Michael Lister: Blood of the Lamb

The cool air and shelter from the sun felt refreshing, but couldn’t compare to the relief I felt at having Nicole on this side of the chainlink and razor wire. I still couldn’t believe they had taken her down on the compound. Perhaps the Caldwells were just naive. Not everyone was as sensitized as I was to the danger the concrete and steel held, but it was unimaginable they could put her on display like that, parading her around for all the molesters to see, and Edward Stone should have known better.

“Are you saved, sanctified, and filled with the Holy Ghost?” she asked.

“Not so much,” I said.

She looked puzzled, but let out a small laugh. “You’re silly.”

Once we had retrieved her coloring book and crayons from Stone’s office, she settled in the head chair at the conference table with them and got right to work.

For a long moment, I just sat and watched her, finding her intensity and concentration fascinating. As she worked, she narrowed her eyes, furrowed her brow, and talked very softly to herself about what she was doing.

“Would you like a Coke or a candy bar?” I asked.

Without looking up, she said, “Mom says caffeine and chocolate make me hyper.”

I was struck again by the way she spoke. Like her straightened hair and preppy dress, the only thing about her that was black was her skin-and it was very light. Was it just the inevitable byproduct of being adopted by Caucasian parents, or were Bobby Earl and Bunny consciously raising her to be white?

“CHAPLAIN,” one of the ladies from the business office yelled from down the hall. “THERE’S A CALL FOR YOU. ARE YOU UP HERE?”

“TRANSFER IT TO THE CONFERENCE ROOM, PLEASE,” I called. “THANKS.”

I picked up the phone almost the moment it rang.

“I thought you were gonna come see me this afternoon,” Anna said.

“I got a better offer,” I said.

Watching Nicole color so intently, I realized again just how stunning she was and how wrong it was for her to be here.

“Rumor has it you’re with another woman,” she said.

“Why don’t you come see for yourself?”

Though she never looked up, Nicole leaned toward me slightly, turning her ear in my direction, and began to color with less enthusiasm, and I could tell she was listening to our conversation.

“I think I will,” Anna said, and hung up.

When she arrived a few minutes later, I made the proper introductions.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Nicole said to Anna, then turning to me, asked, “Is she your girlfriend?”

“Only in my dreams,” I said.

“You’re silly,” she said again.

“May we color with you?” Anna asked.

“Sure,” Nicole said. “I have a whole book of pictures.”

She let each of us tear a page from her book and told us to help ourselves to her crayons.

“Thanks for being so generous,” Anna said.

“It’s more blessed to give than receive,” she said.

“So I’ve heard,” Anna said, smiling at me.

“Sprite doesn’t have caffeine,” Nicole said.

Unaware of my previous offer and Nicole’s response, Anna smiled at what she thought was the typical non sequitur of a small child. “No, it doesn’t,” she said.

“A Sprite it is then,” I said. “Anna?”

“No, thank you,” Anna said, continuing to color, “ I’m starving for my art.”

As I was walking from the room, Nicole said, “Chips don’t have chocolate.”

When I returned with the Sprite and chips from the vending machine, seeing Anna and Nicole together, I wondered what it would be like to have children with such a woman. Though aware of and attentive to Nicole like I had yet to see Bunny be, she had thrown herself into coloring her masterpiece with the same childlike abandon Nicole had.

“Thank you, Chaplain JJ,” Nicole said, as I popped the top and opened the bag for her.

“My pleasure,” I said.

After a few chips and sips, she looked up at Anna and said, “You should marry him. I’m gonna marry a preacher.”

“If she were my wife,” I said, “I might just get my own TV show.”

“My mom’s pretty,” she said.

“She sure is,” Anna said.

Before I could say anything, the phone rang again and I picked it up.

“Chaplain Jordan, this is Kate at the switchboard. An inmate in A-dorm just tried to commit suicide and they need you down there right away.”

I stood as I placed the receiver back in the cradle.

“I’ve gotta go to A-dorm,” I said. “Can you stay with Nicole until her parents get back?”

“Sure,” she said. “What is it?”

“Attempted suicide.”

She nodded.

“Call me if you need anything.”

Without looking up from her work, Nicole said, “We’ll pray for you, Chaplain JJ.”

They were the last words she ever said to me, and their simplicity and sincerity would haunt me long after she was dead.

That night when I reached the chapel, Bunny and Nicole were singing “Consider the Lilies.” Bobby Earl looked on with pride from his seat on the platform, and it was disconcerting to see him sitting in the chair I had come to think of as mine.

Crisis counseling wasn’t something that could be rushed, and I was much later getting to the chapel than I would’ve liked.

I slipped into the sanctuary past Officer Roger Coel, who gave me a strained nod, and walked to the center aisle to get a better idea of the attendance. The chapel was packed, inmates filling the pews and spilling over into chairs beyond the drawn divider into the overflow room.

“Good turnout,” I whispered when I had eased back over to Coel.

He was a tall, lean, ex-military man with thin blond hair that had a tendency to stand up.

“Someone circulated a picture of Bunny Caldwell around the compound this afternoon,” he said.

“You sayin’ their reasons for being here are more carnal than spiritual?” I asked with mock surprise.

“It’s why I’m here. I volunteered for this assignment.”

The nondescript chapel, meant to accommodate all religions, bore the symbols of none. It was large, with pews on either side of a wide center aisle and had a platform with a wooden pulpit centered at the front. The pews and the pulpit had been built by inmates who lacked the precision their construction required. The tops of the pews were different heights and the pulpit leaned to the left a little.

“Are you the only officer here?” I asked, unable to keep the surprise and anger out of my voice.

He nodded. “Whitfield was here-he loves this shit, but he got pulled to escort the GED class back down to the dorms. Almost made him lose his religion,” he added with an appreciative smile. “He should be back soon.”

Bunny and Nicole finished their song and received a standing ovation. Bunny took several bows, but looked over at Bobby Earl uneasily. Nicole just smiled. Then, as the men were being seated and Bobby Earl was taking the pulpit, Bunny and Nicole slipped into my office through the door near the platform.

“Do you need any help?” I asked Coel.

“You can check the bathrooms,” he said. “I can’t be here and there at the same time, and it’s probably full of these randy bastards beatin’ off to Bunny.”

I nodded, and started to walk out when Coel grabbed my arm.

“Why didn’t you put out a memo for security about this service?” he whispered, his voice harsh, his face pinched. “Control didn’t have anything on it. Were they cleared through the proper channels?”

“I didn’t have anything to do with this program,” I said. “Stone set it up. He said he took care of everything.”

“Yeah, with a phone call at the time they arrived. No advance warning. No chance for us to prepare. Nothing.”