Candlemoth Read Free

Sheryl Rose Bogazzi in 9th grade. Perhaps Mr. Timmons believed that
had he been there he could have saved Marilyn just as I believed I could have
saved Sheryl Rose. We believe such small things, but believing them makes them
important, and sometimes they have to be enough, carrying such things and
believing perhaps that they will in some way carry us.
        Mr.
Timmons also believes I didn't kill Nathan Verney in North Carolina on some
cool night in 1970. He believes this, but he would never say it. It is not Mr.
Timmons' job to question such things, for there is the way of the law, the way
of justice, the Federal and Circuit and State and Appellate Courts, and there
are tall grave men with heavy books who look into such things in detail, and
they make the laws, they are the law, and who is Mr. Timmons to question
this?
        Mr.
Timmons is a Death Row warder down near Sumter, and he does what he does, as he
abides by the code, and he leaves such matters as innocence and guilt to the
Governor and the baby Jesus. He is neither expected nor paid to make such
decisions. And so he does not.
        Easier
that way.
        
          
        Mr.
West is another story. Some of the guys down here believe he was not born of
human parents. Some of the guys down here believe he was spawned in a culture
dish at M.I.T. or somesuch, an experiment in running a body without a heart or
a soul or much of anything else at all. He is a dark man. He has things to
hide, many things it seems, and where he hides them is in the shadows that lurk
back of his eyes and behind his words, and in the arc of his arm as he brings
down his billy across your head or your fingers or your back. He hides those
things also in the way his shoes creak as he walks down the corridor, and in
the way he peers through the grille and watches your every move. He hides those
things in the insectile expression that flickers across his face when the mood
takes him. And in leaving the lights on when you want to sleep. And in
forgetting exercise time. In dropping your food as it is passed through the
gate. In the sound of his breathing. In everything he is.
        Before
I came here, the brief time I'd spent in General Populace, a man called Robert
Schembri had warned me of Mr. West, but what he'd said had been confused in
among a great deal of things he'd told me.
        No
matter what had gone before, I could never have forgotten the first time we
met, Mr. West and I. It went something like this:
        'Gon'
lose your hair there, boy. No hippy hair down here. What the fuck is this here?
A ring? Take it off now 'fore we cut your goddam finger from your hand there.'
        I
remember nodding, saying nothing.
        'Nothin'
to say now, eh, boy? They got you by the C.O. Jones that's for sure. You done
kill some nigger I hear, cut his goddam head clean off of his body and left it
for the crows.'
        That
was the time I opened my mouth. The first and last.
        His
face was in mine. I remember the pressure of the floor behind my head, the
feeling of that billy club across my throat like it would force my jaw up
through my ears and into my brain. And then he was over me, right there in my
face, and I could feel the words he spoke as he hissed so cruelly.
        'You
don't got nothin' to say, boy, you understand? You have no words, no name, no
face, no identity down here. Here, you're just a poor dumb motherfucker who got
fucked by the system whichever way you see it. You could be as innocent as the
freakin' Lamb of God, as sweet as the cherubims and seraphims and all the Holy
Angels rolled into one almighty bag of purity, but down here you are guilty -
guilty as the black heart of the Devil himself. You understand that, you
remember that, you don't ever forget that, an' you and me are gonna get along
just fine. You are nothing, you have nothing, you never will be anything, and
this is about as good as it's ever gonna get. Yo' gonna be here a long