Riven (62 page)

Thomas stepped in front of Brady’s house and turned to face the rest of the block.

“‘I know the plans I have for you,’ says the Lord. ‘They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. In those days when you pray, I will listen. If you look for Me wholeheartedly, you will find Me.’

“How can you say the Lord does not see your troubles? How can you say God ignores your rights? Have you never heard? Have you never understood? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of all the earth. He never grows weak or weary. No one can measure the depths of His understanding. He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless. Even youths will become weak and tired, and young men will fall in exhaustion. But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint.”

Suddenly the place erupted with applause and cheering. Thomas was overcome and looked to Brady in tears, then stepped away.

Brady said, “I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes. . . . This Good News tells us how God makes us right in His sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. As the Scriptures say, “It is through faith that a righteous person has life.’”

Thomas quickly collected himself and stepped back in as if part of a tag team.

“It is this Good News that saves you if you continue to believe the message I told you—unless, of course, you believed something that was never true in the first place. I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day.”

There was another lull as another man was escorted to the shower. The warden said, “I’m getting Gladys down here to see this. These guys’ll behave; I can just feel it.”

He moved into the observatory, and Thomas saw him on the phone. A few minutes later Gladys arrived, accompanied by an officer. She looked shy and tentative, and while Thomas had heard some catcalling as she advanced through the other units, not a man on the Row said a word.

As soon as the inmate was out of the shower, the clicking and clacking began, and Brady started in.

“I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by Himself. He does only what He sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows Him everything He is doing. . . . You will truly be astonished. . . . Anyone who does not honor the Son is certainly not honoring the Father who sent Him.”

Brady paused. Then, “Jesus said, ‘I tell you the truth, those who listen to My message and believe in God who sent Me have eternal life. They will never be condemned for their sins, but they have already passed from death into life.’

“Anyone who is thirsty may come to Me! Anyone who believes in Me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.’”

Thomas was startled when Brady stopped and Gladys stepped forward. She kept her head down, staring at the floor, her hands clasped before her. Then, in her low voice, at once sweet and raspy and soulful, she softly sang.

Alas! and did my Savior bleed,

And did my Sovereign die?

Would He devote that sacred head

For such a worm as I?

Was it for crimes that I have done

He groaned upon the tree?

Amazing pity! grace unknown!

And love beyond degree!

Well might the sun in darkness hide

And shut its glories in,

When God, the mighty maker, died

For His own creature’s sin.

Thus might I hide my blushing face

While His dear cross appears,

Dissolve my heart in thankfulness,

And melt my eyes to tears.

But drops of tears can ne’er repay

The debt of love I owe;

Here, Lord, I give myself away—

’Tis all that I can do.

To a smattering of polite applause, Gladys hurried away.

“Gentlemen,” Warden LeRoy said, “I don’t want to spoil the mood. You boys are having some kind of church in here, and that’s all right with me. Several of you requested visits from the chaplain, and, well, here he is. I’m overruling the policy that says you got to wait until the review board approves it. He’s gonna go right down the line and talk with each of you as long as you want. That all right with you?”

“Can that lady come back and sing for us again sometime?” someone said.

“I don’t see why not, if she’s willing and you all act respectful. You know there’s no assembling here, but I don’t guess it violates anything if we bring the meeting to you. Everybody has to agree to it, though. One of you holds out and we can’t do it. Anybody?”

No one spoke up.

“No guarantees, no promises, and no second chances. One incident and this all goes away.”

Revival in a prison—and not just any prison but a supermax? And not just in any cellblock but on death row? Thomas felt he could have left for heaven right then.

Frank LeRoy turned and gave him a long look before departing, and Thomas read into it everything he thought was implied—that the warden was impressed, stunned though he was, and that Thomas should do whatever was necessary to ride this wave as long as it lasted.

Brady took a break while Thomas began his rounds of visiting the prisoners. Apparently none of them wanted to miss Brady’s recitations, so no one complained.

Some of the men were more articulate than others, but all expressed some variation of not knowing what had come over them. Some admitted they were embarrassed, but all asked for Bibles. Thomas would have to check his inventory. Running out of New Testaments had never been an issue before.

When he finished with the last man, he addressed them all. “I’m going to ask the warden if I can schedule a brief meeting like we just had—with some Scripture, a prayer, and even Gladys singing—every Friday if the Row has no incidents during the week. Fair enough?”

There was clapping and rattling.

Someone said, “No offerings now, hear?”

It wasn’t long before the Death Row Revival leaked—likely through a corrections officer—and the story rivaled time on the air for the coming unique execution.

The cons seemed to enjoy hearing about themselves on the news, and somehow they were able to uphold their end of the bargain. As for the warden, the question was barely out of Thomas’s lips before he said, “Yeah,” not even followed by a “no.”

“Got to love the reward system, Reverend. You’ve learned a thing or two here, haven’t you?”

“I have, but I wouldn’t have predicted this in a million years.”

“Me either, but it’s got to be a God thing, don’t you think?”

“That’s your assessment, Warden? You’re giving God the credit?”

“Well, I’d love to say it was your doing or Brady’s. Truth is,
I’d
love to take credit for it, but it just happened. And you say nothing just happens, right?”

“You won’t get an argument from me, Frank. I do need to requisition some more New Testaments.”

“Right now you can have just about anything you want.”

72

Adamsville

D-day was approaching too rapidly. Thomas had come to love Brady Wayne Darby as a son and was already grieving the coming loss. The transformation in the man was unlike anything Thomas had ever seen. And the resultant revival in the most unlikely corner on earth had spread to other pods and cellblocks and showed no signs of abating. In fact, Thomas was busier than ever.

