'I
co-operate,' I said.
'Good
enough,' the man replied, and he nodded to Frank Tilley to come open up the
door.
My
hair was already very short, shorter than it had ever been, but they ran that
thing over until I could feel my skull vibrating. It was not an unpleasant
sensation, but beneath it was the awareness of why it was being done.
To
get good contact.
When
they'd gone I sat there on the edge of my bed with my hands on my head, and
realized that the last time I'd had no hair was when I was born.
Go
out as you came in.
Bring
nothing with you, take nothing away.
I
didn't eat later, but I puked on the food tray.
'No
word from Rousseau?' I asked Clarence Timmons the next time I saw him.
Clarence
shook his head.
'Fucker,'
I whispered.
A while
later Clarence asked me some questions.
Anyone
you want to call?
No.
Anyone
you want to be informed?
No,
there's no-one.
And
your… your remains, Daniel… you understand that a cremation will take place, and
the ashes are buried here within the confines of the Penitentiary?
Flush
'em, Mr. Timmons… may as well just fucking well flush 'em down the john…
We
speak of prescience, premonition, omens and portents, patterns in sand and
waves, and the way the moon turns half its face towards you and tells you the
future. There are dreams and nightmares, the lines in your hand and the
wrinkles in your face, the discolorations in your eyes and remnants in your
teacup after you've drunk the last drop. There are soothsayers and mind-readers
and fortune-tellers, and the seventh daughter of the seventh daughter through a
Romany line that runs all the way back to the old country.
There
are all these things.
And
then there is intuition.
Gut
feelings.
And
these things tell me I
will
die. I have never been more certain of
anything. And I have never been more uncertain about what comes later.
What
lies beyond?
What
comes afterwards.
The walls
are plain. There is no decoration. Upon those walls I can see all the images of
my life. Everything that came before.
Sometimes
I smell something familiar, and realize that this is the smell of myself. My
own bodily scent. My own physical
being.
I am the one person I have
never been without. And I think of things I should have said and done. Like my
father once told me:
Folks never really regret what they've done, only what
they didn't do.
I
didn't say anything.
Not
to Linny Goldbourne - because of my envy, because of my pride, because of my
own conceit and rightness. And she found herself lost somewhere within the
system, much the same as me. The State would not be killing Linny Goldbourne,
at least not physically.
And I
said nothing to Nathan.
And
he
was
killed.
So I
should die too, right?
Father
John Rousseau would have been all too quick to justify the universal balance in
all things, wouldn't he?
If he
were here.
But
he is not.
Fucker.
Somehow
I knew.
I
knew
the time had arrived.
I was
sleeping, and I woke with a jolt.
And
I
knew.
A
week had gone.
So
fast.
Like
a breath.
Like
a heartbeat.
I lay
on my side facing the back wall, and even as I heard sounds behind me there
were other sounds as well. Sounds inside sounds. Sounds beneath sounds.
Somewhere
I heard a child laughing and realized it was … me, standing there on the front
path watching a dog chase a cat, and the dog was so fat, and the cat was so
fast, and the cat seemed to be laughing at the dog because it knew a great fat
dog like that could never catch him…
I
smiled.
There
were tears in my eyes.
'Ford?'
It
was Mr. West's voice.
Mr.
West had come to take me. This was my perfect justice.
I
didn't move.
Didn't
dare to breathe.
Play
dead and they'll leave you alone
.
'Ford…
you gotta get up, you little cocksucker.'
And
then, with such a sense of satisfaction in his tone, 'It's happy hour, you
little fuck…'
I
heard the key in the lock.
'Sit
upright, sit still, and then don't fuckin' move 'til I tell you.'
I
started to move and his hands were under my arms, under my shoulders, and I was
being hoisted like a dead animal. I was hauled to the edge of the bed, and then
Mr. West shackled my feet, put the belt around my waist, put my wrists in the
cuffs and pulled me upright…
And
then we were walking…
I was
crying.
I
know that.
We
came out of the cell and crossed to the end of the corridor. We paused while
the door was unlocked, and then we were moving again… and somewhere inside
myself I resigned everything to some other force, some other power, and I hoped
that there
was
a God, and I tried to believe…
I
tried so hard to believe.
I asked
for a sign.
I was
a dead weight.
Dead
meat.
