PART FOUR: TAKING“Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.”Matthew 6:34
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E |
As they walked through the endless green land, they saw the Moon grow
fat and full many times before Eve noticed that she was growing fat and
full, too. Several Moons more and even A Damn could see that Eve
looked like Dog before she dropped her pups.
One day Eve refused to walk anymore. “I can’t,” she shouted
at A Damn, which so startled him that he actually said something more than
no.
“Why not?”
“I think I have pups who want to come out of me.”
“How?”
Eve didn’t know how the pups had gotten inside her, but she knew
exactly how they wanted to come out. She started to point between
her legs but couldn’t, it all happened so quickly.
“Help me!” she pleaded.
A Damn thought she was asking him, but actually she was calling
out to the naked Gardener.
She squatted against a tree and moaned. A gushing stream
poured out of her, then A Damn saw something dark and knobby appear in
the widening slit between her legs.
Eve panted, she pushed, she panted, she pushed, and then a purplish
sac whooshed out of her and lay inert between her legs.
A Damn knelt down to see what was what.
When he tore at the filmy sac he found two tiny pups inside.
Eve started to moan again, and then push and pant until another
sac dropped out of her. When A Damn opened this one, there was another
pup. It had a small slit between her legs just like Eve’s, whereas
the first two came with tiny cocks like A Damn’s.
A Damn bit through the pulpy ropes that attached the pups to
Eve. Finally one last large sac came out, a large empty one crisscrossed
with a maze of red and blue and black webs.
Then it was all over except for the mewling of the pups.
Evening Star felt her breasts tingle when the pups mewled, so
she put their sucking mouths to each breast, though of course one of the
three had to wait. That one grew angry and red faced, screaming curses
at A Damn just like the angry Gardener. It scared him so much that
he dropped the pup, who lay on the ground twisted and bent but still cursing.
At that moment the angry Gardener and his snake showed up.
It had taken them a long time to catch up with Eve and A Damn, but at last
they had.
When A Damn saw them, he tried to pull Eve from the ground where
she was crouched over the dropped pup. She was offering him first
one empty breast then the other.
The Gardener called out, “I’m here to offer refuge and asylum,”
but Eve and A Damn paid him no heed.
The Serpent hissed at A Damn, “I saw you throw that pup on the
ground!”
A Damn shook his head emphatically, trying to speak in his own
defense but unable to utter a word. The snake came closer, and A
Damn picked up a stick from the ground and waved it wildly at the snake,
which dodged the blows with ease. “I saw,” it hissed. “I saw
what you did to that pup!”
Eve touched the twisted body of her new pup and wailed, “He’s
broken, this pup is broken!”
This was the moment that father Coyote had instructed me to seize.
I snuck from behind a low bush and snatched a sleepy pup by the nape of
her neck. Unseen, I carried her dangling in my jaws.
The last thing I heard was the dull thud of a stick against snake
flesh and the Gardener’s angry shout, “For shame!”
Then I snapped my white-tipped tail and flew between worlds.
Later, much later, Eve and A Damn were watching their two pups play.
They were in a cold and heartless land, hungry and lost and longing for
the Garden and its magical fruit. The strong pup kept picking on
the other, calling it cruel names and tormenting its crooked body.
Eve said, “Now I know what to call that last look in the naked
Gardener’s eyes.”
A Damn whacked the strong pup with a stick. He shouted
at it, “For shame!” It was the same stick that had killed the snake
a long time ago. Then he turned to Eve and asked, “What did you say?”
She could tell he didn’t really care. She looked away from
him and, her voice a hateful sound to her own ears, whispered into the
wind, “Sorrow.”
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11. Chains
I |
Two hours later Lucky and I were parked by the bakery in Richmond.
It was where Odysea and I met whenever she was staying at Womyn’s Land,
a place where men weren’t welcome.
Now she was inside the bakery, calling the main house to ask
her friend to bring the box of handcuff keys.
We had taken back roads from Barnet to Barre, then gotten on
Interstate 89. The whole trip we’d been listening to the news on
different stations — WSTJ in St. Johnsbury, the Point in Montpelier, WDEV
in Waterbury — but there had been no mention of Lucky’s escape.
