Andrew Klavan - True Crime

“Hey, tell me about it, Reverend,” Beachum snapped. “You don’t have to face it.”

Flowers didn’t answer at first. He mostly went on instinct in conversations such as these. He tried not to think too much and hoped that God would give him the right words to say. In this instance, God seemed to come through for him. Because it occurred to him to say, “We all have to face it in the end, Frank,” and he didn’t say it, the words died in his throat. God apparently felt this was no time to get false and sententious. Flowers and Frank both knew which titmouse on the branch they were, and they both knew that Flowers couldn’t help but be glad.

“No,” the reverend said finally. “I don’t have to face it.”

Beachum butted his head against the bars. Softly, but it made Flowers flinch. “Sorry,” he said again. “Sorry, sorry.”

“Come on and sit down, Frank. Come on.”

Flowers tugged at his shoulder gently. Weakly, his arms hanging at his sides now, the condemned man came away from the bars. He shuffled back to the cot and sat down. Flowers pulled the chair over and sat in front of him, leaning toward him, searching out his downcast eyes. He waited for Beachum to speak again. This was hard in itself: keeping silent, watching the terror corkscrew through the other man, huddling within himself, within his own relative safety. Along with sorrow and pity, there was always so much else involved in these moments, so many less forgivable emotions. Not only the irrepressible joy of existence, but the pride of doing good as well, the self-satisfaction, and the excitement of witnessing a drama, as if you were watching television instead of a fellow creature in pain. Along with the sorrow, of which he was almost constantly aware, Flowers had lived these last five years-perhaps longer than that-with another feeling, more secret from himself, revealing itself only in sour surges that made him want to turn away from the sight of his own soul: He felt there was something rotten inside him, something rotten and low. Something unworthy.

“Man, it’s bad,” Frank broke out. He shook his head at the floor. “Man …!”

“You showed a lot of strength for Bonnie,” said Flowers.

“Yeah, yeah. For Bonnie and Gail.”

“And now they’re gone.”

“Yeah. Gone.” Frank shook his head some more. He had started to rub his hands together again. “They’re sure gone. Ain’t nobody home but us chickens,” he said with another dreadful laugh.

Flowers reached out and squeezed the condemned man’s arm. “What about God, Frank? You got trouble getting through to God too?”

“I lost it!” Beachum cried out like a child-a strangled cry. He threw his hands up around his head in frustration. “I had it. I had it and it just …”

Flowers leaned in closer, speaking without thinking; going on instinct. “God hasn’t lost you, Frank. He hasn’t lost sight of you.”

With an angry noise, Beachum jumped to his feet again, walked to the bars again, glanced again at the clock and away. He wrapped his arms around himself. This time, though, when he’d gone as far as he could, he stood still. He looked up at the ceiling, at the fluorescent lights. He closed his eyes.

“Everybody wants something outta me,” he whispered. And his voice growing steadily louder: “Even now. Christ, Christ, what am I doing here? I’m dying, I’m fucking dying, and everybody’s gotta have something, a piece of me.”

Flowers’s nostrils flared as he drew breath sharply. He understood already what Frank meant and he felt it, felt the truth of it-another charge against himself.

“Gail,” said Frank in a choked voice. “I gotta smile for Gail-you think I don’t see what’s happening to her? — and I gotta smile and say, ‘Good picture, Gail. Daddy loves ya, honey.’ So she’s got some shred of something, see, so she’s not a fucking basket case, which she’s gonna be anyway, Harlan. Christ! And Bonnie. Oh yeah, be strong for Bonnie, don’t let Bonnie see how bad it is. Because she couldn’t take it, what a pit it is, what a black pit. Jesus, Jesus!” He turned to face the reverend, still hugging himself, his mouth twisted, his eyes burning. Flowers felt the heat of those eyes and felt one of those acid gouts of self-disgust. “The warden comes in here,” said Frank. “The warden , I swear to God-he comes in here and I’m looking at him. I know what he wants me to say. ‘Oh, I forgive you, Warden, you’re just doing your job, Warden. No hard feelings, Warden.’ No hard feelings. And the reporter wants his goddamned story …” Frank turned his head-turned so he could wipe his mouth dry on his hand without releasing the grip he had on his own body. He kept his lips pressed there, against the hand, speaking into the fleshy web. “And now you come in here, Harlan. I’m sorry, but you’re coming in here. I gotta give you something too.”

Flowers had known this was coming but still felt it as it struck him. “No,” he said, and felt it was a lie.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You want something outta me too. I gotta say, ‘Oh yeah, Harlan, oh yeah, Reverend, I believe.’ Don’t I? ‘I believe in the Lord Jesus and I’m going to Heaven, we’re all going to Heaven.’ ” Frank pressed his face hard into his hand, squeezing his eyes shut. “So you don’t have to be afraid,” he said. “That’s why. I gotta say it so you don’t have to be. I gotta get strapped down and carted off into that needle room singing hymns and praising God so you don’t have to hear me in your bed at night, in your heart, telling you, ‘There’s just nothing, man. My whole family’s ruined, my life, I lived good, I didn’t do anything, Christ! and it’s just fucking nothing.’ ”

Now Flowers’s fine, grave features-those features that the old ladies of his congregation so admired-now he forced them to remain inexpressive and still. He sat with his elbows on his knees, his fingers motionless, intertwined, his grave eyes toward Beachum. He gave no sign-was careful to give no sign-of the cold thrill that went through him as the condemned man spoke. Because he also lived, as Beachum had, with the eye of God upon him. That ever-seeing eye-he had felt it there since he could remember, since he was a child. An invisible audience, a second judgment on his every thought and action. And what if it should go away, he thought, as it had for Frank. What if he were left here on the sere earth with all this sorrow and no one watching? Maybe it would release the stranglehold of guilt, stop up the mouth of his conscience, let him feel right and strong again the way he used to, or thought he used to. But to make that trade, to hand that in in return for nothing but lonesomeness and cosmic laughter … Frank was right: the thought did strike him as terrible, though he couldn’t really imagine what it would be like. So maybe Frank was also right that he had come here to see his faith confirmed in a dead man’s eyes.

It didn’t make Flowers feel much better about himself when he took refuge from those eyes in Scripture.

“You know, Jesus felt this too, Frank,” he said with far more certainty in his bass voice than he felt. “He kneeled and he prayed for this cup to pass, in the garden, when they were coming for him, when they were coming to take him to his execution just like they’re coming to take you.”

“Yeah, well, he got to come back,” Frank muttered, “it’s an important fucking difference.”

“Maybe so. But it didn’t stop him from sweating blood. It says that right in the book. Jesus wept and the sweat poured from him like blood and he said he was sorrowful even unto death. What I mean is, he doesn’t know sort of how you feel, Frank. He knows exactly how you feel.”