Sleep Toward Heaven (7 page)

But then there are people like Abe and Finnegan. People who always say hello to the librarian, even ask about her day, people who fold the newspaper when they’re finished or who always put Clifford the Big Red Dog books back on the shelf, in alphabetical order, no less. If I could create my own perfect world, it would be me in the library with Abe and Finnegan, and Henry still alive at home.

Instead, I get busybodies like Geraldine Flat. Geraldine has not a damn thing to do since her husband got the job on the oil rig, two weeks on and two weeks off. She has money coming out of her nostrils and diddlysquat to keep her busy. (Geraldine used to be a nail technician, but quit as soon as her husband’s bucks started rolling in. She went back to school to get her college degree, and began wearing miniskirts, knee-high boots, and baby T-shirts.) I would like to stick a hot poker up Geraldine’s nose, but I do not share this sentiment with anyone, especially Maureen who would certainly allude to my anger management issues.

“I gather you’ve been following the news about the prison,” says Geraldine on Thursday, putting a stack of Harlequin romances on the checkout table and raising her eyebrow.

I stamp her books firmly with my red rubber stamp (which I love) and answer, “These are due the fifth of August, Geraldine.”

“I’m against the death penalty,” says Geraldine. “You know, it isn’t so great to live your whole life in that prison, either, and what right do we have?” From the strident tone of Geraldine’s voice, I can tell she has been planning this conversation for some time. Her words run over each other as she struggles to get them all out. I don’t answer, and don’t look up. I become extremely engrossed in my new copy of Library Journal. “What do you believe?” says Geraldine, her voice lowering, attempting to invite a tearful confession from me.

“What?”

“I said, what do you believe? About the death penalty?”

Tears fill my eyes, and I do not look up. “You know,” says Geraldine, “some of us students are holding a protest this weekend over at the U. If you came and made a statement, maybe asked for mercy, you could make a real difference.”

I don’t answer. I do not know what to say. I am speechless. “Think about it,” whispers Geraldine, placing a pink pamphlet under my nose. The pamphlet reads, “Two Wrongs Do Not Make a Right.” Geraldine gathers her romance novels and leaves me at my desk.

After a moment, I stand up and smooth my skirt. I walk to the ladies’ room. I lock the door behind me and peer into the mirror. It has been five years since Henry died, and I still wear my hair long, the way he loved it. I still buy Ritz crackers at the grocery store, but I can’t remember if it was me or Henry who liked them. I go to movies he would enjoy, and hike alone down the trails he loved so dearly. I live our life without him, because I don’t want any life of my own.

I know that Karen Lowens’ execution will never bring Henry back. I know, as well, that Karen is a fucked-up individual who has every right to live the rest of her life trying to make amends. I know that only God can take a life, that the death penalty is wrong. I know this in my bones. I also know that Henry would not want her executed.

I know all this, and yet I do not care. I hate that woman for taking everything from me and Goddamn it, I want her dead.

Maureen has told me to write a letter to Karen, to tell her how I feel. This letter is an exercise, Maureen was quick to tell me, and simply for my own well-being. It is not a letter to be mailed, but a letter to be burned, releasing some of the bitter anger that, despite my denials, I hold deep within my soul.

Back at my desk, I take a fresh legal pad from my drawer. After checking out a stack of gardening books for a man who looks like Gomer Pyle (and who, interestingly, has no dirt underneath his nails), I take a breath.

I begin with “Dear Karen,” and then I stop, and cross it out. I try again: “To Ms. Lowens,” and then the words come.

N
eedles are something they talk about in Mountain View Unit. Lethal injection is the default method of execution in the state of Texas, and everybody has an opinion. Veronica hates needles. If she had her choice, she declares, she would choose a firing squad. (Bill, Veronica’s third husband, was killed with a bullet. Although he had arsenic in his body, when they finally found him under the wishing well in Veronica’s yard, the coroners decided it had been the gunshot to the back of his head that had finally done him in.)

Tiffany will not discuss her own execution, but says that needles in general give her the willies. She has always hated shots, she says, and even when her girls, may they rest in peace, had to get their shots, she would close her eyes. Needles, she says, are gross.

Jackie wants the needle. It won’t hurt, she says, and she’s always loved the drugs you get at the dentist. Those big pink pills? Vicodin, like after you get teeth pulled, good old Uncle Vikey. She loves that stuff. It’s like getting taken down a warm river, she says—bring it on. She has three weeks until her execution.