“I don’t understand why it’s not on the radio. The Department
of Corrections always puts out an immediate alert.”
“Is there anyone you could call to find out what’s going on?”
Odysea had asked. She was riding shotgun, while Lucky was hunched
down in the back seat wearing a ski mask. He looked like a bank robber,
but it seemed preferable to his harlequin’s mask, at least in ski country
where we might get away with it. I had wanted to wait until dark
before leaving Barnet Mountain, but Odysea had insisted that we weren’t
safe there, and ultimately I’d agreed.
“Yeah, there is someone I could call.”
When Odysea came out of the bakery, I went inside to call Rod.
I figured he’d be at home sleeping before his swing shift. I got
his number from information and dialed it. After six rings I heard
a sleepy growl that must have been “Hello.”
“Big Man Rod, this is your ol’ buddy Jimmy.”
“This better be important, Jimmy,” he mumbled into the phone.
“It is.”
“Okay, then I guess I’ll wake up a little.”
“What’s happening with my friend from last night?”
“Who we talkin’ ‘bout here?”
“The one who reminded you of your old coon dog.”
“Henh, henh,” he said, which I knew was his notion of a chuckle.
“That’s who I thought was under consideration.” There was a long
silence, and I was about to ask again when finally Rod spoke. “Jimmy,
if I was you I wouldn’t get too close to that one.”
“Why’s that, Rod?”
“Let’s just put it this way: You ever walk by a wasp nest?
As long as you’re not in one of them sucker’s flying pattern, they leave
you alone. But if you just happen to be where they’re headin’, it’s
all over. You can’t shake them, you just get stung till they’re satisfied
you ain’t comin’ back again soon.”
“Rod, you’ve got to do better than that. I’m in trouble
here.”
“That’s what I’m tellin’ you, Jimmy.”
“Do you know where my client is?”
“No, but I know where he isn’t.”
“Where’s that?”
“The state hospital.”
“How come it’s not on the news?”
“Been a blackout. Don’t know why. Never seen it before.
Well, there was one time a guy took a short sabbatical from Windsor Prison
and we kept the lid on it for sixteen hours till we caught him near Putney.”
“Why was that?”
“He was the son of a police chief in Rutland County, and we didn’t
wanna embarrass the father more than he’d already been.”
“So you’re telling me there’s some kind of police connection
here?”
“I don’t really know, Jimmy. I’m just talkin’ in my sleep,
if you get my drift.”
I figured that was the end of the conversation. “Sweet
dreams, Big Man.”
“I always dream sweet, Jimmy. You know why?”
“Haven’t a clue.”
“‘Cause when I’m awake I follow the advice of Satchel Paige,
the finest pitcher baseball ever saw and a pretty damn good philosopher,
too: ‘Don’t look back,’ he said, ‘something might be gaining on you.’
You hear me, Jimmy?”
“The words are coming through the wire, but I’m standing in a
dark place and can’t see the forest for the trees, Rod. Can you shed
more light?”
“Not right now, buddy, but I guess I can keep my ears open as
long as you can keep your mouth shut.”
“Deal,” I answered, “but at the risk of ruining a good thing,
why are you doing this for me?”
“I ain’t doing it for you, Jimmy, I’m doing it for me.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Simple: I don’t like bullies. Never have.”
Then he yawned loudly into the receiver and hung up.
Ten minutes later a young woman who was dressed in overalls and work
boots handed over an old White Owl cigar box full of keys to Odysea.
Her hair, like Odysea’s, was cropped short except for a tail in back.
She never looked at Lucky or me, never spoke a word, merely handed over
the box and waited nearby in an old Chevy pickup hand-painted a bright
pink.
It took us ten minutes and dozens of keys before we found one
that worked. The tension had been growing the whole time, and I for
one had given up when I heard the first click. A collective sigh
filled the car.
I stuffed Lucky’s handcuffs, chains, and belt into a Grand Union
supermarket bag that read JUST SAY NO, then buried it beneath a mound of
black plastic garbage bags in a green dumpster at the edge of the parking
lot.
