The Chamber (25 page)

This seemed to satisfy Gullitt because he didn’t speak for several minutes. His hands were still, but then he began rubbing his fingertips together and this of course meant something was bothering him. Sam waited.

“I’ve been thinking about something, Sam. All day long this has been eatin’ at me.”

“What is it?”

“Well, for three years now you’ve been right there and I’ve been right here, you know, and you’re my best friend in the world. You’re the only person I can trust, you know, and I don’t know what I’m gonna do if they walk you down the hall and into the chamber. I mean, I’ve always had you right there to look over my legal stuff, stuff that I’ll never understand, and you’ve always given me good advice and told me what to do. I can’t trust my lawyer in D.C. He never calls me or writes me, and I don’t know what the hell’s going on with my case. I mean, I don’t know if I’m a year away or five years away, and it’s enough to drive me crazy. If it hadn’t been for you, I’d be a nut case by now. And what if you don’t make it?” By now his hands were jumping and thrusting with all sorts of intensity. His words stopped and his hands died down.

Sam lit a cigarette and offered one to Gullitt, the only person on death row with whom he’d share. Hank Henshaw, to his left, did not smoke. They puffed for a moment, each blowing clouds of smoke at the row of windows along the top of the hallway.

Sam finally said, “I’m not going anywhere, J.B. My lawyer says we’ve got a good chance.”

“Do you believe him?”

“I think so. He’s a smart kid.”

“That must be weird, man, having a grandson as your lawyer. I can’t imagine.” Gullitt was thirty-one, childless, married, and often complained about his wife’s jody, or free world boyfriend. She was a cruel woman who never visited and had once written a short letter with the good news that she was pregnant. Gullitt pouted for two days before admitting to Sam that he had beaten her for years and chased lots of women himself. She wrote again a month later and said she was sorry. A friend loaned her the money for an abortion, she explained, and she didn’t want a divorce after all. Gullitt couldn’t have been happier.

“It’s somewhat strange, I guess,” Sam said. “He looks nothing like me, but he favors his mother.”

“So the dude just came right out and told you he was your long-lost grandson?”

“No. Not at first. We talked for a while and his voice sounded familiar. Sounded like his father’s.”

“His father is your son, right?”

“Yeah. He’s dead.”

“Your son is dead?”

“Yeah.”

The green book finally arrived from Preacher Boy with another note about a magnificent dream he had just two nights ago. He had recently acquired the rare spiritual gift of dream interpretation, and couldn’t wait to share it with Sam. The dream was still revealing itself to him, and once he had it all pieced together he would decode it and untangle it and illustrate it for Sam. It was good news, he already knew that much.

At least he’s stopped singing, Sam said to himself as he finished the note and sat on his bed. Preacher Boy
had also been a gospel singer of sorts and a songwriter on top of that, and periodically found himself seized with the spirit to the point of serenading the tier at full volume and at all hours of the day and night. He was an untrained tenor with little pitch but incredible volume, and the complaints came fast and furious when he belted his new tunes into the hallway. Packer himself usually intervened to stop the racket. Sam had even threatened to step in legally and speed up the kid’s execution if the caterwauling didn’t stop, a sadistic move that he later apologized for. The poor kid was just crazy, and if Sam lived long enough he planned to use an insanity strategy that he’d read about from the California case.

He reclined on his bed and began to read. The fan ruffled the pages and circulated the sticky air, but within minutes the sheets under him were wet. He slept in dampness until the early hours before dawn when the Row was almost cool and the sheets were almost dry.

      Seventeen      

T
he Auburn House had never been a house or a home, but for decades had been a quaint little church of yellow brick and stained glass. It sat surrounded by an ugly chain-link fence on a shaded lot a few blocks from downtown Memphis. Graffiti littered the yellow brick and the stained glass windows had been replaced with plywood. The congregation had fled east years ago, away from the inner city, to the safety of the suburbs. They took their pews and songbooks, and even their steeple. A security guard paced along the fence ready to open the gate. Next door was a crumbling apartment building, and a block behind was a deteriorating federal housing project from which the patients of Auburn House came.

