Rebecca Coleman - Inside These Walls

It didn’t stop me from trying it anyway. At least the diversion will buy me time, I thought—precious, irreplaceable days of Scrabble games and sharing memories and simply gazing at her face before I have to come clean. But now that I’ve looked her in the eye and enticed her in that direction, shame and regret are gnawing at me like a pair of rats. It’s a good thing I can’t call her, because the urge to confess the truth is downright visceral. This is the feeling I remember from the police station the day I was arrested, when they sat me down in a small dim room and read me my rights again and even though I knew, even though I understood beyond question that my words could and would be used against me, my conscience could not help but stick its finger down its throat and force out the truth. Yes, I killed him . It felt so good to unburden myself from it that I sobbed with relief, but the sense of lightness it brought me was a false one. The handing off of heavy truths is a relay race, and you can’t expect that the baton will never come back to you.

All of my drawings for the art book are with Shirley now. On Friday she received the finished portfolio with a look that was, if I dare to say it, admiring. “I’ll put in a good word for you, Clara,” she said to me, and I told her I appreciated that. Early on, I had planned to include the Degas drawing with the others, just in case they thought well of its quality and wanted to include it, but ever since Annemarie began coming around I’ve changed my mind. I know it’s for her, but I’m not sure how to explain the gift in a way she will understand. For now I sit in my darkened cell and coax the paper into ridges and corrugations, tap in patterns and the hints of shadows, and postpone thinking about what I will do with the finished product.

In the painting there’s a large mirror on the wall, right in the center, which reflects nothing comprehensible. I especially like that about it. It gives the feeling that these two figures—the tall man blocking the door and the slumped woman with her back to him—are absolutely alone and isolated. The world bears no record of what is happening here. It’s a dreadful scene, but the story it tells is a true one. So much of art tells the truth about what is going on in the artist’s mind, but in some cases its wisdom ends there. Ricky liked to work with clay—we had a kiln out back at the Cathouse that he and Chris had built of scavenged bricks and scrap metal—and he had a set of colored ink pens with which he drew on everything. His designs were lush and hungry and exaggerated: octopi, corpse flowers, multi-colored tree frogs with alarming wide eyes, voluptuous women in Bettie Page poses. With all of his thoughts traveling through a jungle like that one, it’s no wonder he made the decisions he did. But this Degas painting has none of that unnerving aesthetic or sense of personal reference. It’s almost like a photograph.

At last I set down my drawing and pull out the box of court transcripts from beneath the bed, keeping quiet in consideration for Janny. With her arm in the cast it’s been difficult for her to sleep, and this evening she didn’t go down to the chow hall for dinner because she said she was too tired and her arm ached too much. Now she’s lying quietly beneath the blanket, and I don’t want to disturb her, but there’s a section of Clinton’s testimony I want to look over again. Before I can locate it I come across another page of Forrest’s commentary—his examination by the prosecutor. I settle down onto my knees and read it.

Q: You stated that it was Ms. Mattingly who drove back to the residence after you left the rectory.

A: Yeah, it was her car, and she drove. I sat next to her, and everyone else was in the back.

Q: What was her demeanor like?

A: Calm. They were counting the money back there, and she didn’t say anything to me or to them. We got back to the Cathouse, and the rest of us started scrubbing up at the kitchen sink, taking off our clothes and whatnot, and next thing I know I hear the shower come on upstairs.

Q: And that was Ms. Mattingly?

A: Yeah. She took this long, hot shower—it was hazy around the door from all the steam—and then she came downstairs wearing jeans and one of Ricky’s T-shirts. The shirt she had on was from Spectrum Supply. It had the logo on the front, the little brush and paint palette thing. Her hair was blow-dried.

Q: You’re telling us she shot two people and then went home and blow-dried her hair.

A: I suppose so, yeah. I mean, that’s what she did. Ricky and Chris were in the living room fighting over where to go. Ricky wanted to go to Mexico, but Chris said the cops would be expecting that and had some place in western Oregon he wanted to go to instead. Clara went into the kitchen and got the glass with the Smurfs on it that they used for smoking hash—like, they’d light it, turn the glass upside down on it, and let it fill up with smoke, and then stick bendy straws underneath to suck it out. She came in with it and asked Ricky if there was any hash left. He told her it was upstairs.

Q: Was that something she did often, smoking hashish?

A: No, but once in a while she’d join in. She turned on the radio—I remember it was Phil Collins type stuff, because I was like, oh, God, what is this shit… Sorry. Then she and Liz sat at the coffee table and got high, and they watched the guys argue. Clara had a cat on her lap, like always. I was watching at the windows for cops, pretty terrified. I definitely didn’t want to get stoned at that moment.

Q: Do you feel like there was any impediment to Ms. Mattingly leaving at any point, if she chose? Was there any threat to her?

A: No. No. I mean, Chris probably would have tried to stop her, but after a while she just went upstairs to the bedroom and she didn’t try to leave. And Ricky wouldn’t have stopped her. If Chris had tried to break bad with her, Ricky would have defended her. He let her do whatever she wanted, always.

Q: That’s interesting that you tell us that, because there have been suggestions that he was physically abusive or intimidating to her.

A: God, no. In fact, at dinner that evening he was joking about how she’d hit him in the mouth earlier and it still hurt. He touched her all the time, but it wasn’t violent, I can tell you that much. She ruled the roost.

I know this stretch of testimony was particularly damning in terms of the sentence I received. A young, churchgoing woman with a spotless record is a pitiable case; but add in that she smokes hash, primps herself post-murder, and bosses around the kingpin, and all of the good work of my character witnesses is negated. It’s the Intérieur of Ricky and Clara, and it’s not especially flattering. I wish I had known Forrest well enough that I could understand why he painted it this way, but Forrest’s mind was a mystery to me. He looked so bland and unthreatening, but then, I guess they always do.

There’s a rustle in the bed, and Janny sits up. “Why you gotta be like this?” she demands, her voice jarringly loud and abrupt.

“I’m sorry. Was I too noisy?”

“You spying on me again? Is that what’s up?”

I frown, feeling a red flag of alarm pop up in my mind. I’m sure she could hear papers rustling, but I can’t imagine why she would assume they were hers. “Janny—no. These are my own court transcripts.”

“Like hell they are, you bitch.” She swings her legs over the side of the bed and starts shouting at me, her voice slurring as if she’s drunk. “Fucking puta . Who sent you here to spy on me—Javier? Some fucking zorra he found on the corner? Get over here so I can kick your ass!”

I back up toward the bars as she gets out of bed and starts toward me, the fingers of her non-casted hand tracing the bunk to orient herself. Her curly dark hair puffs out in snaky tendrils from the braid I made for her this morning, and her face is flushed. “Guard!” I shout, and at the sound of my voice she lunges for me, but staggers toward the right, as if the weight of her cast is throwing her off-balance. I go left, sliding my back along the bars. She stumbles into the corner of the desk and howls in pain.