The Jodi Picoult Collection #4 Read online

  There were people outside the prison praying to Shay; there were religious pundits on TV who promised hell and damnation to those who worshipped a false messiah. I didn’t know what Shay was or wasn’t, but I credited him for my health one hundred percent. And there was something about him that just didn’t fit in here, that made you stop and look twice, as if you’d come across an orchid growing in a ghetto.

  “Stay where you are,” I called out. “Shay, you hear me?”

  But he didn’t answer. I stood at the threshold of my cell, trembling. I stared at that invisible line between here and now, no and yes, if and when. With one deep breath, I stepped outside.

  Shay was not in his cell; he was moving slowly toward Joey’s. Through the door of I-tier, I could see the officers suiting up in flak jackets and shields and masks. There was someone else, too—a priest I’d never seen before.

  I reached for Shay’s arm to stop him. That’s all, just that small heat, and it nearly brought me to my knees. Here in prison we did not touch; we were not touched. I could have held on to Shay, at the innocent crook of his elbow, forever.

  But Shay turned, and I remembered the first unwritten rule of being in prison: you did not invade someone’s space. I let go. “It’s okay,” Shay said softly, and he took another step toward Joey’s cell.

  Joey was spread-eagled on the floor, sobbing, his pants pulled down. His head was twisted away, and blood streamed from his nose. Pogie had one of his arms, Texas the other; Calloway sat on his fighting feet. From this angle, they were obscured from the view of the officers who were mobilizing to subdue everyone. “You heard of Save the Children?” Crash said, brandishing his homemade blade. “I’m here to make a donation.”

  Just then, Shay sneezed.

  “God bless,” Crash said automatically.

  Shay wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Thanks.”

  The interruption made Crash lose some of his momentum. He glanced out at the army on the other side of the door, screaming commands we couldn’t hear. He rocked back on his heels and surveyed Joey, shivering against the cement floor.

  “Let him go,” Crash said.

  “Let him . . . ?” Calloway echoed.

  “You heard me. All of you. Go back.”

  Pogie and Texas listened; they always did what Crash said. Calloway was slower to leave. “We ain’t done here,” he said to Joey, but then he left.

  “What the fuck are you waiting for?” Crash said to me, and I hurried back to my own cell, forgetting entirely anyone else’s welfare except my own.

  I do not know what it was that led to Crash’s change of plan—if it was knowing that the officers would storm the tier and punish him; if it was Shay’s well-timed sneeze; if it was a prayer—God bless—on the lips of a sinner like Crash. But by the time the SWAT team entered seconds later, all seven of us were sitting in our cells even though the doors were still wide open, as if we were angels, as if we had nothing to hide.

  * * *

  There’s a flower I can see from the exercise yard. Well, I can’t really see it—I have to sort of hook my fingers on the ledge of the only window and spider-walk up the cement wall, but I can glimpse it then before I fall back down. It’s a dandelion, which you might think is a weed, but it can be put into salads or soups. The root can be ground up and used as a coffee substitute. The juices can get rid of warts or be used as an insect repellent. I learned all this from a Mother Earth News magazine piece that I keep wrapped around my treasures—my shank, my Q-tips, the tiny Visine bottles where I keep the ink I manufacture. I read the article every time I take my supplies out for inventory, which is daily. I keep my cache behind a loosened cinder block beneath my cot, refilling the mortar with Metamucil and toothpaste, mixed, so that the officers don’t get suspicious when they toss the cell.

  I never gave it much thought before I came in here, but I wish I knew more about horticulture. I wish I’d taken the time to learn what makes things grow. Hell, if I had, maybe I could have started a watermelon plant from a seedling. Maybe I’d have vines hanging all over the place by now.

  Adam had the green thumb in our household. I used to find him outside at the crack of dawn, rooting around in the dirt between our daylilies and sedums. The weeds shall inherit the earth, he had said.

  Meek, I’d corrected. The meek shall inherit it.

  No way, Adam had said, and laughed. The weeds will blow right by them.

  He used to say that if you picked a dandelion, two would grow back in its place. I guess they are the botanical equivalent of the men in this prison. Take one of us off the street, and more will sprout up in his wake.

  With Crash back in solitary, and Joey in the infirmary, I-tier was oddly quiet. In the wake of Joey’s beating, our privileges had been suspended, so all showers and exercise yard visits were canceled for the day. Shay was pacing. Earlier, he’d been complaining that his teeth were vibrating with the air-conditioning unit; sometimes sounds got to be too much for him—usually when he was agitated. “Lucius,” he said. “Did you see that priest today?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you think he came for me?”

  I didn’t want to give him false hope. “I don’t know, Shay. Maybe someone was dying on another tier and needed last rites.”

  “The dead aren’t alive, and the living don’t die.”

  I laughed. “Thanks for that, Yoda.”

  “Who’s Yoda?”

  He was talking crazy, the way Crash had a year ago when he’d started to peel the lead paint from the cinder blocks and eat it, hoping it would serve as a hallucinogen. “Well, if there is a heaven, I bet it’s full of dandelions.” (Actually, I think heaven’s full of guys who look like Wentworth Miller from Prison Break, but for right now, I was only talking landscaping.)

  “Heaven’s not a place.”

  “I didn’t say it had map coordinates . . .”

  “If it was in the sky, then birds would get there before you. If it was under the sea, fish would be first.”

  “Then where is it?” I asked.

  “It’s inside you,” Shay said, “and outside, too.”

  If he wasn’t eating the lead paint, then he’d been making hooch I didn’t know about. “If this is heaven, I’ll take a rain check.”

  “You can’t wait for it, because it’s already here.”

  “Well, you’re the only one of us who got rose-colored glasses when he was booked, I guess.”

  Shay was silent for a while. “Lucius,” he asked finally. “Why did Crash go after Joey instead of me?”

  I didn’t know. Crash was a convicted murderer; I had no doubt he could and would kill again if given the opportunity. Technically, both Joey and Shay had sinned equally in Crash’s code of justice; they had harmed children. Maybe Crash figured Joey would be easier to kill. Maybe Shay had gained a modicum of respect through his miracles. Maybe he’d just gotten lucky.

  Maybe even Crash thought there was something special about Shay.

  “He’s not any different than Joey . . .” Shay said.

  “Teensy suggestion? Don’t let Crash hear you say that.”

  “. . . and we’re not any different than Crash,” he finished. “You don’t know what would make you do what Crash did, just like you didn’t know what would make you kill Adam, until it happened.”

  I drew in my breath. No one in prison talked about another person’s crime, even if you secretly believed they were guilty. But I had killed Adam. It was my hand holding the gun; it was his blood on my clothes. It wasn’t what had been done that was at issue for me in court; it was why.

  “It’s okay to not know something,” Shay said. “That’s what makes us human.”

  No matter what Mr. Philosopher Next Door thought, there were things I knew for sure: That I had been loved, once, and had loved back. That a person could find hope in the way a weed grew. That the sum of a man’s life was not where he wound up but in the details that brought him there.

  That we made mistakes.