Riven

by Jerry B. Jenkins

  Brady laid his envelope on the steel desk with attached stool, knowing it would probably be his only reading material for three months. He sat there, studying the cot and the combination toilet/sink in the corner, in full view of any passersby.

  He decided not to answer, to say absolutely nothing. But as the yelling and the questions rose to a deafening din and he sat on his cot and covered his ears, Brady realized that some cons in certain cells of other units in the pod could see him. They told his unit mates every detail of what he was doing.

  “Don’t plug your ears, trailer trash!”

  “Too early for bed, lover boy!”

  “Tell us the story! Did you really think she loved you, Romeo?”

  “Did you hear what Daddy North said? He wants you to burn in hell!”

  Brady had seen similar hazing at County and knew of newcomers who wound up burying their faces in their blankets and crying themselves to sleep, opening them to even more ridicule. He decided to just busy himself in the farthest, most private corner of his cell, reading over the stuff from his packet.

  But it was no good. He couldn’t block the noise, and he had resolved not to respond.

  “Miss your smokes, sweetheart?” someone hollered.

  Boy, did he.

  In some recess of Brady’s mind, he realized that his nicotine addiction and all the racket were at least keeping him occupied. One thing he feared above everything else was having to face his own darkness.

  Fighting the withdrawal and the unending harassment, Brady sat with his back to the wall, his head between his knees. He was unaware of having slept the night before and wondered if this place ever quieted enough for anyone to sleep. Brady was exhausted, and yet there would be no dozing, at least for now.

  His absolute refusal to give the hecklers what they wanted eventually cooled them down. But even when the shouting was not directed at Brady, the noise level seemed to abate only during the counts of the inmates with every shift change and meal delivery. Like everyone else, Brady began to look forward to the food, meager and unappetizing as it was.

  Each time the officers brought his meal, Brady was required to sit on his cot at the back of the cell. Holidays and weekends the men got just two meals a day. The rest of the time, three were delivered, almost always with the same fare: a simple TV dinner–style entree, salt and pepper packets, a fruit drink, a combination plastic fork and spoon, a packet of instant coffee, and a tea bag. The irony of the last two was that no hot plates or heating units of any kind were allowed in the cells, so the men had to mix these with barely warm tap water.

  When the officers came to pick up his tray, again Brady had to be sitting on his cot, and his tray was searched every time to be sure everything was still there—all the packaging and the spork. That, he was told, was to ensure that he didn’t keep anything he could use to fashion some hybrid weapon. If only he had the courage. He was barely eating anyway, and if he ate less, he knew he would be reported and likely hauled away for intravenous feeding.

  At the end of his first month, the drone of Brady’s life had been established. The sharpest bite of his withdrawal from a lifetime of smoking was over, yet he occasionally caught a whiff of something that reminded him of cigarettes, and the cravings came back.

  The inmates all around him apparently found him no fun due to his silence and eventually gave up hassling him entirely. But his only respite from the other constant racket came in the evenings when those with televisions all watched the same show and then discussed it to death.

  During that time, Brady could hear every word of dialogue from all the TVs, so he would stretch out on his cot and pull the end of his scratchy blanket up behind his head, forcing it into his ears. Sometimes that allowed him to doze, but only briefly, because then his hands would relax, the blanket would slip away, and the noise would invade.

  TVs had to be off at midnight, and some of the men actually seemed to sleep, though Brady could hardly imagine how. The other clamor seemed to go on and on until it became white noise to him. Part of him wished he had not grown used to it, because when he had been unable to think, at least he was spared the wide-awake nightmares that showed him for who he really was.

  What Katie North’s father had told the press was right. He deserved to burn in hell.

  Brady slowly came to understand that there were two types of prisoners—those who lived to make trouble for little other reason than that they were bored and craved attention, and those who were content to just get along.

  He fit the latter category, but he could understand the others. They couldn’t really be punished any more. Even being sent back to an intake cell for Administrative Segregation was at least variety. And the chance to fight and bite and spit and throw blood or feces or try to make some creative weapon out of whatever could be found—well, Brady wasn’t interested, but something about the efforts of the desperate reached him. It reminded him of how he had felt at Forest View High School years before, when negative attention was at least better than none.

  In his more fanciful moments, Brady had imagined himself simply passing his time doing nothing. But the deprivation of everything he knew—human touch, conversation, something to read, not to mention the ability to come and go as he pleased—changed his entire system of values.

  While he could not sleep, never ate his entire meager portion of food, and felt nauseated all the time, still Brady found himself looking forward to every scheduled event that marked the passing of each day. He anticipated being roused by the banging on his door for first count, the delivery of every meal, even his short walk to the shower every week. The head counts helped him mark the time, and he was expected to stand and show himself at the predinner count. Hardly a week passed without someone refusing and having to be forcibly extricated from his cell.

