Maybe Martha was right all along. Crazy old Bible-thumping “Oh my . . .” Martha. Maybe a blood sacrifice was the only thing that could wash away the sins we committed, the innocent blood of a lamb. Maybe Benjy was the expiation that she said the Lord required. I was a sinner and I asked to be saved. The Lord granted my wish but took Benjy’s life in return. That’s the only way I see it. I’ve tried and tried to wrap my brain around it. Why was he given such a unique gift, only to have it taken away— to have his life taken away? Expiation makes sense to me—
and at first, I hated Him even more for it. Hated Him, and feared Him too. They tried John and me separately. We both had public defenders. Neither knew what the fuck they were doing, or didn’t care, or both. John got ten to fifteen years and is eligible for parole in eight. I was sentenced to a term of not less than fifty years and not to exceed my natural life. Natural life— what the fuck is that? I’m up for parole in fifty years, maybe. John and I both testified that Sherm masterminded the whole thing in response to my cancer, and that we were just a couple of duped accomplices, and the bank security cameras documented much of it, but all that defense did was save me from getting a death sentence.
A death sentence . . . I think about that a lot, especially at night. Of being strapped into the electric chair and what it would feel like as all that electricity surged through my body. Of being tied to a gurney and feeling the cool wetness of an alcoholic swab on my arm (to prevent infection), followed by that final sting as the needle delivered a lethal injection. I think a lot about death.
Michelle. Well, she hung in there during the trial. She showed up every day, looking as pretty and beautiful as the day I’d met her. Sometimes she brought T. J. and other times she came alone, while her mom babysat. The trial was hard on her, but it was harder on him. She sat behind me and she held my hand when the verdict was read, and she didn’t cry. She stayed strong. Roy, Oscar, Kim, and Sharon testified at the trial. None of them brought up Benjy’s abilities. Oscar tried to, just the once, but the prosecutor objected and his statement was stricken from the record. I don’t know what happened to any of them after that. Except for Roy. Here’s a weird thing. The bank security cameras captured the heist, but when it came to Benjy’s healing acts, all the footage became snow. An electronic glitch I was told. My lawyer tried to use that in our defense, but it didn’t work.
During the trial, I was a guest of the York County prison. After sentencing, they moved me to the D block of the Cresson State Prison Facility. It’s not so bad here. Definitely better than county jail. Nobody has tried to rape me or make me his bitch. We’ve got cable TV in the cells, and monitored Internet access once a week. I watch a lot of Howard Stern and Comedy Central, and anything with girls in bikinis. They’ve got me working in the library, which beats the hell out of slaving in the kitchen. I lift weights in the gym, something I never had time to do before on the outside, and I read a lot. Elmore Leonard. Richard Laymon. Western novels by Ed Gorman. The Bible. Like I said earlier, I guess you could say that John’s vision and Benjy’s powers made me a believer. In fact, I’m scared not to believe. I asked God for some proof and He sent me some, Old Testament style.
In addition to the books, I read the newspaper too. I get the Hanover Evening Sun, though I have to wait an extra day for it to be delivered. It’s weird to read about my old hometown, and to know that it continues to go on, that the people I knew survive and get on with their lives, even though I’m not there anymore.
I only have one cellmate, a guy named Edgar, who’s in here for killing his girlfriend while driving drunk. She went through the windshield, flew about fifty feet, and smashed her head open on a retaining wall. Died on impact. Edgar was charged with vehicular manslaughter, except that Edgar insists he wasn’t driving. He just can’t prove it.
Same situation as me, if you think about it. I didn’t kill anybody in that bank. I just can’t prove it. Inside this place, we’re all innocent. Except for in our hearts. Our hearts convict us, and in my heart, I’m guilty as sin. I killed those people. Their blood is on my hands. Innocent blood. Blood of the lamb. Expiation.
Michelle only came to visit once a month, since it was a four-and-a-half-hour drive from Hanover. She brought T. J. to the prison once, on the first visit, and that just about broke all three of us. He couldn’t understand why he had to talk to Daddy through a telephone, and why I couldn’t come around to the other side of the thick glass window and give him a hug. I’ve never seen him cry so hard.
