Notes on an Execution(27)

Joy is a cousin of love, you read once. If you cannot feel love, there is at least this weaker relative, tantalizing in memory: the relish of meat, perfectly cooked, melting on the tongue. You know how to swallow, to close your eyes and delight.

*

You recognize Shawna by her footsteps.

Shawna shuffles when she walks, so unlike the hefty stomping of the men. A limping drag, constantly unsure of herself. The baby’s screaming has passed, and you sit on the edge of your cot, taking steady breaths. The baby is dead, you tell yourself. The baby is dead. You remember the social worker who sat you down as a child, her knuckles thick and gnarled: Your brother is in a better place now, she said, too busy or too pained to look you in the eye.

Shawna walks by, sent on some other errand, peering anxiously through your window. The inmates are constantly harassing her, masturbating against the glass as she walks by—gunning her down, they call it. But to Shawna, you are different. There is fear in her glance. Excitement. Before you ever saw her face, you heard the tentative scratch of her boots on the concrete and you knew: Shawna is a woman made up of other people’s perceptions. The most malleable type. She shops at Costco, she bites her nails. She never learned how to properly apply makeup, so it runs in blue streaks beneath her eyes. Shawna is the kind of woman who likes to be told exactly who she is.

You have whispered with Shawna, you have schemed with Shawna, you have passed illicit notes. The two inmates on either side of you have likely heard it all—but Jackson and Dorito know not to mess with you. You are very good at chess, and for this reason, you have the most valuable collection of commissary items on all of 12 Building, the only bargaining power this place affords. When you win a chess game—sometimes twice a day, calling out a checkmate down the hall—the bettors kite the profits your way, tied to the ends of a bedsheet. You slide every other prize to Jackson or Dorito, extra garlic bagel chips or nutty wafer bars. They stay quiet.

Now, as Shawna shuffles away, you feel a swell of pride. Those eyes, lit up with fever. Shawna is scaring herself. You have forty-nine minutes until the transfer to the Walls Unit. Shawna is reaching a peak she did not know she could climb.

You understand the outline of Shawna. When she gets off work, she goes home to her double-wide, where her husband’s shirts are still folded into sagging drawers, where his coats hang untouched above the vinyl welcome mat. He died less than a year ago: forklift accident. She makes Hamburger Helper for dinner, drinks a Bud Light in front of the static television.

It’s a nice little place, she told you, as you hashed out the details of the plan.

What will we do when I’m out? you asked. Tell me about it.

Well, Shawna said, we’ll make a big dinner. Steak grilled out on the porch. We’ll have a bottle of wine.

It’s insane, really, that Shawna believes you intend to stay at her house, twenty miles from Polunsky. That she hasn’t considered the dogs, or the helicopters, or the interrogation she’ll invariably undergo. It is possible that Shawna has considered these things and simply chosen to live inside her own fantasy—it doesn’t matter either way. You need her. You need her for the plan, and after, you need her to make sure your Theory gets out to the world. She has agreed to leak your notebooks to the press, submit them to publishers. Nothing else matters, as long as she goes through with this.

Everyone tells me I’m too nice, Shawna whispered that night, as she dragged a trembling hand across her mouth.

She looked so fragile. Like she might break if you bent her too far.

My love, you breathed. My love. How could that possibly be a bad thing?

*

It will happen on the transfer van at noon.

Shawna slipped into the warden’s office weeks ago. She found the stack of paperwork, detailing your transfer. The van number, the route. Her note this morning told you everything.

I did it.

This morning, Shawna swiped into the employee parking lot. She crowbarred the van door open, placed her husband’s old pistol beneath the driver’s seat.

Shawna has described the highway near her house, the surrounding area dense with woods. You will use your feet to pull the gun from beneath the driver’s seat, and you will aim with cuffed hands as you list your demands. Shawna has drawn a crude map in pencil on the back of a visitation form, and you will zag through the trees. When you reach the stream she has described, you will shed your clothes. A half mile more, and you will reach her trailer, where a box of hair dye and color contacts will be waiting on the kitchen counter, along with a pair of construction coveralls that once belonged to her husband.

There is the possibility—even likelihood—that it will all go horribly awry. The transfer team will be armed with assault rifles. You’ll take a bullet to the brain. You’ll be ripped to shreds by a well-trained Rottweiler or smashed to a pulp by a truck as you’re crossing the highway. But these options are all preferable to that room. The gurney.

*

Packer.

The warden is raspy, a graveled voice at your door.

The warden chews gum loudly, jaw pumping with the effort. The pores on his nose are the first thing you see, greasy and prominent, and his crew cut is even and flat. Some days he wears a wedding ring, but today he does not.

I wanna make sure you’re ready, the warden says. You know what will happen next? The chaplain’s gone over it all?

You nod. A subtle glance at your watch: thirty-five minutes until the transfer. In thirty-five minutes, you will be handcuffed and marched into the waiting van, which the warden believes will bring you to the Walls Unit. Inside that infamous building, there will be a holding cell. A chair, for the chaplain. A phone, for goodbye.