“Okay, now we’re free,” Odysea said when she’d gotten back into
the car after returning the cigar box. I got the feeling she meant
all three of us, not just Lucky.
We pulled out of the bakery’s lot just behind the pink pickup.
It went towards Womyn’s Land, and we turned back towards the interstate.
“Why did she help us?”
“She doesn’t like bullies,” Odysea answered.
“That’s the theme of the day,” I said, then told her about my
conversation with Rod. She wasn’t surprised at the coincidence.
“There’s no such thing as coincidence, Jimmy.”
“I’ve heard that said before, but it feels just a little too
neat for how I see the universe.”
“The universe appears chaotic but actually is very purposeful,”
Odysea insisted. “Besides, there are more freedom fighters in this
world than the forces of evil admit.”
“You think that’s what this is about, Good and Evil?”
“It’s always about good and evil. Every breath we take,
every thought, every moment of our existence is a yea or nay, a choice
between those two irreconcilable forces.”
“I’m surprised that a Buddhist like you sees the world in black
and white. I thought you tried for a gray dispassionate approach.”
“I do. But that doesn’t mean I don’t recognize how seductive
evil can be. Evil plays endlessly on our desires, the cause of all
suffering. Which is why we must strive for awareness.”
“I’m not so sure about the ‘striving’ part.”
“I am,” a tiny voice said from the back seat.
I laughed out loud. “I keep forgetting that you talk, Lucky.”
“Mostly I listen,” he answered in a very somber tone.
“Why don’t you say more?” Odysea asked.
“I’m afraid.” His tiny voice quaked as he said it.
“Can you tell us why?”
“Some time.”
“We’ve got all the time in the world,” I said as I drove up the
ramp that led onto I-89 heading to Burlington. My plan was get into
New York state as fast as possible, then go south to Albany where we’d
head west. “How long do you figure it will take us to reach Austin?”
I asked Odysea.
“If we sleep at night, about three days.”
“Three days,” I mused. “That’s a lot of hours to fill.”
“I know one way to fill them,” Odysea said, looking right at
me.
I must have smirked, because she laughed and said “Don’t look
like that. I’m not prying. I just think we’re past the point
of having any secrets, Jimmy. You, Lucky, me — we’ve thrown our futures
into the same stream, and so our pasts are flowing together, too, in ways
that may not be visible but are real and powerful.”
“Sounds like we’re about to make a pact,” I said sardonically.
Then I remembered the September morning in the Horn of the Moon Cafe and
realized I’d already made this pact. Only I hadn’t lived up to it,
had held back more than I’d promised to give. Odysea must have read
my mind.
“I’ve never pressed you to tell me about your past until today.
I knew you needed to hold onto it. But now I think the opposite is
true.” She was silent awhile, letting what she’d said settle.
As I pulled into the passing lane to get by a semi with Quebec
plates, she resumed speaking. “We’re at the start of a new journey
with a new partner, and maybe we should begin by agreeing to share everything,
including our stories. Especially our stories.”
“Just for the record, what are you asking for here?
“How about the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth
so help me Goddess. Are you ready for that, Jimmy?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“You always have a choice.”
“You’re serious about this, aren’t you?”
I glanced over at her and saw the determined look on her face.
In the rearview mirror I spotted Lucky with the same look in his golden
eyes. I didn’t have to ask whether he agreed. It was obvious.
I was the lone holdout. It was getting tiresome always
being in that role.
I must have sighed, because Odysea put a hand on my shoulder
and left it there. From the back seat Lucky put his hand on top of
hers. I smiled at them both, I couldn’t help myself. They looked
beautiful to me, radiant with a glow that made me feel loved and honored,
maybe for the first time in my life. A calm, intense energy passed
among us at that moment. It buoyed me up, and I felt connected to
them in a way that astounded me because it was real and natural.
“So where do we begin,” I asked.
They both smiled and settled back as Odysea said, “Actually,
I was wondering why you ended up working in the law.”
“I thought I told you during our Woodbury College days.”
