Sleep Toward Heaven (9 page)

There was silence. The candy woman’s face drained, and she turned away from me. She had a sweat stain on her back, between her shoulder blades. Everyone looked away, except the eager novelist, who perked up. “What did you write to her?” he asked.

“None of your fucking business,” I said. Then I said, “Just kidding.”

He looked sad. “I’m sorry,” he said. He couldn’t have been more than twenty, with his guileless expression and pretentious little haircut.

“I just told her how angry I was,” I said. “I told her about Henry.” The boy listened quietly. “I told her how Henry used to—” I said, and then I felt something hot in my throat. “How he used to chase the dog around on all fours,” I said. “How he used to pretend to talk to the dog, and tell her to make us coffee and bring it to us in bed.”

I have never heard a post office so quiet. The shuffling, the tossing, the stuffing, the stamping, it all fell silent. “Hey,” said Claudel, who had finally noticed us. “Leave Celia alone!”

Instead of crying, I turned, and I left.

The boy with the novel ran after me. In the parking lot, he grabbed my arm. “Could I—do you want some coffee?” he said. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. The boy dropped his novel on the ground. I held my letter. He took me in his arms, and I cried.

“
Karen,” says Rick Underwood, “what’s this about not appealing?”

Karen lifts her shoulders. Her hands and feet are shackled. Rick looks even more tired than usual. He looks old. When Rick talks, spittle hits the glass between them. “Karen,” he says, as if repeating her name will change things, “I don’t understand.”

“I’m tired,” Karen says.

“You’re tired?” Rick puts his thumb and forefinger between his eyebrows and presses. His nails are bitten to the quick. Ouch, thinks Karen. “Karen,” he says again, “if you do not appeal, you will be executed on August twenty-fifth.” He looks at her pleadingly. She knows that this is the only power she has: she can decide to stop fighting.

“Rick,” she says, “I’m so tired.”

“You look terrible. Are they giving you anything?”

Karen shakes her head. “The doctor’s gone.”

“Well, for fuck’s sake,” says Rick, balling his fists. “I want you to think hard about appealing. You don’t have much time. I suppose you know that. In the meantime, I’ll get you a doctor.” He tugs on his ill-fitting jacket. “Where the hell is Dr. Wren?” he mutters, shaking his head. “Oh,” he says, before leaving, “here.”

It is a plain white bag. Inside it, an origami book and colorful squares of paper.

When Karen was first arrested, Rick visited her in jail. She was still crazy with grief, and could not believe that Ellen had turned her in. Karen had been waked in the middle of the night at the Hi-D-Ho Motel and dragged outside in a T-shirt and underwear, her hair wild and her eyes blinded by the flashing police lights. They handcuffed her and put her in the police car. Karen cried, “Ellen!” looking out the window of the car, her eyes clouded with tears.

But Ellen did not answer. She was standing in the doorway of the motel room, looking down at the floor, her arms crossed over her chest. She did not look up as the police drove Karen away.

Karen was read her rights: multiple murders, roadside prostitution, right to remain silent. They told her to confess, slamming fists on the metal table. She did not speak. She needed Ellen, and Ellen needed her. The police told her, their growling voices, that Ellen had called her in. It was not true. It could not be true. Ellen wore on her own body the ring from the first, the necklace from the third, the pinkie ring from…was it the sixth or seventh? Ellen drank the beer, ate the Stouffer’s dinners, shot the men’s money into her arm. It could not be true. It was not true.

Karen was in a cell with other women (and had just begun to understand the noise of the prison, the way it cut into you and would not let you rest) when Rick came with a guard to the door. “Karen Lowens,” the guard said, his voice flat. Karen stood (the other women arguing, talking, who you think you are bitch fucking bitch and on and on and never being quiet never never just shutting their goddamn mouths) and the guard unlocked the door and let her through.

“I’m Rick Underwood,” said the man with the crazy black hair and the eyes like a bird, darting. He held out his hand, and when Karen touched it, wrapped her fingers around, he did not wince or pull away. His fingers were firm; they gripped Karen’s hand, squeezed some strength into her. Rick and Karen went into one of the concrete rooms and Rick gave her a cigarette, lit it for her. His voice was slow and drawling, deep Texas, his manners a gentleman’s.

“You’re in a pile of trouble,” he told her. “Your girlfriend called the cops on you.”

