She looked confused as I handed her the money and seemed to take it more out of reflex than anything else. I took the box from her and realized why she looked confused. It was a parcel and not a pizza. The oversized blue block letters on its side read QVC, and then I remembered.
Sometimes late at night, when I couldn’t sleep, I would lie on my old green vinyl couch and flip through all the channels for hours-the exciting life of a bachelor. Last Friday, as I flipped past the QVC home shopping channel, I saw the IBM Thinkpad sub-notebook computer at an unbelievably low price-on their easypay plan. The easypay plan was a wonderful plan whereby one-me, in this case-can buy things that one cannot otherwise afford.
“Actually, this job pays very well. All I need is your signature,” she said with a notable measure of amusement.
“I’m sorry. I was expecting a pizza,” I said, a little unnerved by such a stupid mistake in front of such a beautiful woman.
She handed me the pen and electronic clipboard that required my signature as she cut her eyes toward me and flashed me a quick smile. As I signed the pad, I sensed her staring at the round pink scar on my left oblique and long, thin white scar across my chest. I looked up at her.
She looked away. “Pizza, huh? You one of those health-food freaks? I bet you have a Sony Walkman and one of those nifty little exercise bikes, don’t you?”
After I signed the pad, she attempted to decipher what I had written on it. In the distance, I could hear the sounds of poverty coming from Phase I of Prairie Palm. The sounds of poverty were those of people-people with time on their hands and not much else. Children yelling and laughing, the revving of automobile engines, and the loud distorted music of cheap car stereos and boom boxes swirled together into the sad and badly mixed sound track of life in the rural South. The only artist my ears could discern was John Mellencamp, which justified the volume. Appropriately enough, it was an acoustic version of his tribute to life in a small town.
I was born in a small town and I live in a small town. Prob’ly die in a small town. Oh, those small communities.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I should have introduced myself. My name is John Jordan.”
“Why?” she asked. Her severe expression made me feel as if I had said something wrong.
Educated in a small town. Taught to fear Jesus in a small town.
Used to daydream in that small town. Another boring romantic that’s me.
“Why, what?” I asked.
“Why should you have introduced yourself? I’m just delivering a package. This isn’t a social call or anything,” she said. She seemed annoyed. “You’re not making a play for me, are you?”
“Well, I’m just saying it’s polite, and you know …”
“Relax. It’s perfectly all right. I’m sure a man in your profession introduces himself to nearly everyone he meets, whether they want him to or not. What are you, a priest? Wait until I tell my friends I was hit on by a priest.”
For about a second I couldn’t figure out how she knew, and then it dawned on me that my clerical collar still hung around my neck.
But I’ve seen it all in a small town. Had myself a ball in a small town. Married an LA doll and brought her to this small town. Now she’s small town just like me.
“I’m the chaplain at Potter Correctional Institution,” I said touching my collar.
“Oh, I see,” she said with a tinge of what seemed to be embarrassment for me. “I make deliveries over there sometimes. Big place.”
I made a mental note of that.
No I cannot forget where it is that I come from. I cannot forget the people who love me. Yeah, I can be myself here in this small town. And people let me be just what I want to be.
“My brother, Stan, is a Methodist preacher. He says that chaplains aren’t real ministers. He says if he ever can’t make it as a pastor, he knows that he could always become a chaplain.”
“I’m a real minister,” I said, the wounded child inside showing through my voice slightly.
“Relax. I’m just kidding.” She turned to head back down the rocks and pebbles that served as my driveway toward her big colorful Federal Express truck that matched her uniform. The rhythmical blinking of its flashers-slightly slower than my heart-had a hypnotic effect on me.
I was just about to ask for her name and maybe even her number when Ernie sped into the driveway, jumped out of his car, and ran to my doorstep, where I was still watching her in amazement.
Got nothing against a big town. Still hayseed enough to say look who’s in the big town. But my bed is in a small town. Oh, and that’s good enough for me.
“Sorry I’m late, JJ. Uncle Sal’s getting slower and slower,” Ernie said.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Sal’s pizza is still worth the wait.” I looked at him only momentarily and then back with the eyes of a hunter towards Bambi. She had disappeared inside the truck. Ernie had seen her too. He was trying to hand me the white pizza box in his left hand with little success. I wanted to look at my future just a little longer first.
“Do you want the pizza or the pussy?” he half-whispered.
“What did you say?” I asked as I dug into my pocket for the pizza money with one hand and slapped him on top of the head with the other, knocking his cap off in the process and revealing a shock of black tangled curls roughly the texture of Ernie the puppet’s hair.
“I said, that will be eight dollars and eighty-nine cents,” he said as he handed me the box.
I was still feeling around in my pockets for the money when I decided to take one more glance at the truck. She was standing in the opening on the passenger’s side waving Ernie’s money in the air.