“Not really. You just said that you wanted to help people
who had no one else on their side. You never told me why.”
I, too, settled into the Audi’s plush seat. I put on the
blinker and returned to the right lane, set the cruise control for 64 mph,
and put it all on automatic. Almost at once I started seeing the
faces of men who will haunt me for as long as I live.
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12. Maddogs
T |
Whatever gets you through your life
It’s alright, it’s alright
Do it wrong or do it right
It’s alright, it’s alright. . . .
Some of us started dancing to the irresistible beat of the song, its
message reminding us that there was still hope for us maddogs. Those
who weren’t dancing watched in amusement, caught by the elation of our
wild prancing.
Suddenly Mighty Mouse seized a heavy chair and rushed at his
best friend, clearly intending to bash his brains out.
“Mighty Mouse!” someone shouted.
Out of the corner of an eye the friend saw him coming and ducked
as the chair flew by, barely missing his head.
Immediately the staff cornered Mighty Mouse, though the inmates
tried to divert them — “Mighty Mouse just kidding, man” — but they weren’t
fooled. They dragged him off to a “Quiet Room.”
Mighty Mouse went kicking and screaming all the way. He knew what was in store for him.
“Tell me why you are here, Mr. St. John,” the psychiatrist said as I
sat facing him at his desk in his office on the ward. The blinds
were drawn, and it was cool and shady. He spoke with a strong Spanish
accent, for he was Cuban. A short, middle-aged man with a neatly
clipped mustache and curly hair graying at the temples, he was handsome
and genteel, unusually un-aggressive for a psychiatrist.
Why was I there? All the reasons, including those I knew
too well and those that I only sensed, spun through my mind in a split
second filled with doubt and hesitation.
I saw the flash of fire, felt the concussion, and for a moment
I thought I would start screaming. But I didn’t. I just looked
him in the eyes and gave him the simple truth, that during the summer a
friend had given me a shopping bag full of peyote buttons he had picked
in the desert in the southwest.
“Every morning I woke up and ate a few. By the fall there
was little difference between fantasy and reality to me.”
“I think I am going to give you some medicine to help you calm
down.”
“Please don’t,” I begged. “I’m very sensitive to any kind
of drugs, and the whole reason I’m here is because of them.”
He hesitated, thought for a moment, then finally said,
“Okay, we’ll see.”
That evening I heard the night nurse slide open the glass window
of the staff room and call out, “Medication!”
I watched as the men shuffled up to the window and accepted their
drugs. When the long line finished, she started calling out the names
of those who hadn’t appeared. I was surprised to hear my name.
“There must be some mistake.”
“There’s no mistake. Your doctor signed an order for you
to take this medicine.” She was an attractive white woman, perhaps
forty, her crisp nurse’s uniform heavily starched, her long peach fingernails
perfectly polished.
“But he told me this afternoon that he wasn’t going to,” I insisted.
She bristled and said, “Either you take this medicine now or
I call Central.”
I didn’t know what Central was, so I said, “Can’t you call him
and ask?”
“No, I’m not going to bother the doctor at home. Now stop
wasting my time and take this medicine.” Her face was rigid and unyielding.
I knew the conversation was over, and I felt like I were living One Flew
Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”
“No way in hell,” I said, then turned away.
Three minutes later I could hear the loud locks turning in the
double doors to the outside, and six huge men stormed into the room.
“Goddamn you, St. John!” the shift supervisor yelled as the five
other gorillas grabbed me. I resisted, but one of them got hold of
my thumb and wrenched it back until I thought he would break it off.
The others each seized a limb and stretched me in more directions than
I knew existed, pummeling me in ways that hurt but didn’t leave bruises.
They carried me struggling to a Quiet Room where they pinned
me on my stomach to a bare mattress. The supervisor yanked my pants
below my knees. Then he rammed a long needle into my ass and pumped
the syringe, which suddenly shot the offensive fluid into my body.
That’s right, I’m talking about rape. Gang rape at that.
Almost immediately a heavy veil of fog filled the room and I
felt my joints stiffen as if concrete had been poured into my veins.