  Brady tried to be cordial to the officers, hoping one might engage him in other than just stilted conversation. Whenever he said anything more than please or thank you, however, he was quickly barked back into submission. Someone—he couldn’t even remember who now—had told him, “Treat the officers with respect, but don’t expect to talk to them much.”

  Hardest to get used to were the creatures that invaded his house. Sleep was so evasive that he didn’t think he had to worry that something would bite him if he happened to doze. But he was wrong. In the weeks he had been inside, he had already seen roaches, flies, mice, crickets, moths, spiders, mosquitoes, and gnats. Brady suffered so many bites on his feet and ankles that he had taken to wearing his soft slippers to bed.

  He looked forward to the end of his ninety-day probationary period so he could have a TV and something to read besides the juice boxes—which he had memorized. He had also read and reread his induction materials so often that he could have recited every word, subtitle, and page number.

  Brady didn’t know what he would do with his hour a day in the exercise kennel. There was only one man in there at a time, and each either strolled or just leaned against the wall or sat, apparently enjoying the slight change of scenery and more space. A few exercised, but Brady couldn’t imagine doing that. He had already lost weight and muscle tone, and in his cell he moved as little as necessary. He knew that was unhealthy, but what was the point?

  Brady was alarmed every time he was taken to the shower and got a glimpse of himself in the makeshift mirror. He had begun to look older than his years, gaunt, wasted. Three years and the lethal injection couldn’t come soon enough.

  Those first ninety days, he knew, were meant to break him. Again, that puzzled him. Break him from what? He supposed it was good for him to have quit smoking, though it had not been voluntary. But he didn’t have to be persuaded to follow orders, do what he was told, not cause trouble, not trust anyone.

  Apparently this initial period of deprivation didn’t have its desired effect on every inmate, as many newcomers went crazy within a week or two, finding themselves dragged from their cells to Ad Seg and—depending on how much of a fight they put u
p—having years added to their sentences. Brady had no interest in making trouble. He found himself simply sad, depressed, and mostly sleepless.

  One day his lunch delivery was accompanied by a letter from his aunt Lois. Brady’s fingers trembled as he opened it, though it was clear it had already been read by the authorities.

  Your uncle and I are praying for you, Brady. We know it was an accident and that you would never hurt a flea on purpose. We asked if we could come visit you but were told only one person was allowed at a time and not till after your first ninety days, and then only if you put us on some list. Do that, and one of us will come as soon as it’s cleared. Tell us about your appeals when you can.

  The last thing Brady wanted was his aunt or uncle seeing this place. He wanted to answer, “It was on purpose, stop praying, and don’t come.” But he would not be issued pencil or paper until the ninety days were up, and he wasn’t allowed to send any mail until after that anyway.

  And his appeals? He didn’t even want to know, let alone tell anyone else. What was to appeal? Any higher court judge or panel looking over his transcripts would see what everyone else saw. If anyone dared reverse his sentence, he would sue them. Whoever all these activists were, demonstrating and acting in his and other death row inmates’ interests, they were going to be sorely disappointed at his lack of cooperation. In fact, he would be working at cross-purposes to theirs.

  At the eighty-day mark, Brady began to really get antsy about reaching normal status. Wasn’t that something? Whatever their motive for treating him like the animal he was, it had worked. He would still be a man condemned to death, living in a steel-and-concrete box, humiliated, deprived of almost everything, and relegated to public calls of nature, public showers, body cavity searches, and cuffing and uncuffing every time he left his house. And yet the TV and radio and writing materials and something to read began to actually sound like something, looming on the horizon like an oasis.

  And he needed something to distract him. Because now that the craziness and the noise and the creatures and the smells had become a macabre amalgam of his daily existence, Brady’s sleeplessness and nausea finally reached him in that far corner he had struggled so frantically to avoid.

  He had searched desperately every minute for anything to occupy his mind so he could shut out the ugly truth about himself. He was a criminal, a murderer, a monster. He had snuffed out a life and destroyed a family.

  Brady had allowed himself to somehow cover the worst of this in his mind by freely admitting his guilt and demanding death. By some far-fetched rationalization, he felt that should have squared it. But when he was forced to face himself, he knew better. Nothing could make it right. In one ugly instant he had gone from a liar, a lowlife, and a no-account loser to the worst thing a man could be.

  And now that he had settled in to where he belonged and found that a few crumbs of privileges due him for ninety days’ good behavior sounded like Christmas, he could shut out the despicable truth no longer.

  Guilty, guilty, guilty was all he could think. Was he going crazy? Would he try again to kill himself? And why was it Katie’s father and not Brady’s aunt Lois who had mentioned his burning in hell? Lois really believed that stuff, that there was a heaven and a hell and that good people went up and bad people went down.

  I murdered someone, and I’m going to hell.

  Brady realized that he could not kill himself. Even the supermax had to be better than hell. Killing himself would get him sent there only earlier. And now all of a sudden the three-year mark didn’t seem so far away either. Oh, he deserved it. He had never denied that. But what he feared would not come soon enough now seemed to be racing toward him.

