It was about 10:30. The street and lawn were enveloped in a light ocean mist. It's a weird analogy, and I have no idea why I thought of it, but seeing Pauline blocking my path to the door brought to mind Gary Cooper waiting patiently in the street in High Noon. Something about her stillness and her "here I am, what are you going to do about it?" smile.
"You're a sight for sore eyes, Pauline."
"You, too, Jack. I watched from the back of the gym today. Then I drove all the way back to the city. Then I drove all the way back out here. Crazy, huh? Don't try to deny it."
"Did you do something awful that made Macklin kick you out of the house?"
"No."
"You just wanted some fresh air?"
"No."
"Am I getting warm?"
"No."
Most no's aren't too good, but these were about as good as no's could be. I sat on the cool flagstone and leaned back against the red wooden door of our house. I touched Pauline's arm. It felt electric against mine. She took my hand in hers, and my mouth went dry.
"But as I was talking to Macklin, something became really clear to me," she whispered.
"What was that, Pauline?" I whispered back.
"How much I care about you."
I looked at Pauline again and did what I'd probably wanted to do for a long time. I kissed Pauline gently on the lips. Her lips were soft and fit perfectly on mine. We stayed that way for a sweet moment before we pulled back and looked at each other.
"That was worth the wait," I said.
"You shouldn't have waited, Jack."
"I promise I won't wait as long for the next one."
We started kissing again and haven't really stopped since.
Now I appreciate that for those of you who have stayed with me this far, there's nothing too surprising about this romantic development. You probably saw it coming. But I didn't.
Not until I walked across the lawn that night. Not because I didn't want it to happen. I wanted it to happen from the first moment Pauline walked into my tiny office. I wanted it so badly, I was afraid to even hope for it.
"You're a good person. And sweet," Pauline said as we hugged on the front porch.
"Try not to hold it against me."
"I won't." She showed me a blanket she'd brought out from the house.
"Let's go down to the beach, Jack. There's something else I've been wanting to do with you for a long time."
Part Four. THE GRADUATE
Chapter 64
THE SUN SPILLING OUT OVER QUEENS and the East River may not be as symphonic as it is rising out of the Atlantic, but it's nothing to sneeze at. Neither was being able to reach out and slide my arm around Pauline as she slept peacefully beside me. I had thought we would be good together, but I had no idea how good it could be. For the first time in my life, I was in love.
At the end of the summer I abandoned Mack in Montauk and moved in with Pauline on Avenue B. Every day for the next five months I rode the subway to the top of Manhattan to complete my requirements for a degree from Columbia Law School.
Although the summer had dampened my enthusiasm for practicing law, I wasn't simply going through the motions. Inspired by rage and disgust, the way some of my classmates were by ambition, I worked harder than I ever had in my life. The inquest left me perversely intrigued with litigation, and I studied Trial Techniques by Thomas Mauet as if it were the Bible. I did the same with Cases and Materials on Evidence and Constitutional Law.
I worked so hard on all my other course work, too, that when the final grades were posted, I learned I'd graduated third in my class.
Although my employment prospects were murky, I figured I'd earned a break. So while some other third-year students were still jostling for associate positions in white-glove law firms or studying for the bar, I was enjoying life in the East Village. It was a good place to cultivate my soul and try to figure out what an angry, overeducated twenty-nine-year-old should do next.
My unsettled state of mind was compounded by a piece of mail I received from Huntsville, Texas. The Mudman had taken me up on my offer to stay in touch. He sent grim news about the prospect of ever getting his DNA analysis for a retrial. Nothing he had told me, however, prepared me for the next letter I got from him.
The execution date had been set.
Chapter 65
THE FIRST TIME I ever saw the Mudman was on a bitterly cold February morning. It was shortly before he was put to death by the state of Texas. We were separated by a Plexiglas window between the viewing room and the death chamber.
Pauline and I had flown to Dallas the morning before, rented a car, and made the three-hour drive to Huntsville. At the last minute prison officials rescinded their permission for a private visit. Since we were on the Mudman's personal visitor list, we were permitted to view the execution.
Along with the great aunt of the victim and an even more elderly prison reporter who sat beside us on the three-plank viewing stand, we didn't see the Mudman until after his wheelchair was rolled into the death chamber just before 8:00 a.m.
The Mudman had been on death row for twenty years. They'd taken a terrible toll. The last photograph I had seen of the six-three former bouncer was almost twenty-one years old now, and although he was still a huge man and close to three hundred pounds, he was a prematurely old one. His long hair and beard had gone stone white. Degenerative arthritis in his hips had put him in a wheelchair three years before.
As the warden and prison chaplain looked on, a guard placed a pair of reading glasses on the Mudman. Then the guard held a piece of paper level with the Mudman's chest. Although he was somewhat sedated, he proceeded to read.
"This prison and my government," he said in his surprisingly high-pitched voice, "has already taken the best years of my life. This morning they will take everything I have left. They will commit a murder. God have mercy on their souls."
He turned his head and saw me in the front row. He gave me a grateful smile, and it had a gentleness that touched me deeply. I had to choke back a sob, and Pauline grabbed my arm.
The next minutes proceeded with nightmarish momentum. As sheets of freezing rain pelted the corrugated roof, the chaplain read the Twenty-third Psalm. Then guards hoisted the Mudman out of his chair and onto the gurney.
His white-haired frailty, the prison-issue wheelchair, and the practiced diligence of the guards combined to give the misleading impression that we were witnessing a medical procedure that would make a sick man well. That impression was reinforced when an orderly pushed up the white sleeve on Mudman's massive right arm. He found a vein, wiped the area with a cotton swab, and inserted an IV.
When the warden, a surprisingly kind-looking man in his late fifties, saw that the IV was attached, he raised his right arm. That signaled the release of the first poisonous dose.
Less than thirty seconds later he raised the arm again, ordering the release of the hydrochloride that would end Mudman's life.
The whole time this was going on, Mudman's eyes were locked on mine. In his last letter, he'd asked if I would be a witness to his execution. He wanted me there so that he could look into one pair of eyes he knew believed in his innocence. I had done my best to be worthy of his steely gaze.
In his last minute on earth, Mudman had tried to sing the beginning of an old Allman Brothers song he had loved since he was a kid. "Going to the country, baby, do you want to go? / Going to the country, baby, do you want to go?" Somehow, he managed to get it out.