The Chamber

The Chamber Page 21

A DAM dropped his keys in the red bucket and watched it ascend to a point twenty feet off the ground where it stopped and spun slowly on the end of the rope. He walked to the first gate, which jerked before sliding open. He walked to the second gate, and waited. Packer emerged from the front door a hundred feet away, stretching and yawning as if he'd been napping on the Row.

The second gate closed behind him, and Packer waited nearby. "Good day," he said. It was almost two, the hottest time of the day. A morning radio forecaster had merrily predicted the first one-hundred-degree day of the year.

"Hello, Sergeant," Adam said as if they were old friends now. They walked along the brick path to the small door with the weeds in front of it. Packer unlocked it, and Adam stepped inside.

"I'll get Sam," Packer said, in no hurry, and disappeared.

The chairs on his side of the metal screen were scattered about. Two were flipped over, as if the lawyers and visitors had been brawling. Adam pulled one close to the counter at the far end, as far as possible from the air conditioner.

He removed a copy of the petition he'd filed at nine that morning. By law, no claim or issue could be raised in federal court unless it had first been presented and denied in state court. The petition attacking the gas chamber had been filed in the Mississippi Supreme Court under the state's postconviction relief statutes. It was a formality, in Adam's opinion, and in the opinion of Garner Goodman. Goodman had worked on the claim throughout the weekend. In fact, he'd worked all day Saturday while Adam was drinking beer and trout fishing with Wyn Lettner.

Sam arrived as usual, hands cuffed behind his back, no expression on his face, red jumpsuit unbuttoned almost to the waist. The gray hair on his pale chest was slick with perspiration. Like a well-trained animal, he turned his back to Packer, who quickly removed the cuffs, then left through the door. Sam immediately went for the cigarettes, and made certain one was lit before he sat down and said, "Welcome back."

"I filed this at nine this morning," Adam said, sliding the petition through the narrow slit in the screen. "I talked to the clerk with the Supreme Court in Jackson. She seemed to think the court will rule on it with due speed."

Sam took the papers, and looked at Adam. "You can bet on that. They'll deny it with great pleasure."

"The state will be required to respond immediately, so we've got the Attorney General scrambling right now."

"Great. We can watch the latest on the evening news. He's probably invited the cameras into his office while they prepare their response."

Adam removed his jacket and loosened his tie. The room was humid and he was already sweating. "Does the name Wyn Lettner ring a bell?"

Sam tossed the petition onto an empty chair and sucked hard on the filter. He released a steady stream of exhaust at the ceiling. "Yes. Why?"

"Did you ever meet him?"

Sam thought about this for a moment, before speaking, and, as usual, spoke with measured words. "Maybe. I'm not sure. I knew who he was at the time. Why?"

"I found him over the weekend. He's retired now, and runs a trout dock on the White River. We had a long talk."

"That's nice. And what exactly did you accomplish?"

"He says he still thinks you had someone working with you."

"Did he give you any names?"

"No. They never had a suspect, or so he says. But they had an informant, one of Dogan's people, who told Lettner that the other guy was someone new, not one of the usual gang. They thought he was from another state, and that he was very young. That's all Lettner knew."

"And you believe this?"

"I don't know what I believe."

"What difference does it make now?"

"I don't know. It could give me something to use as I try to save your life. Nothing more than that. I'm desperate, I guess."

"And I'm not?"

"I'm grasping for straws, Sam. Grasping and filling in holes."

"So my story has holes?"

"I think so. Lettner said he was always doubtful because they found no trace of explosives when they searched your house. And you had no history of using them. He said you didn't seem to be the type to initiate your own bombing campaign."

"And you believe everything Lettner says?"

"Yeah. Because it makes sense."

"Let me ask you this. What if I told you there was someone else? What if I gave you his name, address, phone number, blood type, and urine analysis? What would you do with it?"

"Start screaming like hell. I'd file motions and appeals by the truckload. I'd get the media stirred up, and make a scapegoat out of you. I'd try to sensationalize your innocence and hope someone noticed, someone like an appellate judge."

Sam nodded slowly as if this was quite ridiculous and exactly what he'd expected. "It wouldn't work, Adam," he said carefully, as if lecturing to a child. "I have three and a half weeks. You know the law. There's no way to start screaming John Doe did it, when John Doe has never been mentioned."

