71

Administrative Wing

“This I got to see to believe,” the warden said the next morning as Thomas sat across from him. “Quiet, you say?”

“Like nothing I’ve ever experienced here, sir, especially on the Row.”

Gladys knocked. “Okay, what in heaven’s name is going on?” she said, her fist full of paper. “We got all these in this morning’s interoffice mail.”

She slapped them down in front of the warden, and he began to pick through them, finally lifting his eyes to Thomas. “You been complaining about too light a workload. Well, here you go, Mr. Gung Ho.”

Nearly every man on the Row had requested a visit from the chaplain, and not one of them in the isolation unit.

“This is as close as I’ll ever get to having a group meeting here,” Thomas said.

“You better just go slow, that’s all I got to say,” Gladys said. “Something doesn’t smell right, and the review board is gonna be sus-pi-cious. These men are up to something.”

“Let’s go down there,” the warden said. “Gladys, how long has it been since you’ve been on the floor?”

“Oh no you don’t. More’n six years, and that’s too recent. I was with you, and they still wouldn’t leave me alone.”

“These guys might behave this time,” Thomas said. “They would have yesterday; I guarantee it.”

“Well, maybe so, but lucky for me and you, not to mention them, I’m busy.”

Death Row

The polite banging and scraping began just as breakfast was ending, and someone called out, “Brady! You talking again today?”

Brady quietly began with passages from the Gospel of John.

“I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God. . . . I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life. So don’t be surprised when I say, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it wants. Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit.”

Brady hesitated as officers arrived at a cell across the way. It was time for the man’s shower, but he held up his index finger as if asking that they wait a moment, and to Brady’s utter amazement, they turned and looked at him, as if giving him permission to continue.

“These are the words of Jesus,” Brady said. “No one has ever gone to heaven and returned. But the Son of Man has come down from heaven. And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in Him will have eternal life.

“For God loved the world so much that He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent His Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through Him.”

The intercom crackled. “Keep moving, gentlemen. Darby isn’t going anywhere.”

The officers escorted the man away, and Brady continued, breaking only while the shower was running. And while he waited silently, so did everyone else.

Thomas and the warden had showed up just as Brady was interrupted by the supervisor from inside the observatory. They stood off to the side, and Thomas peeked at the boss.

LeRoy was wide-eyed. “Can’t believe it,” he said.

When the shower stopped and all that could be heard was the man dressing and being cuffed, Brady began again.

“There is no judgment against anyone who believes in Him. But anyone who does not believe in Him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son. And the judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed. But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants.”

Brady stopped and nodded at Thomas, who looked over at the warden.

“What?” LeRoy said.

“He wants me to jump in. May I?”

“And what, quote some verses?”

The signals from the cells began. “They want more.”

“Then by all means. You can stand on your head and spit wooden nickels if it keeps them quiet.”

Thomas stepped in front of Brady’s house and turned to face the rest of the block.

“‘I know the plans I have for you,’ says the Lord. ‘They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. In those days when you pray, I will listen. If you look for Me wholeheartedly, you will find Me.’

“How can you say the Lord does not see your troubles? How can you say God ignores your rights? Have you never heard? Have you never understood? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of all the earth. He never grows weak or weary. No one can measure the depths of His understanding. He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless. Even youths will become weak and tired, and young men will fall in exhaustion. But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint.”

Suddenly the place erupted with applause and cheering. Thomas was overcome and looked to Brady in tears, then stepped away.

Brady said, “I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes. . . . This Good News tells us how God makes us right in His sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. As the Scriptures say, “It is through faith that a righteous person has life.’”

Thomas quickly collected himself and stepped back in as if part of a tag team.

“It is this Good News that saves you if you continue to believe the message I told you—unless, of course, you believed something that was never true in the first place. I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day.”

There was another lull as another man was escorted to the shower. The warden said, “I’m getting Gladys down here to see this. These guys’ll behave; I can just feel it.”

He moved into the observatory, and Thomas saw him on the phone. A few minutes later Gladys arrived, accompanied by an officer. She looked shy and tentative, and while Thomas had heard some catcalling as she advanced through the other units, not a man on the Row said a word.

