21

Adamsville State Penitentiary

To Thomas Carey, the difference between the ASP supermax and, say, Cook County Jail in Chicago was like the difference between War and Peace and Love Story.

Cook County was a chaotic, depressing place, and the evil there was exacerbated by the relative freedom of the inmates to congregate. It was overcrowded, dangerous, and appeared nearly unmanageable because gang members still associated with one another, guards were compromised, and sometimes even escape attempts were successful.

ASP, though, was an entirely different kettle of felons. Warden LeRoy admitted that many on the outside considered his zero-tolerance policies overkill. “But they simply don’t understand my constituency. These guys have proven over and over that they understand only one language, and that is maximum force, complete deprivation of freedom, and punishment rather than reform. They have lost the opportunity to redeem themselves, because every time they’ve been offered that chance, they’ve violated the state’s trust. Their previous hitches were in correctional facilities. This is a penitentiary. We allow them to be as penitent as they want, but clearly they don’t want to be reformed, or they wouldn’t have wound up here.”

Thomas considered himself a man of justice. Actions had consequences. People needed to be punished. He even allowed that some were worthy of capital punishment, though that notion had fallen into disrepute among many within his own profession. It was hard to argue for something so final and brutal in light of the Bible’s teaching on love and respect and forgiveness. And yet the Scriptures were also clear that one who sheds another’s blood should have his own blood shed. Thomas acknowledged that a death sentence was no trifle and that all the checks and balances and safeguards—fair trials, appeals, and all the rest—were a crucial part of the process. But still, he believed, justice mandated the ultimate punishment in extreme cases.

Yet now, as he tried to absorb all that his senses were trying to communicate, Thomas found himself overwhelmed with pity for this massive population of men. Did they deserve this? Apparently they did. Why could they not have learned at some earlier, more copacetic level of incarceration that changing their ways would spare them this inhumanity? Had they not heard the stories from inside this place?

Yanno told him that even here the cons tried every scheme to manipulate the system, “but at the end of the day, they lose. Every time. They are in their cells twenty-three hours of every twenty-four. They are allowed out only when no other inmate is, and they are strip-searched, manacled, cuffed, and led about by corrections officers. When they return to their cells, they go through the same procedure in reverse. They dare not ask an inch of leeway. They don’t deserve it, and they won’t get it.”

Yanno led Thomas to the far end of the unit, within a hundred yards of the main gate. Already Thomas had learned not to turn at the shouts and jeers of the inmates. He was intrigued, however, by a man about his age who stood quietly next to his solid door, peeking out through the squares in the front wall. The man was balding and paunchy.

“You the new chaplain?” he said.

Thomas looked at the warden, who nodded. “Just stay back about two feet,” he whispered.

Thomas approached. “Yes, sir, I am. Thomas Carey is my name. And yours?”

The man reached his fingers through the opening. “Call me Zach.”

Thomas looked to the warden for permission to touch the man’s fingers. Yanno shook his head.

“Nice to meet you, Zach. I look forward to getting to know you.”

“Yeah, me too. I’d like you to stop by as soon as you can.”

“I think that can be arranged.”

“Yeah, no!” LeRoy said. “Zach, you know the protocol. You know how to go about requesting a visit.”

Zach pressed his lips together and shook his head, then cursed both men. Thomas wanted to assure him he would be happy to come back if the proper request was submitted, but Yanno pulled him away. “You’re tempted to make nice, but he’s just pulling your chain. You’d be falling right into his trap.”

“But I’m here to minister to him if he wants.”

“Exactly. If he wants. We’ll both know how much he wants that if we see the paperwork, won’t we? What else has he got to do? He asks for the form, fills it out, turns it in. We call that a kite, because he’s sending it into the wind, hoping it’ll fly. If it’s all in order, you schedule it. But let me tell you something: you won’t be hearing from Zach.”

“You’re sure?”

“People will do what people have done, Reverend. Zach never once in ten years requested a visit from Russ.”

Thomas shook his head. The guy had sounded so sincere. “Tell me, why is he so out of shape? Does he not take advantage of the exercise room?”

