The words were hard for him-not quite a stutter; more like each syllable was a stone he had to bring forth. 'I'm Lucius. Lucius DuFresne,' I said.
'You talking to someone?'
He hesitated. 'I think I'm talking to you.'
'Can't sleep?'
'I can sleep,' Shay said. 'I just don't want to.'
'You're luckier than I am, then,' I replied.
It was a joke, but he didn't take it that way. 'You're no luckier than me, and I'm no unluckier than you,' he said.
Well, in a way, he was right. I may not have been handed down the same sentence as Shay Bourne, but like him, I would die within the walls of this prison-sooner rather than later.
'Lucius,' he said. 'What are you doing?'
'I'm painting.'
There was a beat of silence. 'Your cell?'
'No. A portrait.'
'Why?'
'Because I'm an artist.'
'Once, in school, an art teacher said I had classic lips,' Shay said. 'I still don't know what that means.'
'It's a reference to the ancient Greeks and Romans,' I explained. 'And the art that we see represented on-'
'Lucius? Did you see on TV today... the Red Sox...'
Everyone on I-tier had a team they followed, myself included. We each kept meticulous score of their league standings, and we debated the fairness of umpire and ref calls as if they were law and we were Supreme
Court judges. Sometimes, like us, our teams had their hopes dashed; other times we got to share their World Series. But it was still preseason; there hadn't been any televised games today.
'Schilling was sitting at a table,' Shay added, still struggling to find the right words. 'And there was a little girl-'
'You mean the fund-raiser? The one up at the hospital?'
'That little girl,' Shay said. 'I'm going to give her my heart.'
Before I could respond, there was a loud crash and the thud of flesh smacking against the concrete floor. 'Shay?' I called. 'Shay?!'
I pressed my face up against the Plexiglas. I couldn't see Shay at all, but I heard something rhythmic smacking his cell door. 'Hey!' I yelled at the top of my lungs. 'Hey, we need help down here!'
The others started to wake up, cursing me out for disturbing their rest, and then falling silent with fascination. Two officers stormed into I-tier, still Velcroing their flak jackets. One of them, CO Kappaletti, was the kind of man who'd taken this job so that he'd always have someone to put down. The other, CO Smythe, had never been anything but professional toward me. Kappaletti stopped in front of my cell. 'DuFresne, if you're crying wolf-'
But Smythe was already kneeling in front of Shay's cell. 'I think
Bourne's having a seizure.' He reached for his radio and the electronic door slid open so that other officers could enter.
'Is he breathing?' one said.
'Turn him over, on the count of three...'
The EMTs arrived and wheeled Shay past my cell on a gurney-a stretcher with restraints across the shoulders, belly, and legs that was used to transport inmates like Crash who were too much trouble even cuffed at the waist and ankles; or inmates who were too sick to walk to the infirmary.
I always assumed I'd leave I-tier on one of those gurneys. But now I realized that it looked a lot like the table Shay would one day be strapped onto for his lethal injection.
The EMTs had pushed an oxygen mask over Shay's mouth that frosted with each breath he took. His eyes had rolled up in their sockets, white and blind. 'Do whatever it takes to bring him back,' CO Smythe instructed; and that was how I learned that the state will save a dying man just so that they can kill him later.
There was a great deal that I loved about the Church.
Like the feeling I got when two hundred voices rose to the rafters during Sunday Mass in prayer. Or the way my hand still shook when I offered the host to a parishioner. I loved the double take on the face of a troubled teenager when he drooled over the 1969 Triumph Trophy motorcycle I'd restored-and then found out I was a priest; that being cool and being Catholic were not mutually exclusive.
Even though I was clearly the junior priest at St. Catherine's, we were one of only four parishes to serve all of Concord, New Hampshire.
There never seemed to be enough hours in the day. Father Walter and I would alternate officiating at Mass or hearing confession; sometimes we'd be asked to drop in and teach a class at the parochial school one town over. There were always parishioners to visit who were ill or troubled or lonely; there were always rosaries to be said. But I looked forward to even the humblest act-sweeping the vestibule, or rinsing the vessels from the Eucharist in the sacrarium so that no drop of Precious
Blood wound up in the Concord sewers.
I didn't have an office at St. Catherine's. Father Walter did, but then he'd been at the parish so long that he seemed as much a part of it as the rosewood pews and the velveteen drapes at the altar. Although he kept telling me he'd get around to clearing out a spot for me in one of the old storage rooms, he tended to nap after lunch, and who was I to wake up a man in his seventies and tell him to get a move on? After a while, I gave up asking and instead set a small desk up inside a broom closet. Today, I was supposed to be writing a homily-if I could get it down to seven minutes, I knew the older members of the congregation wouldn't fall asleep-but instead, my mind kept straying to one of our youngest members. Hannah Smythe was the first baby I baptized at St.
Catherine's. Now, just one year later, the infant had been hospitalized repeatedly. Without warning, her throat would simply close, and her frantic parents would rush her to the ER for intubation, where the vicious cycle would start all over again. I offered up a quick prayer to God to lead the doctors to cure Hannah. I was just finishing up with the sign of the cross when a small, silver-haired lady approached my desk.
'Father Michael?'
'Mary Lou,' I said. 'How are you doing?'
'Could I maybe talk to you for a few minutes?'
Mary Lou Huckens could talk not only for a few minutes; she was likely to go on for nearly an hour. Father Walter and I had an unwritten policy to rescue each other from her effusive praise after Mass. 'What can I do for you?'
'Actually, I feel a little silly about this,' she admitted. 'I just wanted to know if you'd bless my bust.'
I smiled at her. Parishioners often asked us to offer a prayer over a devotional item. 'Sure. Have you got it with you?'
She gave me an odd look. 'Well, of course I do.'
'Great. Let's see it.'
She crossed her hands over her chest. 'I hardly think thafs necessary!'
I felt heat flood my cheeks as I realized what she actually wanted me to bless. 'I-I'm sorry...' I stammered. 'I didn't mean...'
Her eyes filled with tears. 'They're doing a lumpectomy tomorrow.
Father, and I'm terrified.'
I stood up and put my arm around her, walked her a few yards to the closest pew, offered her Kleenex. I'm sorry,' she said. 'I don't know who else to talk to. If I tell my husband I'm scared, he'll get scared, too.'
'You know who to talk to,' I said gently. 'And you know He's always listening.' I touched the crown of her head. 'Omnipotent and eternal God, the everlasting Salvation of those who believe, hear us on behalf of Thy servant Mary Lou, for whom we beg the aid of Thy pitying mercy, that with her bodily health restored, she may give thanks to
Thee in Thy church. Through Christ our Lord, amen.'
'Amen,' Mary Lou whispered.