The fog continued to fill the room for two more days.
I couldn’t see and I couldn’t feel and I couldn’t think.
I was the living dead.
The L-shaped ward was split into two wings. At night the new inmates
and those less tractable were locked into a dormitory room. To sleep
in the rooms on the other side of that locked door was an earned privilege.
After I finally had worked my way into one of the smaller bedrooms, I went
to bed one night to discover Mighty Mouse getting into the bed next to
mine. I knew he hadn’t earned the privilege, and I was not about
to sleep next to this volatile person, so I complained to the staff.
Mighty Mouse was forced back to the dorm, and I slept soundly.
The next morning a man named Michael said to me, “Hey, St. John,
come in my room. I want to talk to you.” Michael was a long-term
inmate. He was the leader of a gang of young white men on the ward
who obviously controlled their end of it.
It seemed as if nearly every member of Michael’s gang had been
charged with or convicted of brutal sex crimes. One powerfully built
young man, whose pale face was deeply pitted from acne, leered at me every
time I passed him in the hallways. “That’s my new girlfriend,” he’d
tell his sniggering friends. Now he stood guard outside the door
as Michael shut it behind him.
“Sit down, St. John,” he said.
I sat on one of the beds, uncertain and wary. Michael stood
over me, one foot up on the bed next to my leg, leaning with his face very
close to mine. His breath was sour, made so by the psychiatric drugs
we were forced to take. Michael started speaking slowly, quietly,
but soon worked himself into a rage.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, St. John? We
brought Mighty Mouse over from the dorm last night and you got him sent
back! We’ve been working on this for weeks! We’re tryin’ to
get him better, you asshole! You got a big mouth, and the next time
you open it . . . ,” here he paused for breath and shook his clenched fist
right next to my face, “we’re comin’ in the shower room when you’re in
there.” The menace in his voice was so real it filled the room around
us. I stared at him, transfixed by his anger.
“You know people slip on soap all the time in showers,” Michael
said. “It’s tragic, it really is. Some of them even get fucked
first, then they fall on their heads and they die. It’s tragic, you
know what I mean?”
Then he swung his arm back as if he were going to punch me in
the face, but for some reason he controlled himself at the last second
and lightly tapped my nose with his fist. Even so, I could feel the
incredible force of his rage.
He glowered at me, then growled, “Get out of my room.”
I left, and from then on I rarely spoke to anyone without thinking
first.
Pacing the halls, pacing the halls, pacing the halls. It was the
only real activity that was available. Up and down one corridor of
the L, up and down the other. Every day I paced, along with many
of the other inmates.
One of these was a man from Germany who kept raving in bouts.
No one understood what he was saying, for most of it was in German.
Day after day we passed each other in the halls, though he never noticed
me. He was just under six feet and very gaunt. His greasy hair
hung limply to his shoulders, and he rarely shaved the stubble from his
chin.
One morning I began to walk alongside of him. Carefully,
deliberately, I started matching his pace, which often was furious.
At first he didn’t notice, so consumed was he with his ravings. Then
I saw him glance out of the corner of one eye to look at me. I smiled
at him and just kept walking.
The next day I did the same thing. And then the day after
that. Soon we were partners in our pacing, and the German began to
pause in his ranting to talk with me in halting English.
He never called me by name, but referred to me as “my friend.”
It was always, “Good morning, my friend,” or “It’s good to see you, my
friend.” Some days he was consumed by his rage, and if I came near
he would wave me away. When he saw the concern on my face, he’d gesture
me to him. I remember his hands, very pale and soft, with long, slender
fingers. He would gently pat me on the arm, and whisper, “I’m okay,
my friend, this is just something I have to do.” Then he’d bolt down
the hall, gesticulating wildly, shouting and swearing in German.
Other days he was calm and, as we paced the halls, able to tell me his
story.
