He was dumping her. He was offering a spiritual bond instead of a physical one.
“Mother of God,” Donna said, pausing the movie. It was like Tennessee Williams was watching right through the bay window.
She stood, stretched, and walked across the too-long shag of her living room. She turned a corner into the bathroom – a long thin galley with a deformed sink, a pessimistic old toilet, and a bathtub stained with rusty water. She sat on the toilet, elbows on knees, and stared down at the gloves and rags she had used to scrub the floor. Finishing, she stood. The mirror showed back a stranger – hair needing a trim, wild about her shoulders, eyes ten years older – and where was her smile, her long and patient smile?
Perhaps the place to find her smile would be her toothbrush. She opened wide the medicine cabinet and reached numbly for the brush. Her hand instead grasped a tampon, the last one left. She’d meant to buy more, but that was a couple months ago, and she had forgotten…
“Mother of God…”
Of its own accord, her hand slumped from the medicine cabinet and brought a shower of nail clippers and toothbrushes and razors down into the sink. Detective Leland herself landed on the floor.
The stocky, gray-haired men marched with nothing like their old glory. Their pectorals sagged under the weight of tiny medals. Their beer guts bounced. They marched. Most leaned back on their heels, their chins up as though they had to look through the bottoms of their bifocals to see the sidewalk. Those that weren’t retirees were camouflaged and bearded, with the undefeated look of the southern soldiers after 1865. This mismatched assortment would, perhaps, have seemed comical if it weren’t for their number – sixtyseven parading before the Racine County Jail, and another forty-some shouting in a rally beside the outdoor directory. Perhaps more daunting than those numbers were the many in wheelchairs, the numerous amputees, and the signs they held above their heads.
FREE WILLIAM DANCE. DON’T SPIT ON ME! MIA – MISSING IN AMERICA! POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER IS REAL UNCLE SAM OR BIG BROTHER? RACINE COUNTY CORRECTIONS: TOMB OF THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER HE’S ALREADY BEEN SENTENCED TO LIFE GIVE ’EM HELL, SAM-A-EL! I WAS CALLED MURDERER, TOO WHEN JOHNNY COMES MARCHING HOME ANOTHER VICTIM OF LIBERALISM IF YOU THINK HEADS ROLLED BEFORE… AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL? WHAT ABOUT AMNESTY AMERICA? WE PARDON DRAFT DODGERS BUT NOT WAR HEROES? WILLY B. SHOULD B SET FREE
And, were those things not enough, the Gay and Lesbian Association of Wisconsin – GALAW – had fielded forty-five marchers to picket the courthouse across the street.
There’s something fragile in your eyes. Your hair is a little wild above a rumpled jacket of tweed. You tremble in the fluorescent glow pouring down from the interrogation table. It’s late. They usually don’t allow visits at this hour.
I want to stand, but the shackles on my wrists keep me down. “What is it, Donna? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” You smile dismissively and somehow manage to look even more miserable. “It’s nothing.”
You cross to my side of the table, dragging a scudding chair with you. You sit and take my hands. “It’s official, Sweetheart. You’re human.”
I’m confused. “They came back with a verdict?”
“No. No, the jury is still out,” you say, adding cryptically, “but there has been a definite verdict. God has given a definite verdict.”
I shake my head. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m carrying your baby. I’m going to be a mother. You’re going to be a father. You are going to have a child,” you reply. Tears trace the lines of your smile, and your laugh sounds half-sob. “We are going to be parents.”
I’d never before felt such a storm of emotion. Now, there is wonder and terror in equal portions. You’re watching my face. You’re terrified of what I think. You. You weep before me, ache to be held by me. I feel the same. Your fear, your joy, your determination and dread, your shame and pride.
I choke out, “I love you. You were right all along. This is good news. This is great news! Now – now, no matter what happens to me, there will be a part of me outside of prison walls. There will be a part of me flying kites in the park, playing video games, drinking a Coke, looking through the paper for free puppies-”
“Yes, yes,” you say, excited through tears, “the child will have everything you never did. Birthday parties and playing in the sprinkler and trips to the Public Museum and the Museum of Science and Industry and the zoo, and love. Most of all, love.”
I’m laughing now. I can’t lift my hands to hold you, but I’m holding you with my eyes and my smile and the craving of my whole body. “You’ve been with me this whole time. You’ve been with me in this room and the hospital room and the courtroom, but also in solitary, also in the darkest spaces and moments, you’ve been with me. You’ve made it all bearable, livable – no, more than that. You’ve made it good. You’ve made it heaven. No matter what happens to me, as long as I have you, you and my child, I can be human and mad and in prison and still be in Heaven.”
NINETEEN
The decorous courtroom had a different air today. Its solemnity had deepened to reverence, its moral outrage to a kind of giddy nausea. There was the very real impression of a crowd at the final judgment.
“Have you reached a verdict?” Judge Devlin asked the jury foreman, a heavyset black woman in her mid fifties.
Standing, the foreman said, “We have, Your Honor.”
She proffered a folded slip of paper, which the bailiff retrieved and delivered to the judge. Sandra Devlin peered at the paper through her crescent-shaped reading lenses, folded the document again, and handed it back to the bailiff. He carried it again to the foreman. Judge Devlin said, in an utterly unimpassioned voice,
“For the record, please read your verdict.”“Certainly, Your Honor. In the case of the State of Wisconsin versus John Doe, as regards the first charge of murder in the first degree, for the death of Derek Billings, we find the defendant… guilty.”
An excited whoop came from some members of the crowd, many of whom clapped, and two of whom gave the gavel-rapping judge a standing ovation. Donna clutched Azra’s hand. He nodded to her, his tight-lipped smile of resignation parting just long enough for him to whisper, “It will be all right.”
“As regards the second charge of murder in the first degree, for the death of Lawrence Teeds, we find the defendant… guilty.”
The adulation resumed, less marked this time, more a cheer of vindication than one of vindictiveness. Donna and Azra sat, hand in hand, facing bravely forward.
“As regards the third charge of murder in the first degree, for the death of Jules Koenig, we find the defendant guilty.” The foreman paused, seeming to expect another outburst, but none followed. “As regards the fourth charge of murder in the first degree, for the death of Lynn Blautsmeyer, we find the defendant guilty. As regards the fifth charge of murder in the first degree, for the death of David Miller, we find the defendant guilty. As regards the sixth and final charge of murder in the first degree, for the death of Harold Cruze, we find the defendant guilty.”
There came a patter of applause like a gentle rain. Relief moved like a mist through the room. Even Donna and Azra seemed grateful that the long trial was finished. Judge Devlin rapped her gavel, regaining the floor. “I have reached a sentencing decision.” She let out a heavy sigh. “The man who sits here among us has no certain name. John Doe, Azrael Michaels, Samael, the Son of Samael, William B. Dance. Nor does he have a certain past – abused minor, runaway, POW, amnesiac, war hero, serial killer, angel. Whoever he is and whatever his past, though, he is guilty of heinous crimes, the most recent of which was committed while incarcerated just across the street in the jail. And those certain crimes require certain punishment.