Yanno shook his head. “Just goes and hangs around. No one turns down the exercise time, but few exercise or jog or even stretch. They like the change of scenery and the space, but not many are motivated to stay fit. There’s no smoking in here, so everyone has been through withdrawal, and they’re healthier that way. And naturally they don’t have access to booze. But the food is what it is—high fat, high starch, low on nutrients. It’s hard to overeat because they don’t get huge quantities, but if all you do is sit and stand all day, you soon go to seed.”

Most of the inmates—with a few bodybuilder and youthful exceptions—were as soft as Zach looked. The population was largely minority, though it seemed the entire globe was represented. Thomas couldn’t shake a dark, heavy feeling that saddened him to his soul.

“We’re just processing a new inmate,” Yanno said, leading Thomas to the intake cell. A young Hispanic man wearing only his underpants sat in the five-by-five-foot windowless chamber away from the sight and even the sounds of the rest of the population. The room had neither bunk nor stool. The front wall was Plexiglas, but the only view from the cell was the cement blocks on the other side of the corridor.

The man looked both petrified and defiant.

“Got as far as the wall in one of our other facilities but surrendered rather than be shot. A lot of times they don’t give up, you know. That’s known as suicide by cop. They make you kill ’em. Some even get themselves hopelessly tangled in the razor wire, but they don’t quit struggling till they’re dead. This guy wasn’t that stupid, but he had to know he’d wind up here.”

“Why no clothes?”

“Policy. You come here, you get stripped of everything but your underbritches. You’re body-cavity searched, hosed down, dried off, and put in this cell until your house is ready. Then you get your slippers, khakis, and tee. He’ll be shackled and cuffed and led to his house, and he won’t be allowed out for anything but a fifteen-minute shower once a week for the first ninety days. In fact, he won’t have any privileges. No TV, no radio, nothing to read, nothing to write with. We don’t apologize for it. We’re tryin’ to break ’em, and they have to prove they’re worthy of privileges.”

“So he behaves for ninety days, and then what?”

“He gets paper and pencil, electricity, a tiny black-and-white TV, and a radio. He gets his daily hour in the exercise kennel.”

“I noticed the TVs. They have cable? Movie channels and all?”

“Yeah, but no porno. Watchin’ TV is the closest these guys come to community.”

“How so?”

“Guys in the same pod will all watch the same show and then discuss it, argue about it. It’s like they’re watching together, despite that they’re in their own houses.”

“So it behooves this guy to keep his nose clean the first three months.”

“And that’s not easy, Carey. The newcomers get both barrels from everybody. They scream at ’em, challenge ’em, mock ’em, taunt ’em. They try to get them to be belligerent to the officers, get them in trouble. And that rumor mill I told you about? Everybody watches TV all day. They see the news; they know as much about a guy’s case as he does, and they push him till he breaks, if they can. ‘What’d you do? Is it true what the prosecutor said? Did you enjoy making the victim suffer?’ That kind of thing. The best plan for a newbie is to not answer, ever. They’ll demand to know if he’s gay, if he’s a rapist, a child molester. They’ll predict when he’ll crack. Worst part is, it’s hard enough to sleep in here. For one thing, they’re not often tired at night, so there’s racket all the time. But when the hollering is directed at you, it’s impossible.”

A commotion led them back into the unit, where a naked inmate, standing in the tiny shower stall, was hollering. “C’mon, man! I been here more’n an hour and I’m cold!”

From the watchtower a staticky voice came over the intercom. “He’s coming. Just hold on.”

“Then turn the shower back on, man!”

Silence.

The con recited a litany of vile curses.

“The shower runs for ten minutes,” Yanno told Thomas. “Then it’s off for three; then it runs for two more. The guys have to learn to wash up, then rinse off. Sometimes the water’s cold. We try to keep it hot, but sometimes there are other priorities. Once it’s run through both cycles, hot or cold, the inmate has to wait there until his officer comes back to chain him up and get him back to his house.

“The guys get issued a razor when they get in there, but they have to return it when they’re done, and it has to be totally intact. These guys’ll make a weapon out of anything.”

“Where would they be able to use it?”

