by Jodi Picoult
“I have no idea,” I told her. “I haven’t met with him.”
“Do Satanists have messiahs?” my father asked.
“You’re missing the point, both of you. Legally, there’s a statute that says that even prisoners have a right to practice their religion as long as it doesn’t interfere with the running of the prison.” I shrugged. “Besides, what if he is the Messiah? Aren’t we morally obligated to save his life if he’s here to save the world?”
My father cut a slice of his brisket. “He’s not the Messiah.”
“And you know this because . . . ?”
“He isn’t a warrior. He hasn’t maintained the sovereign state of Israel. He hasn’t ushered in world peace. And okay, so maybe he’s brought something dead back to life, but if he was the Messiah he would have resurrected everyone. And if that was the case, your grandparents would be here right now asking if there was more gravy.”
“There’s a difference between a Jewish messiah, Dad, and . . . well . . . the other one.”
“What makes you think that there might be more than one?” he asked.
“What makes you think there might not?” I shot back.
My mother threw her napkin down. “I’m getting a Tylenol,” she said, and left the table.
My father grinned at me. “You would have made such a good rabbi, Mags.”
“Yeah, if only that pesky religion thing didn’t keep getting in the way.”
I had, of course, been raised Jewish. I would sit through Friday night services and listen to the soaring, rich voice of the cantor; I would watch my father reverently carry the Torah and it would remind me of how he looked in my baby pictures when he held me. But I’d also grow so bored that I’d find myself memorizing the names of who begat whom in Numbers. The more I learned about Jewish law the more I felt that, as a girl, I was bound to be considered unclean or limited or lacking. I had my bat mitzvah, like my parents wanted; and the day after I read from the Torah and celebrated my transition into adulthood, I told my parents I was never going to temple again.
Why? my father had asked when I told him.
Because I don’t think God really cares whether or not I’m sitting there every Friday night. Because I don’t buy into a religion that’s based on what thou shalt not do, instead of what thou ought to be doing for the greater good. Because I don’t know what I believe.
I didn’t have the heart to tell him the truth: that I was much closer to an atheist than an agnostic, that I doubted there was a God at all. In my line of work, I’d seen too much injustice in the world to buy into the belief that a merciful, all-powerful deity would continue to allow such atrocities to exist; and I downright detested the party line that there was some divine grand plan for humanity’s bumbling existence. It was a little like a parent watching her children playing with fire and thinking, Well, let them burn. That’ll teach ’em.
Once, when I was in high school, I asked my father about religions that were, with the passage of time, considered to be false. The Greeks and Romans, with all their gods, thought they were making sacrifices and praying at temples in order to receive favor from their deities; but today, pious people would scoff. How do you know, I’d asked my father, that five hundred years from now, some alien master race won’t be picking over the artifacts of your Torah and their crucifix and wondering how you could be so naive?
My father, who was the first to take a controversial situation and say “Let’s think about that,” had been speechless. Because, he’d said finally, a religion doesn’t last two thousand years if it’s based on a lie.
Here’s my take on it: I don’t think religions are based on lies, but I don’t think they’re based on truths, either. I think they come about because of what people need at the time that they need them. Like the World Series player who won’t take off his lucky socks, or the mother of the sick child who believes that her baby can sleep only if she’s sitting by the crib—believers need, by definition, something to believe in.
“So what’s your plan?” my father asked, bringing my attention back.
I glanced up. “I’m going to save him.”
“Maybe you’re the Messiah,” he mused.
My mother sat down again, popped two pills into her mouth, and swallowed them dry. “What if he’s creating this whole to-do so that somebody like you will come out of the woodwork and keep him from being executed?”
Well, I’d already considered that. “It doesn’t matter if it’s all a big ruse,” I said. “As long as I can get the court to buy it, it’s still a blow against the death penalty.” I imagined myself being interviewed by Stone Phillips. Who, when the cameras cut, would ask me out to dinner.
“Promise me you won’t be one of these lawyers who falls for the criminal and marries him in the prison . . .”
“Mom!”
“Well, it happens, Maggie. Felons are very persuasive people.”
“And you know this because you’ve personally spent so much time in prison?”
She held up her hands. “I’m just saying.”
“Rachel, I think Maggie’s got this under control,” my father said. “Why don’t we get ready to go?”
My mother started clearing the dishes, and I followed her into the kitchen. We fell into a familiar routine: I’d load the dishwasher and rinse off the big platters; she’d dry. “I can finish,” I said, like I did every week. “You don’t want to be late for temple.”
She shrugged. “They can’t start without your father.” I passed her a dripping serving bowl, but she set it on the counter and examined my hand instead. “Look at your nails, Maggie.”
I pulled away. “I’ve got more important things to do than make sure my cuticles are trimmed, Ma.”
“It’s not about the manicure,” she said. “It’s about taking forty-five minutes where the most important thing in the world is not someone else . . . but you.”
That was the thing about my mother: just when I thought I was ready to kill her, she’d say something that made me want to cry. I tried to curl my hands into fists, but she threaded our fingers together. “Come to the spa next week. We’ll have a nice afternoon, just the two of us.”
