Living Right on Wrong Street

by Titus Pollard

  Job feared the women had hooked Larry in. “Okay. I don’t want to be the bad person in this subject. I did enjoy church. I just think you all are making religion out to be more than it really is.”

  Larry faced Job eye to eye. “So tell me something. What did you get out of Pastor Harris’s sermon?”

  What made him ask me that? He could tell Larry’s question wasn’t meant to be meddlesome. It carried a wind of sobriety, as if the answer would only provoke another question to chip a soul. Job’s soul. But he didn’t feel like class was in session. Not for him, anyway. “What did you get out of it, Larry?”

  “Ezekiel. Thirty-sixth chapter. Ninth through the eleventh verse,” Larry recalled.

  Fontella and Monica were both wide-eyed, fixated on him.

  Job was upset that he couldn’t remember the scriptural text, let alone any meaning from the sermon. At that moment, he wished he had listened with a purpose.

  “If you’re going to live a life free of the past, fresh,” Larry stated, “believe in the Lord God, and just start living.”

  Job became suspicious of Larry’s comment, believing it was an underhanded effort to send him a message. To him, the validity of a belief system could be argued, and he had heard too much emphasis on God that day. And besides, living was what he thought he and Monica were doing.

  Chapter 7

  Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.

  Romans 13:2

  Delvin passed over breakfast. He wasn’t up for ramming Egg Beaters down his throat, spending the remainder of the day on his personal throne. Instead, he decided to arm himself with a pencil and scratchpad and sit in his cell, letting his thoughts heat and his focus intensify.

  He heard thunder, but there was no immediate rain. The earth’s ovation was the only sound that accented his writing that Sunday morning.

  After an hour of toiling, Saks came by and stood at his cell door. “You going to chapel service, man?”

  Delvin’s hands froze. He rolled his eyes up without moving his head. “Does it look like I’m about to shuffle my feet?” he asked with such an intended jaggedness that Saks caught the message and walked away as if treading on cotton.

  He resumed his writing, hoping that another inmate wouldn’t come by and spill out another foolish jawful of words.

  Five items. He had devoted two disgusting hours to his list and had come up with a quintet of measly things. His mind wandered back to his pre-prison times. Given two hours, he could’ve cranked out an entire business plan down to the micro-detail with projected costs and profits within a three-figure range of error. Now, he couldn’t put together a mere grocery list of items that anyone with a cerebrum could salvage in a day’s time.

  This place is making me pitiful.

  That was his mind. Then, he began to dwell on his body.

  He stood up from his bunk, stretched his torso and rolled his neck. Every bone and joint ached. He would have given anything for a Pilates workout about now. The high fructose injected juices the prison had in full supply was running through his kidneys, seeping through his skin in the form of adolescent-like pimples. He shook his head in hopes of rattling appalling thoughts and feelings right out of his presence.

  The marching of feet outside his cell signaled to him that a transition from the Catholic mass to the Protestant service was taking place on the lower level, outside perimeter of C block. After that, he was able to regain some tranquility. He would have had total peace were it not for the water pounding against the asphalt pitched roof. What would have been a refreshing natural sound to most was an irritant to his psyche.

  Delvin had exhausted any hope that he would finish his task at that time. He stuck his pad and pencil between pages of the Bible he had been given.

  “Guard,” he said.

  It took a few moments for the cell block overseer to reach Delvin, swinging keys and leaning on the bars. “Whatcha need, Storm?”

  “You can unlock my cell. I think I’m going for a walk.”

  “You’ll be using your single privilege for the day. And you have to remain either in the yard or the library after you take your little walk. You’re out until one-thirty. Understand?”

  Delvin had been careful not to abuse his freedom. If he hadn’t been planning some deviance at that time, solitary confinement wouldn’t have been a terrible living arrangement. At least he would have undisturbed minutes, hours. But he needed the liberty for human contact, so he walked the chalk line.

  “Back up, Storm.” The guard pulled out an object the shape of a beeper and flashed it toward the door. The latch opened and the door swung toward the hall. “Let’s go.”

