Life After Death: The Shocking True Story of a Innocent Man on Death Row (15 page)

The older I grow, the more I understand what the burned woman meant. Things I was able to walk through unscathed in my youth would mark me for life or damage me beyond repair now. Things I once shrugged off without thought would now bring about my collapse. I was much more flexible in both mind and body as a youth. I could absorb the impact and roll with the punches.

Twelve

I
t was amazing how quickly the hurt stopped. Humpty Dumpty had indeed been put back together again and he was a grinning fool. I sat slouched far down in my desk, lolling lazily as if there wasn’t a bone in my body. Deanna sat directly behind me, tracing the pattern of hair at the back of my neck and laughing low in her throat when I shivered. She leaned forward to whisper, “There’s only three days of school left. I don’t want to lose you again now that I’ve just got you back.” This was something I’d been contemplating but could find no solution to. We still had no way to see each other outside school hours. After a few moments she continued, “We can still do what we talked about.”

She meant leaving, of course. We had discussed running away together as a last resort. I hadn’t believed it would come to that; I was certain a solution would present itself. But time was quickly running out. “I’ll be your huckleberry”—never have I spoken truer words.

“Bring your things with you on the last day and away we’ll go.” That answer sealed my fate.

We talked about it nonstop, yet had no specific plan. We had no destination or goal in mind. We would be going on an adventure, and our excitement was palpable. We settled on the vague notion of “going west.” Neither of us had any idea what the magnitude of our actions would be.

When the final day of classes arrived, we came to school as usual. We would leave when it was over, simply drift off into the crowd, which would be delirious with the realization that school was over for another year. No one would even notice us. It was a daisy of a plan and came off without a hitch.

We took an extra-long route that I had never before explored. Jason walked with us. If you’re roaming aimlessly, then why not begin with the magickal land of Lakeshore? It normally took only about fifteen minutes to walk from school to our places, but this day it took two and a half hours of constant walking. We trod through empty fields far from any road, where there was zero chance of anyone eyeballing us.

At first Jason and I carried on with our usual bantering while Deanna laughed uproariously at our antics. She was amazed, because Jason never spoke in school, yet here he was chatting like a magpie. He and I could play off each other’s words all day, until eventually we were incapacitated with laughter. Not many people know it, but Jason is pretty hilarious. He has a caustic, smart sense of humor. After the first hour we got pretty quiet, though.

It was the heat, which was right at one hundred degrees. The sun beat down on us without mercy, baking our brains in our skulls. On a day when the television was warning others to stay indoors and out of the heat, we were outside maintaining a strenuous pace. Every step we took sent bone-dry clouds of dust into the air, and my mouth was so dry I could barely speak. There was nothing but flat, featureless fields in every direction. No trees, no buildings, and no shade. Not even a living blade of grass. The three of us were dressed in black, which didn’t help matters any. At one point I thought I would collapse from heatstroke. I was positive that I couldn’t force myself to keep going, yet I still did, one step after another. One foot, two foot, red foot, blue foot.

We finally arrived in Lakeshore and proceeded to an abandoned trailer that we knew would be empty. The door was unlocked so we went inside and collapsed on the floor to rest. Even that hot trailer was a relief after facing the blistering sun. I handed Jason a wad of sweat-soaked dollar bills and moaned, “Drinks.” He left and made his way to the Lakeshore store. While he was gone Deanna changed into a set of my clothes that weren’t wet with sweat, as I’d had the presence of mind to bring along some extras. I didn’t bother changing, but I became obsessed with one idea. All I could think about was how wonderful it would be to wait until nightfall, then slip into that cool, crusty green lake. I no longer cared that it was filthier than a septic tank; I could practically feel its coolness against my skin. My tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth. We were alone, but so hot, tired, and nauseous that we could do nothing.

Jason finally returned with a paper sack of Mountain Dews and Dr Peppers. I drained a Mountain Dew in one long swallow, then popped open a Dr Pepper to drink at a more sedate pace. I felt life returning to me. He’d even had the wisdom to pick up some candy bars, so I quickly scarfed one of those. Full of sugar and caffeine, I was ready to juke and jive.

