The Execution of Noa P. Singleton (3 page)

He shook his head. “No.”

“You don’t want to get my hopes up?”

“No, that’s not what I said.”

“You want to use me for other inmates? Is that it?”

“No, Ms. Singleton,” he said, elevating his hand to his brow.

“Relax,” I smiled. “It’s fine. It’s fine.”

“We just believe that, with Mrs. Dixon’s new position on the death penalty, the governor might actually look at your case differently.”

“Why?” I laughed. “Because Marlene Dixon is going to, let me make sure I understand you, plead for my life?”

As Oliver continued to lecture, my eyes drifted just beyond his mouth to a veiled backstage door from which only echoed sounds emerged. From my muffled chambers, I heard it as a high-heeled shoe tap-tap-tapping against the floor, visceral and stentorian, like listening to thunderous hail hit the surface from under water. It appeared to be a low navy-blue pump, pygmylike and broad around the heel; the type that middle-aged women wear once they no longer care about the sensual curve of their calf.

“Oliver,” I said, trying to stop him. “I’m sorry. I know why I’m here. I don’t need to recount the stages of my guilt, yet again, for another ambitious attorney who gets his kicks off of visiting convicts like me.”

“If we could just talk about what happened,” he said, overpowered by the metronomic clicking of thick old-lady shoes behind him. Her gait was so loud, I could hear it in the background through the receiver. Ollie bounced with each step, as if dancing along with the beat until she arrived in full view at the visitor’s booth. Through the Plexiglas divider, I saw her say something inaudible to Ollie, but caught enough of a reaction that my soon-to-be-mulish-boy-attorney stood instantly to greet her in an obedient bow of respect. Just as Ollie was developing a twinge of fortitude, down he came in doglike hierarchical surrender. There it was. I almost lost my appetite.

“Hello, Marlene,” I whispered, tapping my receiver against the glass partition. I made sure that I spoke first, and with pinpoint precision. I didn’t mean for it to sound creepy, but I suppose there’s no way around that. Maybe I just want to give people what they want when they come here. I don’t think that’s such a horrible thing to do.

I said it again, this time with theatrical elocution.

“Hello, Marlene. I didn’t realize you needed to send in an opening act.”

A subtle tic flew through her face, and she flinched. Mute before me, she removed a clean tissue from her pocketbook and wiped the mouth of the receiver. Only then did she lift it to her ear.

“Hello, Noa,” she said, clearly struggling to say my name.

That wasn’t so hard, I wanted to say. Instead, I told her that she looked well, and she did look well. She had dyed her hair again, a formal practice she’d abandoned during the trial for obvious reasons. It was now a pleasant deep blonde; that same luminescent color that most over-fifties take to in lieu of allowing the gray to broadcast reality. I have to say, though, it did look good on her.

I glanced over at Ollie, who was holding Marlene’s briefcase as she settled into her seat. Then he sat down beside her and picked up the extra receiver so he could eavesdrop on our sacred reunion. The more I think about it, he really wasn’t so terrible a palate cleanser. Then again, perhaps that’s just the illusion of incarceration.

“So, I hear you have a new execution date,” she finally said. Her long bony fingers brushed through her bangs, and she tossed them like a teenager.

“Yup, November seventh.” I switched the receiver to my other ear. “What are you really here for, Marlene? You can’t actually be in favor of keeping me alive.”

Marlene glanced at Oliver once again and then clutched her heart with the same bony hand. She cleared her throat, dancing the waltz of hypocrisy through her lilting, nuanced tilt of the head, tender and decisive placement of her hands, and preprogrammed vocal strum.

“Well, yes I am, actually.”

My eyes narrowed at their edges, pulled upward by invisible strings until my face settled into one of those allegedly humble smiles. God, my timing was perfect. I mean, it wasn’t like she was looking for happiness or mirth or gratitude or remorse, or who knows what else, but she seemed genuinely overjoyed—of course in subdued discomfort—that I seemed happy. I could never tell her that my response was actually more from humor than hope.

“Why?” I finally said. “Why do you suddenly want to help me?”

“Oliver discussed this with you, did he not?”

I nodded.

“Still …”

“I have my reasons, Noa. You above all people should understand that.”