Karen wants to go cleanly, and without pain. She wants to slip into silence. Jackie says that if quiet is what she wants, she should go for the needle. Sharleen does not join them on the patio while they eat breakfast and talk. There isn’t a chair for her, anyway. Not yet.

Thursday is Karen’s birthday. She is twenty-nine, and has been on Death Row for five years. She feels a hundred years old.

Karen was born in Uvalde, Texas, a tiny town near San Antonio where there weren’t many black people. Her mother spent her nights in the city, turning tricks and shooting whatever she could find into her arm. When Karen’s mother was pregnant, she had settled down for a while, living with Karen’s grandmother in the trailer in Uvalde, but soon after Karen was born, her mother took off for the high life of the city again. She would come to town once in a while, take Karen for ice cream cones. When Karen was twelve, her grandmother died and her mother started selling Karen to men, bringing them to the trailer and then bringing Karen to the city.

When Karen’s mother died (beaten to death, one cheekbone snapped), Karen did not know how to feel. There was relief, but there was also loneliness. Karen no longer had a home. She left Uvalde for good when she was fifteen. Once, when she was small, her grandmother made Apple Brown Betty for her birthday.

Since she is sick, the guards do not make Karen work. She lies on her cot. If she looks to the right of her cell, she can just see the others sewing in the cage. They sit behind the machines, underneath the dolls. They are not supposed to talk, but they whisper occasionally, and touch each other’s arms and hands, pressing skin to skin. On top of the television, there is a photograph from their Christmas party. They had made invitations for each other, and the guard had taken the invitations and delivered them the next day, like mail, like real invitations. In the picture, their arms are around each other, and they are smiling: Highway Honey, Black Widow, Baby Killer, and the Hairdresser of Death (in a Santa hat).

By afternoon, Karen is so dizzy that she falls when she tries to make it to the table for lunch. Two guards take her to the Medical Center. A nurse slides a needle in her arm. Her nausea subsides, and her limbs feel heavy. She is given her meds with a cup of water. She does not ask what has happened to Dr. Wren, and no one tells her.

Lying on a cot in the Medical Center, Karen thinks of Ellen. She can see Ellen in her mind: the curly thick hair, the wide smile. The tummy, just the tiniest bit soft, before she started using again and her stomach sank into her hipbones. Ellen. She was the only one who had loved Karen, but she loved her the most when they had money. That was why Karen turned tricks, why she went out on the road, thumbing from rest stop to rest stop, getting it stuck in her for a few dollars, a twenty, a ten. For Ellen, it was all for Ellen, to come home to their room at the Hi-D-Ho Motel with beer and clothes, cash for Ellen’s smack.

Ellen had cried on her birthday. She cried because Karen had nothing to give her. Karen had worked for five days on the highway to come home with enough money for the previous month’s rent and for beer. “You don’t love me,” Ellen said. “You didn’t even bring me a birthday present.” And she put her clothes in a suitcase, slammed it shut, her eyes bright with the heroin.

Karen begged her not to leave. “I’ll get you a present,” said Karen, “I promise I will, please,” and finally Ellen was soothed. Karen tucked her into bed, turned on the television, left Ellen the beer. And after four nights with no sleep, she went out again onto the highway.

The first car that slowed had two men in it, and Karen kept walking. Her jeans were dirty and her shirt smelled of sweat, but she was skinny then and wore bright lipstick and push-up bras. The second car was a white Toyota with a heavy man. Karen got in.

At the Evergreen Rest Stop, she let him stick it in her. He didn’t want to get muddy, so he laid a blanket on the ground. He gave her a twenty—she always made them pay first. He gave her some whiskey to drink, pretended like it was a date, and then he stuck it in her. He was fat and heaving, his stomach white and soft and Karen thought about Ellen, her skin, her strawberry lotion, and the man pumped away. Finally he finished, got off her, and went to the car. Karen pulled her jeans on, the fabric rough on her hips. Was a twenty enough to go home? She could buy Ellen some chocolates with a twenty, or some flowers at the Circle-K. A bottle of champagne? She saw the man rummaging in his glove compartment.

