night he was here...'
'Okey-dokey. Officer Whitaker, let me see if we can get a psych consult for-'
'I'm not crazy, Alma; I'm-well, I'm healed.' I reached for her hand.
'Haven't you ever seen something with your own eyes that you never imagined possible?'
She darted a glance at Calloway Reece, who had submitted to her ministrations now for seven days straight. 'He did that, too,' I whispered. 'I know it.'
Alma walked out of my cell and stood in front of Shay's. He was listening to his television, wearing headphones. 'Bourne,' Whitaker barked.
'Cuffs.'
After his wrists were secured, the door to his cell was opened. Alma stood in the gap with her arms crossed. 'What do you know about Inmate
DuFresne's condition?'
Shay didn't respond.
'Inmate Bourne?'
'He can't sleep much,' Shay said quietly. 'It hurts him to eat.'
'He's got AIDS. But suddenly, this morning, that's all changed,' Alma said. 'And for some reason, Inmate DuFresne thinks you had something to do with it.'
'I didn't do anything.'
Alma turned to the CO. 'Did you see any of this?'
'Traces of alcohol were found in the plumbing on I-tier,' Whitaker admitted.
'And believe me, it was combed for a leak, but nothing conclusive was found. And yeah, I saw them all chewing gum. But Bourne's cell's been tossed religiously-and we've never found any contraband.'
'I didn't do anything,' Shay repeated. 'It was them.' Suddenly, he stepped toward Alma, animated. 'Are you here for my heart?'
'What?'
'My heart. I want to donate it, after I die.' I heard him rummaging around in his box of possessions. 'Here,' he said, giving Alma a piece of paper. 'This is the girl who needs it. Lucius wrote her name down for me.'
'I don't know anything about that...'
'But you can find out, right? You can talk to the right people?'
Alma hesitated, and then her voice went soft, the flannel-bound way she used to speak to me when the pain was so great that I could not see past it. 'I can talk,' she said.
It is an odd thing to be watching television and know that in reality, it is happening right outside your door. Crowds had flooded the parking lot of the prison. Camping out on the stairs of the parole office entrance were folks in wheelchairs, elderly women with walkers, mothers clutching sick infants to their chests. There were gay couples, mostly one man supporting another frail, ill partner; and crackpots holding up signs with scriptural references about the end of the world. Lining the street that led past the cemetery and downtown were the news vans-local affiliates, and even a crew from FOX in Boston.
Right now, a reporter from ABC 22 was interviewing a young mother whose son had been born with severe neurological damage. She stood beside the boy, in his motorized wheelchair, one hand resting on his forehead.
'What would I like?' she said, repeating the reporter's question. 'I'd like to know that he knows me.' She smiled faintly. 'That's not too greedy, is it?'
The reporter faced the camera. 'Bob, so far there's been no confirmation or denial from the administration that any miraculous behavior has in fact taken place within the Concord state prison. We have been told, however, by an unnamed source, that these occurrences stemmed from the desire of New Hampshire's sole death row inmate, Shay Bourne, to donate his organs post-execution.'
I yanked my headphones down to my neck. 'Shay,' I called out. 'Are you listening to this?'
'We got us our own celebrity,' Crash said.
The brouhaha began to upset Shay. 'I'm who I've always been,' he said, his voice escalating. 'I'm who I'll always be.'
Just then two officers arrived, escorting someone we rarely saw:
Warden Coyne. A burly man with a flattop on which you could have served dinner, he stood beside the cell while Officer Whitaker told Shay to strip.
His scrubs were shaken out, and then he was allowed to dress again before he was shackled to the wall across from our cells.
The officers started to toss Shay's house-upending the meal he hadn't finished, yanking his headphones out of the television, overturning his small box of property. They ripped his mattress, balled up his sheets. They ran their hands along the edges of his sink, his toilet, his bunk.
'You got any idea, Bourne, what's going on outside?' the warden said, but Shay just stood with his head tucked into his shoulder, like Calloway's robin did when he slept 'You care to tell me what you're trying to prove?'
At Shay's pronounced silence, the warden began to walk the length of our tier. 'What about you?' he called out to the rest of us. 'And I will inform you that those who cooperate with me will not be punished. I can't promise anything for the rest of you.'
Nobody spoke.
Warden Coyne turned to Shay. 'Where did you get the gum?'
'There was only one piece,' Joey Kunz blurted, the snitch. 'But it was enough for all of us.'
'You some kind of magician, son?' the warden said, his face inches away from Shay's. 'Or did you hypnotize them into believing they were getting something they weren't? I know about mind control, Bourne.'
'I didn't do anything,' Shay murmured.
Officer Whitaker stepped closer. 'Warden Coyne, there's nothing in his cell. Not even in his mattress. His blanket's intact-if he's been fishing with it, then he managed to weave the strings back together when he was done.'
I stared at Shay. Of course he'd fished with his blanket; I'd seen the line he'd made with my own eyes. I'd untied the bubble gum from the braided blue strand.
'I'm watching you, Bourne,' the warden hissed. 'I know what you're up to. You know damn well your heart isn't going to be worth anything once it's pumped full of potassium chloride in a death chamber. You're doing this because you've got no appeals left, but even if you get Barbara freaking
Walters to do an interview with you, the sympathy vote's not going to change your execution date.'
The warden stalked off I-tier. Officer Whitaker released Shay's handcuffs from the bar where he was tethered and led him back to his cell.
'Listen, Bourne. I'm Catholic.'
'Good for you,' Shay replied.
'I thought Catholics were against the death penalty,' Crash said.
'Yeah, don't do him any favors,' Texas added.
Whitaker glanced down the tier, where the warden stood outside the soundproof glass, talking to another officer. 'The thing i s... if you want...
I could ask one of the priests from St. Catherine's to visit.' He paused.
'Maybe he can help with the whole heart thing.'
Shay stared at him. 'Why would you do that for me?'
The officer fished inside the neck of his shirt, pulling out a length of chain and the crucifix that was attached to the end of it. He brought it to his lips, then let it fall beneath his uniform again. 'He that believeth on me,' Whitaker murmured, 'believeth not on me, but on him that sent me.'
I did not know the New Testament, but I recognized a biblical passage when I heard one-and it didn't take a rocket scientist to realize that he was suggesting Shay's antics, or whatever you wanted to call them, were heaven-sent. I realized then that even though Shay was a prisoner, he had a certain power over Whitaker. He had a certain power over all of us. Shay Bourne had done what no brute force or power play or gang threat had been able to do all the years I'd been on I-tier: he'd brought us together.
Next door, Shay was slowly putting his cell to rights. The news pro gram was wrapping up with another bird's- eye view of the state prison.
