Russell Banks - Outer Banks

This last observation by my wife, however, filled me with despair again, for I saw that no one would believe that I, of all prisoners, was the legitimate recipient of such a lavish gift as a large wooden chest filled with expensive items of cloth. My poverty was well known, for my calling had been publicly forbidden to me, and it was also well known that my wife and five children had been forced as a consequence to throw themselves upon the kindness of strangers and the few among the brethren who dared to be seen aiding them. How could a man, people would ask themselves, who cannot afford to feed and clothe and house his own wife and children, suddenly provide himself with a large handmade wooden chest stuffed with blankets, coats, hand towels and warm undergarments?

My dear wife saw my despair and with reluctance conceded that the ruse would not be taken, though at first she had seemed to view the expense of such a gift as not especially dear or difficult to finance, even. By so much was she conscious of my need that she had difficulty making herself aware of the practical considerations. But I had swiftly itemized for her clarification the costs of such a chest and its necessary contents, as I knew any inspector would be able to do immediately upon opening it and examining it for contraband, an itemization, in fact, he would be required by law to make, so as to fix the shipping and delivery charges, and then she realized how incriminating (of me, my presumed poverty) it would be. It would be as if a starving mouse were suddenly revealed to own a cupboard full of cheese, she lightly said to me, in a characteristically generous attempt to dispel my gloom with humor.

It here came to me that the gift of the hope chest would have to be made by someone of means, if it were to be a believable gift, and such a person would have to be a philanthropist who had determined to aid and comfort those who, among society’s less fortunate creatures, had been designated by society as its prisoners. Now since there was no way to regard me as worthy of being singled out by such a benefactor, for there were many who were as needy as I and some even more so, then the gift of a hope chest would have to be made to many prisoners equally and at once, enough of them so that I would not seem to have been specially chosen for the gift. The only number of prisoners that seemed appropriate, however, was three hundred eighty-seven, which was the number of prisoners, including me, then inhabiting my particular prison. I very quickly calculated what this would mean, in terms of materials alone, so as to estimate the approximate cost of such a huge undertaking as the manufacture of three hundred eighty-seven hope chests, and to my disappointment, I determined that the project would require over a half-ton of cotton batting (one thousand one hundred sixty-one pounds, to be exact), and also one thousand nine hundred thirty-five yards of red velvet cloth, and over two and one-third linear miles of twelve by one inch pine board.

At my recital of these quantities, my wife gave a high laugh and turned away from me, as if to hide tears of discouragement, for I knew that she could not imagine any benefactor wealthy enough to be willing to pay for such an undertaking. And we both knew that we could not request the gift of these hope chests and their contents from my impoverished brethren, my fellow coffin-makers who were now so scattered in the land as to be hopelessly out of contact with one another and quite incapable of a cooperative endeavor of these proportions, even had we been able to pay for the materials ourselves.

I then resolved that the cost of the hope chests and the contents therein might be borne by those wealthy citizens who seemed frequently to be willing, when properly approached, to finance the causes of the underprivileged among them, a surprisingly large group of ladies and gentlemen who, when they believe that most of the fashionable others in their class are supporting a particular cause, will themselves support that cause without question or stint. What was needed were a group of money collectors, a person able to arrange the appropriate publicity, an accountant or two to attend to the financial details and to keep scrupulous track of all funds, also an attorney, secretaries, an office of some sort, an executive director, and a board of directors. And we would need these people and facilities in the reverse order of their naming, for, once we had invited several prominent philanthropists to serve on our board of directors, which invitation, by the flattery of being singled out, they would eagerly accept, we would then be able to hire an executive director at a salary consistent with his or her responsibilities, and once we had hired an executive director, we would be able to hire the necessary secretarial help to take care of the paperwork that would commence to arrive once the newly hired attorney had filed for the incorporation charter and with it the plea for exemption from taxation, which would not be granted by the tax authority, of course, until we had procured the services of several accountants and clerks so as to keep our records in a satisfactory way, at which point we would be ready to hire the publicist, and as soon as he or she had begun his or her work, we would hire a battalion of collectors to begin calling on the numerous individuals who wished to support our particular cause.

My wife now grew exceedingly excited, and she showed me that the most important link in this chain was the post of executive director, for that person would be required not only to arrange and bear the responsibility for all the contributions coming in, but also for all the expenditures, the half-ton of cotton batting, the two and one-third miles of pine board, the thousands of yards of red velvet cloth, and the purchase of the blankets, linens, clothing, &c., and also that person would bear the responsibility of letting out the contracts to the numerous cabinet makers and woodworkers for the manufacture of our three hundred eighty-seven hope chests, a tedious task and one that could only be performed by someone close to me, so that it could be guaranteed that my specifications for the hope chest would be followed exactly.

Who could such a person be? we asked ourselves. My wife did not think that she would be incapable of the job, but I disagreed, for it did seem to me that, because of her longtime association with me and my heresy, it might be thought by the philanthropists, if she were the titular head of the organization, that they were coming out in support of my particular crime of heresy. No, I told her, they would not wish to have their endorsement of the cause of benevolence towards prisoners in general be construed as supporting any crime or prisoner in particular. And besides, I said to her, you are frail and weakly, and the demands of such a position would be beyond your capacities. She protested nobly, but I was eventually able to convince her of the foolhardiness of her desire to place herself in that position, however well-intended that desire. Next we considered her cousin Gina for the post, but again, I argued persuasively that Gina’s association with the crime for which I had been imprisoned was almost as close as my wife’s, especially since she had been coming to visit only me and no other prisoner for these last several months. We also considered several among the brethren who had not been imprisoned or who were not in any way known for their past or present practice of the various rites associated with our faith, but these too we had to dismiss, for the obvious reason that to organize and operate a philanthropic organization such as we were proposing would be to rip into shreds the careful fabric of invisibility that the brethren had woven in the last year. And naturally there was no imaginable way for me myself, condemned and immobilized as I then was, to direct the soliciting of funds and the expenditure thereof. And so, by gradual degrees, I began again to slip into despondency.