“You’d be surprised. That’s why they’re searched every time they’re removed from or returned to their houses. And often we search the houses when they’re out for a shower or exercise. The worst problem is feces bombs.”

“Oh, my. Do I want to know?”

“Probably not, but you need to. This ain’t grade school. Yes, these guys will collect their own feces, wrap it in paper, and when an officer tries to deliver their food through the slot in the door—during which the inmate is supposed to stay at the back of his cell—the con will race forward and fire the mess at the officer, sometimes hitting him in the face. Regardless, as you can imagine, that’s a horrible, disgusting attack and can be dangerous. The officers wear rubber gloves and sometimes face masks, but we’ve had personnel injured. That is a felony and carries dire consequences.”

“Such as?”

“He’s forcefully extracted from his cell by our goon squad. That name was made up by the population, but it fits, so we use it too. A group of at least six officers, wearing full body armor and one of them carrying a Plexiglas shield, approaches the cell and orders the inmate to back up to the food slot and extend his hands behind him to be cuffed. If he cooperates, they shackle him and take him back to the intake cell for what we call Administrative Segregation, or Ad Seg. Depending on how long you’re assigned to stay, it’s the worst experience a man can have here. He’s in his underwear for days, no shower, no exercise, no place to sit or lie except the bare floor. No pillow or even a blanket. Eats sack lunches of thin lunchmeat sandwiches. No contact with anyone.”

“What if they refuse to allow themselves to be cuffed?”

“We inject noxious gas into their house. Sometimes it takes two canisters, but not even the toughest can stand that for long. Either they back up to the slot and get cuffed, or we burst in and subdue them. Some of these guys have a high pain threshold. They’ll camp out at the back of their cell, coughing, wheezing, crying, but they won’t surrender. And when the squad comes in with pepper spray and Tasers and all, they kick and punch and pinch and scratch and bite until the team forces them flat on the floor. It’s a game to them. They have nothing to lose. We videotape every extraction to cover ourselves legally.”

“But they have to know they’re going to Ad Seg, right?”

“Sure. Some of ’em do it just to be obstinate, some for the attention—any is better than none, they figure—and some do it just for the change of pace and scenery. Listen, some guys eat pieces of their cell. Anything small enough to fit in their mouths, they try to ingest it. Plastic around the light fixture. Wire mesh. Anything that will get them in trouble, give them a health issue—which we’re required to treat. These guys are the most innovative on earth.

“There’s all kinds of ways for a guy to break the rules. Refuse to return his tray to the slot. Refuse to return every utensil and dish. Disobey a direct command. Spit at an officer—that’s a felony. Refuse to stand during what we call the live count. There are three counts every twenty-four hours, but the one just before dinner demands that each man is standing by his bunk so we know he’s alive and well.

“Any contraband that turns up during cell searches is grounds for discipline. Like I said, these guys’ll make weapons of anything they get their hands on. I’ll show you our samples room last. You won’t believe it. But first death row and the execution area. Ever seen one?”

Thomas shook his head. He was curious, but he already had more to consider than he had ever dreamed. No TV show or movie came close to this reality. It would have been all right with him to put off this part of the tour for another day, but he was getting the picture that this may be his only extended time with the warden, and he dare not exhibit any weakness.

“Death row looks just like any other pod, but it’s in the very bowels of the place. As you can see, no one’s getting out of here. It simply isn’t possible, and we overdo it to make doubly sure. The condemned are as far from any ultimate exit as they can be. Eleven envelopes, then the main gate, then the guardhouse, then the fence.

“Nine of the cells on the row are filled right now, and none of these guys has ever been more’n twenty feet from this pod, unless it’s for meetings with their lawyers, and that’s all within this envelope too. Well, come to think of it, we got us a Native American back here who gets access to the sweat lodge every so often.”

“The what?”

“Your brochures will tell you about that. There’s a handbook on ‘religion behind bars.’ Bottom line, if a guy can prove he holds a sincere belief, we have to accommodate him, short of a compelling governmental interest, such as security. And I hope you know that even though you’re a Christian and a Protestant and all that, you work for the state, and you have to try to get things to any of these guys, regardless of their religion. Wicca, Islam, you name it; if they want a book or a pamphlet, you can’t deny ’em unless the publication promotes violence or crime. Anything you end up stocking for their spiritual health has your stamp on it. It’s lent to them for the length of their stay. They’re only borrowing it, but they can have it until their release or execution.”

