The War Gate (2 page)

Chubby glanced over his shoulder, and did a quick double-take. He set his book down on the floor, then picked up his clipboard.

The heel strikes stopped out of Avalon’s field of view. She heard a, “good evening, officer” in a mellow baritone voice.

“Yes, good evening, Father,” Chubby said in a hesitant voice. “You’re not Father Mathews.” Chubby flipped a page back on his clipboard roster, frowned and looked up again. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you before. Father Mathews is our prison chaplain. I wasn’t notified of a replacement.”

“Father Mathews was called away on an unexpected emergency,” said the man. “A family member has been involved in a car accident. The warden thought it best to permit him an immediate leave of absence. I’m afraid I’m a last-minute stand-in.”

The mystery chaplain stepped within Avalon’s sight. The first thing that caught her eye was the spill of long hair over broad shoulders—it looked like spun gold, catching the reflection of the overhead lights. He wore a charcoal black suit. A peek of white stood out from his throat against a high black collar. His shoes looked wet, waxed to bedazzlement. The creases in his pants were knife-edged. He had a wisp of bangs framing a high forehead. The jaw was square, prominent. The one thing that broke up the beauty of the man was a slight ski jump nose. He carried a thick Bible, crucifix, and rosary. Just the edge of his mouth was visible, which was turned up into an affable smile. On second thought, it could have been a grimace.

Chubby took a tentative step backward, glancing at his clipboard again. “Oh, gosh. I don’t know,” he said, his voice faltering. “I should have gotten a radio call announcing the switch. If you’ll hang tight for just a minute, I’ll get this cleared up. Name, sir?”

He stepped up to Chubby and offered his hand in greeting. “I’m Father Geminus, first name Janus.” When Chubby gripped the hand for a shake, the chaplain pulled him to his shoulder then whispered in his ear.

Avalon took small, nervous steps across the cell. She lingered at the threshold of the door. Enthralled, she watched Chubby’s expression transform from apprehension to calm. A sudden fatigue came over his face. The guard relaxed for a moment, his arms hanging limp at his sides. When the chaplain pulled back from him, he gripped Chubby’s shoulder and turned him around to face the other direction. Dazed, Chubby walked off toward the dayroom entrance and disappeared around the corner. The last thing Avalon heard was the chirp of rubber soles on the floor followed by the resounding clang of the vault-like door.

The chaplain turned to face Avalon’s cell. His narrowed eyes reminded her of a dog she had once owned—grayish-blue, deep-set. Pretty, but haunting. He took slow, deliberate strides toward her. She backed up at the last moment, allowing him entry. He sat on her bunk with his arms in his lap and gazed at her in silence. The cold slab of the wall against her back shocked her. She hadn’t realized until that moment that she had thrust herself up against it. She felt trapped, mesmerized by this man who looked so out of place in this dungeon of the condemned. He was a Baryshnikov in a house of slam dancers, a Fabio look-alike who, in a different persuasion, might have been a high-profile hair stylist from Beverly Hills. She guessed him to be in his late thirties, but it was hard to tell. The light played tricks on his face. The large gold book at his side was face up but sans an embossed title like she would expect to see on a Bible.

“Are you uncomfortable?” He said, staring at her. He patted the seat next to him. “I’m not here to make you feel uncomfortable. You can call me Janus.”

“No, I’m just a bit surprised,” she said, taking a seat on the bunk an arm’s length away. “It’s not every day we see new faces. It’s always the same visitors or staff. The appointment times are always fixed. That’s a strange first name. How do you spell it?”

“J-a-n-u-s,” he said. “Do you know why I’m here?”

She swallowed, studying the handsome chaplain. “You’re here to administer last rights. Forgive me for staring, but are you sure you are in the right vocation? I mean you don’t look the part at all.”

“I get that a lot,” he said, cracking his lips for the first time, which showed a perfect row of teeth. It figured that he had neon pearly whites.

“I’ve worn more than one face on occasion,” he continued, tiny crow’s feet appearing at his eyes. “So there is diversity in my life that has to be weighed. Change and transition are the normal progression of past to future, of one condition to another, of one vision to another, the growing up of young people from one universe to another. Or you might be apt to put it, a chop, cut, and rebuilding of all things world-based. I have to represent the middle ground between barbarity and civilization.”