“This one’s on me, Preacher. I need the tax deduction,” she said.
“Thanks” was all I could say. There was a time, not so long ago, when I would have had a very nice buzz going by this time of the day and I could have come up with a better response than “thanks.” I always found that I had plenty to say once liquor had removed my inhibitions. I used to be able to charm the pants right off of them, although not this one I suspect. Recovery has its disadvantages too.
Ernie ran down the driveway and across the road to her truck and got the money faster than I thought possible. They exchanged a few words, laughed, and then she drove off. I was instantly jealous. As Ernie crossed over the road again, I walked down the driveway to meet him at his car.
Well I was born in a small town. And I can breathe in a small town.
Gonna die in this small town. And that’s prob’ly where they’ll bury me.
“Please tell me you know who that was,” I said, sounding a little more desperate than I would have liked.
“Sure, that’s Laura Matthers. Her sister Kim and me are on the homecoming court together Friday night.”
“This Friday night, as in day after tomorrow?”
“Uh huh.”
“Thanks, Ernie.”
“She’s got a boyfriend,” he said unaware of the damage that those words would do to me.
“They almost always do, Ernie.”
“Uh huh.”
I stood for a while in the middle of my driveway after Ernie drove away. The sun was setting, its fiery bite replaced by a glorious orange and pink beauty. To the east, toward Tallahassee, the Apalachicola River snaked around the corner of the Prairie Palm property. Its banks were lined with pines, cypresses, and a seemingly infinite number of other trees and plants so unique and beautiful that Elvry E. Callaway seemed justified in believing this to be the site of the original Garden of Eden.
As I walked back up the driveway toward my little tin home, I thought how appropriate that the little tin man lived here, but I also thought that a woman that beautiful who drives a one-ton FedEx truck had to have had a tragic life. We were perfect for each other. And though I still couldn’t shake the image of those lifeless black eyes from my mind, I also had the feeling that things were heating up in the small town.
Chapter 3
&nb
sp; The following morning, I stood in the chapel office of Potter Correctional Institution. A stack of mail and the package that housed my new computer lay on the desk before me. I moved the unopened mail to one side of my desk and set the box in the center. The box took up so little space on my small desk that I felt justified in having mistaken it for a pizza. Opening the package and extracting the computer inside released a flurry of small packing peanuts into my office, many of which were scattered abroad by the small fan oscillating on my file cabinet.
The dull gray walls surrounding me added to the illusion of a snowstorm. Watching the flying peanuts sail through the vacant room inspired a troubling thought. If as a pastor of a prestigious church in north Atlanta my ornate office had been an expression of who I was trying to be, maybe my current empty and sterile surroundings were an expression of who I really was. My office had nothing personal save three pictures that inspire me hanging on one wall: Martin Luther King Jr. and Billy Graham, for obvious reasons, and Jimmy Carter, to remind me that the best man was not always the best man for the job. A portrait of Jesus weeping sat on the right corner of my desk, his dark eyes drinking in the sorrow and suffering of the world. Daily I read his words, “I was in prison and you visited me.”
At the height of the peanuts’ performance, Superintendent Stone walked in without knocking. I felt every muscle in my body grow tense: an instinctive reaction-like braking at the sight of a Highway Patrol car.
“Chaplain Jordan, may I speak with you for a moment?” Mr. Stone said as he closed my office door. He made no attempt to hide his annoyance at the floating Styrofoam swirling around him.
“Of course. Please have a seat.” I motioned him to the blue vinyl chair opposite my desk that inmates used when they had spiritual and some not-so-spiritual problems. He paused before sitting and removed two handfuls of packing peanuts from it, ever diligent to care for his expensive suit. Had he been aware of the sweaty, soiled inmate uniforms that normally occupied the seat, he probably would have left the peanuts in place.
As I sat down, the envelope on top of my lopsided stack of mail slid off, revealing an inmate request form from Ike Johnson. I was stunned. Quickly, I opened my center drawer and placed it inside.
Before he started talking, Edward (not Ed) Stone paused to clean his charcoal, wire-rimmed glasses. Like everything he owned, they looked expensive. As he removed them carefully from his face and wiped them with the spotless white silk handkerchief bearing his initials in bold black block letters, he treated them like they were costly jewels. I suddenly realized that the glasses, like everything he owned, seemed so expensive because he treated them that way. As he made these exact, intentional motions, I had a chance to really look at him for the first time. He was much leaner than I had thought. I had seen skin that was darker than his, but not by much. He had all the African features of a man from Nigeria. His nearly hairless skin was smooth and had a slight sheen about it. His movements were slow-not hesitant, but deliberate and economic. He knew exactly what he was doing and the precise amount of energy required to do it. He did everything as if it were the most important thing he would do that day.
