that thought gave me a strong urge to leave them there, which I only overcame because if I left them in reaction to her, she would still be controlling my life. I bent down, scooped them up, slinging one sock between my legs as I did. When I reached for it, I saw something that froze me in sheer terror.
On the back of my left leg, there was a cut about two inches long.
I dropped the clothes and bent down even farther to take a closer look. It wasn’t very deep, but it was deep enough-deep enough for AIDS-infected blood splattered on it to get into my bloodstream.
My heart, racing up until this point, seemed to stop altogether. I grew faint and nearly fell over, but was able to catch myself on the towel rack. Suddenly, I had the urge to jump into the shower and scrub the cut.
I did. In the shower, I inspected my body for other cuts and scratches. There were none. At one point, I stared at the violent scars on my upper body. It would be tragically ironic to survive a gunshot wound to the chest, a knife wound to the abdomen, and then die of a narrow two-inch long cut to the leg.
For the rest of the night I asked myself one question over and over,
At two thirty I was lying on my side in bed with my eyes closed counting deer, each looking like a female version of Bambi. I could feel my exhausted body giving in to the approaching sandman. My breathing became heavier and slower, and I was actually on my way to the land of dreams, or so I thought. As it turns out, I was headed to the land of nightmares-the waking kind.
The nightmare began when I found the cut and continued when, for the second time that night, my phone rang.
“Hello,” I said after fumbling around with the receiver for a few seconds. I sounded sleepy again. This time I was.
“John John,” the voice said.
My heart started racing and I could feel the first of what I knew would be many waves of nausea coming over me. I wanted desperately to hang up the phone, but it was too late for that now. A new rule: From this point forward, I would not answer the phone after midnight.
“John John,” the voice said again. That voice was slightly slurred, slightly desperate, and very scared.
It’s amazing what can trigger a memory: a single smell, a song, or a voice. And this voice, above all others, triggered memories that I would pay to have surgically removed. It was the voice that haunted me at night.
The voice was the voice I heard within the sound of my own when I had been drinking. It was the voice of my mother, and she only called me John John when she was drunk. I hated her. I hated her for who she was, but I hated her even more for who I was. The fact that she had called at nearly three in the morning meant that she was in a detox center and wanted me to come and get her out. I didn’t know which detox center because I didn’t know which city she was in these days, but she had been in them all. When she and Dad had divorced, I had actually believed that she was out of my life, but like a recurring nightmare, she always forced herself back in and always at night.
“John John, answer me. Are you there?” she asked like a little girl lost in the woods at night.
“I’m here,” I said, and that was the truth. I was here, and she was there, and that was the way it was going to stay.
“John John,” she slurred again, “they got me locked up again. I’m dying. You got to come and see me.”
“Mom, you’re not dying; it just feels like that. You’re just having withdrawals. Remember? How could you forget? You’ve done this many, many times. They’ll pass eventually.”
“No, you don’t understand, Son, I’m dying. I haven’t been drinking. Come see me at the hospital, Son, before it’s too late. I love you. I love you, John. You’ve always been my favorite.”
“That’s what you tell everybody when you’re drunk. And you are dying. I was wrong before. Alcohol is killing you.”
“I know, Son,” she said and then began to cough. It sounded as if she dropped the phone. Her act was definitely improving.
It took maybe two minutes, which seemed like thirty, for her to pick up the phone again. When she did, she said, “I’ve got to see you, Son . . . before I die.”
“What you’ve got to do is get sober. I won’t come near you until you’re sober again. Got it?”
“I swear I’m sober, Son. You’ve got to believe me.”
“I stopped believing you a long time ago. Get cleaned up and dried out, and then call me, okay?”
“You don’t understand, Son-”
“Mom,” I interrupted, “I’m hanging up now. You call me when you’ve been sober for at least a week.” I hung up the phone.
I probably wouldn’t hear from her for quite a while. She hadn’t been sober a full week for as long as I could remember.
Chapter 12
The next morning, inmates stood outside the chapel underneath the brilliant sun that had long since burned off the fog and dew from the night before. The sun was so intense, in fact, that it seemed to explain why all the blues and grays in prison were so muted: it had faded them. After I was situated in my office, Mr. Smith began bringing the inmates in one at a time. The first one was a kid who had recently had some spiritual experiences that he didn’t understand.
The second was a middle-aged white man who had been inside less than thirty days of a thirty-year sentence. Needless to say, he was devastated, not only because he missed his children and his wife, but also because he had killed two teenage girls while driving under the influence. He was remorseful and offered no excuses. I was moved by both his words and his actions. He spoke slowly, was silent a lot, and occasionally a single tear would roll down his cheek leaving a jagged streak on his sunburned skin.
We talked for a long time. I don’t know if it helped him; though he said it did, I had my doubts. Before he left we scheduled a weekly appointment together for an indefinite amount of time, and he signed up to attend AA.
After he left, and before Mr. Smith could bring in the next inmate, the phone rang.
“I’ve got an emergency message for Tommy Hines,” the shrill voice said over the noise of the bad connection. “I need him to call home.”
“Okay, ma’am, if you’ll hold on just a moment, there is an emergency notification form I have to fill out.”
I retrieved the form. “Okay, the inmate’s name is Tommy Hines?”
“Yes.”
“What’s the nature of the emergency?” I asked, flipping through the morning’s mail that sat on the left edge of my desk.
“Whatcha mean?” she asked.
“What is the message?” I asked as I separated the inmate requests from the outside mail.
“His son was killed,” she said quickly.
“I’m so sorry to hear that. Your relationship to the inmate?”
“I’m his wife.”
“I am so sorry for your loss,” I said.
“When can he call me?”
“I have to get some more information first. What is your phone number?” I asked. Then I saw it: another single piece of typing paper, trifolded, taped, with one typewritten word on the outside: “Chaplain.”
“Nine, zero, four, eight, seven, one, four, five, six, one. But they’s a block on the phone so he can’t call collect.”
When she said that, a little red flag went up inside my head. “Okay, I need the name and telephone number