“You can just leave me here,” Karen said, standing, brushing a twig from her hair. The man moved toward her, his feet making crunching sounds in the grass. Karen knelt to fold up the blanket. She would hitch a ride home. The flowers would buy her another week with Ellen. Another day, at least. She needed sweet sleep.

When the man’s fist hit her cheek, it was a complete surprise. The gun was in his hand, and the force knocked her to the ground. He straddled her. “Give me my money back, whore,” he said, his lip curling. Karen put her hand to her cheek. There was blood. The man pressed the gun to her temple.

“In my jeans,” said Karen. Her voice was surprisingly even.

He heaved off her, watched her put her hand into her pocket. She kicked him in the groin as hard as she could, her bony knee in the softest flesh. He cried out, loosened his hold on the gun, and she grabbed it. She shot him in the face, she shot him in the heart. It was too much. It was enough. She shot him again and again and then she took the ring from his finger and she ran.

Ellen was sitting up in bed, playing solitaire. “What happened?” she said, when Karen arrived.

“Nothing.”

Karen went into the bathroom, rinsed her clothes. There was not too much blood on them. She stood under a hot shower and lathered herself with the cheap motel soap.

When she climbed into bed, the sheets smelled like Ellen. Karen put her head on Ellen’s belly, hiding the throbbing, bruised cheek. “I love you,” she said.

“I know,” said Ellen. Her fingers played with Karen’s hair.

“Happy birthday,” said Karen. She opened her hand.

“A ring!” said Ellen, “It’s gold! Where did you get it?”

“Is it good?” said Karen.

Ellen slipped it on her finger. It was huge, and it shone in the lamplight. “It’s perfect,” she said. The next day, she would buy a length of leather cord and wear the ring around her neck, nestled between her clavicle bones.

Karen had closed her eyes then, but before she drifted into the deepest sleep, she thought, This is it. The beginning of the end.

When Karen gets back to her cell from the Medical Center, the area around the patio is strewn with toilet paper. There are buckets filled with Tang and broken-up candy bars arranged on paper plates. There are tubs of ice cream, melting quickly. (They can order ice cream from the commissary, but have to eat it right away: they have no refrigerator, let alone a freezer.) In the middle of the table is a honeybun, a sliver of cardboard made to look like a candle stuck deep in its frosting. There is also a piece of paper.

Karen unfolds the paper. It says, “Happy Birthday from The Girls” in fancy writing, and then there is a picture of a daisy. Karen turns around, and they are all looking at her. Tiffany claps her hands. She is smiling so widely that Karen can’t help but smile too. Even Jackie has stopped scowling.

Veronica points with a long fingernail. “I drew the card,” she says. Sharleen is watching from her cell, standing with her hands around the bars. A few steps, and she could join them. Karen feels a welling inside her, hot and sweet. She leans in, holds her arms out, and for a moment, they hold each other, the girls.

I
nstead of getting married, Franny flew to Waco, Texas. She felt like a bad country song. She left JFK, an airport filled with sleek women dressed in black, and arrived in Waco surrounded by men in Stetson hats. She leaned against the wall of the airport under a poster of a longhorn bull and watched the bags turn lazily on the carousel: camouflage duffel, red Samsonite suitcase, cardboard box tied with twine. There was a poster on the wall that read “Visit Gatestown: The Spur Capital of the World!”

Finally, Franny’s bag came around, and she grabbed it and headed outside. The electric door slid open and the heat seared Franny’s lungs. The air was swampy heat, a marshy bath. The smell was barbecue smoke, truck exhaust, cow manure, and dust. It was scorched earth and cheap beer. Stars, sausage, ham sandwiches, lemonade, padded bras, sweaty pantyhose, hairspray, gum, condoms like slippery fish on her fingers.

She was back in Texas, and felt as if she had never left.

Evenings with Uncle Jack in front of the TV, chicken pot pies, fish sticks, ketchup, losing her virginity to Joey Ullins in the bed of his Toyota pickup. The night Sheriff Donald found her with Joey, sixteen years old and half-undressed under the starry sky. The Sheriff brought Franny home to Uncle Jack. She smelled of sex and was hot with shame.

Uncle Jack sent her away to boarding school the following year. After that, Franny rarely came home. She spent the school years in Connecticut, going to sleep-away camp and then to Cape Cod in the summers. She had forgotten the stifling heat. She struggled for breath, and lifted her hand for a cab.