Edward Stone’s minimalist actions and conservative policies reminded me of the effects poverty has on people. No matter how successful they become, they always keep plenty in reserve for fear they will have to do without again. My grandmother, a child during the Great Depression, was the same way. It was apparent that Edward Stone and I came from different eras, mine a result of his.
“How are you doing” he asked, paused, then added, “you know … with what happened yesterday?”
“I’m okay. I appreciate the time yesterday afternoon to pull everything together.”
“That was a bad thing you had to see. You’d have to be an idiot to try to escape, but to try it in that manner, you’d have to be suicidal.”
“Perhaps he was,” I said with a slight shrug.
“Maybe. I don’t know. But that’s what I want to find out. The thing is, his name came up in another matter that we were considering investigating.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I had not put much stock in the earlier reports, but now … I am not so sure.”
“I can see how this would give the investigation a new priority,” I said sarcastically, but only slightly, and he didn’t seem to catch it.
“You can? Then you’ll probably understand what I am about to ask.”
“What’s that?”
“Chaplain, we have a situation that I need your help with.” A little alarm began to ring inside my head.
“I’ll be happy to help if I can,” I said, pushing my mental SNOOZE button.
“Well, I appreciate that, but your help in this matter will not be easy. In fact, it will be extremely difficult, not to mention that it is totally out of the purview of your job. But I honestly do not have anyone else I can turn to.”
I raised an eyebrow and nodded encouragingly. When he didn’t say anything, I said, “You’ve certainly piqued my interest.”
“I need your help with the investigation being conducted on our compound by the inspector general of DOC into the death of Ike Johnson.”
I started to object. He stopped me with a single authoritative wave of his hand.
“I conducted a thorough background check on you long before I ever decided to approach you with this, and I know that you and the IG don’t care for each other very much, but there’s no other way.”
“Even if you could convince me to work with him, and I’m not saying that you can, you’ll never be able to get him to work with me. Never.”
“I’ve already taken care of that through the secretary.”
“His secretary?” I asked.
“Of course not. The secretary of the department,” he said with an amused smile. “So, like you, he really doesn’t have a choice in this matter.”
“I still don’t understand why you are asking me and not someone more qualified.”
“You are more than qualified. Your father has been in law enforcement all your life and is currently the county sheriff, and you nearly completed a degree in criminology before dropping out to attend seminary. I know you served as a police officer in Stone Mountain while you were in school there. It’s even rumored that you were the one who stopped the Stone Cold Killer.”
“As impressive as that is,” I said sarcastically, and this time he caught it, “wouldn’t our own prison inspector be the more logical choice? I don’t get it. Why me?”
“To be completely honest, I don’t trust Pete Fortner. Ordinarily, I would have the colonel assist in this kind of investigation, but he’ll be gone for over three weeks.”
“Why don’t you trust Fortner?” I asked.
“First of all, I need to know if you’ll do it,” he said, his voice reminding me I really didn’t have a choice.
I thought about it. I had, after leading a violent life, dedicated my life to a nonviolent struggle against violence. Fighting fire with fire had only gotten me burned. Conducting an investigation was a part of the violence I had walked away from, but …
I could feel the strong pull of what was being offered to me. It was seductive. Like an inmate continuing to do the same things and expecting different results, I was going to play with fire again, hoping not to get burned.
“I’m a chaplain,” I said. “That comes first. But if I can do both, I am willing. I will. But I will not work closely with the IG. I don’t trust him.”
“Okay, the reason I’m asking you is because Daniels is Fortner’s boss. Fortner’s looking for a promotion, and he’d sacrifice my institution to get it. I don’t trust the two men together. You, on the other hand, Daniels hates. You’re the man for the job.”
“God help us,” I said.
“That’s what I’m counting on,” he said.
At that moment, my phone rang. As I lifted the receiver, I half-expected it to be God saying that he was too busy just now to help me conduct an investigation at PCI
.
“Good morning. Chaplain Jordan,” I said into the receiver.
“Chaplain, this is Officer Jones in the control room. Is the superintendent in your office by chance?”
“Yes,” I said, but I thought, No, not by chance. He leaves nothing to chance. “Hold on just a moment.” I handed the phone to the superintendent. He took it without comment or expression. Like I said, he’s into conservation.
“Superintendent Stone … Yes … okay, send him over to the chapel right away,” he said into the phone and then turned to me. “It would seem that your new partner has arrived. Before he gets here, I just want to make clear your responsibilities. You are to assist him in the investigation in any way that you can.”
“Got it,” I said. I could tell that arguing was futile.
“But, that’s not all. I also want you to look out for the interests of this institution and its administration-and report to me every step of the way.”
“Yes, sir,” I said and immediately wondered if he had something to hide.
As I heard the front door to the chapel opening, I whispered to myself, “This will not go well.”
Power in the Blood jj-2 Page 2
