in
town, the little ones who would go home and find their brothers' beds empty - I
believed that that little boy had spoken the real and only truth.
I
never said a thing.
Like
before, there are some things only to be known by yourself and God.
Later,
the tent down, the ground scattered with paper plates, chicken bones, brochures
trampled into the dirt beneath a thousand feet, Nathan and I stood and watched
as soldiers folded the vast canvas and packed it into a truck. The boys who had
become men that night had already left in buses.
Forty-six
of them in all.
By
Christmas all but twelve would be dead.
One of
them would return, having left much of the lower half of his body in Da Nang or
Ky Lam or some other godforsaken place.
His
name was Luke Schaeffer. He was a football player before he went, a good one, a
young man who would have walked a scholarship with the speed of that right arm.
He
told me stories I cannot bear to recall, even now - older, hardened, a little
cynical - there are images of which he spoke that threaten my sanity.
I did
not ask why then, I do not ask it now.
There
are some things that just are.
They
are part of being human.
And
that, if nothing else, was never a matter of choice.
----
Chapter Seven
The
priest who visited me at Sumter possessed an honest enough face. I would later
learn that this was a new gig for him, and I believed that perhaps some impropriety
or breach of conduct had brought him this position. Counsel to the dead. I
couldn't imagine anyone choosing to perform such a task.
His
name was Father John Rousseau, he was perhaps in his early forties, and he smoked
ceaselessly, one cigarette after the other. The Counselling Room, known as God's Lounge to those who still possessed sufficient humor to bother with
such things, was a narrow room with a single plain deal table, two chairs, a
one-way window through which interviews were video-taped, and a two-shelf
bookcase. In the center of the upper shelf were two books. A copy of the New
Testament & Psalms, and a Gideon's Bible.
John
Rousseau brought his own Bible, a beaten-to-shit leather volume which he clutched
as one would clutch the hand of a small child in a funfair crowd.
I
liked Rousseau's face, and despite our brief weekly meetings being neither a
matter of choice nor relevance, I appreciated the fact that I could spend an
hour talking to someone who seemed more concerned with my religious and
spiritual salvation than my lock-down time.
Our
first meeting was in August of 1982. It was a Tuesday, I remember that much,
and though I grew to like Father John Rousseau he began our first meeting on
the wrong foot.
He
greeted me, shook my hand, asked me to sit there at the plain deal table, and
then he told me he cared for neither my innocence nor my guilt.
A man
on Death Row thinks of little else but his own innocence or guilt.
He
then told me that he knew I was going to die, that he had spoken with
Penitentiary Warden Hadfield and there was little hope of any further effective
action being taken to either stay my execution or gain a reprieve. He said he
understood some of the details of my case and trial, that the issues raised had
cast it into the arena of politics, and once it had reached that point there
was little anyone would do to reverse the decisions made. It had become a
matter of losing face.
I
remember feeling the first stirrings of violence within. I was not a violent
man - never had been - but the almost complacent nonchalance with which he
seemed to pronounce my forthcoming death angered me. I clenched my fists
beneath the table, white balls of tense knuckles, and had I believed it would
serve any purpose I might have lashed out. If not physically, at least
verbally.
I
held my hands and my tongue.
town, the little ones who would go home and find their brothers' beds empty - I
believed that that little boy had spoken the real and only truth.
I
never said a thing.
Like
before, there are some things only to be known by yourself and God.
Later,
the tent down, the ground scattered with paper plates, chicken bones, brochures
trampled into the dirt beneath a thousand feet, Nathan and I stood and watched
as soldiers folded the vast canvas and packed it into a truck. The boys who had
become men that night had already left in buses.
Forty-six
of them in all.
By
Christmas all but twelve would be dead.
One of
them would return, having left much of the lower half of his body in Da Nang or
Ky Lam or some other godforsaken place.
His
name was Luke Schaeffer. He was a football player before he went, a good one, a
young man who would have walked a scholarship with the speed of that right arm.
He
told me stories I cannot bear to recall, even now - older, hardened, a little
cynical - there are images of which he spoke that threaten my sanity.
I did
not ask why then, I do not ask it now.
There
are some things that just are.
They
are part of being human.
And
that, if nothing else, was never a matter of choice.
----
Chapter Seven
The
priest who visited me at Sumter possessed an honest enough face. I would later
learn that this was a new gig for him, and I believed that perhaps some impropriety
or breach of conduct had brought him this position. Counsel to the dead. I
couldn't imagine anyone choosing to perform such a task.
His
name was Father John Rousseau, he was perhaps in his early forties, and he smoked
ceaselessly, one cigarette after the other. The Counselling Room, known as God's Lounge to those who still possessed sufficient humor to bother with
such things, was a narrow room with a single plain deal table, two chairs, a
one-way window through which interviews were video-taped, and a two-shelf
bookcase. In the center of the upper shelf were two books. A copy of the New
Testament & Psalms, and a Gideon's Bible.
John
Rousseau brought his own Bible, a beaten-to-shit leather volume which he clutched
as one would clutch the hand of a small child in a funfair crowd.
I
liked Rousseau's face, and despite our brief weekly meetings being neither a
matter of choice nor relevance, I appreciated the fact that I could spend an
hour talking to someone who seemed more concerned with my religious and
spiritual salvation than my lock-down time.
Our
first meeting was in August of 1982. It was a Tuesday, I remember that much,
and though I grew to like Father John Rousseau he began our first meeting on
the wrong foot.
He
greeted me, shook my hand, asked me to sit there at the plain deal table, and
then he told me he cared for neither my innocence nor my guilt.
A man
on Death Row thinks of little else but his own innocence or guilt.
He
then told me that he knew I was going to die, that he had spoken with
Penitentiary Warden Hadfield and there was little hope of any further effective
action being taken to either stay my execution or gain a reprieve. He said he
understood some of the details of my case and trial, that the issues raised had
cast it into the arena of politics, and once it had reached that point there
was little anyone would do to reverse the decisions made. It had become a
matter of losing face.
I
remember feeling the first stirrings of violence within. I was not a violent
man - never had been - but the almost complacent nonchalance with which he
seemed to pronounce my forthcoming death angered me. I clenched my fists
beneath the table, white balls of tense knuckles, and had I believed it would
serve any purpose I might have lashed out. If not physically, at least
verbally.
I
held my hands and my tongue.
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