  He moseyed out and down the hall. He peered into each cell as he walked, but did not allow his eyes to fixate on any inmate’s personal space. He had a fear of retaliation.

  About halfway down that floor, he met Stinson. Delvin wanted to know if progress had been made on his request from the day before, so he asked the question with his eyes.

  Stinson responded with a look, no speech. Give me time. The hook-up is on the way.

  Delvin bowed his head and walked by. They understood each other.

  Another fifty feet or so, the stairs that led to lower levels within the cellblock somehow drew him. What he heard was more of a rhythmic undertone, or breaths echoing like ghosts leaving a small room to stretch out into open space.

  The sound drugged him, led him on a virtual leash until his scales were removed and he found himself looking into the opening of the prison chapel. The leash had released its grip, but not before he had locked eyes with Shiloh Kimmons.

  Delvin’s internal heat blew up the Celsius scale. He had avoided that man since their first meeting, and cursed himself for not knowing where the chapel was located.

  “God is a wondrous God.” Shiloh raised a hand above his head and then lowered it toward a front row chair.

  Delvin didn’t want the good chaplain to consider him a coward, but he wasn’t making the twenty foot stride down that aisle either. He finger-combed his hair, wiped any lingering surprise off his face, and chose a seat in the last row.

  “The Lord is someone you have to want in your life. He doesn’t come to you and take residence just because He wants to. Invite Him in,” Shiloh declared.

  “Umm,” a couple of inmates mumbled.

  Delvin heard their response and wondered about the meaning of it. “The preacher isn’t saying anything worth anything. What do you idiots think you’re listening to?” was what he wanted to say. He pondered why he even took a seat, filling his ears with this nonsense. He just knew that the chaplain’s ranting wouldn’t aid his present situation.

  “Don’t treat this time of worship as a fashionable thing to do,” Shiloh said, as though he heard Delvin’s thoughts and was extending a warning. “Don’t play with what others depend on to live.”

  Delvin scanned the chapel and wondered if the chaplain proudly called his working environment a form of living. There were about ten hand-me-down chairs and a pulpit that had names carved in it, no scandalous sayings or street graffiti. Maybe they were the signatures of the builders, probably former inmates that bode their time by woodworking. On one wall was a faux stained-glass window, plastic. It hung like a picture frame by some tattered yarn. The whole room was lit by a single incandescent bulb with an illumination power of about forty watts. And the room smelled as though everything non-salvageable from the floors above had settled there.

  Delvin chuckled to himself, knowing that in his neediest of days, he didn’t live that frugal. Then he remembered that Shiloh Kimmons, prison chaplain, could come and go as he pleased.

  Delvin Storm, the prisoner, couldn’t.

  “Jesus loves you, no matter how dark your sins, no matter what you’ve done,” Shiloh proclaimed. He reached over to a small table and turned on a tape player. The music was scratchy and sounded like a band of toddlers. “Do
it today,” he continued with an emphasis that anyone within earshot of him should make a decision. “Come to Jesus, just now.”

  To tell the truth, he could’ve been an amputee, because not a soul budged.

  Shiloh seemed undaunted by the lack of prisoner participation. He thanked everyone for attending the service, challenging each to return next Sunday, and he reminded those leaving to be respectful to those coming in, as a young man from the Nation of Islam would be preparing to conduct the next service for those of Muslim faith. He then stood around for a short while, committing himself to shaking each inmate’s hand.

  Delvin bowed his head and wedged between a couple of inmates who were headed out the door, but his hopes to escape the chaplain’s grip were dashed.

  “Have you been reading the Bible I gave you?” Shiloh asked.

  Delvin felt a tinge of insult in that comment. “A little.”

  “Umm hmm,” Shiloh mumbled. He had an analytical facial expression—something between a puckered, sour lemon look and a staunch jaw, clean slate face.

  “Look, preacher, you’re wasting your time.

  This religion stuff, I’ve never been into it.”