She blinked. “Well, I’ve never heard it put quite that way before. It sounds like you’re all over the place.”

“Just backward and forward, the sun, the moon, and the key in between.”

She cocked her head at the odd words, wondering if something was getting lost in translation. Was it possible this guy was mental?”

His eyes glimmered for a moment. “But forget about all that. I’m not the pertinent subject of this hour. This chapter draws to an end necessitating the turn of another page. Do you have anything to confess?”

“Should I kneel, Father?”

“It won’t make your words any more significant. Divine justice reads the heart. Not the posture.”

Her shoulders slumped. “I guess I’m guilty of being accused, convicted, and sentenced. I’m just plain dumb for trusting the wrong counsel. I’m ashamed that I’ve put what little family I have through the worst heartache imaginable.”

“I’m not referring to this conviction in which the War Gate is soon to open. After all, you cannot confess to a crime that you are innocent of, can you?”

She looked at him with an aching curiosity. Her heart lifted for a moment. Then reality set in. “How do you know I’m innocent? I’ve never met you before.” It shocked her that a priest had followed her case with such conviction. “Unless you’re really a reporter whose been watching the trial coverage.”

He adjusted his body to face her more squarely. “Let’s just say my investigative sources prove that a sacrifice is not needed here. You could call it a restoration of balance. I was referring to the infractions in your life before this case.”

Strange. This man was convinced of her innocence. She had no idea how he had arrived at that conclusion. She struggled between embarrassment and relief when she began to tell him of her life’s transgressions, the times when she didn’t pay parking tickets, when she had kicked her dog out of frustration, the incidences of pettiness, jealousy, and wantonness. She even admitted to cheating on a history exam in high school for fear of being held back a grade.

When she exhausted her confession inventory, she looked at the priest, wondering if he was going to forgive her or recite a standard blessing. She watched him close his eyes. Next, she heard words that were just a whisper. Nevertheless, she found herself bowing out of reverence.

“So it was found. So it was confessed. So it is forgiven. From the past, into the new beginning, beyond into the days that have not yet been seen. I take thee from the Old Gate into another of the same for the deserved chance to correct the great wrong. Abide in the final peace that has been earned.” He opened his eyes. “Are you prepared to enter the new Gate, Avalon?”

She couldn’t hold back the floodgate of emotions any longer. His words intoned some kind of indescribable beauty, albeit tempered with tragedy. She had never heard such an interpretation that spoke of passing from one life into another in such a manner. It was too much. The tears spilled from her eyes, and her shoulders quaked. She reached out a trembling hand. He took it to pat it in comfort. His hand was so warm, so secure. For a fleeting moment, she felt she was in the presence of a guardian angel. She tried to contain herself, resisting the urge to throw herself into his arms, knowing he would be one of the last persons to see her alive.

With an endearing tenderness, he pulled her to her feet. She bit her lip, commanding the tears to stop. At all costs, she would try to recapture some countenance of dignity.

The priest embraced her with strong arms. She wanted it to last, but knew it was prolonging the inevitable. When she pulled a half step back, she swiped one last wet spot from her cheek with a forearm.

“Forgive me,” she said. “This isn’t the way I wanted to be remembered. I just don’t want to suffer when the time comes. Will you help me deal with it, Father?”

He put a hand over her abdomen. A light shone in his face. His eyes seemed to pass right through her. “I won’t let them take you from this Gate. This is a time of rebirth.”

It was impossible to understand a lot of what he was saying. Death had always been a complicated issue amongst humanity. Faith was the assurance of things hoped for—the conviction of things not seen. She had the faith, but was uncertain if she had enough conviction. The passing from one plane to another was symbolic—it always had been. Maybe the priest knew the mysterious “other plane” better than anyone. He was conveying that it was not something to be feared, she reasoned. That to face renewal one should rejoice.

His hand brought a fire to her stomach. She could feel a throb that radiated from her navel down into her bowels, an uncomfortable sensation that almost felt like a bladder infection. The discomfort increased, causing her to waver. The air filled with a brusque mesquite odor that forced her to take choppy breaths until she was panting. A heavy buzz filled her head with a nauseating thrum. She felt herself collapsing from within, the strength leaving her legs. The world went black, like a curtain had been thrown over her.

