As I watched him, I felt a forceful reminder that before long I’d be experiencing the same thing, and I felt guilty for not spending more of my mom’s last days with her.
“They should’ve called me back in last night,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
He shook off my apology. “They didn’t know.”
“How’d you find out?” I asked.
“Called home,” he said, looking up. “I asked them why they didn’t call you… I guess they just forgot about me. She’s been dead three days. My wife would’ve told me, but they don’t talk to her, so she didn’t know either. The funeral’s this afternoon. I need your help getting a furlough.”
“Sure,” I said. “How’re you holding up?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t want her to die while I was inside. You know?”
I nodded.
“She raised me by herself,” he said. “She always sacrificed for me. Worked two jobs where I could play sports and have a car and go to college. She was so proud of me. Broke her heart when I was arrested. Knowing I was set up didn’t make it any easier for her.”
I smiled in response to his smile as the warm thoughts of her flooded his memory. He was quiet for a moment, crying silently, wiping his nose with the back of his hand and the sleeve of his blue uniform.
I handed him some of the cheap, thin, prison-issue tissues I kept in all the offices of the chapel. “Thanks,” he said, then rolled up one of the tissues and dabbed at his eyes with the corner. “I’m okay. I appreciate your time.”
“You want to call your family?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “But the phones in the dorms-”
“You can call from here,” I said. “That’ll give you more privacy anyway. Then we can talk some more afterwards if you need to.”
“Thanks,” he said.
I plugged in a phone for him to use in the room designed for that purpose and closed the door to give him privacy. While he talked, I looked through his file and pulled some more of the information I needed. When he was finished, he came back into the office looking like a different person.
“That really helped,” he said. “Thanks a lot. I really appreciate it. Just making contact. Not being so isolated… it helps.”
“You’re welcome,” I said. “I’m glad you were able to talk to them.”
He hesitated for a moment, then said, “Can I talk to you about something else while I’m here?”
“Of course.”
“I’ve been wanting to talk to you anyway,” he said, and took a deep breath. “I believe I’m here for a reason.”
“I do, too,” I said.
“Good,” he said. “Because I think you’re part of it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think I’ve been put here to learn from you,” he said. “And I wanted to see if we could set up a weekly counseling session.”
“Sure,” I said.
Though he sounded sincere enough, I distrusted the compliments of inmates. Too often, by which I mean nearly a hundred percent of the time, they are the manipulative part of an angle being worked. I wish it were otherwise, but it’s the reality of prison, and to forget it, to be vain or blinded by flattery is to invite danger, even disaster. The challenge is to maintain professionalism without developing paranoia, to have compassion without becoming a caretaker who’s constantly taken advantage of. It’s a precarious position and few of us ever succeed. You get used to the negativity, the hostility, the anger and aggression. It’s in the open. You see it coming. What you have to look out for is kindness, is gratitude, is civility.
“Would you pull my file?” he asked. “I want you to see something.”
“I already have,” I said, tapping one of the folders on the desk. “To arrange the furlough.”
“So you know what I’m in here for?”
I nodded. “L and L,” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “Lewd and lascivious. But I didn’t rape or molest or do anything that was lewd or lascivious. You know what I did? I took a leak in a park at night. That’s it. I was jogging at night and had to go. So, I found a tree and went.”
I picked up his record and glanced over it as he spoke.
“I got sentenced to one year and one day,” he continued. “Just one day shorter and I’d’ve served my time in county jail. Judge probably saved my life. I was supposed to have an accident in their jail. I’m telling you this because I’m not a criminal. But since I’ve been in, I’ve had some serious time to evaluate my life, and I want to use this time-all this time I have on my hands-to make some changes. Some core kinds of changes.”
“I think that’s exactly what you should do,” I said. “And I’d be happy to help you in any way I can.”
“Exactly,” he said. “I want to leave this place in top physical, emotional, and spiritual condition.”
“You can start by honestly answering a few questions,” I said.
“Sure,” he said.
“Are you having an affair with Bunny Caldwell?”
His eyes grew wide. “No,” he said emphatically. “Where did you hear that?”
“Have you ever?”
“Never,” he said.
“What were you doing in the hall that night?”
“Going to the bathroom,” he said. “Honest. I mean, it’d’ve been all right with me if I got a closer look at her, but I really did have to use the bathroom.”
“Like in the park?” I asked. “Seems like your bladder’s getting you in some sticky situations.”
He let out a small ironic laugh and shook his head to himself.
The banging of the heavy metal door of the chapel and loud conversations announced the arrival of the rest of the inmates, most of whom paused at the office door, straining to see who was in with me, attempting to ascertain the reason for his presence by his posture and body language. I knew the next stop for many of them was my office door. Chapel traffic had increased dramatically since Nicole had been killed, most of the new visitors, voyeurs driven by a morbid curiosity to see the crime scene.
“Is there anything else about that night you can tell me?” I asked. “Anything? No matter how small it seems.”
“Well, there is one thing that struck me as funny,” he said. “It’s probably nothing, but…”
“But what?”
“Remember when we were in the bathroom and Officer Whitfield said there were two convicts in the stalls?”
“Yeah.”
“And then he said ‘you convicts come out’ or something like that.”
“And you came out,” I said. “And the other man said he wasn’t finished or something.”
“Exactly,” he said.
“What’s funny about that?” I asked.
“Just that the man in the other stall wasn’t an inmate,” he said. “But Officer Whitfield called him one and he didn’t correct him.”
“You sure he wasn’t an inmate?” I asked.
“Positive,” he said. “I saw him.”
“Who was it?”
“That guy that’s supposed to help Bobby Earl with security,” he said. “The warden’s nephew.”
“DeAndré Stone?”
“Yeah,” he said. “DeAndré Stone.”