  “I’ll come to see you later, Mr. Storm,” Shiloh said, ignoring Delvin’s remarks.

  “You said you weren’t pushy. I haven’t invited you.”

  Delvin decided to work down some lunch and then return to his cell. The thunderstorm had formed a mud hole in the courtyard area, which meant the inmates would be inside for three, maybe four days. Most were napping out of plain boredom. He sat on his bed and picked up the Bible that Shiloh had given him. Fanning the pages, he stopped at Psalms 37:4, only catching the part that referenced him receiving his heart’s desire. Those few words were the last ones he remembered before he dozed off.

  He and some real estate colleagues were setting up the week’s business meetings over brunch and Merlot at the Wet Kitty. He had inside information that Stonefield Trace had some wonderful lots at a half-mil and up. A lot of money to be made. He left the joint with the intent of getting Job in on the action, but the chump had too many fearful hairs on his chest...

  “So, you’ve been reading.” Shiloh stood in the opening of his cell, leaning on the bars. “And from the looks of things, you’ve been taking notes, too.”

  Delvin wiped the dream from his eyes, imagining he had taken a sleep aid so that, when the medicine wore off, he’d be sprawled on the couch of his posh downtown condo. Had to be the most potent drug he had ever taken, because it wasn’t wearing off.

  Delvin stretched in an attempt to gather together his body and mind. “Don’t flatter yourself, Chaplain,” he yawned. “This is hardly any notes from that trash you were feeding this morning. Thus sayeth that; whither thou goest this.” Delvin spanked the Bible shut.

  “So that’s what you thought of the sermon today, huh, Mr. Storm?”

  He sneered, not believing the obviousness of the question. “I haven’t seen one piece of evidence that a being—whom I cannot see—visits a prison to protect me and comfort me.” Delvin tapped his chest. “For protection, give me a glock. For my comfort, give me a woman.”

  Shiloh’s forehead creased.

  “What good does it do?” Delvin paused to move closer to the bars. “Why believe in any god, unless it works on my behalf?”

  “Jesus works for your behalf,” Shiloh corrected, “but not in a fashion where you dictate to Him. He’s not your prostitute. Far be it for Him to be your beckon call boy.”

  “Look, preacher, I can’t tell you this any other way than straight out. You don’t seem to understand that the only way you get ahead in this world is with money and power, and plenty of it. You don’t have anything without them. You’ll be nobody, and you’ll get nowhere.”

  “So, you call this getting somewhere?” Shiloh’s head did a quick turn down the cellblock, then back on Delvin. “It’s true, Mr. Storm. We do have to live in this world. But the things you talk about, money and power; they’re so temporary. So superficial.”

  “This world can eat you up. Money and power has the tendency to be a great equalizer when the other dung in life brings you down. But I understand, preacher. You don’t look like the type that’s ever tasted the corporate world. Where I come from, greed is a commendable thing. It’s better to be a wolf than a lamb.”

  Shiloh’s face was nonchalant. “Strange you would use that analogy, considering Jesus is often called the Lamb slain for our sins.”

  Delvin stuck a finger in Shiloh’s face. “See? That right there tells me this Jesus couldn’t have been much of nothing.”

  Shiloh rubbed the top of his head, traced his hand down the side of his face and began squeezing his chin. “What’s the cause of your rebellion? A friend? Brother?”

  Joseph Bertram Wright. Delvin’s former partner’s name had settled down to his stomach, taken residence, agitated his inner being. Through all the physiological imbalances he was dealing with, he had to try and remain silent on that issue. But he didn’t.

  “The nigger’s no brother. He sure isn’t a friend. I haven’t heard from him since I’ve been in here,” he rattled off, realizing his mouth had skipped way ahead of his brain. “Look, preacher. I’ve had what I thought was a friend. He let me down, in more ways than one.”

  Shiloh kept his eyes down in puzzlement. “How so?”