“Come on, Marlene.”

She straightened her chair to face me and pressed her lips against each other as if she was smoothing out her lipstick. It must have been blood red when she initially applied it, probably hours earlier, and now was faded into a rustic mud. No doubt she ached from the inability to reapply inside these walls.

“You really won’t tell me why you want a do-over?”

Marlene ignored me. Instead of answering, she momentarily put away the receiver so that she could lean down to pull out a stack of folders from her monogrammed leather briefcase. As soon as she came up for air, she dropped the folders on the table with a loud percussion. She wasn’t going to answer me. Fair enough.

“So, what’s the deal with MAD?” I asked, playing along. “You couldn’t come up with a better name? You were bored? You were kicked out of Mothers Against Drunk Driving after you were cuffed with a DWI?”

She picked up the receiver again, still searching through her files.

“I’m going to presume your ignorance is a direct result of your confinement, Noa, and I will no further entertain your curiosity about my participation in your clemency petition as I will discuss the details of my daughter’s funeral with you.” She finally looked up to me. “Is that clear?” She was the first visitor outside Ollie S. not to offer me candy or refreshments from the vending machines.

“Sure,” I sighed. “I don’t get it, though. What can your coming here even do?”

“Oliver should have explained this to you,” she said, without turning her head a quarter of an inch to her right where he was still sitting motionless. “I explicitly told him to tell you about this. Besides, haven’t we already gone through this?”

“He did, he did,” I said, forcing an empathetic smile toward Oliver. “And yes, we sort of went through this. Still, I don’t understand the sudden change of heart.”

“It’s not a change of heart, Noa,” she said, staring directly through the partition. “It’s owning up to the one I’ve always had.”

I had never known Marlene to possess even a quarter of a heart, let alone a full one.

“What? Now you’re speechless,” she half-laughed. “That’s never been your problem, Noa.”

“I’m sorry, Marlene. I don’t mean to offend.”

“You didn’t offend me, Noa,” she said. “You just still haven’t grown up. After all these years. You’ve bled through all of your appeals at the state and federal level without so much as lifting a finger to help your attorneys. And yet,” she stalled. “And yet …”

She never finished her sentence. Not then. Not over the next six months.

“I suppose I deserved that,” I said, looking over to Oliver. He quickly turned away.

“Look, I want to help you, Noa,” she said, her voice slipping. “I want to talk to the governor about you. But if I’m going to use my influence to speak with the governor and tell him that, as the victim’s mother, I cannot live with this execution, I need something—anything—from you that tells me that you have changed. That you are a good person now. That you never meant to do what you did. That you are a worthwhile asset to this earth. So just talk to me, prove it to me.” Her lips were dry. She wet them with her tongue before continuing. “Life is not my choice or the state’s choice to end. I believe that wholeheartedly now. But with even greater urgency, on a personal level, I want to believe it to be true with you.” She patted the sagging skin under her eyes with a single index finger. “Does any of this make sense to you?”

“You have changed, but I don’t think that there is anything I can tell you that will make you change your mind about me.”

“Do not insult me,” she commanded, and with that tone, I could
tell just exactly how she’d become so successful. Before the trial and, even more so, after. “Do
not
waste my time, Noa.” It was still monotonous and shiveringly potent, but now so calm. Calm like the eye of a tornado calm. Calm like a millionaire who walks by a street bum calm. Just confident calm, you know? So with that, my muzzle finally unclipped, and without her suave coercion, I was finally able to say it.

“I’m … I’m sorry.”

It wasn’t even that hard. That was the most surprising part about all of it. I couldn’t say those words for the duration of the trial, and here, they slipped out, like extra change falling through a hole in your pocket.

She exhaled and her flattened chest puffed outward.

“I just want to know you. I want to understand.”

Oliver and I shared a glance when she stopped speaking.

“Why did your parents call you Noa?” she asked. “What is your favorite food? What colors do you like? Do you,” she paused. “Excuse me, did you listen to any specific types of music?”

No acknowledgment to my apology. But again, I played along.

