James Frey - The Final Testament of the Holy Bible

I woke up. Got dressed. Went back to the courthouse, where I had a number of hearings scheduled. I kept thinking about Ben. About Rikers. About what I imagined was happening there. Midway through the morning, my phone rang. The prison’s phone number showed on my caller ID. I took the call, expecting bad news. It was the warden of the prison. I was shocked. I had never spoken to him or had any contact with him. It was extraordinary to hear from him directly. He told me there was a problem. Asked if I could come to speak to him. I asked what the problem was, and he said he’d speak to me about it when I got there.

I took the subway to the bus and went over the Rikers bridge. I got through security and went to admin. The warden was waiting for me. I sat across from him. He spoke.

What do you know about your client?

Only what’s in the file.

You ever hear of Yahya?

Heard of. Yes.

Know anything about him?

Very little.

He was a murderer. Killed his foster father when he was a kid. Disappeared for thirty years. Started some religious group in the subway tunnels. Preached about the evils of government and organized religion. Typical wacko shit. Scarred his followers, most of whom were drug addicts and petty criminals. Said the scars liberated them from society, freed them from its laws and obligations. They had their own little world down there. Electricity, water. They did drugs and had orgies. Really fucked up. Near the end of their time, they built up a huge cache of weapons. Yahya said the apocalypse was coming. That the Messiah would arrive, heralding the end of the world. And when it came, he and his followers would be safe in the subways. I know all of this, more or less. They all got arrested. They were all held at the MCC. Yahya refused to acknowledge the authority of the court. Tried to reorganize his followers in prison. Got sent to solitary. Went on a hunger strike. Prosecutors got an order to feed him intravenously. When the guards opened his cell, he attacked them. As he was being subdued, he hit his head on the floor. His brain bled and he died. His followers went fucking crazy, and all of them ended up in solitary. Some got sent to other institutions, including this one. Everywhere they went, they preached the gospel of Yahya. And they preached the gospel of Yahya’s Messiah, who had indeed arrived, and was the one member of his group who got bail and immediately disappeared.

My client.

Yes.

He’s the Messiah.

He’s a fucking lunatic that thinks he’s the Messiah, and that some other lunatics think is the Messiah.

Anything happened since he arrived?

It took a day or so for people to figure out who he was when he got to our medical facility. As soon as they did, the inmates started talking. We had him isolated so there were no problems, though we tried to listen to the chatter. When he came back yesterday, he entered general pop. I was watching when he went to the yard, where a group of inmates were waiting for him, which usually means someone’s gonna get fucked up. As he walked out, they all stared at him. No one moved. The ones who weren’t waiting for him stopped whatever they were doing and turned towards him. He went straight into the middle of the yard and sat down. First ones over to him were the ones who’d scarred themselves like Yahya. There are four or five of them. They have a few who follow them, who were all part of the initial group waiting for him. They followed. And then everyone in the yard, black, white, Hispanic, Blood, Crip, Latin King, DDP, Trinitario, fucking Hells Angels and mobsters, all walked over and sat down around him. I’ve never seen the yard so quiet, so still. Usually when it gets quiet it means there’s gonna be a fucking war. It’s the calm that descends before the killing starts. But not this time. Somehow he made men who literally spend most of their time trying to figure out how to murder each other sit around in a big circle. He started talking. We don’t know what he said, and no one will tell us. We wanted to go in and break it up, but they weren’t violating any of our regs, so we couldn’t do a thing. He spoke for ten or fifteen minutes. At the end of it he stood up and walked around and put his hand on people’s heads. Didn’t say a word. Just put his hand on their foreheads and smiled. He walked back to where he had been and sat back down. Almost immediately, he had some kind of seizure. A fucking crazy, body-shaking, spitting, eyes-rolled-up-in-his-head seizure. Normally we would go in immediately and get the prisoner and take him back to medical. There was no fucking way this time. I knew absolutely, without any shred of doubt, if we had tried there would have been a riot. And men on both sides would have died, and this prison would have fucking exploded. So we left him there, left all of them there, and let him have his seizure. And waited for it to end. Ten minutes later it was still happening. Twenty minutes. Forty minutes. He just kept seizing. And the men stood up and started mixing with each other. All over the yard, men who a couple hours earlier were deadly enemies were talking, laughing, shaking hands. And Avrohom was still in the middle of the yard, having his seizure. And even though everyone had seemingly left him alone, it felt like they were all still watching him, watching everything he did, and waiting for it to end. The time passed when we would have normally brought everyone inside. We weren’t sure what to do, so we left them out there. Two hours later the seizure stopped. Quickly as it started, it just stopped. He was still for a minute or two, looked dead. Then he stood up and walked towards the gate back inside. We opened it and he came in, and everyone else followed him. He went back to his cell, where he is right now.

The yard covered by cameras?

Of course.

Can I see the tapes?

You don’t believe me?

I want to see it.

Fine.

We went to the control room where all of the surveillance feeds come in and are monitored. He showed me the tapes, which showed more or less exactly what he had described. When they ended, when the last of the prisoners had reentered the prison, he spoke.

I can’t have him here.

He hasn’t done anything wrong.

If he can do that, he’s a profound threat to the safety of this facility, and to the people who work here.

It looked more to me like he might be able to help you.

I don’t know what the fuck he did out there, but sooner or later it will turn.

How do you know?

Because I’ve been working in prisons for most of my life and I’ve never seen anything remotely close to what I saw earlier today.

You can’t punish him if he hasn’t done anything wrong.

We’re gonna recommend that the prosecutor have him declared incompetent and ship him to a maximum security mental institution.

That’s fucked. I’m not going to let you.

Most attorneys would be happy to get their clients out of here.

I’m going to fight you.

Why?

He doesn’t belong in a mental institution.

He thinks he’s the Messiah.

He say that?

Enough other people have.

You can’t hold things he hasn’t done against him, and you can’t hold statements he hasn’t made against him.

He’s fucking dangerous and I want him out of here.

He stood and shook my hand. I asked him if I could see Ben, and he said no. I left and went back to my office. By the time I arrived, I had received notice that the assistant district attorney had filed an Article 730, which was a motion to declare Ben incompetent to stand trial and to have him examined for mental illness. Normally Article 730 was something used by defense attorneys. If they could have their client declared incompetent, they could avoid a trial, and their client would be sent to a mental institution for treatment instead of going to prison, which is obviously a better result for someone who’s mentally ill. I had never heard of an ADA using it before. Normally they want the conviction, and the offender to be held in prison. Following its procedures, Ben would be examined by two psychiatrists. They would write reports. We had the right to have him examined by our own psychiatrists. They would write reports. All of the reports would be submitted and the judge would make a ruling. If he was deemed competent, he would stay in prison and face trial. If not, he would be sent to a mental institution.