As soon as the inmate was out of the shower, the clicking and clacking began, and Brady started in.

“I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by Himself. He does only what He sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows Him everything He is doing. . . . You will truly be astonished. . . . Anyone who does not honor the Son is certainly not honoring the Father who sent Him.”

Brady paused. Then, “Jesus said, ‘I tell you the truth, those who listen to My message and believe in God who sent Me have eternal life. They will never be condemned for their sins, but they have already passed from death into life.’

“Anyone who is thirsty may come to Me! Anyone who believes in Me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.’”

Thomas was startled when Brady stopped and Gladys stepped forward. She kept her head down, staring at the floor, her hands clasped before her. Then, in her low voice, at once sweet and raspy and soulful, she softly sang.

Alas! and did my Savior bleed,

And did my Sovereign die?

Would He devote that sacred head

For such a worm as I?

Was it for crimes that I have done

He groaned upon the tree?

Amazing pity! grace unknown!

And love beyond degree!

Well might the sun in darkness hide

And shut its glories in,

When God, the mighty maker, died

For His own creature’s sin.

Thus might I hide my blushing face

While His dear cross appears,

Dissolve my heart in thankfulness,

And melt my eyes to tears.

But drops of tears can ne’er repay

The debt of love I owe;

Here, Lord, I give myself away—

’Tis all that I can do.

To a smattering of polite applause, Gladys hurried away.

“Gentlemen,” Warden LeRoy said, “I don’t want to spoil the mood. You boys are having some kind of church in here, and that’s all right with me. Several of you requested visits from the chaplain, and, well, here he is. I’m overruling the policy that says you got to wait until the review board approves it. He’s gonna go right down the line and talk with each of you as long as you want. That all right with you?”

“Can that lady come back and sing for us again sometime?” someone said.

“I don’t see why not, if she’s willing and you all act respectful. You know there’s no assembling here, but I don’t guess it violates anything if we bring the meeting to you. Everybody has to agree to it, though. One of you holds out and we can’t do it. Anybody?”

No one spoke up.

“No guarantees, no promises, and no second chances. One incident and this all goes away.”

Revival in a prison—and not just any prison but a supermax? And not just in any cellblock but on death row? Thomas felt he could have left for heaven right then.

Frank LeRoy turned and gave him a long look before departing, and Thomas read into it everything he thought was implied—that the warden was impressed, stunned though he was, and that Thomas should do whatever was necessary to ride this wave as long as it lasted.

Brady took a break while Thomas began his rounds of visiting the prisoners. Apparently none of them wanted to miss Brady’s recitations, so no one complained.

Some of the men were more articulate than others, but all expressed some variation of not knowing what had come over them. Some admitted they were embarrassed, but all asked for Bibles. Thomas would have to check his inventory. Running out of New Testaments had never been an issue before.

When he finished with the last man, he addressed them all. “I’m going to ask the warden if I can schedule a brief meeting like we just had—with some Scripture, a prayer, and even Gladys singing—every Friday if the Row has no incidents during the week. Fair enough?”

There was clapping and rattling.

Someone said, “No offerings now, hear?”

It wasn’t long before the Death Row Revival leaked—likely through a corrections officer—and the story rivaled time on the air for the coming unique execution.

The cons seemed to enjoy hearing about themselves on the news, and somehow they were able to uphold their end of the bargain. As for the warden, the question was barely out of Thomas’s lips before he said, “Yeah,” not even followed by a “no.”

“Got to love the reward system, Reverend. You’ve learned a thing or two here, haven’t you?”

“I have, but I wouldn’t have predicted this in a million years.”

“Me either, but it’s got to be a God thing, don’t you think?”

“That’s your assessment, Warden? You’re giving God the credit?”

“Well, I’d love to say it was your doing or Brady’s. Truth is, I’d love to take credit for it, but it just happened. And you say nothing just happens, right?”

“You won’t get an argument from me, Frank. I do need to requisition some more New Testaments.”

“Right now you can have just about anything you want.”