a pay phone at the end of the alley, dial the farmhouse, and am surprised when Jess picks up on the first ring.

  “Dylan, is that you?”

  “Jess, I don’t have much time to explain, but I need you to leave the farm, now. Is my mother there? Has she come back?”

  “Run, Dylan. Don’t come back here. They’re going to kill you!”

  I hear a slap. Jess screams, and somebody says, “Stupid bitch!” then a man’s voice is on the phone.

  “We havin’ a chillin’ li’l party with yo mama and your pretty girlfriend, Dylan. I’d hate for you to miss it.”

  “Eight Ball?” I feel like a gambler who has just had all his markers called in.

  “Oh, and don’t think ’bout droppin’ no dimes to the po-po. Dis here’s a private party. Besides, we already got us one pig to carve up.”

  “How did you find me?” I say, hoping I’m having an alcohol-induced nightmare. Pretending that what is happening isn’t really happening.

  “We was scopin’ the garage. Saw your ho talkin’ to Gomez. Followed her to Texas. Lost her for a couple a days, but we finally caught up.”

  “If you hurt her or my mother, I’m going to kill you.”

  “See, that’s the thing, Dylan. You done wasted my brother. Now it’s time for payback. So while you’re driving here, you kick around which one of ’em it’s gonna be. We’ll let the other one live. We ain’t no animals, after all. ’Course, we goin’ have a little fun with her first. But if we smell any pigs, they both done.”

  “You bastard!” I say, but he’s already hung up.

  I get back into the truck and drive. I should call the police. The police know how to handle these things. But what if Ajax and Eight Ball see them coming and kill Jess and my mother before the cops even get to the house?

  I wish Wade was here. The truth is, he did cover my back a lot of the time.

  But now I’m on my own.

  Not totally alone. I do have a gun.

  When I get to the farm, I park on the side of the road so Eight Ball and his gang won’t see the headlights. When I reach the house, I look inside the window so I can size up the situation. My mother and Jess are sitting in the middle of the living room, tied to kitchen chairs. Mouths covered in duct tape. Ajax and Eight Ball seem to be the only ones with them. They’re sitting behind them, though, so I can’t get a clear shot. If I go around back, I might be able to take aim at them through the kitchen window.

  I round the corner, spot a trail of blood, and nearly let out a yell when I see what’s waiting there. Charlotte is lying on the ground, her side slit open, blood pouring out of her gut as well as out of a wound in her leg. She squeals pitifully and I feel sorry for the helpless pig, and for my grandmother, who loves that animal more than she cares for most people. I wonder where she is. Pray she decided to stay the night somewhere in Huntsville. I stick close to the house, edging inch by inch to the kitchen window, afraid even to breathe. Terrified I’ll give myself away.

  But it’s another sound that gives me away. Baby Face whimpers at me from under the back porch. When she sees me, she tries to come to me, but she’s dragging one of her back legs behind her. I slip the gun into my back pocket and crouch down low, hoping no one has heard her. See that she is tied to a length of rope. Know I’ve been set up.

  “Nice of you to join us.” Sp
ider steps out of the shadows with a Glock he points at my head. I raise my hands, praying he doesn’t see the gun in my back pocket. “What you say we go inside for a little reunion?”

  We walk into the house and Ajax smiles. “Just in time.”

  “If you have harmed either one of them …”

  “Chill, partner,” Eight Ball says. “What kind of hosts would we be if we started the party without you? These sure are some damn fine women.” He runs his hands across the side of my mother’s face, and she tries to pull away from him, but the ropes hold her tight. Then Ajax runs the barrel of his Beretta up and down the buttons of Jess’s shirt. He leans in close, and she glares at him in disgust.

  I take a step toward him, but Spider jerks me back and pushes his gun into my back. “You move, you die.”

  Eight Ball holds a Beretta to my mother’s head, and she starts to cry softly. “Here’s your choice, Dylan. Which ho dies and which ho stays for the party?”