“I have to accommodate even satanists?”

“So far we’ve dodged that one, because the very nature of satanism seems to violate our compelling interests. It helps that the governor and I agree on that, and George doesn’t cater to Washington. But you’re going to hafta get familiar with the RLUIPA. That’s the Religious Land Use Institutional Persons Act, and it’s the one that makes us provide wood and fire in an area where American Indians can build a sweat lodge, if that’s their sincerely held belief.”

The two-tiered death row was noisy, but not as much as the other pods Thomas had seen. Some of the men glanced at him; others just sat looking nowhere. Two were busy writing. Three others were watching TV. It was not lost on Thomas that two had open Bibles in their cells.

“That one’s doing it just for your benefit,” Yanno whispered, “but this one over here might be for real. Henry Trenton. Calls himself the Deacon, and he had a regular meeting with Russ every week.”

“Here, or in the—”

“Here, which is unusual. Typically a guy will ask for a visit in the separation room, just for something different to do, but mostly because he wants to talk confidentially. It’s considered a bad thing to have the chaplain visiting your house all the time. Makes you look soft. Being what they call chaplain-friendly is not a good thing. What you do for one guy, you’ve got to do for all. If the chaplain goes with a con to his parole board hearing, believe it or not, it looks bad to the board—for the con and the chaplain.”

“You don’t say.”

Yanno nodded. “The con looks desperate. You look like a pushover. I’ve never seen a chaplain change a board’s mind.”

The Deacon, gray-haired and looking late sixties, sat gazing at the two men. “You wanna meet the new chaplain, Deke?”

The old man shrugged.

“It’s up to you,” the warden said.

The Deacon stood, and the two approached. Thomas took his cue from the warden and stayed back from the door.

“Child murderer,” the Deacon said, as casually as if calling himself a member of the local Jaycees.

“Sorry?” Thomas said.

“Murdered three kids so they wouldn’t rat me out. But here I am.”

Thomas introduced himself.

“You can’t replace Russ, I hope you know.”

“I wouldn’t even try. I’ll just be myself. But if you’d like to continue your weekly meetings—”

“That will be totally up to you,” the warden said.

“Yeah, well, not likely,” the Deacon said. “But I’ll think about it.” He sat back down and looked away.

“Did I offend him?” Thomas said.

LeRoy chuckled. “Did you offend him? He offended society and God and children and every rational human being. Don’t you worry about offending him. His execution is scheduled before the end of the year, and all his appeals have been exhausted.”

“How awful.”

“Yeah, no. It’s long past due. Now, come on, I’ll show you the contraband sample room. The execution chambers are on the way.”

“Chambers, plural?”

“Oh, yeah. We’re the only facility in the United States that’s a full-service death provider.”

Yanno’s attempt at humor made Thomas shudder.

“Yep, we let the condemned decide. Hardly any place has a gallows anymore, but we do. And even fewer have electric chairs. Barbaric, they say. Ours sits in a gas chamber—another dying breed. Guy can sit strapped in that chair and take the juice or the gas. Then there’s the hospital room, as our guys call it. That’s supposedly the humane way to go, you know. They paralyze you, then pump you with poison.”

They came into view of three glassed-in rooms that looked out onto a bank of two dozen chairs for viewers. The warden flipped a switch, and the blinds raised in all three rooms. The first was about double the size of a phone booth, with an ancient wooden stairway leading to a platform with a four-by-four beam extended horizontally above it. “Just enough room for an officer, an executioner, and a chaplain, besides the condemned. Noose goes around the beam. Spring-loaded trapdoor gives way. Bingo.”

The next room bore the ugly chair with its metal skullcap, leather straps, and cords running everywhere. “Our multipurpose room,” Yanno said. “You get your choice, but you have to pick one. And then there’s the fancy room, with the gurney and all the comforts of a hospital. This is the one Washington wants us to use, if any at all, though you know even this has come under fire as inhumane. What do they think murder is? The press hates that we offer the menu of four options. Other states are jealous. We agree some of these methods are more gruesome than others, but as the result is the same, and justice is the game, we don’t much care which a guy chooses.”