I didn’t sleep that night, and a few days later, Michelle and I agreed it would probably be better not to bring him. I don’t call them, because you can only call collect from prison and we don’t have the money for that.
Her last visit was two months ago, and the last letter I got from her was yesterday. It wasn’t even from Michelle. It was from her attorney, letting me know that she was initiating divorce proceedings. I didn’t expect that, but I guess I can’t blame her. I’d love to know where she got the fucking money to do that, though. Maybe another guy. I can’t picture her and T. J. with someone else. Can’t imagine her making love to another man or T. J. calling someone else Daddy. It makes my stomach hurt in ways the cancer never did. It’s a hollow, wrenching kind of pain.
That’s all. There’s nothing else to tell.
Okay, well there is one other thing.
I said that except for Roy, I didn’t know what had happened to any of the hostages. But I know what happened to Roy after the trial. And I know what happened to Sandy, Sheila and Benjy’s dog. And to John. Especially John.
Sandy was the first, just a brief end-of-the-broadcast item on the news. “A tragic ending to this brave dog’s story.” They recounted how Benjy was killed in the bank by a stray bullet, and how Sheila had committed suicide by stepping in front of a bus one month later. Apparently, Sandy was taken to one of these no-kill animal shelters after Sheila’s death, and got adopted by a new family. She’d been with her new owners for a week when she was hit by a car. They found her in the yard, dead. There were no witnesses. In fact, nobody heard brakes or tires, or even the sound of Sandy yelping. One minute she was playing in the yard. The next minute, she was roadkill. That was two weeks ago. Roy’s obituary appeared in the paper last week. He died of a sudden massive heart attack. The newspaper mentioned that he was a retired sales representative for the foundry, and that he was survived by several nieces and nephews, just like he’d told us in the vault. A sidebar article mentioned that he’d been a hostage during the robbery. John died last night.
Even though we’re both in the same prison, I’ve never seen him. I haven’t seen him since the robbery. I wanted to, but he was in A block and I was in D. We had no contact with each other, and inmates aren’t allowed to send each other mail, even if they’re in the same prison. He was here. My best friend was here with me the whole time, imprisoned inside this fucking building, and I couldn’t see him because we were on different blocks. Each block takes meals and goes out into the yard at different times. I kept hoping that I’d run into him in the library one day, but I never did. John never was the type to read.
One of the correctional officers told me about it at breakfast this morning. They found him in his cell around midnight. He was dead. The coroner hadn’t released an official report yet, of course, but the cause of death appeared to be a gunshot wound to the stomach. That was impossible, since none of the inmates, the guards, or even his cellmate had heard a shot. It was unlikely that a pistol could have been smuggled into the prison in any case. They’d tested his cellmate for powder residue, since the two of them were locked in their cell at the time. There was no trace. Now A block is locked down and everybody is being questioned. They want to talk to me later today too. Routine questioning, they said. But there’s nothing routine about it. What am I supposed to tell them? That the hole in John’s belly is the one that Kelvin put there?
That Benjy healed it and now that he’s dead it’s come back? That Benjy could perform miracles and the miracles died with him?
At least I tried to save him. At least there’s that. Look, I don’t know what the final outcome is. I don’t care if you believe in what Benjy could do or not. All I know is that I believe. I wanted proof and I got that proof. But I never meant for Benjy to get harmed. That’s not what I wanted.
Life handed me a crap hand. But I played the cards I was dealt. I still don’t know what happens to us when we die, but I know this— I tried to do the right thing. In the end, when everything turned to shit because of my stupid, fucked-up mistake, I tried to do the right thing. And in my heart, I believed.
I still do. I don’t know if that gives me redemption or absolution, but I know that, wherever he is, Benjy has forgiven me. He knows I tried to save him, and he knows that I’ve found belief. Maybe that’s enough.
Edgar has six more months till he’s out. On the wall, he’s got a short-timers’ calendar. Every morning when he wakes up, he marks off the days until his release by putting a big, black X through them.
I started a short-timers’ calendar too. Started it right after I got back from breakfast, in fact, as soon as I heard about John. I haven’t cried yet for my friend, because I think I’ll probably be seeing him soon. It won’t be Jesus coming for me. I think it will be the voices, the voices that John said he heard. The ones that I heard too. The