  I calculate that I have a gun with five bullets in my back pocket. Consider that by the time I reach for it, Spider could easily blow out my brains with his semiautomatic. I wonder if that would be vengeance enough to satisfy Eight Ball, but I doubt it. I will have to take out Spider first. But then what will Ajax and Eight Ball do? The smart thing would be to shoot me, but the crazed look in Eight Ball’s eyes tells me he might not do the smart thing.

  “Choose!” Eight Ball yells.

  I look at my mother, a thin frail shadow of the beautiful woman she used to be. “I’m so sorry,” I tell her. “I wanted to make you proud, but everything is catching up with me.”

  Eight Ball rips the tape from my mother’s mouth. “Any last words?”

  “It isn’t you, honey. It’s me,” she says. “It’s what I’ve done. It’s catching up to me. I thought I was protecting you, but I was wrong.” She looks at Eight Ball. “I don’t care anymore. Go ahead. Shoot me. I deserve to die.”

  “No. It can’t end this way. A good man gave his life for us,” I tell my mother. “He died so we’d have a chance at a future. We gotta find a way to go on from here.” I know this sounds ridiculous, considering the desperateness of the situation, but I mean every word. When I think about how much my father loved us, how far he was willing to go, something changes inside of me, and I feel stronger than I’ve ever felt.

  I think of his words, If you’re breathing, there’s still hope , and I know that as long as I’m still breathing, I will never give up again.

  “We’re gonna be okay,” I tell her.

  My mother sits up tall. “I believe you.”

  “Believe anything you want,” says Eight Ball. “But somebody goin’ down.” He points the gun between my mother’s eyes, but for the first time since that night in the pantry, she doesn’t look afraid.

  Something changes in Jess’s eyes as well. I follow her gaze out the kitchen window and that’s when I see her—my grandmother—Levida—wearing the black dress, storming toward the house and carrying her shotgun.

  If only I can stall Eight Ball. “Wait. I’m the one you want. Let them go.”

  “Yeah, but their lives are worth more than yours.”

  “You know I didn’t mean to kill Two Tone.”

  “Yeah, but he’s still dead.”

  “Which one of you good-fer-nothin’ bastards shot my pig?” Levida yells, bursting through the kitchen door. She shoots, aiming for Eight Ball, but hits the television screen, blowing glass everywhere.

  A piece of it hits Eight Ball in the face, cutting his eye. He screams in pain and covers his face with his hands. Meanwhile, Levida takes aim at Ajax, shoots out the window behind him, but comes so close to hitting him that he drops his gun and has to scramble across the floor to get it. Spider momentarily forgets about me and points his weapon at my grandmother.

  Shoots.

  Grazes her arm.

  She falls to her knees, holding her bleeding arm against her body.

  I press my .22 against Spider’s back, right behind his heart, and pull the trigger. He falls facedown as a pool of blood gathers under him. I grab his semiautomatic. Hear sirens approaching in the distance.

  Turn to Ajax, and find him holding his gun and smiling, pointing it at Jess, then my mother, then back at Jess. “Choose!” he orders me.

  “Don’t do it,” I say. “The cops are on their way. Look, I’m putting the gun down.” I set Spider’s Glock on the coffee table.

  The sirens grow closer.

  He moves the gun between Jess and my mother. “Which one is gonna get the first bullet?”

  I hear car doors open. Close.

  “Time’s up,” Ajax says, pointing the gun at Jess’s head.

  “No!” I scream. I pick up the Glock and shoot him in the face, just as the cops burst through the door. I feel the bullet from Arnie Golden’s service revolver hitting my right shoulder.

  Then I drop the gun.

  Fall to the floor.

  And pray.

  EPILOGUE

  WHAT HAS HAPPENED SINCE THAT FATEFUL TUESDAY night is a matter of public record. Eight Ball was extradited to California on a weapons charge. I was sent to the county lockup in Austin, where I awaited trial. I hoped to be acquitted of killing Ajax and Spider, given the extenuating circumstances. What actually happened was that the testimonies of Jess and my mother and grandmother were ripped apart by the DA, while I was portrayed as a cold-blooded multiple murderer who killed a boy in California, then fled to Texas as a fugitive.