He had come to Miami on vacation. One night, walking the
streets alone, he had been mugged and robbed of all his money. Was
that when his ranting began? I don’t know for certain, I only know
that the heavy psychiatric drugs he was forced to take were no help to
him. Because he continued to vent his anger and frustration, the
staff was threatening to use electric shock to end his raving. They
didn’t even know why he was so upset, nor did they see the gentle man beneath
the threats and shouts. They saw the obvious and cared about one
thing only — controlling his behavior.
I feared for him, for I had seen other inmates returning onto
the ward after having been shocked. It was very disturbing.
They had to be assisted by the staff, for they stumbled as if in a drunken
stupor. Some stared blankly, most grinned stupidly.
Electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) is the industry’s name for shock,
which is an electric kick in the head that leaves your brain traumatized.
Often your memory is affected, sometimes permanently, and you feel light-headed
and care-free, which is common when people suffer head injuries.
The “high” from shock, however, lasts only about four months, then the
overwhelming sorrow or despair returns, and the shock docs are there waiting.
It is the most lucrative treatment there is, spawning an industry that
provides ample documentation for its “success-rate,” especially among the
most powerless people in our culture, including old women.
As the German and I paced the halls, my attention was often caught by
a young black man with a cleanly shaved head who was pacing, as well.
His name was Mufti, and when he smiled his entire face lit up with a rosy
glow and he gave off a gentle light I can only describe as holy. At times
I actually could see an aura — waves of color and light — emanating around
him in a brilliant scheme.
One day, and I’m not sure why, he and I were summoned together
for an interview by the treatment team. On the team of about ten
was an elderly black woman who alternately reprimanded and praised us as
if she had a personal stake in our lives. She was the only staff
member who spoke this way. The others hid behind a wall of professional
jargon.
As Mufti and I walked out of the room together, I asked him,
“Did you see the green aura around her?”
“You can see auras, too?” he asked, clearly surprised.
Then he smiled at me, a brilliant smile that lit up his beautiful face.
From that moment on we often walked the halls together.
Once, as we passed under the fluorescent lights, the transformers
crackled and hissed. Mufti laughed, pointed at the ceiling, and said
ingenuously, “That’s because of me!” I believed, him, too, for his
energy was, while very calm, also quite intense.
In time Mufti trusted me enough to tell me his story: “Last
year I was walking the streets of Miami when Allah spoke to me.”
As Mufti related in detail what his god had told him, I could feel the
depth of his faith, could sense his unerring acceptance of the holy command
he was receiving. I listened intently as the drama then unfolded
precisely as the voice Mufti heard had predicted.
“So I came to the hotel,” he continued, “and walked inside as
I had been told. There stood the police officer in my vision.
I reached in my coat and slowly took out my gun.” Mufti, like many
of the young men of Miami, was always armed. “I aimed it carefully
and then fired, killing him. Everyone screamed.”
Mufti told this story calmly, without visible sign of emotion
or doubt as to whether he had done anything wrong. His god had spoken
to him, and he had obeyed.
“They sent me here where the doctors want me to say I was crazy.
But I wasn’t.”
The psychiatrists at South Florida State Hospital were Cubans
who had left their homeland after the revolution. They were compassionate
men who did not want to see their patients’ tragic lives destroyed by the
harsh criminal justice system. In Mufti’s case, they believed he
was insane at the time of the crime. Moreover, because he refused
to accept their label of mental illness, they held that he was incompetent
to stand trial since he would not be able to assist his lawyer in his own
defense. When they looked at him, they saw a sweet, confused, sick
young man who would surely be sent to death row if they returned him to
court.
Mufti, however, felt that he had been acting from a holy directive.
I never doubted Mufti’s religious sincerity, and I was not alone
in this. He was much beloved by the other inmates, including those
who had worked their way off our ward to a less restrictive one.
We sometimes would see these men as we walked to meals in the
dining hall, a separate building connected to our ward by open-air corridors
completely enclosed with chain-link fence. From their walkway across
a square of lawn, someone would spot Mufti and call out his name.
Soon many would be chanting: “MUFTI! MUFTI! MUFTI!”
The warm Florida air would fill with the rhythmic chanting as
a serene smile slowly spread across Mufti’s beautiful face, a holy glow
emanating from his slender body.