“Has the Deacon chosen?”

“He’s old-school. Wants the noose. I think it sounds glamorous to him. Maybe you’re lucky he doesn’t seem to take to you. Maybe he won’t ask you to stand up there when he drops.”

Lord, spare me.

“Hey, you wanna sit in the chair, get your picture taken?”

“Are you serious?”

“Absolutely! Lots of people have done that. Just say the word.”

“Warden LeRoy, I need to ask you a serious question. Your answer will not change my mind—and I might as well tell you up front that there is nothing I’d less rather do. . . .”

“There’s no danger! Power’s off. We strap you in, even put the cap on you, put a mask on—”

“No, sir. Thank you.”

“But you had a question.”

“I’m just wondering if it makes me look soft for not wanting to.”

The warden studied him. “No. No, it doesn’t. Makes you look mature. Sensible even. I don’t show off the picture of me, though my family gets a kick out of it. You can imagine what the press would do with it. If it makes you feel any better, Russ was just as dead set against it as you.”

“That does make me feel better.”

“I respected him for it. You too.”

Subdued—shaken was more like it—Thomas followed Yanno to the sample room. It was a macabre museum, exhibiting the endless creativity of the criminal mind. Here he saw bars of soap in a sock, meant to be used as a club that could render an officer unconscious. Plastic toothbrushes had been filed to points so sharp they could pierce a man’s chest to his heart. Electrical wire, removed from the wall and woven, then sharpened, was as deadly as a razor. Knives formed from the tiny blades inside disposable razors. Hardware from a bunk had been fashioned into a supersharp shank.

“What’s this?” Thomas said, lifting what appeared to be a papier-mâché knife. It looked brittle but felt solid as steel.

“Believe it or not, that is made of toilet paper, toothpaste, fruit juice, syrup, and sugar. All that, mixed and tightly wound and left to dry for several days, results in the weapon in your hands. This particular one found its way into the forearm of one of our biggest and toughest officers. He required forty stitches and was out of work nearly a month.”

“And what did the perpetrator suffer for that?”

“Three months in Ad Seg and another twenty years added on to a life sentence, which means nothing to him. He gained a rep with the rest of the population that he felt was worth the time in the hole.”

Thomas had taken only one bite of the party doughnut and one sip of coffee, so he should have been hungry by the time Yanno walked him back to his office. But with the sights and smells and sounds colliding in his brain—slamming doors, turning locks, alarms, two-way radios, intercoms, TVs, shouting, swearing—food was the furthest thing from his mind.

After thanking the warden for his time and assuring him that, yes, he believed he could learn to adapt and to handle this, Thomas slumped at his desk. His plan that first day had been to not bring a lunch but rather follow the crowd to the staff cafeteria. He’d wanted to get to know his colleagues informally and get a taste of institutional food, which Gladys had assured him was much better than what the inmates were rationed.

But Thomas could not bring himself to rise from his chair.

“Oh, Lord, I’ve been so sheltered. I had no idea. I feel empty, worthless, without any resource to reach these men. Help me. Give me something. Show me what I can do.”

Suddenly he wanted more than anything to be with Grace. He wasn’t sure how much he should tell her. She would want to help somehow, to come alongside and aid him in this ministry. But he would never allow her into that pit. Nothing would be served by so offending her sensibilities. Anyway, he had five hours before he would see her. Much as he wanted to be anywhere but right there right then, how would it look, his leaving early the first day on the job?

This was hardly the only crisis in his life. He reminded himself that the regular hours, the ability to attend church rather than lead it, the extra time he’d get with Grace—all those were on the positive side of this ledger.

But he worried about Grace’s health. She was better, that was certain, but clearly not back to her old self.

And then there was Ravinia. How he ached for her! Ironically, she would be encouraged by this new career path of his. But he could not call her without Grace on the other line. It just wouldn’t be right.

They had decided not to hound Ravinia, and they had even chosen not tell her of this chaplaincy until it was a done deal. Well, now it was. They could call her that night.