Avalon awoke lying on her back. When her eyes focused, she found herself staring up at the cell ceiling, watching the bluish-white flicker of the fluorescent lights behind the translucent covers. She sat up, and nausea from the worst cramps she had ever experienced rolled through her. From the corner of her eye she noticed the departing figure of the priest who strode through the dayroom on his way to the exit. He had left his thick book behind. She staggered to the door with it. Avalon called out twice. He stopped, turned around.

“I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I must have fainted. You’ve left your book here.” She wondered why he’d decided to leave. Wasn’t he supposed to accompany her into the death chamber?

Janus called across the room, “You’ll be all right now. Rest, child. The book is yours. It’s your new story. We’ll meet again.” He walked past her vision. The tap of his shoes echoed across the floor.

She waited for the sound of the slamming vault door but it never came. Knowing that she was defying prison rules, she took woozy steps out of her cell and across the floor to chance a look. She could see nothing. The priest had vanished. She returned to her cell, perplexed. She had no idea what time it was or where Chubby had gone.

The sound of a dozen inmate voices rose again, bleeding into each other in the dayroom.

“You hang in there, girl,” yelled a female voice from the next cell over, barely audible through the wall.

“Don’t give those bitches the satisfaction,” said another woman.

The familiar clank of the entrance door sounded like a gunshot. It was followed by the shuffling of shoes. Chubby appeared, cuffing sweat from his forehead. He drug his chair across the floor, placing it closer to Avalon’s cell. He sat down with a heavy thud. A patch of his shirttail hung out, and he had a streamer of toilet paper stuck to a shoe.

“Sorry I had to leave,” he said under labored breaths. “That was the worst case of diarrhea I’ve ever had. Jumped me like a strong-armed robber.” He began writing on his clipboard with furious strokes.

Her own stomach churned before she could question him about the mysterious priest. It came to her in a fit of annoyance that her last meal might have been the source of their illness. She felt bloated, an explosion of gas bubbling up from her guts like seltzer. She didn’t need to be sick right now. A nauseous belch escaped her. There went any vestige of dignity she had left. Now she faced the possibility of messing herself during the long walk or while strapped in the crucifixion pose on the gurney. The pain eased after a few moments.

She placed the large book on her lap, flipping it open to the first page. Her name was spelled out in bold letters across the top. She turned the page and found it blank. She fanned the pages. They were all blank except for the page numbers that appeared centered at the bottom. What kind of twisted joke was this? A new story? It was a blank slate, which was even more demeaning if it was meant to be a diary of her life.

She lurched to her feet and hurled the book. It hit the wall, bouncing back to slide under her bunk. Chubby jumped up from the chair and hurried into the room.

“You okay, Avalon? What was that bang?”

She sat down in a slump. “That was cruel—just damned cruel. The pages are empty. What a crock! Do me a favor. Don’t let anyone else in here until it’s over.”

“Who did I let in here?” Chubby shrugged, looking dismayed.

Avalon slapped the bunk pad hard. “Now don’t you start in on me! Why does this have to turn into a torture fest? You’d think I’d had enough of this after fourteen years with God knows how many appeals!”

“Avalon, you want me to get the doctor?” Chubby checked his watch. “We still have ten minutes or so.” He froze, whipping his head around at the clacking sound of the entrance door in the dayroom.

Chubby received a call on his radio. He answered, “Okay, Sarge. I copy that. Yes, sir. We’re ready to walk, I think.” Then to Avalon, “Sorry. The detail is on its way.” He strode off to meet with the other staff members.

She rose to her feet, prepared to face the small escort crowd that had just entered the cell block. She picked up the thick book from under the bunk and secured it in her duffel bag. The bag contained her personal inventory—court documents, letters, hygiene kit, slippers, a photo album, and a few pieces of plastic jewelry. She hadn’t been in this cell long enough to call it home. She visualized her cell at the Correctional Institute in Raleigh. She said a silent goodbye to that one. All those inmates who had befriended her over the years passed through her thoughts. Considering the circumstances, some of those memories were happy ones.