Part 6 (1/2)
It was no bother, I told him, though I was surprised and confused by the call.
”I wanted to see if you were all right,” he said.
”What do you mean?” For a moment I didn't understand.
”Aren't you the one who found Jon Crowley?” he asked.
”Yes,” I said.
”I'm very sorry,” he said. ”It must have been awful.”
It was, and I realized then that I felt morally stained by the experience, that I feared it might never wash off.
”Thank you,” I said.
”I wonder what happened,” he said.
I didn't answer. I didn't want to go there with a weak sister. If I ever mused on the reasons, it would be with a fellow CO, and only then with caution and the worst possibilities left unspoken.
”Have you looked at the book I lent you, the one that Jon was inspired by?”
He meant The Four Stages of Cruelty, the drawings by Hogarth.
”To be honest,” I said, ”it wasn't my cup of tea.”
Lying on the couch, with the phone up against my ear, I pulled the book over to my lap and turned the heavy pages again, though I had no stomach for it. Hogarth had drawn four distinct panels, and the rest of the book was commentary. At first glance the images seemed ordinary, street scenes of London in a vaguely Victorian era, but on closer inspection everything normal turned to murder. Boys who seemed to be playing with animals were actually torturing them. Men with maces and sticks beat horses. A child was crushed under a wagon wheel while four powder-wigged judges watched. A woman in an alley lay in an awkward pose, and then you noticed that her angled head was almost severed from her body, the slit throat gaping wide, and that she had been bound before death, her wrists notched by deep cuts. In a large room inside a brick-laden dome, a host of learned men in scholarly hats crowded around a slab on which the corpse of a hanged man was undergoing autopsy, the rope still around his neck. A dog chewed on the tossed-aside heart, and bones were being boiled in a cauldron. It was b.e.s.t.i.a.l cruelty, a mosaic of casual perversion, and I wanted none of it.
Brother Mike didn't seem to sense the vibe of my dismay.
”Hogarth followed the pa.s.sage of a young man from his violent upbringing along his murderous path to his final end, hanged and gutted. He wanted to show that violence is contagious and has social origins, and that it follows a progression of cruelty. It's a crude theory, but have you ever doubted that upbringing and social environment contribute to the lives the men in Ditmarsh have led? Sometimes, learning about the juvenile records and the foster homes and the alcoholic fathers and prost.i.tute mothers, I allow myself to wonder if we have the right people locked up.”
”Was that what Crowley was trying to do? Make some kind of point about life in Ditmarsh?” I did not truck with the sentiments Brother Mike was describing, but I wanted to know more.
”I'm not sure,” he answered. ”I'm not sure we can ever grasp the full complexity of what violence does and where it comes from. I have this feeling that to truly understand the motives and the causes and the circular nature of it all, we need to hold some contradictory theories in place at the same time, and believe them to be equally valid. I don't think Hogarth ever gave enough credit to evil, for example. I don't think any social reformer knows how to comfortably tackle the problem of evil.”
He didn't call it the mystery of evil, as I might have, but the problem, as though the existence of evil were a concrete issue with practical consequences, like a math question or a difficult repair job.
”And what is the problem of evil?” I asked, picking up the thread he'd placed before me, wondering what labyrinth I was being led into.
”Here, from my admittedly underschooled brain, are some of the essential questions: Is Satan responsible for evil? If so, why does the all-powerful G.o.d let Satan hold so much sway over the affairs of men? Is G.o.d responsible? Then what does that say about G.o.d as a loving being, or about man, created in G.o.d's image? Are G.o.d and Satan both irrelevant superst.i.tions, and evil a material by-product of chemical, social, or psychological influences? Depending on your point of view, there are ramifications. What should we do with evil? Cut it out like a disease? Kill it like a monster? Put it away in a place where it cannot harm others? Hate the sin, forgive the sinner, and work on rehabilitation?”
”You're talking about matters beyond my job description,” I said.
”And mine, too,” he said.
A pause in our conversation. I stretched back and wondered what to say.
”So what's the answer?” I asked.
”Love,” he replied, but the word was so curt, and the moment so awkward, I didn't know whether I'd heard him right, and I was too embarra.s.sed to ask him to say it again.
I thanked him for calling, and we said our good-nights. Despite our differences, I was glad for the connection, the moment of human comfort.
I'd seen the faces of men who'd done what anyone would consider evil things, but their brains were usually so bewildered and pathetic, you wrote off their behavior as some sort of autism of violence. The spiritual counselors explained it with religion. The social counselors talked about case histories and abuse records. All of it was so much s.h.i.+t to those of us actually working the blocks, negotiating the moods, trying to keep the lies straight. People think we're thugs, a little thick and hard, none too smart or caring, but I honestly believe you need the disconnect-the brute confidence or the comfortable blitheness or even that little smirk of cruelty-to do the job well.
I fell asleep on the couch, my comfort spot when comfort won't come, and didn't wake up until the phone rang again. For a moment I expected Brother Mike, a continuance of our conversation, but the voice was different.