I investigated my surroundings while Jason told me breathlessly, “Man, every freak in the world is out there.” When I suggested it might help if he were slightly more articulate, he explained that all the neighborhood kids were looking for me like a pack of hounds, because the police had been looking for me, and they were now convinced they might receive some sort of reward for finding me. It seemed Deanna’s parents had wasted no time in calling the authorities to report her missing once they realized skulduggery was afoot.

“No shit?” I asked as I sat down in front of a piano, the only piece of furniture in the entire place. I found it slightly odd that someone lived in a trailer park but could still afford a piano. A few of the keys were busted, but I could still manage to play it a little (Nanny had taught me as a kid how to play church hymns on the organ), which I did while Jason told me they had tried to follow him, thinking he’d lead them to me. Deanna came and sat next to me on the piano bench while Jason peeked out a window. He turned to me and said something that hadn’t crossed my mind—“You better stop that, because if one of those freaks hears a piano playing in here they’re going to be pretty sure it’s not a ghost.” I snatched my fingers from the keys.

I sat quietly in thought for a few minutes before telling Jason that Deanna and I would sleep there that night, then say good-bye to him in the morning. There was no chance of him going with us because he was the only pillar of stability in his home. His mother, Gail, was unstable and suffered from schizophrenia; she might take medication for a period of time and improve, but once that happened, she frequently stopped taking it. She might tell Jason she was going out for a few hours and return several days later. If he was not there to take care of his two younger brothers, they would go feral like the Lakeshore dogs. He truly did have to be like a father figure to them, and I was always impressed by how competently he handled the task. Most people twice his age couldn’t do the job half as well. He left to go make supper for them.

The moment he was gone Deanna and I fell upon each other. Next came a mystery that I have never found the key to. Somehow, we were found.

For the last half-hour the sky had grown steadily darker, until the sun that had scorched us earlier was no longer visible. It signaled not the approach of night but the coming of one big, God-almighty storm. The wind picked up until I was absolutely certain a tornado would arrive at any moment. The sky was black as night and the wind continued to howl and blow so fiercely that it seemed the trailer would roll over, but not a single drop of rain fell.

The wind suddenly stopped. It didn’t die down, it just stopped all at once. A really bad feeling rippled up my spine. I stopped what I was doing and cocked my head to the side like a dog listening for a strange sound. “What is it?” Deanna asked.

I waited seconds before reluctantly admitting, “I don’t know.” All I knew was that my every cell had just been flooded with the fight-or-flight feeling, and I had a terrible sense of urgency.

“Then pay attention to me,” she said.

As I leaned forward to kiss her I heard glass shatter. “Shit!” I hissed as we grabbed our clothes. Even though I knew it was pointless and the jig was up, we still attempted to hide. It was a cop. Instead of opening the door and walking in, he felt the need to smash in a window and fulfill some sort of SWAT team fantasy. He later lied and said that we had busted out the window. He was a real piece of work—about four and a half feet tall, with the sort of mustache you see only on cops or seventies gay porn stars. He was the kind of guy who needed a badge and gun just to stop people from laughing at him. He found us almost immediately and started jerking us around.

As he was escorting us out the door, Deanna’s father approached. He put his hand on my shoulder and began breathing hard, as if he were having trouble restraining himself. I looked straight into his eyes and grinned like a jackal. I wanted him to know he could do nothing to me that was worse than what I’d already been through. The cop pushed him away and said, “Relax, just let me handle it.” He backed off and the cop put Deanna and me in the back of his car before returning to talk to her mother and father. I noticed that even her older sister had come out for the occasion, and I gave her my most charming smile.

While we sat in the car Deanna held my hands and said, “Whatever happens, you have to come find me.” I promised that I would, no matter what. She kissed me then, like she had seen the future. It was the last time we would ever touch. Another cop had pulled up, and they split us up, putting her in his car. She blew a kiss at me and waved good-bye as it drove off.

*  *  *

I
arrived at the Crittenden County jail on the outskirts of West Memphis, and was escorted to my suite. It was a dark, dank cell that smelled like feet and corn chips, a tiny space with a brown solid-steel door. There was no entertainment except for the graffiti, which covered every square inch of the walls. I was amazed at the things people had thought important enough to write there. For instance, someone thought it vital that the world know someone named “Pimp Hen” was adept at certain sexual maneuvers. I felt a bit like an archaeologist in a tomb.