Eventually I worked my way off the maximum security ward, though it
was more by accident than design. No one had ever explained to me
the rules or procedure. The day I walked onto my new ward the Cubans
there adopted me, making sure I got a semi-private room near their end
of the corridor.
Every evening around seven o’clock they would take over the kitchen
on the ward and make their strong, sweet coffee. They always offered
me some, which one drank very quickly in small amounts. It was like
a shot of speed coursing through the veins.
As soon as we drank the coffee, everyone would start talking
very fast all at once, laughing and being very gay. They would speak
to me in their mix of English and Spanish, which I didn’t really comprehend,
but it didn’t matter because we were comrades in the kitchen they had made
our own.
In time I began to feel better, more clear and in control.
It wasn’t because of any treatment I received, nor was it due to the psychiatric
drugs that I dutifully took and spat out twice a day. It was just
because people naturally heal when allowed to rest and restore themselves.
I continued to learn the stories of the men around me, so many
of whom were violent offenders. To me, the murderers seemed to be
the gentler souls on the ward — men who had killed in fits of unrestrained
passion and afterwards had to confront this most irretrievable act.
On the other hand, the sex offenders seemed to be the more volatile of
the group. Boundless rage seethed within them.
As I started feeling better I also felt more despair and sorrow
because of what had brought me there in the first place. It was as
if I bore an open wound that went untreated, a stigmata of the heart.
The weeks dragged on with little to do on the ward but rehash my life’s
tragedy, and as the winter holiday season approached, I become emotionally
charged.
On Thanksgiving evening I watched the other inmates visit with
their friends and family. I sat alone in a corner until the last
visitor had left and the room was empty. Then I stood up and dialed
on the pay phone a collect call to my sister. As soon as I heard
her voice, I began to weep.
“Where are you?” she said. I had vanished four years before,
and she knew nothing about where I’d gone or why.
I tried to talk but couldn’t. She sensed my sorrow, my
loneliness, and she began to cry, too. Her tears for me were more
than I could bear, and I started to sob silently, my chest heaving, my
shoulders shaking. Somehow I managed to mutter “I love you” before
hanging up the phone.
I turned and walked out of the room, hoping no one would notice
me. All the hard weeks I had spent there among the maddogs of Miami,
I had been protected to some degree by a false veneer of hardness.
I could not afford to have the other inmates see me in this vulnerable
state.
The corridor to my room was empty, so I hastily headed down it.
Then out of his room burst Big Willie, the official ward leader.
Willie was massive and very powerful. He didn’t take crap from anyone.
He was there on a murder charge, and it was obvious from the look of him
and the way he carried himself that he would kill again if pushed.
I did not want Willie of all people to see me, so I averted my face as
I rushed by him.
But Willie did see me and called after me, deep concern in his
voice, “St. John! St. John! You alright, man?”
I nodded my head and mumbled something, but Willy wouldn’t let
it go. “Come back, St. John. We’ll talk, man, . . . .”
I couldn’t go back, couldn’t face the tender gift he was offering,
but the warmth of his gesture carried me to some safer place than I had
been in a long time.
Big Willy, thank you.
Cuban comrades, I salute you.
Mufti, bless you.
The German, I think of you.
Michael, be gentle.
Mighty Mouse, be well.
You are all maddogs, it’s true.
But you are maddogs I have loved.
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T |
“Sounded like an intense conversation,” Odysea offered. It was
an invitation to talk.
I stared at the unending ribbon of highway in front of me.
I felt drained, both from my conversation with Diane and from talking about
South Florida State Hospital. It was as if I’d given away too much
of myself in too short a time.
“I don’t know if I’m up to more ‘deep disclosure,’” I said in
a weary tone. “I’m starting to feel like I’m on The Oprah Winfrey
Show.”
“How do you know what that show is like? You don’t have
a TV.”
“You’re right, I have no idea. I’ve never seen it.
I just know it’s what people say these days when they feel as if they’re
revealing too much.”
“You’re not revealing too much, you’re just letting out what
you normally keep stuffed inside. You’ve stuffed so much for so long
that it’s choking you, Jimmy.”
