Back in the day, when Walter realized what his future was-what his lack of future was-and found that he could accept it, his first thought was: I’ll probably learn to play chess. He wasn’t sure where this idea came from. Like most people, he knew what he knew about prison from the movies, but this was before The Shawshank Redemption, before The Silence of the Lambs, although he now knew about both films from talking to men who had arrived here later. The one prison movie that Walter could have described in detail was actually about a juvenile facility, and no one there was playing chess, that was for sure. Bad Boys, with Sean Penn. He had never met another person who had seen the film, not since he was inside. Say Bad Boys and people immediately assumed you were talking about those other movies, which came way later.
Elizabeth had seen Bad Boys, though. She shouldn’t have-it was R-rated and she was only thirteen when it was released. He told her as much, but let the lecture drop because he was keen to know what she thought of it.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I like Sean Penn, but I wish he would do more movies like Fast Times at Ridgemont High. This one was so depressing.”
“That movie where the girl took her top off?”
“Yeah. He was funny in that.”
“He was stoned.”
“His character was.” Oh so prim and proper, as if he didn’t understand the difference.
“I just don’t think that’s funny, being high,” he said, and they had dropped the subject. They never agreed on movies or music. Still, he wished they could have talked more. He wanted to ask her if she thought the movie was right, about how much rape there was in prison, or if that was only in the juvenile places. Even then, in the back of his mind, he knew it was going to be prison or death for him, and he was actually more scared of the first. He could imagine death. He had seen death. He couldn’t imagine life in a cell.
But over the weeks, months, it took the system to sort out his crimes and decide how to punish him, Walter had come to understand and accept the contours of his life. Contours-a lovely word, exactly what it sounded like, a big round vase. He wasn’t going to be found innocent, not in the case of Holly or Maude, and that was all because of Elizabeth, the state’s star witness. Without her, they wouldn’t have had anything. She had found him at Maude’s grave, she had been there the night Holly died. It was lucky that he hadn’t given her specifics of the other things he had done. Oh, he had made vague references, especially in the beginning, when he had to get her to obey him. “If you knew the things I’d done…I’ve snapped a girl’s neck before and I’ll do it again.” But he had been cagey enough to withhold the specifics, and she couldn’t tell folks anything more than what she had seen. If only he had killed her-but he hadn’t, and that was that. Certainly he had known what would happen if they were caught, and he had realized, after Holly died, that such an outcome was more likely. Holly wasn’t the kind of girl whose disappearance and death went unavenged. This time, he had stolen a princess, and the kingdom was going to rise up, outraged. Sure enough, he was in custody less than forty-eight hours later, and that began the second half of his life, the part spent behind bars.
Still, in the early years, his days had some variety. There were the trials and, in the case of Holly, appeals and retrials. The first retrial had been filed before the twenty-one days expired, and no one could complain about that. Stupid woman juror had talked about the penalty phase, said she knew for a fact that he wouldn’t get death in Maryland, so they had to give it to him in Virginia. And the bitch would have lied, too, perjured her way through the investigation if she could have, but there were other jurors who were honest enough to admit the conversation had taken place. Then he had petitioned on the grounds of incompetent counsel, which hadn’t gotten him a new trial but had gotten him Jefferson, who was quite the busy little beaver. He was the one who had started poring over maps and begun to question whether Walter was in Virginia or West Virginia when Holly died. Yes, he knew folks were outraged when they got the order to send the surveyors out, that they talked about technicalities, how it was just a line on a map. But, hell, who wouldn’t want to be on the right side of a line that was literally the difference between life and death? If that campsite was on the West Virginia side, then he should have been tried in West Virginia, and West Virginia had no death penalty. Who could blame a guy for trying?
Eventually, life had settled into a slow gray haze. He did some of the things he set out to do. He read a great deal, especially military history. He practiced yoga. He corresponded with people who wrote to him, although no one had the staying power of Barbara LaFortuny. It seemed that the people, the women, who contacted him wanted something he simply couldn’t give. He thought about a religious conversion, but he found he believed less and less as time went on and he respected faith too much to fake it. If there was a God, then the world would make more sense. That much seemed clear to him.
But chess? No. He tried it, especially during that period when that nice army retiree was next to him in the yard. That guy, Hollis, said it was possible to hold a chessboard in your head and talk the moves. Over time, Walter learned to do that, but it was all he could do. The strategy of chess-the necessity of sacrifice, the impossibility of keeping every piece safe-bothered him. He hated sending those little pawns out into the world. And the games were long. He liked things that moved faster.
This, his dance with Elizabeth-it had gone at just the right pace. True, he had played it a little close to the edge, as Barbara kept saying. Elizabeth was due at the prison next Saturday, and he was to be transferred Monday morning to Jarratt, his third trip to the Death House. In fact, no matter what Elizabeth decided, he would still probably have to make that trip, but he didn’t mind. At least it was a variation in routine and it would end up making him the stuff of legend. Walter Bowman, the only man to come back from the Death House three times. He would be seen as invincible.
And if she didn’t cooperate, as Barbara kept fretting? They would still have enough time to sic the reporter on her, to let her see how quickly her world could be broken. But he hoped it didn’t come to that. It would be much nicer if she would just see that there was a right thing to do and she had to do it. He had no desire to antagonize Elizabeth, nor hurt her. But he was trying to stay alive and all was fair, etc., etc.
He had really come to enjoy their conversations these past few weeks and wondered if she felt the same. He wasn’t ignorant. He knew the pain he had caused her and didn’t expect her to understand that there had been pain for him, too. When they first began to speak, he was intent on his plan, his agenda, and couldn’t loosen up much. But as he got into the swing of things, figured out the rhythm of their talk, just how hard he could push, he had risked a few digressions. He had told her about his reading and how he had finally read Travels with Charley, which hadn’t been at all as she had described it. He had teased her about Madonna, her big idol, and asked if she went to her last concert in rubber bracelets and lace leggings. Her present life was clearly off-limits, and she shut him down if he probed too much, or dropped hints about what he knew. But they did, in fact, have a shared past.