The Big Bang (16 page)

A sound roused her from her musing. It was Mr. G, checking out the books on the shelves. “Nice job,” he said.

“Sister helps,” Taneisha said.

“Not to hear her tell it.” He turned to face her. “Today's your birthday.”

“Not even, Mr. G. Not for months.”

“You're three years old today,” he told her. “Coming here…it could be the birth of a new Taneisha Porter, if you let it. Or, it could just be a continuation of the old Taneisha.”

Birthday. Okay, she was down with that. “Yeah. Yes, sir. I'd like a new birthday.”

He put his hands behind his back, rocked on his heels a little. “I need an assistant, to help with filing and general correspondence. Sister Anita and Ms. Darcy both recommend you for the job.” His eyes crinkled. “I don't think I'm man enough to resist the full court press from those two ladies. Would you be interested? It would look good on a resume when you get out.”

As was her new habit, she was quiet for a moment, thinking, and then she answered. “Yes, sir, I would like that.”

“Happy Birthday, Ms. Porter. You start tomorrow.”

With less than six months to go on her sentence, she found herself in Mr. G's office at just past midnight. Mr. G was wearing dress slacks, a white shirt, and a plain, dark blue tie. Taneisha had showered and dressed quickly in the guard's locker room. Ms. Darcy had even found a fresh toothbrush for her. “I hate to go anywhere without brushing my teeth,” she declared before leading the young inmate through the series of stairs and locked doors that led up to the Warden's office.

Now Taneisha sat at her desk, waiting. The Warden was at the window, looking down on the sleeping prison. “Mr. G?” she asked, after a few moments of the strange silence. “You needed my help?”

He turned to her. “Yes. The files for Building 29.”

“We did those already, sir.” This she knew. Nearly all of the first three months she had been working for him were dedicated to organizing the files on each prisoner—old-fashioned paper files, the prison system not having the funding to upgrade to computers like everyone else in the world. Usually, they were a mess of photos, Federal and State prisoner reports, sometimes along with court documentation. Some of the files had been nearly three inches thick. Those files were not filled with good conduct reports. Building 29, though. That was death row. Over thirty men and one woman were there now.

“And Protective Segregation.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, standing and moving toward the files. Protective Seg was where they put those persons most likely to have their lives endangered just by breathing in a prison: snitches, former law enforcement, and those who abused children. She hated even handling their files…somehow it seemed like she was touching those men and their crimes whenever her fingers made contact with the manila folder records.

“Just open them to the F-47,” he said, “and hand them to me.” The F-47. The sentencing form, which contained details about a prisoner's crime, and the penalty they were to pay.

Taneisha did as she was bid, asking, “Sir, why are we doing this now, in the middle of the night?”

“Ms. Porter, we have work to do,” the Warden said by way of reply, glancing reproachfully at her over the top of his glasses. She passed him the first file.

For the next hour, they worked in silence. When it came time to look at the files from the molesters, Mr. G seemed to sense her discomfort. “You want to take a break?” he asked. She nodded. “Can you make us a fresh pot of coffee? I think the stuff out there is probably pretty wretched by now.”

She scampered out to the small canteen quickly. She didn't really want any coffee, but with nothing better to do, emptied the old pot and made a new one. After it had brewed, it didn't smell half bad, so she poured two cups and carried them back into the office.

The Warden now had two distinct piles of folders on his desk. He stood when she walked in and took the cup from her. He held it in both hands, savoring it as he walked back to the window to stare down at his slumbering prison. “There have been studies,” he said without turning around, “that nine out of ten women in prison were addicted to drugs at the time of incarceration. Thirty percent of them are believed to be mentally ill.” He took a sip of his coffee.

“That's hard,” she said, not knowing what else to say.

“Over sixty percent claim to have been abused by a male relative or friend before they were fourteen.” He shook his head, possibly not noticing how she tensed slightly when he said that. “Lord Almighty. No wonder they end up here.”

He walked back to the desk, considering the two mounds of files. “Most men in prison had no consistent father figure when they were growing up. Many were also abused sexually or physically when they were children.” Another longer swig of his coffee. “You don't have any children, do you, Ms. Porter?”