  Why hadn’t he listened to Jackie Kent and considered that the day might come when he would change his mind? Life in this place would be awful, but if there was a hell, he’d rather be here than there—regardless what he deserved.

  He knew Carl and Lois were sincerely into this stuff, but he had always just endured their church and Sunday school and the stories and songs. It was all okay for them, sort of quaint. Lois was known as a bit of a religious wacko, even among her family and friends.

  But could it be true? If it was, Brady was in deep, deep trouble, not just with the county and the state, but with the God of the universe Himself.

  He dug through his induction packet again, though he had committed it to memory. That black-and-white picture of the plain, old-fashioned-looking, broad-faced older man, the Reverend Thomas Carey. He was the chaplain. And to arrange a visit with him, you had to fill out a form and submit it to the administrative offices. If the decision was positive and the inmate in good standing, the meeting would be scheduled. The first would be at your cell, and if the chaplain deemed it appropriate or necessary, subsequent meetings, each subject to the same permission request procedure, could be arranged in an isolation unit. There the inmate and the chaplain could sit on either side of a Plexiglas window and converse through an intercom.

  Brady understood exactly why he had this sudden interest in a meeting with the chaplain, though he wasn’t sure he would want to say it aloud where other cons could hear. The bottom line was, he had to know. Was there any hope for a murderer?

  57

  Adamsville

  It had been years—years—since Gladys had called Thomas Carey at home.

  “Wanted to catch you before you left,” she said now. “I still don’t know what you have against cell phones, Reverend. I could have waited a few minutes and talked to you while you were driving.”

  “It’s called a budget,” Thomas said, hoping she could hear the smile in his voice. Plus, cell phones didn’t work in the supermax with all the steel and concrete. And he wasn’t going to invest in a phone and monthly charges so he could be reached anywhere else.

  “How’s your sweetheart this morning?”

  “Still in remission,” he said. “Believe me, we’re enjoying it while it lasts.”

  “I’m praying it lasts forever.”

  “Thank you, but you didn’t call to tell me that. I’m on my way out the door.”

  “You must have a long cord on that phone, then.”

  “Funny.”

  “I just thought you’d like to know whose request to see you has been approved and who you can visit whenever you want.”

  “I’ll bite. Who?”

  “Guess.”

  “A Muslim. A Wiccan. A Buddhist. Worse than that? A satanist? Surely not someone interested in what I’m selling.”

  “You never know, but you’re wrong on all counts.”

  “Another one of those who’s invented his own religion and wants me to get it cleared with the state so he can, what, worship girlie magazines or something?”

  Gladys cackled. “I’ll never forget that guy. Nope, believe it or not, it’s the Heiress Murderer.”

  Thomas held his breath. The very one he had been praying for. The one with the vacant look. “He’s been with us ninety days already?”

  “Last week. Yanno just signed off on the request.”

  “You know, Gladys, one of these days I’m going to tell the warden that you call him that.”

  “You’d blackmail me?”

  “If I could figure out a reason. But if I did, what would I get out of it?”

  “My loud scarf collection. Any one of ’em would go well with your somber suits.”

  “That’s just my uniform, Miz Fashion Plate.”

  “And you wear ’em well. Now get your tail in here and do your job.”

  “Can you do me a favor? See if you can get the man’s file for me?”

  “You didn’t get enough of that story in the papers and on TV?”

  “More than I wanted, actually, but there’s always stuff the press ignores that can be enlightening.”

  Death Row

  Brady got word late that morning that the chaplain would visit his cell at four in the afternoon. Interesting timing, he thought. If he gets bored, he can leave at the en
d of his workday.

  They would have an hour and a half before the dinner count and then the meal delivery. Brady couldn’t imagine it taking that long. He was curious was all. Just wanted to know where the local man of the cloth stood on this stuff. Brady had heard friends say over the years that when you’re dead you’re dead, but being a Christian or trying to live like one was good because it made you a better person in this world.

  Well, he had certainly failed on that account, and long before he murdered Katie North.

  Administration Wing

  Thomas spent the day busy but distracted. Brady Wayne Darby was the highest-profile inmate the penitentiary had had in ages. While there had been no trial to make the thing the media circus it might have become, the murder had been center stage for weeks.

  Andreason and LeRoy were adamant about no information being leaked out of the prison about Darby, though a couple of corrections officers reported that they had been offered money by the tabloids to sneak a cell phone photo or any tidbit of news to them. The truth was, one of them might have taken the offer had the inmate been the least bit interesting. Word was he was quiet and cooperative, though still considered a suicide risk. But he was talking with no one, so anything sold to the cheap newspapers about Brady Darby would have to be invented, like most everything else in those rags.

  At 2:00 Gladys swept into Thomas’s office and plopped a three-inch file on his desk. “You owe me,” she said.

  “I’m hopelessly in debt to you already.”

  “And don’t you forget it. Someday you’ll pay, Padre.”

  “How would I ever?”