They were all young mothers, teenagers without exception whose mothers had also been teenagers and whose fathers were generally unknown. The average age was fifteen. The youngest had been eleven. They drifted in from the project with a baby on a hip and sometimes another one trailing behind. They came in packs of three and four and made their visits a social event. They came alone and scared. They gathered in the old sanctuary which was now a waiting room where paperwork was required. They waited with their infants while their toddlers played under the seats. They chatted with their friends, other girls from the project who’d walked to Auburn House because cars were scarce and they were too young to drive.

Adam parked in a small lot to the side and asked the
security guard for directions. He examined Adam closely then pointed to the front door where two young girls were holding babies and smoking. He entered between them, nodding and trying to be polite, but they only stared. Inside he found a half dozen of the same mothers sitting in plastic chairs with children swarming at their feet. A young lady behind a desk pointed at a door and told him to take the hallway on the left.

The door to Lee’s tiny office was open and she was talking seriously to a patient. She smiled at Adam. “I’ll be five minutes,” she said, holding something that appeared to be a diaper. The patient did not have a child with her, but one was due very shortly.

Adam eased along the hallway and found the men’s room. Lee was waiting for him in the hall when he came out. They pecked each other on the cheeks. “What do you think of our little operation?” she asked.

“What exactly do you do here?” They walked through the narrow corridor with worn carpet and peeling walls.

“Auburn House is a nonprofit organization staffed with volunteers. We work with young mothers.”

“It must be depressing.”

“Depends on how you look at it. Welcome to my office.” Lee waved at her door and they stepped inside. The walls were covered with colorful charts, one showing a series of babies and the foods they eat; another listed in large simple words the most common ailments of newborns; another cartoonish illustration hailed the benefits of condoms. Adam took a seat and assessed the walls.

“All of our kids come from the projects, so you can imagine the postnatal instruction they receive at home. None of them are married. They live with their mothers or aunts or grandmothers. Auburn House was
founded by some nuns twenty years ago to teach these kids how to raise healthy babies.”

Adam nodded at the condom poster. “And to prevent babies?”

“Yes. We’re not family planners, don’t want to be, but it doesn’t hurt to mention birth control.”

“Maybe you should do more than mention it.”

“Maybe. Sixty percent of the babies born in this county last year were out of wedlock, and the numbers go up each year. And each year there are more cases of battered and abandoned children. It’ll break your heart. Some of these little fellas don’t have a chance.”

“Who funds it?”

“It’s all private. We spend half our time trying to raise money. We operate on a very lean budget.”

“How many counselors like you?”

“A dozen or so. Some work a few afternoons a week, a few Saturdays. I’m lucky. I can afford to work here full-time.”

“How many hours a week?”

“I don’t know. Who keeps up with them? I get here around ten and leave after dark.”

“And you do this for free?”

“Yeah. You guys call it pro bono, I think.”

“It’s different with lawyers. We do volunteer work to justify ourselves and the money we make, our little contribution to society. We still make plenty of money, you understand. This is a little different.”

“It’s rewarding.”

“How’d you find this place?”

“I don’t know. It was a long time ago. I was a member of a social club, a hot-tea-drinkers club, and we’d meet once a month for a lovely lunch and discuss ways to raise a few pennies for the less fortunate. One day a nun spoke to us about Auburn House, and we adopted it as our beneficiary. One thing led to another.”

“And you’re not paid a dime?”

“Phelps has plenty of money, Adam. In fact, I donate a lot of it to Auburn House. We have an annual fundraiser now at the Peabody, black tie and champagne, and I make Phelps lean on his banker buddies to show up with their wives and fork over the money. Raised over two hundred thousand last year.”

“Where does it go?”

“Some goes to overhead. We have two full-time staffers. The building is cheap but it still costs. The rest goes for baby supplies, medicine, and literature. There’s never enough.”

“So you sort of run the place?”

“No. We pay an administrator. I’m just a counselor.”