  Delvin boiled inside. It hadn’t felt good, keeping his thoughts and feelings locked up. But Shiloh seemed to be an attentive listener and not a judge, so Delvin didn’t mind letting the chaplain know a few things. “A friend will tell you when you’re wrong, even when they may be afraid to say. And when a situation turns for the worst, a true friend, I think, will admit the part they played in a scheme, rather than keep their mouth shut to save themselves.”

  Shiloh caressed his forehead. “So ... you’ve been hurt. It makes sense.” The calm in his voice and demeanor kept Delvin off-guard, unnerved.

  “I haven’t been hurt. I don’t let people do that to me,” Delvin insisted. “I was disappointed. Nothing more.” He sprung off his bunk, trounced over to the mirror and brushed the stray hair from his forehead.

  He could feel Shiloh eyeing him, and he was doing it without a blink. “Before you leave from here, your search for ultimate satisfaction will end on a positive note.”

  “Oh, really?” Delvin did a split second survey. Nothing in present surroundings had smelled, tasted, or sounded right. In fact, nothing could’ve been more wrong. “There’s no positive in this place.” He then thought about Job and what he was planning. “Well, maybe something positive can come out of this.”

  In ignorance to Delvin’s meaning, Shiloh said, “Oh, yeah. If you put your mind to it.”

  You don’t know how much truth you just spoke, preacher. “If you think that Jesus-thing is your tool to convert me, then find yourself another tool. But I respect you sticking to your convictions. We need more men like you around here.”

  “I have time to see a major conversion in you. You’ll be around here at least until your first parole board hearing.”

  That’s three years from now. “Don’t hold your breath, preacher. No far-fetched religion can change me.”

  Later that evening, Delvin could see that the library was unoccupied except for the librarian and what appeared to be a couple of spectacled, bucktoothed white males chatting among themselves in twentieth century pseudo-scientific jargon. Delvin figured them to be computer geek criminals trying to keep abreast of the latest technology. They appeared to be no threat by the way they scratched their greasy heads, painted fearful looks on their faces, and took off in an opposite direction.

  He pulled up a chair, propped his feet up on a table, and began scanning the most recent copy of Business Week. He had become engrossed in reading when a thin hand emerged over the page he was on, almost to the point of touching his face.

  The man’s voice flowed like a heart that never skipped a beat. A Spock-like smoothness. “I understand that yo
u have begun a sequence of data collection and tactics necessitating my expertise.”

  Delvin was startled because of the suddenness and angered by the intrusion, but overjoyed at the revelation. Man. It took long enough. He realized that he was staring into the eyes of the hook-up. It was the prison’s resident encyclopedia. Murphy.

  To think that this man could even gather the nerve to approach him. Surely he remembered that their initial meeting was far less than cordial.

  “Why do you talk like somebody’s English professor or something? Come off it.” Delvin had to ask.

  Murphy pulled up a seat. “Storm. What good did it do for Webster to have created a dictionary and thesaurus if he didn’t expect the American people to take advantage of the English vernacular?”

  Take a breath. Delvin felt his brain begging for an aspirin. The five-dollar words were being spouted off faster than he could decipher them. “I guess you’ve made your point.” He reached beneath his undershirt and pulled out a folded, tattered sheet of paper. “I need these things. ASAP.”

  “You do realize, Storm, that our present state of affairs somewhat hinders the definition of ASAP to be effectual, do you not?”

  “ASAP means as soon as possible—but we’re in jail—don’t expect miracles. I got it,” Delvin said in frustration.

  Murphy unfolded the paper, smoothing each fold as he progressed along. His eyes dotted the page from top to bottom as if he were studying a fine piece of poetry or prose. “A couple of the guys told me that you were present, accounted for at chapel. I did not perceive you as the religious type,” he whispered.

  Delvin curled his fist in clear view and twisted his face. “I’m not.”

  Murphy’s eyes widened. “Don’t misunderstand me, Storm. I have no animosity toward those who recognize omnipotent powers; gods and the like.”

  “I’ve just told you where I stand on that subject.”

  “I understand.” He returned the paper to its folded state. “What do you want with these items?”