But
Rousseau was right about my not fighting back. And now? Now, for the first time
in more than ten years I was angered by what had happened. Talking about these
events had made me resentful and bitter, and though getting angry about facing
execution less than a month before the due date was kind of pointless, it
nevertheless felt right to be so.
I was
going to die. Least I could do was tell people how pissed off I was about it.
Why
had I not fought back? Why had I let the law graduates and pro bono paralegals
come and go? People had read of my case. People had gotten all righteous about
the injustice, the extent of circumstantial evidence, and they had come down
here determined to get me out. I had answered their questions, perhaps not to
the degree that I had responded to Father John Rousseau, but answering at all
had been a formality. As if I hadn't wanted the distraction. As if I was so
tired of all the bullshit I just wanted to wait it out. Wait until the lights
went down for good.
Maybe
I would have felt like this whether Father John had appeared or not. Maybe it
was the fact that I had a date. Now it was real. Now it was going to happen for
sure. I didn't know. Would never know. Couldn't go backwards…
'Ford?'
I
opened my eyes, turned onto my side.
Duty
Second stood in the corridor. 'Father John's here, time to go confess.' I sat
up, rose to my feet.
The
Duty Second hollered down the corridor. The buzzer went, the door slid back and
clanged against its frame.
Duty
Second came in and put the belt around my waist, cuffed my hands to the belt,
shackled my ankles together. He walked me out, hollered again for the door to
be closed, and together we went down the corridor to
God's Lounge.
Rousseau
looked tired, dog-tired.
He
was already smoking, already had a cup of coffee in front of him on the table
when I entered the room.
Duty
Second un-cuffed my wrists, removed the belt, unhooked my ankles and took the
hardware away. I sat down.
Best
part of twenty-four hours had passed since I'd last sat here. Seemed like five
minutes. I wondered if the next twenty-something days would go this fast. 'How
you doing?' Father John asked. 'As good as.' 'You sleep okay?'
I
smiled. 'Better than you it seems.' He smiled back. 'Lot of work to do.' 'Lot
of souls to save, right?' 'Right.'
'You
got a new tape in?' Father John frowned.
'In
the video through there,' I said, indicating the one-way window. 'Sure, yes, a
new tape.' 'Where do the tapes go?'
Father
John shrugged his shoulders. 'Christ only knows.' I leaned back, slightly
surprised. 'Christ only knows? That's a little blasphemous isn't it?' 'Well he
probably does know… I sure as shit don't.'
'Maybe
you should go sleep a couple of hours and come back later,' I suggested.
Father
John shook his head. 'I'm okay. I'm fine. Let's just pick up where we left off
yesterday, okay?'
I
nodded. 'Okay.'
I
walked back from Eve Chantry's house. I took the path where I'd seen the deer
watching me before. I remembered the moment vividly. The emotion I'd felt back
then was the emotion I felt now: insignificance.
I
didn't know what to say to Nathan. Or to Linny.
Hell,
you know what, guys? A couple of heavies came down and saw me at Eve Chantry's
place. Said as how Linny's daddy didn't like his little girl hangin' round with
no niggers. They said as how I should pass that message onto you guys loud and
clear, so you get the point an' all. Whaddaya figure huh? Ain't some folk
prejudiced or what?
I
thought not.
I
decided I would speak to Nathan alone. Speak to him after Linny had gone. He
would perhaps understand the situation better than she. After all, he'd been
there in Florida, in Panama City. He'd been there when someone had taken such
offense at his pool-playing they'd kicked the crap out of the pair of us.
I reached
home within ten, maybe fifteen minutes. I stood at the end of the path and
looked up at the house. The house of my childhood.
Even
as I entered I knew there was a situation. I sensed it, couldn't tell how, but
I
sensed
it.
I
heard them before I reached the end of the hallway.
The
door to the front room was slightly open, and peering through the gap between
the edge of the door and the frame I could see movement on the floor behind the
chair.
She
came up then, Linny Goldbourne, and from where I stood I saw the upper half of
her naked torso, her head thrown back, her eyes closed, a sound escaping from
her open lips like an animal.
Stepping
forward a foot or so I could see over the chair.
Nathan
was on his back on the floor, she was straddling his waist, and as I looked his
hands came up and enclosed her breasts.
Such
big hands. Hands big enough to floor Marty Hooper, sensitive enough to fold an
origami bird in Benny's Soda Shop.
Now
they were hanging onto Linny Goldbourne like she'd levitate if he let go.
Her
back arched, she continued to moan, and then she was moving back and forth, her
hips rotating like a carousel at the County Fair.
All
aboard!
I
stepped back.
