Change of Heart Read online

  The reporter's hair was being whipped into a frenzy by the wind. "I'm Janice Lee, reporting live from the New Hampshire State Prison for Men in Concord, which houses the man other inmates are calling the Death Row Messiah."

  I picked up Oliver and sat down, cross-legged, in front of the television. Behind the reporter were dozens of people--I couldn't tell if they were picketing or protesting. Some stuck out from the crowd: the man with the sandwich board that read JOHN 3:16, the mother clutching a limp child, the small knot of nuns praying the rosary.

  "This is a follow-up to our initial report," the reporter said, "in which we chronicled the inexplicable events that have occurred since inmate Shay Bourne--New Hampshire's only death row inhabitant--expressed his desire to donate his organs post-execution. Today there might be scientific proof that these incidents aren't magic ... but something more."

  The screen filled with a uniformed officer's face--Correctional Officer Rick Whitaker, according to the caption beneath him. "The first one was the tap water," he said. "One night, when I was on duty, the inmates got intoxicated, and sure enough the pipes tested positive for alcohol residue one day, although the water source tested perfectly normal. Some of the inmates have mentioned a bird being brought back to life, although I didn't witness that myself. But I'd have to say the most dramatic change involved Inmate DuFresne."

  The reporter again: "According to sources, inmate Lucius DuFresne--an AIDS patient in the final stages of the disease--has been miraculously cured. On tonight's six o'clock report, we'll talk to physicians at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center about whether this can be explained medically ... but for the newly converted followers of this Death Row Messiah," the reporter said, gesturing to the crowds behind her, "anything's possible. This is Janice Lee, reporting from Concord."

  Then I saw a familiar face in the crowd behind the reporter--DeeDee, the spa technician who'd given me my body wrap. I remembered telling her that I'd look into Shay Bourne's case.

  I picked up the phone and dialed my boss at the office. "Are you watching the news?"

  Rufus Urqhart, the head of the ACLU in New Hampshire, had two televisions on his desk that he kept tuned to different channels so that he didn't miss a thing. "Yeah," he said. "I thought you were supposed to be on."

  "I got preempted by the Death Row Messiah."

  "Can't beat divinity," Rufus said.

  "Exactly," I replied. "Rufus, I want to work on his behalf."

  "Wake up, sweetheart, you already are. At least, you were supposed to be filing amicus briefs," Rufus said.

  "No--I mean, I want to take him on as a client. Give me a week," I begged.

  "Listen, Maggie, this guy's already been through the state court, the first circuit of the federal court, and the Supreme Court. If I remember correctly, they punted last year and denied cert. Bourne's exhausted all his appeals ... I don't really see how we can reopen the door."

  "If he thinks he's the Messiah," I said, "he just gave us a crowbar."

  *

  The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 didn't actually come into play until five years later, when the Supreme Court upheld the decision in the case of Cutter v. Wilkinson, where a bunch of Ohio prisoners who were Satanists sued the state for not accommodating their religious needs. As long as a prison guaranteed the right to practice religion--without forcing religion on those who didn't want to practice it--the law was constitutional.

  "Satanists?" my mother said, putting down her knife and fork. "That's what this guy is?"

  I was at their house, having dinner, like I did every Friday night before they went to Shabbat services. My mother would invite me on Monday, and I'd tell her I'd have to wait and see whether anything came up--like a date, or Armageddon, both of which had the same likelihood of occurring in my life. And then, of course, by Friday, I'd find myself passing the roasted potatoes and listening to my father say the kiddush over the wine.

  "I have no idea," I told her. "I haven't met with him."

  "Do Satanists have messiahs?" my father asked.

  "You're missing the point, both of you. Legally, there's a statute that says that even prisoners have a right to practice their religion as long as it doesn't interfere with the running of the prison." I shrugged. "Besides, what if he is the Messiah? Aren't we morally obligated to save his life if he's here to save the world?"

  My father cut a slice of his brisket. "He's not the Messiah."

  "And you know this because ... ?"

  "He isn't a warrior. He hasn't maintained the sovereign state of Israel. He hasn't ushered in world peace. And okay, so maybe he's brought something dead back to life, but if he was the Messiah he would have resurrected everyone. And if that was the case, your grandparents would be here right now asking if there was more gravy."

  "There's a difference between a Jewish messiah, Dad, and ... well ... the other one."

  "What makes you think that there might be more than one?" he asked.

  "What makes you think there might not?" I shot back.

  My mother threw her napkin down. "I'm getting a Tylenol," she said, and left the table.

  My father grinned at me. "You would have made such a good rabbi, Mags."

  "Yeah, if only that pesky religion thing didn't keep getting in the way."

  I had, of course, been raised Jewish. I would sit through Friday night services and listen to the soaring, rich voice of the cantor; I would watch my father reverently carry the Torah and it would remind me of how he looked in my baby pictures when he held me. But I'd also grow so bored that I'd find myself memorizing the names of who begat whom in Numbers. The more I learned about Jewish law the more I felt that, as a girl, I was bound to be considered unclean or limited or lacking. I had my bat mitzvah, like my parents wanted; and the day after I read from the Torah and celebrated my transition into adulthood, I told my parents I was never going to temple again.

  Why? my father had asked when I told him.

  Because I don't think God really cares whether or not I'm sitting there every Friday night. Because I don't buy into a religion that's based on what thou shalt not do, instead of what thou ought to be doing for the greater good. Because I don't know what I believe.

  I didn't have the heart to tell him the truth: that I was much closer to an atheist than an agnostic, that I doubted there was a God at all. In my line of work, I'd seen too much injustice in the world to buy into the belief that a merciful, all-powerful deity would continue to allow such atrocities to exist; and I downright detested the party line that there was some divine grand plan for humanity's bumbling existence. It was a little like a parent watching her children playing with fire and thinking, Well, let them burn. That'll teach 'em.

  Once, when I was in high school, I asked my father about religions that were, with the passage of time, considered to be false. The Greeks and Romans, with all their gods, thought they were making sacrifices and praying at temples in order to receive favor from their deities; but today, pious people would scoff. How do you know, I'd asked my father, that five hundred years from now, some alien master race won't be picking over the artifacts of your Torah and their crucifix and wondering how you could be so naive?

  My father, who was the first to take a controversial situation and say "Let's think about that," had been speechless. Because, he'd said finally, a religion doesn't last two thousand years if it's based on a lie.

  Here's my take on it: I don't think religions are based on lies, but I don't think they're based on truths, either. I think they come about because of what people need at the time that they need them. Like the World Series player who won't take off his lucky socks, or the mother of the sick child who believes that her baby can sleep only if she's sitting by the crib--believers need, by definition, something to believe in.

  "So what's your plan?" my father asked, bringing my attention back.

  I glanced up. "I'm going to save him."

  "Maybe you're the Messiah," he mused.