A dozen comments sprang to the back of my tongue: Some of us have to work for a living. It won’t be a nice afternoon if it’s just the two of us. I may be a glutton, but not for punishment. Instead, I nodded, even though we both knew I had no intention of showing up.
When I was tiny, my mother would have spa days in the kitchen, just for me. She’d concoct hair conditioners out of papaya and banana; she’d rub coconut oil into the skin of my shoulders and arms; she’d lay slices of cucumber on my eyes and sing Sonny & Cher songs to me. Afterward, she would hold a hand mirror up to my face. Look at my beautiful girl, she would say, and for the longest time, I believed her.
“Come to temple,” my mother said. “Just tonight. It would make your father so happy.”
“Maybe next time,” I answered.
I walked them out to their car. My father turned the ignition and unrolled his window. “You know,” he said. “When I was in college, there was a homeless guy who used to hang out near the subway. He had a pet mouse that used to sit on his shoulder and nibble at the collar of his coat, and he never took that coat off, not even when it was ninety-five degrees out. He knew the entire first chapter of Moby-Dick by heart. I always gave him a quarter when I passed by.”
A neighbor’s car zoomed past—someone from my father’s congregation, who honked a hello.
My father smiled. “The word Messiah isn’t in the Old Testament . . . just the Hebrew word for anointed. He’s not a savior; he’s a king or a priest with a special purpose. But the Midrash—well, it mentions the moshiach a lot, and he looks different every time. Sometimes he’s a soldier, sometimes he’s a politician, sometimes he’s got supernatural powers. And sometimes he’s dressed like a vagrant. The reason I gave that bum a quarter,” he said, “is because you never know.”
Then he put the
car in reverse and pulled out of the driveway. I stood there until I couldn’t see them anymore, until there was nothing left to do but go home.
MICHAEL
Before you can go into a prison, you’re stripped of the trappings that make you you. Take off your shoes, your belt. Remove your wallet, your watch, your saint’s medal. Loose change in your pockets, cell phone, even the crucifix pin on your lapel. Hand over your driver’s license to the uniformed officer, and in return, you become one of the faceless people who has entered a place the residents aren’t allowed to leave.
“Father?” an officer said. “Are you okay?”
I tried to smile and nod, imagining what he saw: a big tough guy who was shaking at the thought of entering this prison. Sure, I rode a Triumph Trophy, volunteered to work with gang youth, and broke the stereotype of a priest any chance I got—but inside here was the man whose life I had voted to end.
And yet.
Ever since I had taken my vows and asked God to help me offset what I had done to one man with what I might yet be able to do for others—I knew this would happen one day. I knew I’d wind up face-to-face with Shay Bourne.
Would he recognize me?
Would I recognize him?
I walked through the metal detector, holding my breath, as if I had something to hide. And I suppose I did, but my secrets wouldn’t set off those alarms. I started to weave my belt into the loops of my trousers again, to tie the laces of my Converse sneakers. My hands were still trembling. “Father Michael?” I glanced up to find another officer waiting for me. “Warden Coyne’s expecting you.”
“Right.” I followed the officer through dull gray hallways. When we passed inmates, the officer pivoted his body so that he stood between us—a shield.
I was delivered to an administrative office that overlooked the interior courtyard of the state prison. A conga line of prisoners was walking from one building to another. Behind them was a double line of fencing, capped with razor wire.
“Father.”
The warden was a stocky man with silver hair who offered a handshake and a grimace that was supposed to pass for a smile. “Warden Coyne. Nice to meet you.”
He led me into his private office, a surprisingly modern, airy space with no desk—just a long, spare steel table with files and notes spread across it. As soon as he sat down, he unwrapped a piece of gum. “Nicorette,” he explained. “My wife’s making me quit smoking and to be honest, I’d rather cut off my left arm.” He opened a file with a number on its side—Shay Bourne had been stripped of his name in here as well. “I do appreciate you coming. We’re a little short on chaplains right now.”
The prison had one full-time chaplain, an Episcopal priest who had flown to Australia to be with his dying father. Which meant that if an inmate requested to speak to a clergyman, one of the locals would be called in.
“It’s my pleasure,” I lied, and mentally marked the rosary I’d say later as penance.
He pushed the file toward me. “Shay Bourne. You know him?”
I hesitated. “Who doesn’t?”
“Yeah, the news coverage is a bitch, pardon my French. I could do without all the attention. Bottom line is the inmate wants to donate his organs after execution.”
“Catholics support organ donation, as long as the patient is brain-dead and no longer breathing by himself,” I said.
Apparently, it was the wrong answer. Coyne lifted up a tissue, frowned, and spit his gum into it. “Yeah, great, I get it. That’s the party line. But the reality of the situation is that this guy’s at the twenty-third hour. He’s a convicted murderer, two times over. You think he’s suddenly developed a humanitarian streak . . . or is it more likely that he’s trying to gain public sympathy and stop his execution?”
“Maybe he just wants something good to come out of his death . . .”
“Lethal injection is designed to stop the inmate’s heart,” Coyne said flatly.
