I began jogging toward the center gate, Merrill matching my pace.
“I’m listening,” he said.
“That’s not Billy Ray Dickens in that blue DC uniform. You saw it, it’s too small. Billy Ray has light brown hair and that man has dark brown. The shoes were too small for his feet, which means Billy Ray can wear the officer’s shoes, but not the other way around. And, Billy Ray’s a smoker. The tobacco they sell in the canteen is the cheapest kind made. You said so yourself. It stains the fingertips dark yellow, and it makes the person reek of it. The uniform smelled of it, but the body and the hair didn’t.”
“Damn, damn,
damn
,” he said, shaking his head. “You the real deal, dog. So Billy Ray killed an officer, traded uniforms, and vacatin’ the premises on his way to kill the man who raped his daughter.”
“That’s my guess,” I said.
“He probably ain’t spent five days with her in his whole worthless life,” he said. “Wasn’t there to protect her, but now he gonna kill the punk who raped her.”
“Exactly,” I said.
Jogging through the center gate, Merrill said, “So how’s he gonna get out?”
We were now two hundred yards from the front gate where the officers were gathering.
“He’s just going to walk out the front gate with all the other officers at three,” I said. “That’s why they did it now. It’s time for shift change. Fortunately for us, they can’t leave the institution before three, even if they’ve been relieved from their post. So, he’s up there in the sally port waiting with the rest of those brown shirts, biding his time until he becomes a free man.”
“’Cept that ain’t gonna happen,” Merrill said.
Merrill sounded so certain, but Billy Ray had nothing to lose and we were without weapons.
I slowed my pace to a brisk walk. Merrill matched it and then asked, “Why we slowin’ down?”
“Because we’re leaving work for the day just like everybody else. We don’t want him to know we’re coming after him.”
“How we gonna know it’s him?”
“I’ll recognize him,” I said. “When we go into the sally port, you go over to the control room window and tell them not to open the outer gate. I’ll try to find Billy Ray.”
As we entered the sally port, Merrill turned left and disappeared into the security building and I vanished into the crowd of officers, my cursory glances of the crowd turning up nothing. No one stood out as I surveyed the nearly twenty correctional officers in the small holding area. Some stood quietly, most stood talking, and a few of them stood next to the ashtray, smoking. They held lunch boxes and small ice chests, and they all looked eager to go home.
Never once had I stopped and waited with the group of officers at the end of the day—I was on a different shift and didn’t get off for another hour. However, Billy Ray wouldn’t know that. I milled around the crowd looking at the officers trying not to seem as though I was looking at them. I took a deep breath and slowed down a bit. I knew I needn’t rush now—I could trust Merrill to keep the gate closed.
I studied them one by one, checking first the ones standing by themselves. There was a middle-aged white woman with short black hair, an older man with almost no hair at all, a tall black man with huge hands, a young white man with a DC cap on who turned slightly so I couldn’t see his face.
Searching a small group of officers standing near the entrance to the security building, I could see that three were women, two were in their fifties, and two were black. Another group standing close to them was comprised of all young white men, any of whom could have been Billy Ray. I walked over to them. They were sharing the exciting news: an inmate had been killed on the rec yard.
I stepped into their circle and asked what had happened and then looked at each of them carefully and slowly, which was difficult because of the adrenaline coursing through my veins. So strong was its effect, in fact, that I had begun to shake.
They told me what they knew and why they were here and not down where the action was, but Billy Ray was not among them. It made sense that he wouldn’t be in a group, but he probably wouldn’t stand completely alone either.
I spotted another small group, and, though they stood together, they weren’t talking. I approached them, and as I did, one of them moved forward slightly. This put him closer to the outer gate … and freedom. When he moved, his shoes slid back and fourth on his feet the way his uniform did on his body. There was also an unmistakable light prison-green tattoo on his left arm.
When I turned to locate Merrill, I saw him coming out of the security building with a nine millimeter at his side. He was always a dangerous man—now he was deadly. And then, I felt it—an arm around my throat, a blade pressing into the flesh at my jugular.
It was a stupid mistake. I felt ashamed and embarrassed, and knew that however this ended—in my death or his—I would be partly to blame.
Merrill brought the nine up and aimed it straight at me. “Hands down, motherfucker,” he said to Billy Ray. “No way outta here. ’Cept in a bag.”
“I’ll kill the preacher,” Billy Ray yelled as the other officers in the sally port began to scatter. His mouth was at my right ear, which rang when he finished yelling, “Back off.” His blade cut into my neck slightly and my skin burned with a small, but sharp pain.
“He die—you die,” Merrill said. His tone was low, somehow soothing and threatening at the same time.
“I’m dead already,” he said.
“Billy, listen to me,” I said, barely above a whisper because of the pressure on my throat. “They can’t let you out of here—even if you kill me. You could have Warden Stone and it wouldn’t matter. I know you’re hurting, but this will only make things worse. Stop this now and I can help you. I know an organization that will bring your little girl and her mother to see you. That’s why I called you to my office this morning.”
“Really?” he asked, his voice softening.
“Why didn’t you come?” I asked, coughing from his grip on my throat.
“I’s busy,” he said, the edge back in his voice. “’Sides, I didn’t want no more bad news.”
“It’s good news, Billy,” I said as upbeat as I could.
Remembering the shank in my pocket, I tried reaching for it, but there was no way I could get it without getting my throat cut in the process.
“I don’t want to see her,” he said. “I wouldn’t know what to say. I just want to kill the son of a bitch who did it.”