“No, sir.” And thank Christ for that. The women in here who had children on the outside…it tore them up.

“Have you been around small children at all?”

“Not since I was about ten or so, sir.”

He sat on the edge of the desk. “You might not have noticed this, then. I have several children, grown now. Didn't want them, at first, but you never know how life will turn out. It turned out that I liked kids…my own, at least.” He gave a slightly abashed smile. “Each of my children was different…they all had their own personalities, but when they were little, they had one thing in common. They all wanted to be heard, to be seen, and to be loved. I'm convinced that's all anyone really wants, deep down.” He pointed the mug at the large pile of folders. “Every man in there was a baby at one time, who just wanted somebody to listen to them and love them. Yet…they ended up here. Even the gang-bangers…they were just lost kids, trying to find out how to be a man. Nobody was there to show them how, so they made it up. And it brought them years in hell.” He let his mug hand droop. “There's a cart in the other office. Can you bring it here, please?”

She set her cup on a bookcase and quickly rolled the cart back in, hesitating in the middle of the room. The Warden was buckling on a gun belt he'd pulled from a desk drawer. The pistol in the holster was huge. The only handguns she'd been around had been smaller revolvers and the occasional semi-automatic pop-gun. This thing seemed monstrous. Mr. G settled the belt around his hips, then lifted the larger pile of folders from his desk and carried them to the cart.

“I'll ask Ms. Darcy to take you back to your cell now,” he said. “Thank you for your help.”

“Mr. G, what are you doing?”

He set the folders securely on the cart, then straightened and looked at her. “New York and Los Angeles were bombed this evening.”

She had heard something about that, but it just seemed like maybe another random terrorist thing.

The Warden went on. “Nobody is sure how hard, how bad. Chicago, Detroit, Miami have been hit. Other cities have reported riots, random bombings, destruction of electrical power plants and water plants. The President has declared martial law. It's war, Taneisha.”

She was hearing the words, but they didn't make any sense to her. This was so much bigger than she'd heard or even imagined. There was some kind of disconnect between the sounds and their meaning. “Who? Who are we fighting?”

“We don't know. 9/11 was the opening shot in a battle. This is the real war, now, I'm afraid.”

He was afraid? Suddenly, she was terrified by him. “Where are you going?”

The Warden put his hand on the folders. “These men,” he said softly, “are the worst of the worst. We don't know what is going to happen to the country. We've been invaded, Ms. Porter. There may not be a state of Arizona tomorrow morning. I won't loose this…vermin…on the population. You'll be safe in your cell. You don't want to see this.”

She swallowed. “You're going to shoot them…like dogs?”

Mr. G adjusted the holster over his hips. It was plain black leather, nothing fancy, nothing more than a tool belt. “Do you know why we shoot rabid dogs?”

She shook her head mutely.

Mr. G answered for her. “A rabid dog can't control himself. He…or any animal…has no idea of right or wrong. Can't understand…can't conceive of any consequences to their actions. A rabid dog doesn't even know enough to hide.” His voice hardened. “The…men…in Building 29 don't even have a rabid dog's excuse. They knew what they were doing was wrong.
They didn't care
.”

Taneisha looked at the files. Those men
were
the worst of the worst. The F-47 told the story. None of the men on death row was a first timer…they'd all had criminal careers. Each of them was a contagion, an epidemic of chaos that had ruined lives, broken hearts, maimed families, and shattered dreams.

She took the cart handle in her hands. “I'll go with you, Mr. G. You shouldn't have to carry this by yourself.”

Outside Building 29, only one guard was on duty. Mr. G took the keys from him, and spoke to him quietly. “You go on home, son.”

The guard, a blondish younger man, took a long look at the Warden. The huge pistol on his hip and the cart full of files must have told the younger man everything he needed to know, because the guard shook his head and opened the door for the older man. “Nobody at home but a one-eyed cat who craps on my patio, Warden. I'll stay.”

“What I'm doing is against the law, Tom,” Mr. G told him.

“Uh-huh. I'll just step inside with you, sir.”

“Thank you, Tom,” the Warden said, and the three of them passed into death row.

