The
jailer led me from the room in which I had been talking with Sheriff Doyle to a
nearby office which appeared to be the base of operations for the jailhouse. There was a wall of twenty-three individually
numbered television screens to my left which were monitoring each of the cells
in the building. When the husky, vacantly
smiling jailer wordlessly motioned for me to turn around so he could remove my
handcuffs, I began a futile search of each screen for the familiar image of my
friend Bull. As I felt the tight grasp
of the cold steel handcuffs release from my now aching wrists, the jailer
pointed to a heavy wooden chair next to a large metal desk at the far end of
the room. I moved to take my seat in the
chair, but continued my search of the monitors on the opposite wall. The jailer noticed where my attentions were
focused and offered, “Gunville’s in number thirteen.”
“Huh?”
I looked over my shoulder, and saw that he was pointing to a monitor near the
center of the surveillance wall. The
screen he was drawing my attention towards had a worn piece of masking tape in
one corner with the number thirteen scrawled in black marker.
“You’re
looking for Gunville’s cell,” he stated matter-of-factly as he squeezed his body behind
the hulking metal desk, and sat in a creaky, cushioned metal chair that looked
to be about fifty years old. “He’s in
cell thirteen… right there.” He pointed
his finger again towards the wall of monitors. The monitor marked with a thirteen was seemingly vacant of activity. “He pretty well knows where to keep himself out of sight of the camera though. He thinks it makes us crazy. He’s actually right, though. It does.”
The jailer pulled an old microphone on a small stand towards him from
one corner of the desk, pressed the talk button and leaned down to speak into it. “Gunville, front and center… wave goodbye to
your buddy. He’s going home.”
“Can
everybody hear you?” I asked quietly.
“Nah…
not unless I need to talk to everybody.
Gunville is by himself in that cell, though. Apparently motherfuckers would rather sleep on
the floor than share a cell with him.
Honestly, I don’t blame ‘em.” The
jailer chuckled and pushed the microphone back into the corner.
I
watched monitor number thirteen as Bull’s orange-clad silhouette appeared in
sight of the camera. At first his back
was to the camera, but he turned around slowly and raised his head up to look
directly into the camera. The image was
poorly focused, but there was without a doubt a smile on Bull’s face that I had
become familiar with during the tenure of our friendship. The smile was as fierce and confident in the
view of that jailhouse camera as it had ever been in the time I had known
him. Again I saw him silently mouth the
words ‘Go home’ into the camera and
as quickly as he had appeared in view he disappeared again.
I
stopped watching monitor number thirteen and sat down in the solid,
uncomfortable, ancient chair that I had been directed into. I began rubbing the dented, irritated marks
on my wrists where the handcuffs had previously been restraining me, and
nervously ran my hands through my long, stringy hair. When I had tucked my hair behind my ears,
effectively removing it from my face, I was nauseated to feel the greasy filth
of my unwashed hair on my scaly, ashen hands.
When I looked down at the hands in my lap, I was even more appalled at
the sight of the blackish-green grime underneath the jagged, unkempt
fingernails of what immediately began to feel like appendages belonging to
somebody other than myself. I tried to
stop staring at my filthy hands, only to look up and find a shockingly alien
reflection of myself looking back at me from a two-way mirror on the wall
facing where I sat. My chest tightened
as I began to feel the irrational pangs of panic close in on my mind. If I hadn’t had the ability to find some
sense of reality in the movements my body was making, which unrealistically appeared
to be being mimicked by the reflection I was witnessing in that silvery glass
window facing me, I might never have believed that this image was my own.
The
eyes staring back at me were glaring wildly from sunken, hollow craters on
either side of my prominent nose, which was centered on a vaguely familiar face
that appeared to be a covered by pale, glazed skin pulled too tightly over the
skull. The phantom reflection’s hair was hanging
behind the ears in strands of stringy clumps.
In an effort to avoid this image I turned my body towards the jailer
seated to my right behind the large metal desk.
“Are
you alright, buddy? You aren’t gonna be
sick are you? You just turned about three
shades paler than you were… if that were possible.” The nameless jailer looked genuinely
concerned.
“Hell,
I’m not sure. But, I don’t recognize
THAT guy over there.” I pointed towards the window-sized mirror, laughed
uncomfortably, and found a coffee mug of pens and pencils on the jailer's desk to occupy
my attention.
“Oh…
that…” he responded affirmatively, “yeah, you look like shit, man. What the fuck did you expect? You came in here four days ago strung out on
dope, haven’t eaten a damned thing I’ve sent back there for you the whole time,
and didn’t move from that corner you fell into until I came to get you a little
while ago. You should be happy you could
walk on your own.”
“Guess
I was tired… but fuck…”
“You did
it to yourself, dipshit…” he began collecting papers from a manila file folder
with my name written on the tab. He held
the papers in front of him, thumbing through the small stack, apparently
looking for something he needed. “Listen,
you should probably call somebody to come pick you up. I can dial for you on this phone here, but
then I have to go find your bond papers and copy a couple of other things. I’ll be in the next room, so don’t get nosy
while I’m gone. Just sit in that chair
and make your call, okay?”