"I know. But I'd do it anyway."

"It won't work. Stop trying to find John Doe."

"Who is he?"

"He doesn't exist."

"Yes he does."

"Why are you so sure?"

"Because I want to believe you're innocent, Sam. It's very important to me."

"I told you I'm innocent. I planted the bomb, but I had no intention of killing anyone."

"But why'd you plant the bomb? Why'd you bomb the Pinder house, and the synagogue, and the real estate office? Why were you bombing ,innocent people?"

Sam just puffed and looked at the floor.

"Why do you hate, Sam? Why does it come `so easy? Why were you taught to hate blacks and Jews and Catholics and anyone slightly different from you? Have you ever asked yourself why?"

"No. Don't plan to."

"So, it's just you, right. It's your character, 'your composition, same as your height and !blue eyes. It's something you were born with '.and can't change. It was passed down in the 'genes from your father and grandfather, faithful Kluckers all, and it's something you'll proudly take to your grave, right?"

"It was a way of life. It was all I knew."

"Then what happened to my father? Why couldn't you contaminate Eddie?"

Sam thumped the cigarette onto the floor and leaned forward on his elbows. The wrinkles tightened in the corners of his eyes and across his forehead. Adam's face was directly through the slit, but he did not look at him. Instead, he stared down at the base of the screen. "So this is it. Time for our Eddie talk." His voice was much softer and his words even slower.

"Where did you go wrong with him?"

"This, of course, has not a damned thing to do with the little gas party they're planning for me. Does it? Nothing to do with issues and appeals, lawyers and judges, motions and stays. This is a waste of time."

"Don't be a coward, Sam. Tell me where you went wrong with Eddie. Did you teach him the word nigger? Did you teach him to hate little black kids? Did you try to teach him how to burn crosses or build bombs? Did you take him to his first lynching? What did you do with him, Sam? Where did you go wrong?"

"Eddie didn't know I was in the Klan until he was in high school."

"Why not? Surely you weren't ashamed of it. It was a great source of family pride, wasn't it?"

"It was not something we talked about."

"Why not? You were the fourth generation of Cayhall Klansmen, with roots all the way back to the Civil War, or something like that. Isn't that what you told me?"

"Yes."

"Then why didn't you sit little Eddie down and show him pictures from the family album? Why didn't you tell him bedtime stories of the heroic Cayhalls and how they rode around at night with masks on their brave faces and burned Negro shacks? You know, war stories. Father to son."

"I repeat, it was not something we talked about."

"Well, when he got older, did you try to recruit him?"

"No. He was different."

"You mean, he didn't hate?"

Sam jerked forward and coughed, the deep, scratchy hacking action of a chain-smoker. His face reddened as he struggled for breath. The coughing grew worse and he spat on the floor. He stood and leaned at the waist with both hands on his hips, coughing and hacking while shuffling around and trying to stop it.

Finally, a break. He stood straight and breathed rapidly. He swallowed and spat again, then relaxed and inhaled slowly. The seizure was over and his red face was suddenly pale again. He took his seat across from Adam, and puffed mightily on the cigarette as if some other device or habit was to blame for the coughing. He took his time, breathing deeply and clearing his throat.

"Eddie was a tender child," he began hoarsely. "He got it from his mother. He wasn't a sissy. In fact, he was just as tough as other little boys." A long pause, another drag of nicotine. "Not far from our house was a nigger family -"

"Could we just call them blacks, Sam? I've asked you this already."

"Forgive me. There was an African family on our place. The Lincolns. Joe Lincoln was his name, and he'd worked for us for many years. Had a common-law wife and a dozen common-law children. One of the boys was the same age as Eddie, and they were inseparable, best of friends. It was not that unusual in those days. You played with whoever lived nearby. I even had little African buddies, believe it or not. When Eddie started school, he got real upset because he rode one bus and his African pal rode another. Kid's name was Quince. Quince Lincoln. They couldn't wait to get home from school and go play on the farm. I remember Eddie was always disturbed because they couldn't go to school together. And Quince couldn't spend the night in our house, and Eddie couldn't spend the night with the Lincolns. He was always asking me questions about why the Africans in Ford County were so poor, and lived in run-down houses, and didn't have nice clothes, and had so many children in each family. He really suffered over it, and that made him different. As he got older, he grew even more sympathetic toward the Africans. I tried to talk to him."