Inside the main guard shack, Tom switched the cell doors to “manual.” It was a backup process, in case of power failure, that would allow the corridor and cell doors to be unlocked with a set of keys. Tom took a shotgun from a triple-locked case, along with two boxes of shells.

Mr. G gave Taneisha one last chance to back out. “This isn't going to be pretty.”

She shook her head. “No, sir.” He unlocked the main corridor door, and she followed him through. Lights were on throughout Building 29; because of security regulations, guards needed to be able to see death row inmates at all times.

Warden Gutierrez stopped at the first cell. The doors were solid, with one narrow window and a slot. The Warden unholstered the pistol, and Tom unlocked the door with one hand, and stood to one side of the door, the shotgun ready in both hands.

The inmate was asleep, a pillow covering his face against the light. Mr. G said, “Winston.” He inclined his head toward the files. Taneisha found it, handed it to him. He'd affixed a small sticky note to the F-47. He began reading the details of the crime aloud. “Winston Wooley. You broke into a trailer owned by an eighty-seven-year-old widow. You raped her, you strangled her, and you beat her to death with a chair.”

The sleeping figure stirred, lifted his face. He was an older white man, cheeks sunken, hair askew. He looked like a wino beside a Dumpster. “What?” he said blearily, then, recognizing Mr. Gutierrez, added, “I'm clean, sir, I've got an appeal working.”

The Warden handed the file to Taneisha without taking his eyes off the prisoner.

“Do you have anything you want to say?” the Warden asked.

“No…” Winston replied uncertainly.

The first shot caught the prisoner squarely in the chest. He reeled backwards in his bunk as if he'd been shoved. The shot was incredibly loud. Prisoners up and down the cell block woke. There was yelling, calling back and forth. Taneisha turned away, dazed. It was nothing like the movies. Winston had dropped, trembled, coughed a gout of blood, and then stopped moving. Throughout, he seemed to be trying to speak or scream or cry out, but had been unable to do so.

“God have mercy on our souls,” the Warden said. He threw Winston's file on the man's body, and reholstered the pistol.

Most of them begged to live. They promised lives of service, contrition, selflessness. At each cell, Mr. G read their crimes, and then executed them with a single shot. In the cells, there was no escaping the visitation of justice. Watching these men, Taneisha thought she should feel pity for them, but found herself unmoved by their pleas. She knew their victims had begged for their lives, too. One notorious torture-killer had recorded the last hours of his victims, and those pitiful pleas (along with his mocking laughter) had been in his file.

One burly serial rapist/carjacker made a rush for them when they opened the cell door, but Tom cut him in half with a blast from the shotgun. As the carjacker lay bleeding on the cell floor, his crimes were recounted, and the Warden blew the man's head off with one well-placed shot.

As they moved from cell to cell, Taneisha found herself growing angrier and angrier. These men didn't deserve to live. Some of them had been on the row for upwards of twenty years. They'd had long apprenticeships inflicting misery on other people before they'd finally been caught and stopped. Who knew how many unknown crimes they had committed? Why hadn't they been stopped long before this? How many lives had they been allowed to defile because no one was willing to hold these sub-humans accountable for their actions and take the hard steps necessary to keep them from continuing to harm the innocent? Now, because no one had taken the responsibility previously, it came down to the three of them, cleaning up for people too goddamned lazy or gutless to eliminate the scum.

One man, another murderer, was kneeling in prayer when they opened the cell door. When the Warden called his name, he nodded, but didn't look up from his prayers. When Mr. G asked him if he had anything to say, the man opened his eyes. “I'm heartily sorry,” he said, and then glanced pointedly at the pistol, adding, “Thank you.”

They passed by one cell. It held a woman two decades older than Taneisha. She'd been horribly abused by a husband for years and then killed the man with an iron while he was sleeping off a drunk. A law-and-order prosecutor up for re-election had painted the woman as a drug addict (true) and prostitute (true, but she'd been forced by her common-law husband) who killed the man for revenge. The woman's case was out on appeal. “She's no murderer,” the Warden said, closing her file. “All she's guilty of is self-defense,” he added as they moved to the next prisoner.