I
felt the color rise in my face, my cheeks burning with embarrassment, with
rage, most of all with jealousy. I felt hatred - real hatred - rising inside me
like a wave, a gagging, spinning tortuous wave of something I could barely
contain. I stepped back, almost lost my footing, and when I regained my balance
I felt the stinging anguish of tears flood my eyes. My throat was tight,
constricted, my breathing short and sharp, and when I stepped closer to the
door once more my mind was filled with something dark that could have killed
them both.
I pressed
my face against the cool surface of the woodwork.
I
could hear them - every word, every sound, every labored panting breath - and I
wanted to burst in there, wanted them to know, to
really
know, to
really
understand, what their complicity and betrayal had done to me.
I
wanted them to hurt like I was hurting.
I
really
wanted them to hurt.
I
leaned forward one more time as Nathan came upwards and closed his mouth around
one of her nipples.
She
screamed and started laughing.
'Don't
bite!' she hollered. 'Ow, ow, ow, you fucking animal!'
Nathan
was laughing too then, and suddenly she lifted herself free of him, pushed his
shoulders back and her head disappeared towards his stomach, lower to his
groin.
Nathan
moaned.
I
stepped back. I imagined my fist driving through his face like a jackhammer. I
pictured my knuckles whitening as my hands stretched around her throat and
choked every last cheating breath from her lungs.
I
wanted to scream, to burst open with rage and take both of them with me.
I
knew, I knew then, that if I didn't leave I could not contain myself; that if I
didn't run from the house, I would do something that I could only ever regret.
I
grabbed the handle and slammed the door shut.
And
then I ran.
'They
must have heard you.'
'Sure
they must have heard me. I
wanted
them to hear me.'
Father
John nodded. 'You wanted them to know you were there.'
'Yes,
I wanted them to know that I was there, that I was angry, that it was all well
and good they were gonna fuck each other, but for Christ's sake, in my front
room, on my carpet… Jesus!'
I
looked at Father John. 'Sorry,' I said.
He
waved his hand. 'No problem.'
He
paused to light a cigarette.
'And
that's why you never said anything to Nathan about the men who came to Eve
Chantry's house?'
'Yes.'
'Because
you were pissed off with him and Linny?'
'Yes.'
'How d'you feel about that now?'
I
paused, looked away for a moment. 'I think that whether I'd told them or not it
wouldn't have changed a great deal in the end.'
'But
they were unable to make a choice for themselves,' Father John said.
'That's
right, but you'd have to understand a little of Nathan and something of Linny
Goldbourne to understand that they more than likely would have ignored the
whole thing.'
'Or
thought you'd made it up?'
I
frowned. 'Why would I have made it up?'
'Jealousy,'
Father John said. 'They could perhaps have read it as jealousy, that you wanted
to see them split up because you wanted her for yourself.'
'Could
have,' I said. 'That wasn't the case… I was pissed off with them, more with
Nathan than Linny, and once she'd left it seemed less important…'
'So
where d'you go then?'
'Walked
around,' I said. 'Walked back the way I'd come, turned around and went to the
other side of town. Went to Benny's, had a soda, settled down. I was sure as
hell angry for a while, just a while… and then I calmed down and went back.'
'And
when you got back?'
'When
I got back she'd gone.'
And
Nathan was standing in the kitchen drinking a cup of coffee. He nodded as I
walked into the room. He could tell I'd left in anger. I waited for him to say
something, got the feeling he didn't know what to say, and so I said something
first.
'It's
okay,' I said. 'I was mad, and now I'm not.'
He
seemed relieved. 'Hell, Danny, if I'd known you were coming back… well, if I'd known
you were coming back we wouldn't -'
'It's
okay,' I said. 'It's gone.'
And
what I wanted to say was
well, friend, I got her for a month, and now you're
gonna get her for a month if past experience is anything to go by.
But I
didn't. I shut my bad mouth, kept my thoughts to myself. 'You want some
coffee?' Nathan asked me. 'Sure,' I said, and I sat down.
'And
you didn't speak of it again?' Father John asked.
'No, we
didn't speak of it again. Hell, it was Christmas Eve. We relaxed, we had a
drink and a smoke. I think we even played cards or something.'
'And
when did you see her again?'
'Not
until after Christmas, a couple of days after Christmas.'
'And
that was the last day you would see her?'
I
nodded. 'Right, the last day.'
Father
John leaned back in his chair and sighed resignedly. 'Hell of a thing, Danny,'
he said. I smiled. 'Hell of a thing, Father John.'
Christmas
Day came and went.
Linny,
presumably with her parents that day, didn't come down. We didn't see her until
the 27th, and by then I had spent enough time with Nathan for our friendship to
have resurfaced.
Christmas
Day itself we ate hot dogs, relish and sweet- corn. We drank red wine, three bottles
between us. We talked of things we hadn't spoken of for years, things like
Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and though we discussed these monumental events
the war was never mentioned. It never even crossed my mind, and though I cannot
speak for Nathan, I believe I knew him well enough to have known if he carried
some unspoken thought. There was no such perception.