I didn’t know what to say. Was she right? Was I choking?
“It must feel strange for you to open up, but it’s a healthy
way of being. It sets us free, gets us ready for the next, newest
moment so that we can truly experience the present. Besides, to share
what’s going on inside us is the only true gift we can offer. To
hold back, to hide and feint, is to feed the grandest illusion of all —
social convention.”
As the mile markers flashed by us, I considered what she’d said.
If she were right, I had a lifetime of habit to unlearn.
I still hadn’t responded when Odysea spoke again. “I guess
I do need to know if you’re serious about turning Lucky over to the cops.”
“I doubt it. It was an offer that seemed to make sense
at the moment. I don’t want her reporting this car to the police,
and I didn’t know what else to offer to forestall her. I’m just hoping
for enough time to get us to Texas.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know. Maybe by then the pieces of this puzzle
will start to fit together so that I can make some sense out of it.”
“Do you think she would turn us in?”
“She might. She’s a lawyer, and I suspect she’ll do whatever
she must to protect herself.”
“You don’t like lawyers, do you?”
“I have a love-hate relationship with the law and lawyers.”
“And Diane is no exception to that?”
“Up until yesterday I thought I respected her as a lawyer and
lusted for her as a woman.”
“And today?”
“Today I no longer trust her as a lawyer. What has always
bothered me about lawyers is that every single one of them is an officer
of the court. Their first allegiance is to the judicial system, not
to their clients. That’s a fundamental conflict in my mind, one the
profession denies.”
“And what about Diane as a womon?”
“As a woman, she’s got me on the ropes. I don’t know what
to believe or how I feel about her.”
“How does she feel about you?”
“She says she’s in love with me, but I don’t understand why.”
“You can’t conceive of a womon loving you, can you?”
“I’m not going to fool myself. I’m short, squat, ugly,
lined, and gray. Why would a beautiful young woman like Diane fall
in love with me?”
“Maybe she doesn’t care about your physical appearance.
Or maybe she likes the way you look. I do. You have this intense
look that makes you very interesting. Plus there’s a mystery about
you because of the way you hold everything so close.”
I scoffed. “First you tell me to let loose, then you tell
me holding tight is what makes me appealing. That’s why I love you,
Odysea. You know just how to milk both sides of an issue. It’s
the mediator in you. Or maybe you should have been a lawyer!”
“Now I’m going to pout because I think you’re insulting me.”
She put on a perfect pout, which made us both laugh.
This whole time Lucky had been sleeping in the back seat. Even
when I’d shouted over the phone, it hadn’t disturbed him. Now he
was starting to whimper as he had earlier, to whine and yap in that dog-like
way. I thought he was waking up, but he just got wilder and more
dog-like.
“Should we wake him?”
“I don’t know,” Odysea said.
Then he howled, which actually hurt in the close confines of
the car.
“Lucky!” I shouted.
He groaned, then yipped and yapped a few seconds more.
“Lucky, come on, wake up!”
I looked in the rearview mirror and could see his golden eyes
opening out of sleep. He looked dazed, as if he’d been dreaming something
disturbing.
Odysea loosened her seatbelt and leaned over the seat to stroke
Lucky. “Are you okay, Lucky?”
He stared at her in confusion until a look of recognition took
form in his eyes.
“I’m okay now,” he whispered. He sat up straighter, stretched
his long limbs as best he could, and yawned without restraint.
“Were you dreaming?” Odysea asked.
He nodded his head, Yes.
“Can you tell us about the dream?”
Again he nodded Yes, then yawned massively. It was catching.
Odysea yawned into her hand, and I found myself yawning, as well.
He began to speak, haltingly at first, then with less uncertainty
and more confidence, yet always with a pained look on his face. He
told us it was a dream he often had, one that had repeated itself for as
long as he had known what dreams were.
The telling took a long time. Sometimes he’d fall silent,
apparently lost in the dream. Then we would prod him with a question
or encourage him with praise until slowly, piece by piece, the dream took
shape for us. When it had, we knew without question why he felt tormented
by it.
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