”So you've done it,” the voice said, and then asked, ”How does it feel?”
I knew the voice or thought I did.
”How does what feel? Who is this?”
”Do they know what kind of a c.u.n.t you are?”
That's when I understood the true nature of the call. I sat up and asked again who the h.e.l.l was calling. The voice on the other end breathed steadily, without fear, for a dozen seconds, then hung up.
I checked the call record and saw the number listed as unknown. I checked the street through a gap in the curtain and saw nothing but darkened cars and trees heavy with snow. I lay on the bed and tried to close my eyes, but I kept seeing Crowley. Would I ever get his hanging shadow out of my mind? I had some pills in the bathroom cabinet for bad nights, but I didn't want to put myself under when there was a stalker out there, some drunk and bitter turnkey, some ex-inmate who'd finally made a house call. I tucked my prized armament of personal choice, a stainless steel .357 handgun, under a book on the night table because that's what you do when you're hearing footsteps on the stairs.
A few hours later, in the grimy light of morning, the phone rang a third time. I was eating raisin bran and staring at the counter TV, feeling unsteady and hungover from the lack of sleep. I checked the call display and saw the number of the local newspaper. They'd been ha.s.sling me to renew my subscription, but I hated having that waste of paper piling up unread, so I'd resisted their never-wavering siege for months. This time I was thankful to see a familiar irritation, and I almost answered. Then I stopped myself when I realized what was happening. Someone at the paper wanted to talk to me about Ditmarsh.
It had to be about Crowley. About finding him. The missing inmate. The one everyone thought had escaped. The one who showed up ugly dead inside the City. I did not want to talk to anyone in the media. I let the phone go to voice mail and checked the message fifty seconds later. Nothing.
I did the dishes and put in a load of laundry. I kept glancing at the local news station as I worked, and I stopped everything when a report came on about an inmate at Ditmarsh Penitentiary who'd gone missing during a recent disturbance and had since been found dead. The blood in my veins thickened as a reporter on scene described the events and then cued a recorded interview with the warden.
”If he'd escaped, as these erroneous rumors insist, we would have notified other law enforcement authorities, and I can a.s.sure you no such notification was made. Contrary to your misinformation, the inmate had been held in protective custody the entire time.”
It shook me hard to hear the lie so blatantly spooled. Then came the kicker. While in protective custody, Crowley hanged himself, the warden said, and the matter would be investigated thoroughly, as was routine in all such cases, by the Pen Squad, an independent police unit inside Ditmarsh. ”But I caution you,” he said, the sternness of his voice utterly convincing, ”this suicide was not an avoidable tragedy, but an act of violent defiance designed to inflame an already tense situation. Jonathan Crowley was that kind of inmate. This is difficult for the general public to understand. But that man went to his grave spitting in the face of authority.”
It's not often you get to witness the truth s.h.i.+t-kicked so thoroughly. My phone rang again, a number I didn't recognize, so I picked up the receiver and thumbed end with enough firmness to choke a throat.
That's when I first started feeling paranoid.
12.
My life never seemed particularly full when I was not working, but there were times when the thin cover of activities and interests got pulled back to reveal the great yawning emptiness. It was particularly depressing to go back to work when you had done nothing productive or fulfilling with a string of days off. Battered by the news report about Crowley, I felt incapable of rousing myself to any good purpose. I'd planned to go to yoga every morning once Christmas was over, but the willpower had strained out of me like water through a pressed tea bag. If it wasn't for MacKay getting transferred out of intensive care to a regular room, nothing would have moved me.
I parked in the hospital lot and recognized Baumard's decked-out truck. Other cars and trucks looked familiar, too. The boys were there in substantial numbers. When I got to the cardiac unit, Baumard was in the hall along with three other COs just off from the four-a.m.-to-noon s.h.i.+ft. Their stamina amazed me. They worked, fought, complained, suffered, celebrated, ate, drank, and talked the job. I wanted to ask about the warden's comments on the news, whether anyone had heard them, but the vibe zipping through me made that entire subject seem like fissionable material, too radioactive to touch. Instead, I asked how MacKay was doing.
Baumard shrugged. ”He's all right. All he has to do is cut out the drinking and smoking. In other words, he's a walking coffin.” I was too upset to share the humor. So I looked around the doorway and saw Ray MacKay in his hospital gown, oxygen mask on his face, big hands resting at his sides, as cautious and immobile as a whale beached on the bed. Alton, a younger CO, stood at the foot, talking more to the TV hanging on the wall than to MacKay himself. Alton noticed me peek around and used my arrival as an excuse to say his goodbyes, thumping the mattress twice with his fingertips in a vigorous expression of best wishes. He nodded as he went by, grateful and relieved for me to take his place.
I wanted to cry. But a corner of Ray's mouth turned up when he saw me, the eyes brightening, and he gave a breathy ”How you doing.” Then he pulled the oxygen mask down to his chin. I was alarmed, but he said, ”I put this on so I can watch TV in peace.” His voice was stronger than I expected.