He found it harder and harder to leave Grace every morning. Her nights were becoming more difficult, and the doctor had urged him to admit her to a hospital or at the very least to start looking into hospice care at home.

“But hospice sounds like the beginning of the end, Doctor,” Thomas said.

“Reverend Carey, your wife has been adamant about no radiation, chemo, or heroic measures. Her headaches, weakness, blurred vision, and balance issues are symptoms of a spread of cancer cells to the brain, so I’m afraid it’s time to be realistic.”

But Grace insisted she wanted to die at home, cared for by her family and friends from church. “That’s all I ask.”

More women from the church were added to the rotation, and every few nights, one stayed through to allow Thomas to get some sleep. On the one hand, he felt he was running on empty. On the other, with everything going on at ASP, he was able to keep his mind occupied and off his two impending losses for much of the day.

Several men were reading their Bibles daily, and Thomas was also teaching them individually a couple of times a week. A few had prayed to receive Christ, and each day he was visiting more men for the first time.

For hours every day, most of the inmates within earshot left their TVs off and listened to Brady reciting. They asked questions and he answered almost entirely in the words of Jesus. Meanwhile, Thomas made the rounds, making no attempt to whisper unless a man requested that, so he was able to minister to several at once while ostensibly visiting one.

And the men seemed to so look forward to their Friday meeting—though, of course, each remained in his own cell—that incident reports on the Row virtually disappeared. Every Friday Thomas spoke, Gladys sang, Brady recited, and someone prayed. Everybody behaved. A couple of times, even inmates other than Brady led in prayer. Other pods asked for similar sessions, and while Brady was not allowed to leave the Row, Thomas took Gladys or sometimes a CD of his wife’s singing and recited Scripture as part of the program.

Thomas often brought a visitor just to observe. The warden was a frequent attender, Ravinia got a taste of it, and even Dirk stood off to the side for one session.

Ravinia seemed dumbstruck but told her father later, “I remember that ‘first love of Christ’ the New Testament refers to. I can see it in some of those guys.”

Thomas was so tempted to urge her to return to her first love. She was a smart, successful woman in her early forties now, with a seven-year-old daughter and an estranged husband. Something had to give.

At long last the courts ruled that the crucifixion would not be allowed to be broadcast live on public airwaves. All that served was to change the International Cable Network’s strategy. They went from cashing in through sponsors to cashing in through pay-per-view. Within days of the announcement, the event became the most subscribed-to feature in the history of television by four times.

The sign-up broke records in every country. Even on continents where it might air live at three or four in the morning, there seemed no flagging of advance sales.

“Sometimes,” Thomas told Grace, “when I listen to Brady, I can almost forget it’s him. It’s as if I’m hearing Jesus. I’ve studied the Gospels since childhood, but he really brings it to life for me.”

One of the hulking old men on death row, a tall, broad guy with a black and gray beard who called himself Skeet, asked Thomas if he could talk about “a whole different subject” at the end of their one-on-one Bible study one day.

“Briefly,” Thomas said, peeking at his watch. “A lot more guys to see.”

“I was just wondering. The pen is getting all this money for this crucifixion deal from ICN, right?”

Thomas nodded. “That’s what I hear.”

“We’ve all become pretty fond of this kid,” Skeet said.

“Brady’s no kid anymore. He’s thirty-three.”

“I know. Just like Jesus was.”

“Right.”

“Well, we’re all gonna see him die when the DVD comes out. But we’re his friends now, and I think he wants us to see it when it happens. Some guys might not want to, but I do. It’s like I want to be standing with him, know what I mean? It shouldn’t take much for them to pipe that broadcast in here, to our TVs. Can you ask about that?”

Thomas went to Yanno, Yanno to Andreason, Andreason to the governor, the governor to ICN, and almost like that, it was done.

With Ravinia working late, Dirk brought Summer to see her grandmother one evening. Thomas had hoped to talk with Dirk, but he seemed distracted, not his usual self. He clearly didn’t want to talk about family issues.

“This Darby has turned into some kind of a guy, hasn’t he?” Dirk said.

Thomas heard Summer singing Sunday school songs to Grace in the other room.

“Dirk, he’s the most transformed man I’ve ever seen. Some still say it’s all for attention, but he’s for real if anyone ever has been.”

“He must really believe, though, right, Dad? I mean, he can’t just change himself like that.”

“I’ve never seen anyone else do it. And I’ve never been able to change myself. Have you?”

Dirk looked away and shook his head.

“Only God can change someone from the inside out,” Thomas said.

“I’d better check on Summer.”

“She’s fine,” Thomas said, but Dirk rushed into the bedroom.

“Let’s let Grandma rest awhile, honey,” he was saying as Thomas followed him in.

Grace did look exhausted, and Thomas detected pain in her eyes.

“I need to take care of her,” Summer said.

“You already have,” Grace managed. “I feel much better. Ready for my nap.”

“Nap? Naps are for afternoons. It’s almost bedtime!”

“Ready for bed, then.”

“Grandma, are you going to die?”

Dirk looked stricken and reached for Summer.

Thomas spoke quickly. “Grandma’s got lots of time left to see you grow up and—”

Grace held up a hand. “Guys, this child needs the truth, and she’s going to hear it from me. If you’re not comfortable with it, you don’t have to stay. Dirk, do I have your permission?”

Summer was wide-eyed.

Dirk said, “I trust you, Mom. Just remember, I’m going to have to tell Rav whatever you say here.”

“Ravinia would tell her the same things I will, I daresay.” Grace turned to her granddaughter. “Sweetheart, yes, Grandma’s going to die and go to see Jesus. Now, don’t cry. I know you’re going to miss me, and I’m going to miss you too. But I’m ready. You know why?”