I had helped a parishioner earlier this year when she made the decision to donate her son’s organs after a motorcycle accident that had left him brain-dead. Brain death, the doctor had explained, was different from cardiac death. Her son was still irrevocably gone—he would not eventually recover, like people in a coma—but thanks to the respirator, his heart was still beating. If cardiac death had occurred, the organs wouldn’t be viable for transplant.
I sat back in the chair. “Warden Coyne, I was under the impression that Inmate Bourne had requested a spiritual advisor . . .”
“He did. And we’d like you to advise him against this crazy idea.” The warden sighed. “Look, I know what this must sound like to you. But Bourne’s going to be executed by the state. That’s a fact. Either it can become a sideshow . . . or it can be done with discretion.” He stared at me. “Are we clear on what you need to do?”
“Crystal,” I said quietly.
I had once before let myself be led by others, because I assumed they knew more than me. Jim, another juror, had used the “eye for an eye” line from Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount to convince me that repaying a death with a death was just. But now, I understood that Jesus had actually been saying the opposite—criticizing those who let the punishment compound the crime.
No way was I going to let Warden Coyne tell me how to advise Shay Bourne.
In that instant, I realized that if Bourne didn’t recognize me, I wasn’t going to tell him I’d met him before. This wasn’t about my salvation; it was about his. And even if I’d been instrumental in ruining his life, now—as a priest—it was my job to redeem him.
“I’d like to meet Mr. Bourne,” I said.
The warden nodded. “I figured.” He stood up and led me back through the administrative offices. We took a turn and came to a control booth, a set of double-barred doors. The warden raised his hand and the officer inside unlocked the first steel door with a buzz and a sound of metal scraping metal. We stepped into the midchamber, and that same door automatically sealed.
So this was what it felt like to be locked in.
Before I could begin to panic, the interior door buzzed open, and we walked along another corridor. “You ever been in here?” the warden asked.
“No.”
“You get used to it.”
I looked around at the cinder-block walls, the rusting catwalks. “I doubt that.”
We stepped through a fire door marked I-TIER. “This is where we keep the most hard-core inmates,” Coyne said. “I can’t promise they’ll be on their best behavior.”
In the center of the room was a control tower. A young officer sat there, watching a television monitor that seemed to have a bird’s-eye view of the inside of the pod. It was quiet, or maybe the door that led inside was soundproof.
I walked up to the door and peered inside. There was an empty shower stall closest to me, then eight cells. I could not see the faces of the men and wasn’t sure which one was Bourne. “This is Father Michael,” the warden said. “He’s come to speak with Inmate Bourne.” He reached into a bin and handed me a flak jacket and protective goggles, as if I were going to war instead of death row.
“You can’t go in unless you’ve got the right equipment,” the warden said.
“Go in?”
“Well, where’d you think you were going to meet Inmate Bourne, Father? Starbucks?”
I had thought there would be some kind of . . . room, I guess. Or the chapel. “I’ll be alone with him? In a cell?”
“Hell, no,” Warden Coyne said. “You stand out on the catwalk and talk through the door.”
Taking a deep breath, I slipped the jacket on over my clothes and fitted the goggles to my face. Then I winged a quick prayer and nodded.
“Open up,” Warden Coyne said to the young officer.
“Yes, sir,” the kid said, clearly flustered to be under Coyne’s regard. He glanced down at the control panel before him, a myriad display of buttons and lights, and pushed one near his left hand, only to realize at the last minute it was the wrong cho
ice. The doors of all eight cells opened at once.
“Ohmygod,” the boy said, his eyes wide as saucers, as the warden shoved me out of the way and began punching a series of levers and buttons on the control panel.
“Get him out of here,” the warden yelled, jerking his head in my direction. Over the loudspeaker came his radio call: Multiple inmates released on I-tier; need officer assistance immediately.
I stood, riveted, as the inmates spilled out of their respective cells like poison. And then . . . well . . . all hell broke loose.
Lucius
When the doors released in unison, like all the strings tuning up in an orchestra and magically hitting the right note the first time the bow was raised, I didn’t run out of the cell like the others. I stopped for a beat, paralyzed by freedom.
I quickly tucked my painting beneath the mattress of the bunk and stashed my ink in a roll of dirty laundry. I could hear Warden Coyne’s voice on the loudspeakers, calling over the radio for the SWAT team. This had happened only once before when I was in prison; a new officer screwed up and two cells were opened simultaneously. The inmate who’d been accidentally freed rushed into the other’s cell and cracked his skull open against the sink, a gang hit that had been waiting for years to come to pass.
Crash was the first one out of his cell. He ran past mine with his fist curled around a shank, making a beeline for Joey Kunz—a child molester was fair game for anyone. Pogie and Texas followed him like the dogs they were. “Grab him, boys,” Crash hollered. “Let’s just cut it right off.”
Joey’s voice escalated as he was cornered. “For God’s sake, someone help!”
There was the sound of a fist hitting flesh, of Calloway swearing. By now, he was in Joey’s cell, too.
“Lucius?” I heard, a slow ribbon of a voice, as if it had come from underwater, and I remembered that Joey wasn’t the only one on the tier who’d hurt a child. If Joey was Crash’s first victim, Shay could very well be the second.