“Okay,” I said. “I used to like sushi, really, before it became so popular. I have a thing for show tunes, Broadway musicals, especially
Cabaret
,
Carousel
,
Chicago
—the one-word
C
ones, not necessarily the prison ones. And, well, I guess it’s not even that I liked them, just, I listen to them mainly because of my mom,” I quickly corrected. “Sorry. Listened.” I stalled. “Hmmm, what else? I like green, pretty much any shade of green. Forest green, lime green, plain old green-green, grass green, hunter green. I did actually complete a half marathon once.” I looked at her attentive eyes. “My name,” I asked. “Really?”

“Don’t feel compelled to talk about only those sorts of things, though,” Oliver interjected.

Marlene twisted her neck like the top of a soda bottle opening and stared Ollie down so much so that his chair pushed away—almost on its own—and squeaked like a subway mouse. The chair actually did the job for him, both verbally and physically. He dropped his
receiver and quickly picked it back up again as to not miss anything. I had almost forgotten he was even there. That’s the kind of person Marlene Dixon was—pre-radiation and post. She just sort of eclipsed everyone else in her presence. Perhaps that’s why she never liked me. I didn’t allow her that narcissistic luxury.

“Really,” she nodded. “I want to know.” She paused again, forcing concern. “Why
Noa
?”

She made no pretenses about anything, really: her desire, her pleas, her appearance. Dressed extravagantly in that tailored suit, pitch-black and flowing loosely over her widening hips, she was the complete opposite of every other woman in my life. Ruby studs poked through each of her sagging earlobes right at their heart. A long golden chain hung over her blazer, sinking down between what would have been her breasts if they hadn’t been removed in the publicized double mastectomy that ran concurrently with my trial. (I know that my verdict had nothing to do with that, but I can’t help but wonder—even now—what would have happened if the jury members never knew about her health problems.) At the bottom of the chain was a stout locket, approximately two inches long, that I’m sure housed a portrait of Sarah at birth, and of course, college graduation.

“Fair enough,” I said. “I can’t really explain what my mother was thinking, but I was fairly certain she wanted a boy, so she gave me the boy’s name of Noah. It’s pretty much that simple.”

“But you spell it
N-O-A
,” Marlene continued.

“Are we back to spelling words out now? It’s not an acronym for anything.”

Still she persisted.

“Look,” I said, “when I got to high school, I dropped the
h
because I thought it sounded cooler. More original.”

Ollie perked up. “They gave you a middle name.”

“No middle name.”

“But the record.”

“I gave myself a middle name, Ollie,” I said, raising my voice.
“Imagine getting bored with parenthood before you even finished naming your own kid.”

Ollie didn’t respond. Marlene did not look pleased.

“It’s fine,” I said, lowering my voice. I cleared my throat before continuing. “It’s just that you can’t do anything original or memorable if you’ve got a boring name. That’s all. Middle name, hyphenated name, polysyllabic ethnic name or not, know what I mean?”

“Well,” he said, thinking to himself. “What about Bill Clinton? Or Jane Austen? Or Jimmy Carter?”

“Flukes,” I concluded. “They slipped through the cosmic cracks.”

Marlene finally spoke up again. Ollie had taken a few too many lines for her taste. “The thing is, the way you spell your name,” she said, “it’s a Hebrew name. A beautiful Hebrew name for women.”

“Hebrew, eh?” I inquired, as if I didn’t already know. People are always coming in here telling me things as if they’re the first to bestow the obvious on the incarcerated, as if they like to feel like they are telling me something I don’t already know. A stamp of righteous superiority by virtue of prison seat selection.

“Really?” Oliver asked, like I had just told her that Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel or that Jesus was a Jew. Really, Marlene. This was the best you could find?

But while I was talking and Oliver was taking notes, I could tell that something was changing. A sudden drop in temperature in the visitor’s room. A slowing of the clock. A stalling of a pulse.

“I wanted to name my daughter Noa,” Marlene confessed, “but my husband didn’t like it.”

“I didn’t know,” I said after giving her time to mourn this farce of a loss.

She lifted the stack of folders in her hands, placed them upright, and tapped them until they fell into alignment. “Well, things don’t always turn out the way we plan them, now do they?” She then leaned back down to her briefcase and put away the folders. “Thank you for your time, Noa. We’ll be in touch.”