I was left alone for what I estimated to be two or three hours, but it’s impossible to really tell time in a place like that. It’s a form of mental torture, and I only knew that it seemed like an eternity. I kept wondering,
Where is she? Is she in this building? Do they have her in a filthy hole like this one?
The graffiti offered no answers to these questions. I was pacing like an animal when a guard came and opened the door, motioning for me to follow. I was led to an office in which sat a bloated, corpulent man with beady little rat’s eyes. Jerry Driver, juvenile officer for the county, and I came face-to-face for the first time.

He had a pleasant-enough attitude as he introduced himself. He started asking questions and I answered honestly, thinking there was no reason not to. He asked why we were in the trailer, and I told him we had run away because her parents wouldn’t leave us alone. No, we didn’t know where we were going, and no, we didn’t know what we were going to do once we got there. We figured it would come to us in time.

This is where things started getting weird. The smile never left his face, which looked like folds of uncooked dough. “Have you heard anything about Satanists around town?”

I thought that a bit odd, but answered, “No.”

He continued to press on. “You haven’t heard anything about Satanists, plans to commit sacrifices or break into churches?” Those beady little rat’s eyes gleamed at me, like he was really starting to get off on thinking about this stuff. You could tell something just wasn’t right about him.

I was pretty certain I would have remembered a roving pack of bloodthirsty devil worshippers if they had passed me on the street while chatting loud enough about such topics, so I told him, “I’m pretty certain I haven’t.” He seemed to be considering something as he chewed his bottom lip with tiny, yellow-stained rat teeth. Finally he shifted his obese bulk to pull something out of his desk.

I could practically see his whiskers twitch as he said, “What can you tell me about this?” The object he held was Deanna’s little green diary. I wanted to reach out for it but knew it was pointless. I didn’t answer his question, knowing that it would be futile.

“Where is she?” It was my turn to ask questions. He told me she was being held at a women’s detention center in a town called Helena. He watched me closely as he said she had had “psychiatric trouble” in the past, and her parents thought it might be best if she was sent for treatment. She was being held until tomorrow, when she would be transported to a psychiatric hospital in Memphis. This was news to me. I knew nothing of any past “psychiatric trouble.” It may not even have been true, because I would soon learn that nothing he said was trustworthy. I didn’t know that then, though, and I sat there seeing images of Deanna in an insane asylum. All I could picture was the Anthrax video called “Madhouse,” in which everyone wore straitjackets.

I was told I’d spend the week in Craighead County jail, in Jonesboro, about an hour north of West Memphis, where someone would come talk to me. Jerry Driver himself drove me there. Everyone wore an orange jumpsuit that said “Craighead County” on the back, and you slept in a cell. There was a dayroom where inmates played Uno with an ancient deck of greasy, creased cards. Time seemed to come to an absolute standstill. Later I discovered that it made no sense for me to be there, because anyone else who had been picked up the way we were would have received nothing more serious than a warning, or a year of probation at the most, before being sent home. Deanna and I were being put in jail because Jerry Driver was not finished with us.

One day during that week I was escorted to a small room in the back of the courthouse to see a mountain of a woman who looked like she applied her makeup with a spatula. She talked to me for about an hour, then gave me a test, which consisted of showing me flash cards, before telling Jerry Driver, “We have a bed for him.” I was puzzled about the meaning of this until it was explained that I, too, would be going to a psychiatric hospital within the next few days. I suddenly saw myself in that “Madhouse” video.

I was left in the jail while they made arrangements for me to take a vacation in the nuthouse. I had about three days to wait for my transportation, and during that time I continuously paced from one end of the cell block to the other. There were about ten to fifteen other guys there at any given time, and I would later learn they were all typical jailbirds. I say “typical” because over the years I’ve had the opportunity to observe many people behind bars, and most of them have a tremendous amount in common. Greed, anger, frustration, lust, hatred, and jealousy, all housed in one body. I’ve always come to the same conclusion—it’s no wonder these guys are where they are.