Adam studied the poster behind her, the one with a bulky yellow condom snaking its way harmlessly across the wall. He gathered from the latest surveys and studies that these little devices were not being used by teenagers, in spite of television campaigns and school slogans and MTV spots by responsible rock stars. He could think of nothing worse than sitting in this cramped little room all day discussing diaper rashes with fifteen-year-old mothers.

“I admire you for this,” he said, looking at the wall with the baby food poster.

Lee nodded but said nothing. Her eyes were tired and she was ready to go. “Let’s go eat,” she said.

“Where?”

“I don’t know. Anywhere.”

“I saw Sam today. Spent two hours with him.”

Lee sunk in her seat, and slowly placed her feet on the desk. As usual, she was wearing faded jeans and a button-down.

“I’m his lawyer.”

“He signed the agreement?”

“Yes. He prepared one himself, four pages. We both signed it, and so now it’s up to me.”

“Are you scared?”

“Terrified. But I can handle it. I talked to a reporter with the Memphis Press this afternoon. They’ve heard the rumor that Sam Cayhall is my grandfather.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Couldn’t really deny it, could I? He wanted to ask all kinds of questions about the family, but I told him little. I’m sure he’ll dig around and find some more.”

“What about me?”

“I certainly didn’t tell him about you, but he’ll start digging. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry about what?”

“Sorry that maybe they’ll expose your true identity. You’ll be branded as the daughter of Sam Cayhall, murderer, racist, anti-Semite, terrorist, Klansman, the oldest man ever led to the gas chamber and gassed like an animal. They’ll run you out of town.”

“I’ve been through worse.”

“What?”

“Being the wife of Phelps Booth.”

Adam laughed at this, and Lee managed a smile. A middle-aged lady walked to the open door and told Lee she was leaving for the day. Lee jumped to her feet and quickly introduced her handsome young nephew, Adam Hall, a lawyer from Chicago, who was visiting for a spell. The lady was sufficiently impressed as she backed out of the office and disappeared down the hall.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Adam said.

“Why not?”

“Because my name will be in the paper tomorrow—Adam Hall, lawyer from Chicago, and grandson.”

Lee’s mouth dropped an inch before she caught it. She then gave a shrug as if she didn’t care, but Adam
saw the fear in her eyes. What a stupid mistake, she was telling herself. “Who cares?” she said as she picked up her purse and briefcase. “Let’s go find a restaurant.”

______

They went to a neighborhood bistro, an Italian family place with small tables and few lights in a converted bungalow. They sat in a dark corner and ordered drinks, iced tea for her and mineral water for him. When the waiter left, Lee leaned over the table and said, “Adam, there’s something I need to tell you.”

He nodded but said nothing.

“I’m an alcoholic.”

His eyes narrowed then froze. They’d had drinks together the last two nights.

“It’s been about ten years, now,” she explained, still low over the table. The nearest person was fifteen feet away. “There were a lot of reasons, okay, some of which you could probably guess. I went through recovery, came out clean, and lasted about a year. Then, rehab again. I’ve been through treatment three times, the last was five years ago. It’s not easy.”

“But you had a drink last night. Several drinks.”

“I know. And the night before. And today I emptied all the bottles and threw away the beer. There’s not a drop in the apartment.”

“That’s fine with me. I hope I’m not the reason.”

“No. But I need your help, okay. You’ll be living with me for a couple of months, and we’ll have some bad times. Just help me.”

“Sure, Lee. I wish you’d told me when I arrived. I don’t drink much. I can take it or leave it.”

“Alcoholism is a strange animal. Sometimes I can watch people drink and it doesn’t bother me. Then I’ll see a beer commercial and break into a sweat. I’ll see an ad in a magazine for a wine I used to enjoy, and the
craving is so intense I’ll become nauseated. It’s an awful struggle.”

The drinks arrived and Adam was afraid to touch his mineral water. He poured it over the ice and stirred it with a spoon. “Does it run in the family?” he asked, almost certain that it did.

“I don’t think so. Sam would sneak around and drink a little when we were kids, but he kept it from us. My mother’s mother was an alcoholic, so my mother never touched the stuff. I never saw it in the house.”