Russell Banks - Outer Banks

For these reasons, he came forward to the justices and declared that it had been he, John Bethel, who had altered the calendar so as to include my name upon it, and that if any man were to be tried and convicted for the said crime, it must be he. Let this interview and this assertion stand as an indictment and confession, said John Bethel, and let the clerk of the court properly add my name and blot out the name of the coffinmaker, and let the trial proceed as ordered by the statutes of procedure.

I cried out in vain that he must not sacrifice himself for the living, that he must only sacrifice himself for the dead, as we have long been taught ( II Carol. , iv, 34, 35), but it was too late. Judge Hale ordered the sergeant-at-arms to clap the jailor in irons and to present him in the docket, from which I myself was roughly removed. I saw the jailor’s peaceful eyes as I was wrenched past him and he took my place, and I uttered these words: My brother, you shall have my own coffin. Though you are in error, you have earned the right to it, and I have not.

This was the most public event in the twelve years of my imprisonment that have so far transpired, and thus it was the most misunderstood and the most slandered. By this brief private account I have tried to make understanding possible and slander libelous. Also by this account have I tried to tender mercy to the beloved dead man, John Bethel, who in life was my jailor and who in death awaits me as a brother.

MY JAILOR WENT forward unto the dead in my stead, and though there sometimes passed through my heart a swift blade of grief, and though I was often, on the occasion of dark and cold afternoons that first autumn of my imprisonment, lashed by regret and shame, I was able to obtain a measure of release from my guilt and comfort for my pain from my having been able to provide him with my own personal coffin for his journey unto the dead, and I was further released and comforted by the sure knowledge that, though he had taken my place among the dead, I was now taking his place among the living. I remembered the old teachings on death, how it must fall to every one of us, and whether it come sooner or later matters not, for time is valueless to the dead. Only the living can be tempted by time; the dead, by their nature, treasure it not at all.

It was during this early period of my imprisonment, when I had not yet obtained a coffin to replace the one I had transferred to my jailor, that I determined to atone for my rashness and stupidity in the matter concerning the alteration of the court calendar. I decided to atone for my life by resisting death. This meant that henceforth I would be compelled to avoid any confrontation that would risk my life. It also meant that I would no longer be able to deny myself any sustenance, any food, rest or medication or other physical comfort that in whatsoever way contributed to the further resistance of death.

I did this, said I to my wife and several friends, all of whom were at first astonished by this change in my behavior, to honor the dead John Bethel and the manner of his dying. My beloved frail wife, who had not yet wholly absorbed the principles and the celestial hugeness of the design that undergirds and guides our faith, was at first inclined to give outward evidence of great pleasure at my determination to avoid all activities and practices that could lead me into a fatal encounter with death. She clasped me to her tender bosom when she first heard of my decision and amid much weeping and wild high laughter exclaimed that now our children would be saved, for, as she saw it, now their father would be saved. And to my surprise and disappointment, she let it out that she now expected me to recant and forswear, as I had been so many times encouraged as well by the justices to do, my life long practice of the making of coffins and the teaching of this skill and the meanings of the skill to others.

No, dear wife, I admonished her. That I will not permit myself to do. For I am now uniquely situated in life, by virtue of my imprisonment, so as to be able to sustain my life and in that way scourge myself for having sinned in the matter of altering the court calendar without, at the same time and by that means, having also to deny the worth and significance of my worship of the dead and my desire to join them. This my life of imprisonment is come to me now as a great opportunity to bless and show mercy to one among them, the man who was my jailor, John Bethel. I cannot, indeed, I must not, let that opportunity slide away. To do so would be to render a meaningful existence meaningless, would be to sow confusion among the brethren, would be to desert my children altogether, and in the end would be to place myself beyond deserving your wifely love, which even now, by my failure to have given you deep enough understanding of my acts, seems to be withdrawing itself from me so as to attach itself back to its source, there to stagnate, a foul perversion of love and not at all the pure spring-like bubbling forth of love that you have carried to me up to now. Sit yourself down here by me in my cell, I said to her, so that I may begin to teach you from the ancient texts the meanings of our movements between life and death, and free me thereby to atone for my prideful oversight and the earlier inadequacy of my teaching, which, even as you exclaim and clasp me to you, reveals itself to us both in the painful form of your thrilled weeping at my new determination not to resist life.

And thereupon did I commence to instruct my young wife from the ancient texts and the myriad examples of death that have come down to us from olden times. And every day she came unto me, often in the company of a relation, to sit for hours and there to listen and reason together and exchange views, until such a time had passed as she did feel that she had fully penetrated my understanding and had taken it unto herself in such a form and thoroughness as to be able to convey it to our children, who, because of the corrupting nature of the prison, were not permitted to visit me during those years. (Later, when the two oldest grew large enough to pass as adults, they were to come unto me, and I will soon describe their visit.)

DURING THE PERIOD of my wife’s instruction, there grew within me, in the secret manner of a tumor, a quickly rising desire for fleshly contact with women, that at the start would as quickly, after I had become aware of its presence and had with mild horror rebuked it, weaken and droop back upon itself. This abominable longing would steal upon me and catch me unawares, even as I was deeply immersed in the teachings of the patriarchs and matriarchs or in discussion of theological history with my wife or her cousin (a young woman who sometimes accompanied my wife to the prison), or even when, for we then frequently resorted there, we three would each face a place in the tiny cell where two walls came together and, folding ourselves in our own arms, attempt to pray. These eruptions of lust knew no bounds of decency or decorum, honored no categories of thought, argument or inquiry, nor would they share the stage of my thoughts and sensibilities with any other player. Thus it was only with an enormous effort of will, frequently supplemented by quantities of anger (at my weakness, my own, no demon’s strength, no dark deity’s), that each time I was able to yank that player off the stage and replace him with the legitimate one.

I cannot deny this depraved interlude, that it existed, that I fought it, to be sure, and that, in the end, I was overcome by it. Nor can I lay the blame at anyone’s feet but my own. I confess my transgression against the spirit of the dead, which by its glory and infinitude demands our entire devotional attention. I confess it because I wish to let myself serve as a warning and a lesson to others who may in some future time during a similar period of connubial deprivation find themselves afflicted as was I. Therefore, I beg the reader’s indulgence and understanding of the presence, to follow, of certain descriptions that in a less somber, less deliberately instructional work would be reprehensible, if not morally disgusting. And let the prurient minded be warned: there will be nothing of interest for you here, for all that follows is woe and deprivation, and what may appear on the surface to be the glitter of sensual gratification, at bottom is but the enlightening muck and mire of self-disgust.