he comes, escorted by two prison guards, one of whom tap-tap-taps his keys like castanets against the iron handrails.
The Tombs is arranged in four tiers with catwalks skirting each. Each catwalk is connected to the next by stairs, a bridge spanning the two sides of each gallery. On each bridge a guard sits idly reading or dozing. On the ground floor an iron Franklin stove sits idly, ready to heat the whole; diffuse light filters down from a skylight above the fourth tier.
Next to the cold stove, High Constable Jacob Hays sits. As he is led to his cell, Tommy Coleman, the unrepentant youth, feels Hays’ eyes boring in on him. He chooses not to meet them, staring down at his feet instead.
He is escorted to a cell on the first tier. A key is fitted to the lock bya harelipped keeper, and the door, reminiscent of that fronting a furnace, replete with small grated window, swings open.
“Step inside, hardbody,” the jailer says, removing the boy’s leg irons and wrist shackles before prodding him inside. “That’s a good young feller.”
The door clangs shut, the lock reengaged. The keeper smirks and is gone. His flat footfalls slap the granite cobblestones of the cell block.
It is late October yet warm, Indian summer. Still the prison floors are chilled and damp. Tommy gives his cell the once-over. Stone floor, stone walls, iron-barred window and door. A wooden slops bucket in the corner reeks of human waste. He knows all too well, from the experience of his brother Edward before him, that this is death row, and no rabbit-sucker was meant to leave this place alive.
He has made peace with his fate. If asked, he would not have said he was innocent. He would have said he was guilty.
But he considers murder too strong a word for what he has done.
What he has done, Tommy Coleman, is kill, and if he had to do it all over, he would have killed again, just the same.
18
The Tombs
T he Tombs is an unholy place. One drafty corridor links to another drafty corridor. One drafty cell abuts another drafty cell. The stink and unhealth of the swamp rises from beneath the foundation. The mortar is mildewed from moisture, foul from mold.
In the spring of 1842, the author Charles Dickens, on tour of the United States for a book he was writing, American Notes for General Circulation , requested specifically to visit the prison.
As High Constable Jacob Hays watched from his desk, the great man, the most popular writer in America despite him being an Englishman, was escorted through the Tombs’ corridors, at one point inquiring of his guide, a jailer named Trencher, “Pray, my good man, from where does the name Tombs derive?”
“Well, it’s the cant name,” came the reply from the blue-suited keeper, meaning the argot used by beggars and thieves.
“I know it is,” Hays heard the novelist snap, obviously impatient with those he perceived as simpletons. “But why?”
“S-some suicides happened here, when it was first built,” the beleaguered guard ventured. “I-I expect it come about from that.”
Hays rose from his desk then and came over to where the author stood.
“Forgive me, sir, for the interruption, but this is not from where the sobriquet comes. If you will, the House of Detention became known as the Tombs because a number of years ago the whole of this city was taken over with an Egyptology phenomenon.”
With Trencher looking on gratefully, Hays introduced himself and went on with his account.
A writer from Hoboken, he explained, H. L. Stevens, had set out for Arabia, returning with a manuscript entitled Stevens’ Travels , which became a sensation for the publishing house owned by Mr. George Palmer Putnam. The author made drawings to accompany his text, and one of these depicted an ancient mausoleum deep in the desert. The idea of this romantic crypt whetted the public’s collective imagination, the city fathers deciding in a moment of inspiration that the newly planned prison must be a replica of this
The Tombs is arranged in four tiers with catwalks skirting each. Each catwalk is connected to the next by stairs, a bridge spanning the two sides of each gallery. On each bridge a guard sits idly reading or dozing. On the ground floor an iron Franklin stove sits idly, ready to heat the whole; diffuse light filters down from a skylight above the fourth tier.
Next to the cold stove, High Constable Jacob Hays sits. As he is led to his cell, Tommy Coleman, the unrepentant youth, feels Hays’ eyes boring in on him. He chooses not to meet them, staring down at his feet instead.
He is escorted to a cell on the first tier. A key is fitted to the lock bya harelipped keeper, and the door, reminiscent of that fronting a furnace, replete with small grated window, swings open.
“Step inside, hardbody,” the jailer says, removing the boy’s leg irons and wrist shackles before prodding him inside. “That’s a good young feller.”
The door clangs shut, the lock reengaged. The keeper smirks and is gone. His flat footfalls slap the granite cobblestones of the cell block.
It is late October yet warm, Indian summer. Still the prison floors are chilled and damp. Tommy gives his cell the once-over. Stone floor, stone walls, iron-barred window and door. A wooden slops bucket in the corner reeks of human waste. He knows all too well, from the experience of his brother Edward before him, that this is death row, and no rabbit-sucker was meant to leave this place alive.
He has made peace with his fate. If asked, he would not have said he was innocent. He would have said he was guilty.
But he considers murder too strong a word for what he has done.
What he has done, Tommy Coleman, is kill, and if he had to do it all over, he would have killed again, just the same.
18
The Tombs
T he Tombs is an unholy place. One drafty corridor links to another drafty corridor. One drafty cell abuts another drafty cell. The stink and unhealth of the swamp rises from beneath the foundation. The mortar is mildewed from moisture, foul from mold.
In the spring of 1842, the author Charles Dickens, on tour of the United States for a book he was writing, American Notes for General Circulation , requested specifically to visit the prison.
As High Constable Jacob Hays watched from his desk, the great man, the most popular writer in America despite him being an Englishman, was escorted through the Tombs’ corridors, at one point inquiring of his guide, a jailer named Trencher, “Pray, my good man, from where does the name Tombs derive?”
“Well, it’s the cant name,” came the reply from the blue-suited keeper, meaning the argot used by beggars and thieves.
“I know it is,” Hays heard the novelist snap, obviously impatient with those he perceived as simpletons. “But why?”
“S-some suicides happened here, when it was first built,” the beleaguered guard ventured. “I-I expect it come about from that.”
Hays rose from his desk then and came over to where the author stood.
“Forgive me, sir, for the interruption, but this is not from where the sobriquet comes. If you will, the House of Detention became known as the Tombs because a number of years ago the whole of this city was taken over with an Egyptology phenomenon.”
With Trencher looking on gratefully, Hays introduced himself and went on with his account.
A writer from Hoboken, he explained, H. L. Stevens, had set out for Arabia, returning with a manuscript entitled Stevens’ Travels , which became a sensation for the publishing house owned by Mr. George Palmer Putnam. The author made drawings to accompany his text, and one of these depicted an ancient mausoleum deep in the desert. The idea of this romantic crypt whetted the public’s collective imagination, the city fathers deciding in a moment of inspiration that the newly planned prison must be a replica of this
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