We
reached the end of the corridor, each footstep a labored and impossible
movement, and each time I slowed Mr. West was there behind me, his arm, his
hand impelling me forward…
And
with each footstep there seemed to be a thousand heartbeats, and within each
heartbeat a thousand memories, and within each memory a million reasons I
didn't want to die…
'Mister
West… Mister West, I don't wanna die…'
I
heard my own voice from a distance.
I was
a mile beyond here, a mile again beyond that.
'Mister
West…'
'Too
fucking late for that now, asshole… just too fucking late.'
I
heard him.
I
heard everything.
I
heard my own heart and thought it would stop any moment.
Mr. West
was now beside me. He indicated right.
'This
way,' he said.
I
glanced back at him. He was expressionless, implacable.
We
went through a second and third door, and then down a flight of stairs.
I
sensed we were heading towards the rear of D-Block.
How
long now
? I seemed to remember asking.
Perhaps
I just thought it.
Mr.
West looked back at me, but said nothing.
My
heart was thundering in my chest, my pulse was racing. My hands, my legs, my
entire body was a river of sweat, and yet I was chilled to the bone.
We
passed through a door at the base of the stairs, and the light was brilliant.
I was
dazed for a second, dazed into blindness, and even as I instinctively raised my
hands and could not, even as I tried to turn and see where I was, I heard the
sound of a car engine.
I
turned to my right, and even in that moment I knew the end of my life was
closing up against me.
Warden
Hadfield stood there, immobile, his hands folded together like origami in front
of him. His face was quiet, expressionless almost, and then there was something
in his eyes, something warm…
It's okay, Daniel,
he mouthed.
I
knew
he wasn't there. I knew without doubt that my mind had slipped its
moorings, and was now playing games, merging the present with past memory. I
knew
I was hallucinating, for beside him stood Father Rousseau, and Father
Rousseau smiled understandingly, and beside Father Rousseau stood Caroline…
Caroline Lanafeuille… and I believed perhaps she was my imaginary angel, sent
to guide me out of this dark place…
I
looked for Nathan, for my mother and father. I looked for Eve Chantry and Larry
James, for the boys that became men in some desolate waterlogged field in a
country we had never heard of before…
But
they were not there, none of them… and how I longed to see someone with whom I
could share what I was feeling.
I
wanted to say something but Mr. West carried me forward, carried me punctually,
precisely, effortlessly, to my death.
My
knees gave.
'Daniel.'
Another
voice.
Mr.
Timmons.
His
hand beneath my arm, holding me up.
Another
hand on my shoulder, someone guiding me, and then they were telling me to duck
my head. I could feel them bearing me up, and I was sitting without being aware
of where I was sitting or why.
'Mister
Timmons!' I shouted, and even as I heard my own voice it was the sound of a
terrified and desperate child. 'Mister Timmons!'
'Quieten
down now, Ford,' Mr. West said.
'You
told him?' I heard Clarence Timmons ask. 'You told him where we're going?'
'Sure
did,' Mr. West replied. 'Sure I told him.'
'Told
me?' I asked, my voice a painful twisted sound. 'Told me what?'
A
door slammed.
I was
inside a vehicle.
The bright
light had come from windows high up in the wall.
I was
seated in the back of a car.
The
car was moving.
Mr.
West sat facing me, smiling, smiling like I'd never seen anyone smile.
'Time's
up, little man,' he whispered. 'Special arrangement for you, son, special
arrangement altogether. Little trouble with the generators back there so we're
takin' you someplace else to finish up. Won't take long, twenty, thirty minutes
'til we arrive… an' that gives us a little more sharing time, don'tcha think?'
I
think I pissed myself.
'Ain't
so full of your self-righteous bullshit now, eh kid?' West hissed.
He
leaned forward and gripped me around the throat with his right hand. He leaned
closer still, and when he spoke I could feel the dampness of his words against
my skin. There was a smell there, something fetid and rotten, something age-old
and rank from the very deepest of Florida swamps.
'You
figure it gets easier here, son?' he asked. 'You figure we're in for a little
ride and then they plug you in an' we's all done for the night. I think not.
You have no fucking idea how much this is gonna hurt, no idea at all. No-one
knows how much it hurts… hell, we ain't ever had a chance to ask anyone, have
we?'
West
gave his coarse laugh.
He
said other things - dark and hideous things - and somewhere within the beating
of my heart, within the rumbling of the vehicle and the throbbing of the
engine, I think consciousness slipped away.