“Yeah…
sure… you bet.” I was still concentrating very hard on not looking at either of
my hands, or the accusatory mirror and the reflection it held that I had begun
to imagine was desperately waving at me, trying to get my attention.
“So,
do you know who you want to call? The sheriff
left the number your wife gave him. I’m
pretty sure that means he wants you to call her… but that’s just the sheriff’s
friendly suggestion.” He held up a piece
of paper with my wife’s name scrawled across it above the familiar phone
number of the house we had shared before I had become estranged from her to pursue the illicit life that had landed me here. “As hard as you think it’s going to be, I’d
make peace with the sheriff’s suggestion… if I were you.” He hesitated briefly
for dramatic effect, “but I’m NOT you, and I really don’t mind saying that I am
damn glad of that.”
“No,
I don’t mind you saying that either at the moment,” I drew a deep, shaky
breath. “Will you please call that
number you have for me?”
“Sure
thing,” he reached in front of him and pushed the button which activated the
speakerphone. He dialed the number, and
waited while there were several moments of silence before the call connected. I could hear the ringing signal from the
speaker, and finally the familiar sound of my wife’s interminably sweet,
southern-flavored voice answering the phone on her end.
“Hello?”
“Ma’am,
this is Deputy Charles Knowles over here at the Littleton County Jail. Sheriff Doyle gave me this here phone number,
apparently at your request. It seems
that we have in our custody a man who claims to be your husband.”
“Yes
sir, I’m aware of the situation.” I
recognized exhaustion in my wife’s voice, but more importantly I wanted to
believe that I heard concern. “The
sheriff told me that if he cooperated with y’all and came to his senses that he might be able to
finally come home to us. I hope you have
some good news for me, Deputy Knowles.”
“Well,
ma’am… if your interpretation of good news is that the state’s attorney over
here and Sheriff Doyle have decided that he can be released to you of his own
recognizance, then I’m glad to say that I am indeed calling with good news.”
There
was a hanging silence from her end of the phone. The silence seemed interminable until the
deputy interrupted it.
“Ma’am?”
I
was suddenly startled and ashamed of myself to hear the sound of tears in my
wife’s voice.
“Is
he there with you, deputy?”
“Yes
ma’am… he’s sitting right here. I have
to tell you though, he looks pretty rough.
He even scared the shit out of himself when he saw his reflection a
minute ago. I’d tell you to go easy on
him, but he really doesn’t deserve it in my opinion.
Do you want to speak with him for a minute?”
“Thank
you deputy, and please… I’d like to talk to him.”
“You
bet,” The deputy reached across the desk and picked up the phone, covering the
end used to speak into with his hand.
“I’m
going into the next room… don’t move from that chair… and try not to forget how
lucky you are that this woman is making any effort at all for you.”
“Thanks…
I’ll try.” I took the phone from his
hand, and held it in front of me while he got up from the chair at the desk to
leave the room. When he had squeezed back out from behind the desk and disappeared
through the open doorway I drew the phone close to my head and listened to the
earpiece for a moment before I began talking.
“Hello?” My voice was shaking, along with my hands and
legs in a fit of nervous tremors.
“Baby…” I could hear the tears in my wife’s eyes, and
felt the shaking awkwardness in her voice.
She was sobbing quietly and drawing short, embattled breaths. I felt like it had been years since I had
heard her speak so kind a word to me as this one simple term of endearment. I was confused by the series of emotions
ripping through my consciousness as I searched for something profound to
say. I surrendered my pride in a moments
passing, and responded simply.
“Yeah,
baby… It’s me.” All at once words
began to fall from my lips uncontrollably, and without regard for their intended recipient, “I’m really
scared right now, and I don’t even recognize myself in the fucking mirror. I’m terrified to look at what I've become… I’m afraid
to look at my hands and I’m ashamed to think that you’ll be scared of me too.” I wasn’t sure where these words were coming
from, as I had been unrepentant for all of these things for longer than I could remember at the moment. Tears began to stream from
my eyes silently and without warning. “I don’t want to do
this anymore… and I am so, so sorry. I regret what it has
become. Do you really want me to come
home?”
“More
than anything, baby… more than anything.
When can I come get you?”
“Can
you come right now?” I hurt my throat
trying to keep it from cracking with a sob.
“I’m
leaving right now… I love you.”
“I
love you too.”
When I
heard the phone click on her end I reached as far as I could onto the desk
without lifting myself from the chair I had been instructed to remain in, and
dropped the phone several inches from its cradle. I wiped the tears from my burning face and
sat silently in the room.
As
suddenly as the tears had appeared in my eyes they had become absent. In an attempt to continue avoiding having to look at my
reflection in the mirror I looked instead to the wall of monitors on the adjacent wall. One monitor in particular caught my immediate
attention. In monitor number thirteen,
Bull’s figure was again visible to the camera.
His face appeared to be staring purposefully past the camera and monitor receiving its feed. He was staring directly at where I sat in the hard, uncomfortable chair. As I watched him staring at me from cell
thirteen he silently mouthed one simple command, while holding an imaginary
phone to his ear.
Go home now brother. I will call you soon…
He
looked away and wandered back out of the view of the camera.
This work is the intellectual property of Jerome J. Panozzo
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