Power in the Blood

over the road again, I walked down the driveway to meet him at his car.

Well I was born in a small town. And I can breathe in a small town.

Gonna die in this small town. And that’s prob’ly where they’ll bury me.

“Please tell me you know who that was,” I said, sounding a little more desperate than I would have liked.

“Sure, that’s Laura Matthers. Her sister Kim and me are on the homecoming court together Friday night.”

“This Friday night, as in day after tomorrow?”

“Uh huh.”

“Thanks, Ernie.”

“She’s got a boyfriend,” he said unaware of the damage that those words would do to me.

“They almost always do, Ernie.”

“Uh huh.”

I stood for a while in the middle of my driveway after Ernie drove away. The sun was setting, its fiery bite replaced by a glorious orange and pink beauty. To the east, toward Tallahassee, the Apalachicola River snaked around the corner of the Prairie Palm property. Its banks were lined with pines, cypresses, and a seemingly infinite number of other trees and plants so unique and beautiful that Elvry E. Callaway seemed justified in believing this to be the site of the original Garden of Eden.

As I walked back up the driveway toward my little tin home, I thought how appropriate that the little tin man lived here, but I also thought that a woman that beautiful who drives a one-ton FedEx truck had to have had a tragic life. We were perfect for each other. And though I still couldn’t shake the image of those lifeless black eyes from my mind, I also had the feeling that things were heating up in the small town.

Chapter 3

The following morning, I stood in the chapel office of Potter Correctional Institution. A stack of mail and the package that housed my new computer lay on the desk before me. I moved the unopened mail to one side of my desk and set the box in the center. The box took up so little space on my small desk that I felt justified in having mistaken it for a pizza. Opening the package and extracting the computer inside released a flurry of small packing peanuts into my office, many of which were scattered abroad by the small fan oscillating on my file cabinet.

The dull gray walls surrounding me added to the illusion of a snowstorm. Watching the flying peanuts sail through the vacant room inspired a troubling thought. If as a pastor of a prestigious church in north Atlanta my ornate office had been an expression of who I was trying to be, maybe my current empty and sterile surroundings were an expression of who I really was. My office had nothing personal save three pictures that inspire me hanging on one wall: Martin Luther King Jr. and Billy Graham, for obvious reasons, and Jimmy Carter, to remind me that the best man was not always the best man for the job. A portrait of Jesus weeping sat on the right corner of my desk, his dark eyes drinking in the sorrow and suffering of the world. Daily I read his words, “I was in prison and you visited me.”

At the height of the peanuts’ performance, Superintendent Stone walked in without knocking. I felt every muscle in my body grow tense: an instinctive reaction-like braking at the sight of a Highway Patrol car.

“Chaplain Jordan, may I speak with you for a moment?” Mr. Stone said as he closed my office door. He made no attempt to hide his annoyance at the floating Styrofoam swirling around him.

“Of course. Please have a seat.” I motioned him to the blue vinyl chair opposite my desk that inmates used when they had spiritual and some not-so-spiritual problems. He paused before sitting and removed two handfuls of packing peanuts from it, ever diligent to care for his expensive suit. Had he been aware of the sweaty, soiled inmate uniforms that normally occupied the seat, he probably would have left the peanuts in place.

As I sat down, the envelope on top of my lopsided stack of mail slid off, revealing an inmate request form from Ike Johnson. I was stunned. Quickly, I opened my center drawer and placed it inside.

Before he started talking, Edward (not Ed) Stone paused to clean his charcoal, wire-rimmed glasses. Like everything he owned, they looked expensive. As he removed them carefully from his face and wiped them with the spotless white silk handkerchief bearing his initials in bold black block letters, he treated them like they were costly jewels. I suddenly realized that the glasses, like everything he owned, seemed so expensive because he treated them that way. As he made these exact, intentional motions, I had a chance to really look at him for the first time. He was much leaner than I had thought. I had seen skin that was darker than his, but not by much. He had all the African features of a man from Nigeria. His nearly hairless skin was smooth and had a slight sheen about it. His movements were slow-not hesitant, but deliberate and economic. He knew exactly what he was doing and the precise amount of energy required to do it. He did everything as if it were the most important thing he would do that day.

Edward Stone’s minimalist actions and conservative policies reminded me of the effects poverty has on people. No matter how successful they become, they always keep plenty in reserve for fear they will have to do without again. My grandmother, a child during the Great Depression, was the same way. It was apparent that Edward Stone and I came from different eras, mine a result of his.

“How are you doing” he asked, paused, then added, “you know . . . with what happened yesterday?”

“I’m okay. I appreciate the time yesterday afternoon to pull everything together.”

“That was a bad thing you had to see. You’d have to be an idiot to try to escape, but to try it in that manner, you’d have to be suicidal.”

“Perhaps he was,” I said with a slight shrug.

“Maybe. I don’t know. But that’s what I want to find out. The thing is, his name came up in another matter that we were considering investigating.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I had not put much stock in the earlier reports, but now . . . I am not so sure.”

“I can see how this would give the investigation a new priority,” I said sarcastically, but only slightly, and he didn’t seem to catch it.

“You can? Then you’ll probably understand what I am about to ask.”

“What’s that?”

“Chaplain, we have a situation that I need your help with.” A little alarm began to ring inside my head.

“I’ll be happy to help if I can,” I said, pushing my mental SNOOZE button.

“Well, I appreciate that, but your help in this matter will not be easy. In fact, it will be extremely difficult, not to mention that it is totally out of the purview of your job. But I honestly do not have anyone else I can turn to.”

I raised an eyebrow and nodded encouragingly. When he didn’t say anything, I said, “You’ve certainly piqued my interest.”

“I need your help with the investigation being conducted on our compound by the inspector general of DOC into the death of Ike Johnson.”

I started to object. He stopped me with a single authoritative wave of his hand.

“I conducted a thorough background check on you long before I ever decided to approach you with this, and I know that you and the IG don’t care for each other very much, but there’s no other way.”

“Even if you could convince me to work with him, and I’m not saying that you can, you’ll never be able to get him to work with me. Never.”

“I’ve already taken care of that through the secretary.”

“His secretary?” I asked.

“Of course not. The secretary of the department,” he said with an amused smile. “So, like you, he really doesn’t have a choice in this matter.”

“I still don’t understand why you are asking me and not someone more qualified.”

“You are more than qualified. Your father has been in law enforcement all your life and is currently the county sheriff, and you nearly completed a degree in criminology before dropping out to attend seminary. I know you served as a police officer in Stone Mountain while you were in school there. It’s even rumored that you were