Sparring Partners(47)

“All the time.”

Cody carefully chooses an envelope and removes the letter. “The very first. April twenty-second, 1978. ‘Dear Cody. My name is Iris Vanderkamp and I live in North Platte, Nebraska. I am a member of St. Timothy’s Lutheran Church, and our ladies’ Bible class is starting a new project. We are reaching out to young men on death row. We are opposed to the death penalty and want to see it abolished. This may sound a bit odd—but is there anything I can do for you? Please write back and let me know. Sincerely, Iris.’?”

“I remember it like it was yesterday. We were having a Bible study at my house one night and Geraldine Fisher said she’d read a story about a lady in Omaha who’d been pen pals with a death row inmate for over twenty years, some poor man down south. They were about to put him in the gas chamber. That’s how it all got started. We searched for some names. Yours jumped out because you were only seventeen at the time, so young. So I wrote that letter, and I waited and waited.”

“I read your letter and I couldn’t believe it. Somebody out there knew my name, knew that I was on death row, and wanted to do something nice for me. Keep in mind, Miss Iris, and I know I’ve told you this a hundred times, but I have no family anywhere. And no friends. Not a single friend until you came along. Jack’s my friend, I guess, but he doesn’t really count because he’s my lawyer.”

“And you wrote me back.”

“I was so intimidated. I had never written a letter before and I’d never received one, other than stuff from the courts. But I was determined. I borrowed a dictionary from the library and studied every word. I wrote in block letters, like they tried to teach me in the first grade, I guess.”

“It was a beautiful letter. Not a single word was misspelled. I got the impression it took a long time to write it.”

“Hours and hours, but, hey, I have plenty of time. It kept me busy, gave me a purpose. I wanted to impress you.”

“You made me cry, and not for the last time.”

“You know, Miss Iris, when I came here as a boy I couldn’t read much. I dropped out of school when I was ten. I had bounced around so many schools, had so many teachers, that I didn’t care about learning. Brian escaped from a juvenile home and found me in foster care, again, and we ran away. That was the end of my schooling. I could read a little, but not very well. When I got this letter, I knew I had to answer it. I borrowed some paper and a pencil, got the dictionary, and I wanted every word to be perfect.”

“It was amazing to watch your handwriting improve over the years, Cody. At first you printed like a child.”

“I was a child.”

“But before long you were switching to cursive.”

“You asked me to, remember? Or I should say that you strongly suggested that I learn cursive and write like an adult.”

“I did. And I sent you a book on penmanship.”

Cody tosses the letter on the bunk, studies a wall of books for a second, then removes one from the shelf. “Here it is—Abbott’s Art of Cursive Penmanship. I spent hours with this book, Miss Iris. You sent me some money and I bought paper and pencils and practiced for hours and hours.”

Cody puts the book back and pulls out another one. He shows it to her and says, “And here’s the first dictionary, Miss Iris. Random House Webster’s College Dictionary. Paperback, of course, so we can’t be murdering one another with dictionaries. I’ve read the whole thing, Miss Iris, cover to cover, and more than once.”

“I know, I know. If you’ll recall, I’ve had to caution you about using big words. At times, you like to show off.”

Cody laughs and tosses the dictionary on the bunk. “Of course I’m showing off, but there’s no one else in the audience. What was the word that really ticked you off?”

“There have been so many, but ‘obstreperous’ comes to mind.”

“That’s it. Love that word. Noisy or unruly. There were other adjectives that you cautioned me about. Obsequious, lugubrious, pernicious, ubiquitous.”

“That’s enough. My point was that big words do not always convey big emotions, and a fancy vocabulary can get in the way of good writing.”

“I fell in love with words, the bigger the better.” Cody stares at the walls of books.

Miss Iris says, “You know, Cody, this place gives me the creeps, but all those books do add a bit of color to your little room.”

“These books saved my life, until now. You sent every one of them, Miss Iris, and you have no idea what they mean to me.”

“What was the first one?”

Cody smiles, points, then removes a paperback. “Mustang Man, by Louis L’Amour,” he says proudly as he opens the book. “The first time I read it, or I should say finished it, was June the tenth, 1978. It took me two months, Miss Iris, because I didn’t know so many of the words. When I saw a word I didn’t know, I would stop and write it down, then get the dictionary and look it up. When I finished a paragraph and knew every word, then I would stand up and pace back and forth and read it all the way through. It took forever, hours and hours, but I loved every minute of it. I loved the words, loved learning them, the long ones, the short ones. I kept a list of words I knew but wasn’t sure how to pronounce, so I would save it for Jack or the chaplain, or maybe even Marvin. I practiced and practiced until I knew all of them, Miss Iris. The entire dictionary.”