“That won’t help her,” I said.
“It’ll fuckin’ help me,” he said, spit flying from his mouth.
I nodded my head slightly. “I understand, but they’re not going to let you out of here. They’re going to kill you right here and now unless you surrender.”
“I don’t care, preacher,” he said sounding on the verge of tears. “I don’t care anymore.”
“Do it for Jessica,” I said. “She needs her daddy … now more than ever.”
“I killed a cop today,” he said. “They not gonna let me see her. I’m as good as dead anyway. I let you go and all these brown shirts gonna kick the shit outta me.”
“I won’t let that happen,” I said.
He laughed.
“Times up,” Merrill said. “What’s it gonna be?”
“Death!” he shouted, releasing his hold on me and putting the knife to his own throat. I turned and looked at him. I could tell he was praying and I knew what was coming next.
I dropped to the ground and yelled, “Shoot!”
Merrill closed one eye, took a breath, dropped the hammer … and saved Billy Ray Dickens’ life—what there was left of it anyway.
Billy Ray was on the ground now, the shank lying beside him. Blood was pouring out of the place where his right arm became his right shoulder, and I spun around, ripping off my clerical shirt and tying it tightly around his wound.
Billy Ray looked up. “I was gonna do it.”
“I know,” I said. “I’m glad he didn’t let you.”
He closed his eyes and remained silent.
“I can help you,” I said.
He shook his head. “Too late.”
“It’s never too late,” I said.
Later, after Billy Ray had been rushed under armed guard to the hospital by ambulance, Merrill and I sat on the sidewalk in front of the control room, talking.
“How’d you get them to give you a gun and keep the gate locked?” I asked.
He smiled his broad smile, his bright white teeth contrasting with his gunmetal-blue skin. I looked up into the control room. Standing there with a grin of her own was Robin, a model-tall woman with an athletic build and beads in her braids that matched the color of her full lips.
“You
do
have a way with the women around here,” I said.
“
Shee-it
,” he said. “Women everywhere.”
“Hell of a shot, too,” I said.
“
Shee-it
,” he said again, smiling. “I’s tryin’ to kill his racist ass.”
I laughed.
As we sat there in the warm, but waning glow of the setting sun, I thought about the afternoon’s events and my role in them. Sometimes I functioned as a chaplain and sometimes as a cop. Some days I worked on saving souls and other days I was happy just to save lives.
I was drinking again.
I told myself that every burning swallow would be my last, that I would once and for all quench the insatiable thirst of the simian creature lurking inside me, but I knew when I was being lied to.
Until just recently, it had been a long time since I had been drunk, and the last time I drank I climbed right back up onto the wagon the next day, so I had convinced myself that maybe I wasn’t a drunk after all. I had stopped going to meetings—hell, I had stopped going much of anywhere besides work.
I was on my way to the warehouse to pick up supplies for the chapel when five white inmates, each with teardrop tattoos, emerged from behind the PRIDE building and surrounded me.
With each one touching shoulders with those on either side, their leader, an inmate everyone called Bush because of his dark wiry hair and eyebrows, stepped forward, his face an inch from mine.
I could have yelled for security. I could have tried to fight them. But I wanted to hear what they had to say. They were members of a gang known as Southern Comfort. Recently, I had been involved in an investigation that landed their previous leader in a cell full-time. Based on their body language, I’d say they weren’t happy about it.
“Cut off the head of
some
snakes,” Bush said, “he grows another one.”
“What kind is that?” I asked.
“Southern Comfort kind,” he said, gesturing to the group surrounding us.
The sour smell of the groups’ body odor was almost as bad as their rancid breath.
“And we never forget any bastard dumb enough to do us harm,” he said.
“So there’s no point in me asking you guys to let bygones be bygones?”
“Not only that—” he began.
“But I better watch my back,” I said.
He smiled, his crooked, cigarette-stained teeth looking like dried kernels of corn dangling from a rotting cob. “Blade,” he said to one of the other inmates. Blade, a tall, thin, pasty boy with adolescent peach fuzz and a permanent scowl on his face, flashed the blade of a shank in front of me. He did it so fast, the blade exposed for such a short period of time, it didn’t register until after he had concealed it again.
“You’re alive ’cause we allow you to be,” Bush said. “Do all within your power to make things go well for Southern Comfort and stay the fuck outta our business. That clear enough for you?”
Before I could respond, the small group dispersed, and I was left standing alone. I took a minute to make sure I understood their cryptic message—inmates could be so enigmatic—then proceeded through the south gate.
When I emerged from the compound, I realized I’d been so distracted by Bush and his boys that I hadn’t noticed the Federal Express truck parked near the warehouse. Now that I had, my heart rate quickened and my mouth grew dry.
The truck driver was Laura Matthers. We had dated for a short while and I had not seen each other since.
I was about twenty feet from the truck when Laura stepped down from it holding a small box and an electronic clipboard. When she saw me, she set the package down on the bottom step of her vehicle and the clipboard on top of it, and waited for me to reach her.
“Hey, you,” she said.
Laura Matthers looked like a beautiful, gentle deer with a broken nose. Her eyes were deep brown and her breast-length brown hair was a couple of shades darker than buckskin. Summer had not officially begun yet she already had a tan her Fed Ex uniform shorts displayed nicely.
Ever the smooth talker, I said, “Hey.”
We embraced awkwardly, lingering a moment too long.
After an intense, but brief summer romance, Laura and I had decided to stop seeing each other, each for different reasons, many of them concealed, and, until now, we had managed to avoid each other until now.