  According to the district attorney, I had chosen a path that led me to be in a place where killing Ajax and Spider was inevitable. Ajax, a young man with no criminal record whatsoever, was a poor, unfortunate soul who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  And so here I am, a resident of the men’s prison in Huntsville, Texas.

  I got a letter from Wade a few months back saying he and Dorie were expecting a baby and that he’d decided to become a preacher.

  Levida visits me every Saturday afternoon and updates me on her two favorite pets—a three-legged hog and a three-legged dog.

  My mother and Jess went back to California. My mother sold the house, which I’d deeded to her, and bought a music studio where she teaches voice lessons.

  Jess got into Stanford. By day she’s a pre-law major, but by night she’s lead vocal for a group called the Legal Limit.

  They still write every week and come to see me when they can.

  Through their letters and my father’s book, I finally learned to read. Through the poems and letters I wrote to them, I learned to write.

  The horror of this place where I am locked away is indescribable. At night I cover my ears so I won’t hear the weeping, begging, and screaming of the voices that echo off the concrete walls. By day I watch the faces of men who have no hope, no love, and no purpose.

  But I am not one of them.

  I have loved and been loved, thoroughly and deeply by good and decent people who believed in me. Who let me dare to believe in myself.

  Despite everything that has happened, I know that I have good inside of me, just like my father had good inside of him.

  Parole is still a long way off, but I’ve been told that Governor Banks can grant me a pardon if he chooses. I think if he really knew what happened, he might. I believe he is a fair man. He offered me mercy once, on a hot Texas summer night, and I wonder if he might search his heart and offer me mercy once again.

  The DA never mentioned me pulling a gun on the governor. It wasn’t among the charges. Meanwhile, I’m writing my story. But I’m also plotting my escape from this prison cell.

  This is my plan.

  I will do it with words.

  I will write them by day.

  I will write them by night.

  I will write them on the walls,

  the stalls, the halls.

  I will write them in big bold ink

  on posters I hang on the concrete blocks.

  I will write them on little pieces of pape
r

  I stuff into the mattress and the pillow.

  I will write them with fingers

  bent and cramped from use.

  I will write them in blood

  if I have to,

  but only my own.

  And I will keep writing them,

  again, and again, and again,

  until I fill this prison cell so full of words,

  that the bars bend and buckle and burst,

  because they cannot contain them.

  And then

  I will

  be free.

  Acknowledgments

  No book could ever be completed without the help, support, and guidance of friends, family members, and experts willing to share their time, experience, and wisdom. I am deeply grateful to the following people:

  Those professionals in the legal system and in juvenile justice who shared their experiences and insights—Anthony Galindre, Pete Hackett, Judge Wyatt Heard, and especially Jim Willett, former warden of the Walls Unit, who went out of his way to send me photos of the prison, answer innumerable e-mails regarding a hundred different details, and even gave me a personal tour of the prison museum upon my visit to Huntsville. He has written a wonderful book called Warden , telling about his experiences with death row inmates. Some of his vignettes and insights have worked their way into the pages of this book.

  Juan Melendez for sharing his harrowing experience of spending seventeen years on death row before being exonerated.

  All the other people who graciously provided me with information for my research, including Tom Houts, Michelle Lyons, Christopher Jochens, Jacob Lee Stuyvesant, J.J. Jaeger, and John Marsello.

  My agent, Sara Crowe, and my editor, Anica Rissi, whose gentle guidance through the rewriting process helped bring my vision into focus.

  Friends and family members willing to read early versions of the manuscript—Kimberley Griffiths Little, Lois Ruby, Pat Marsello, Tom Dean, and Kristen Dean.

  Jimmy Santiago Baca for his amazing poetry, his willingness to share how he discovered his great passion for words, and for his continual work with youth at risk.