“No,” said Karen. “That’s a lie.”

“Honey, I wish it was. She called the cops and she told them everything. They’ve got the jewelry.”

“The jewelry?” Karen’s voice wavered.

“Let’s see,” said Rick, reading off his notes, “one large gold wedding band, inscribed ‘Forever Mary.’ One gold chain. One pinkie ring with diamond chips. You want me to go on?”

“No,” said Karen. She was silent for a moment, breathless, as if she’d been punched in the gut. “Can I—can I see her?”

“Why?”

“I need to see her.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” Rick put out his cigarette in the plastic ashtray that said “Property of Texas.” He leaned back, lifted his arms, and laced his fingers behind his head. There were two wet spots on his shirt under his arms. “So, what’s the story?” said Rick.

Karen looked at her fingers, did not speak. She had a hangnail on her right hand, and started to pick it, drawing blood.

“Karen, I’m not here for my own benefit. They’ll put you to death. Did you kill these men?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Karen looked into his sharp eyes, and began the story. She told him everything. Ellen’s curls, the first time they had made love after drinking too much beer at Ed’s Saloon, their movements slow and sweet. The heroin, and the way Ellen would cry and say that Karen didn’t love her. Ellen, packing her things in the blue suitcase and slamming out the door. The joy on Ellen’s face when Karen came home with flowers, beer, sandwiches, money. The men at the rest stops and the parks, the creased twenties, dirty tens. The spread-out blankets, the smell of shit from the woods mixed with the smell of dirt, the hot pricks, rubbing on her dry insides. And then the one she killed. The first one, his gun hitting her cheekbone. The one who cut her, stuck a knife inside her, blood on his pinkie ring. The one who punched her black and blue until she pulled the gun.

“How many?”

I don’t remember, I don’t remember.

And the last night, when the man hadn’t died, lying down on the ground like the rest of them. Somewhere, some park in Austin. The man with the black van and the flannel shirt who had fucked her up the ass until she threw up and had then kept pounding, pushing her face down. He had smelled sour, the sweat, old beer on his skin. After she had taken the gun from her coat and shot blindly to make him stop, the man had run from Karen. His shoulder bleeding, a red blossom growing on the flannel shirt. He ran and Karen ran after him.

The power washed over her.

“The power?” said Rick.

The power, yes. The man ran quickly, despite the shot. He reached his van, but his keys were in his pants, and his pants were in the woods.

He ran from the rest stop, heading to a bright building, a 7-Eleven. Karen ran after him. It happened so quickly: the man, yelling at the cashier, and Karen aiming the gun. She shot him in the back, and then the cashier, a thin man she barely saw. But it wasn’t over. The neon lights of the store, the rows of chips and candy, the radio so loud in her ears, louder than her own thumping heart. She had to get back to Ellen. “At least two hundred dollars,” Ellen had said.

Karen shot the cash register. She pulled the money, stuffed it in her pockets, knew she had only seconds to get back to the motel and to Ellen. The radio, the radio and then the door swung open. It was a white man, with dark hair and a smile that went cold as he looked around him. He wore a T-shirt that said “Elvis Lives.” He looked at Karen and began to shake his head and bring his hands up, as if they could save him, as if they made any difference and he was in between Karen and the door and she shot him and she shot him until he fell down and the path was clear.

But she did not leave. The man’s eyes went to Karen, and she held her breath. She watched him open his mouth. “I’m going to die,” the man said, but it was a question. Karen held the gun with one hand, and put the other to her mouth. She watched him go. He said something before he died, something that made no sense to Karen.

“No, Celia,” he said. And then he was dead.

She had never seen one pass over before. She had shot the men and left them in the shadows. She bent down, touched the man on the head, it wasn’t even real. She left. She ran to the motel, and to Ellen, her feet slapping the road like words.

Rick had taken notes as she had talked. The guard in the corner had snorted and made sounds of disbelief. But Rick listened, wrote in his careful hand, looked up, looked right at Karen. When she was done, tears covering her cheeks, he stood and put his hand on hers. “I’ll do everything I can,” he said.

“Ellen,” said Karen. “Can I see her, please?”

“I’ll do everything I can,” said Rick again.

Ellen visited, once. They took Karen from her cell without telling her where she was going, without giving her a chance to brush her hair. Ellen sat behind the glass, straight-backed in a wooden chair, her face still, her lips thin and tight. She picked up the phone without looking at Karen. Her nails were manicured.

“Ellen,” said Karen, “Ellen, I love you. Do you love me?”

“Yes,” said Ellen. “Of course I do.”

“Really?” Karen held the receiver so tightly that her knuckles were white. Her breathing was shallow and fast. Ellen did not want to be there, and Karen did not want to see it, the fear on Ellen’s face. “Did you…did you do this? Did you call the police?”

“I didn’t know what to do,” said Ellen. Her voice was stiff, starched.

“What?”

“When I found out you had killed people, I was afraid.”

“Ellen, you always knew! How could you…why did you…”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Ellen. Before the police, Ellen had gone to visit her parents in Dallas. They had put her up to this.

“Did your parents do this?”

“Look, Karen, I’ve got to go.”

“No.” Karen stood, pressed her hands to the glass. “Please, no!”

Ellen sighed. “Just admit that you killed those men,” she said. “It’s best for everyone.”

“I did it for you.”

Ellen shook her head. “I’ve got to go. I brought this for you.” She took a package wrapped in brown paper, and gave it to the guard. “Good luck, Karen,” she said. She took her phone and hung it up. Karen cried out, but Ellen had turned away, and was motioning to the guard. She did not look back. Karen screamed, and the guards came for her, peeled her off the glass, put her back in a cell. It was over for Karen then, except for a few letters to Ellen that went unanswered. Karen started waiting to die.

The package from Ellen was a book called One Hundred Years of Solitude. Karen tried to read the book and understand why Ellen had given it to her, but could not. It was a long story about people far away. But Karen loved the beautiful paper cover. Alone in her cell, Karen traced the tree on the book, the hundreds of leaves, the boat hidden behind the leaves, the glorious angel, the birds, and the snake. The paper was brittle, and worn around the edges.

The trial was a media frenzy, and went on and on. Women crying, saying: I was waiting for him all night and he never came home…and his wedding ring, oh his wedding ring was gone!…he had said we’d get married someday…my brother was the kindest man, loved dogs and animals…I told him not to take the job! I said, those highways are dangerous at night…

How did they deal with the fact that their men had pulled over for a quickie? These kind men, these animal-loving men, who cut Karen and hit her and fucked her up the ass. Karen sat still as a statue. Rick pointed at her: Abused! Childhood trauma! Rape! Battery! Self-defense! Karen had become a string of exclamations. At night, the voices in the prison rang around her like gunshots.

Karen did not see the papers, but she saw the TV. They called her the “Highway Honey,” showing old pictures of her shooting pool, posing for the camera. There was one home video Ellen had made, where Karen lifted her shirt and then laughed, her mouth open. They showed this video a hundred times, blocking out her nipples with a black line. They would slow down her laughter, her open mouth. They made her love menacing and mean. Karen lay awake at night wondering how the reporter had gotten Ellen’s video. Could Ellen have given it away?

Rick fought. He was obsessed, his unruly hair, mismatched clothes. And when the jury announced its verdict—it was a skinny blonde with freckles, standing up straight in a blue dress—Rick was the one who crumpled, guilty, guilty, guilty ringing in his ears, while Karen remained still. He had expected better, and she had not.

The beautiful woman, Celia Mills, was there the last day, the one whose husband Karen had watched die. Karen had seen her on television: her brown eyes and honey-colored hair. The reporters had a picture of the woman with her husband, somewhere on a beach. The couple was tanned, and the man, the Elvis man, was holding up a fish. The beautiful woman was laughing and clapping her hands.

Celia Mills refused to take the stand, would not speak to reporters. But she had come to the courtroom that last day, and as they sentenced Karen to death, Celia Mills had gazed at Karen steadily. It was the same look her husband had fixed Karen with as he had died. A look of confusion, of disbelief.

Rick came to see Karen periodically, this appeal, that chance, blah, blah, blah. Life went on outside the prison walls, and Rick tried to bring Karen pieces: a bottle of perfume, a magazine, peanut brittle.

Karen doesn’t usually talk when Rick visits. She sits with the phone pressed to her ear, listening to his stories and nodding. His crazy hair has gone gray at the edges. Karen knows nothing about his life.