"Of course you did. You tried to straighten him out, didn't you?"

"I tried to explain things to him."

"Such as?"

"Such as the need to keep the races separate. There's nothing wrong with separate but equal schools. Nothing wrong with laws prohibiting miscegenation. Nothing wrong with keeping the Africans in their place."

"Where's their place?"

"Under control. Let 'em run wild, and look at what's happened. Crime, drugs, AIDS, illegitimate births, general breakdown in the moral fabric of society."

"What about nuclear proliferation and killer bees?"

"You get my point."

"What about basic rights, radical concepts like the right to vote, the right to use public rest rooms, the right to eat in restaurants and stay in hotels, the right not to be discriminated against in housing, employment, and education?"

"You sound like Eddie."

"Good."

"By the time he was finishing high school he was spouting off like that, talking about how badly the Africans were being mistreated. He left home when he was eighteen."

"Did you miss him?"

"Not at first, I guess. We were fighting a lot. He knew I was in the Klan, and he hated the sight of me. At least, he said he did."

"So you thought more of the Klan than you did your own son?"

Sam stared at the floor. Adam scribbled on a legal pad. The air conditioner rattled and faded, and for a moment seemed determined to finally quit. "He was a sweet kid," Sam said quietly. "We used to fish a lot, that was our big thing together. I had an old boat, and we'd spend hours on the lake fishing for crappie and bream, sometimes bass. Then he grew up and didn't like me. He was ashamed of me, and of course it hurt. He expected me to change, and I expected him to see the light like all the other white kids his age. It never happened. We drifted apart when he was in high school, then it seems like the civil rights crap started, and there was no hope after that."

"Did he participate in the movement?"

"No. He wasn't stupid. He might have been sympathetic, but he kept his mouth shut. You just didn't go around talking that trash if you were local. There were enough Northern Jews and radicals to keep things stirred up. They didn't need any help."

"What did he do after he left home?"

"Joined the Army. It was an easy way out of town, away from Mississippi. He was gone for three years, and when he came back he brought a wife. They lived in Clanton and we barely saw them. He talked to his mother occasionally, but didn't have much to say to me. It was the early sixties by then, and the African movement was getting cranked up. There were a lot of Klan meetings, a lot of activity, most to the south of us. Eddie kept his distance. He was very quiet, never had much to say anyway."

"Then I was born."

"You were born around the time those three civil rights workers disappeared. Eddie had the nerve to ask me if I was involved in it."

"Were you?"

"Hell no. I didn't know who did it for almost a year."

"They were Kluckers, weren't they?"

"They were Klansmen."

"Were you happy when those boys were murdered?"

"How the hell is that relevant to me and the gas chamber in 1990?"

"Did Eddie know it when you got involved with the bombing?"

"No one knew it in Ford County. We had not been too active. As I said, most of it was to the south of us, around Meridian."

"And you couldn't wait to jump in the middle of it?"

"They needed help. The Fibbies had infiltrated so deep hardly anyone could be trusted. The civil rights movement was snowballing fast. Something had to be done. I'm not ashamed of it."

Adam smiled and shook his head. "Eddie was ashamed, wasn't he?"

"Eddie didn't know anything about it until the Kramer bombing."

"Why did you involve him?"

"I didn't."

"Yes you did. You told your wife to get Eddie ,and drive to Cleveland and pick up your car. He 'was an accessory after the fact."

"I was in jail, okay. I was scared. And no one !ever knew. It was harmless."

"Perhaps Eddie didn't think so."

"I don't know what Eddie thought, okay. By the time I got out of jail, he had disappeared. Y'all were gone. I never saw him again until his mother's funeral, and then he slipped in and out without a word to anyone." He rubbed the wrinkles on his forehead with his left hand, then ran it through his oily hair. His face was sad, and as he glanced through the slit Adam saw a trace of moisture in the eyes. "The last time I saw Eddie, he was getting in his car outside the church after the funeral service. He was in a hurry. Something told me I'd never see him again. He was there because his mother had died, and I knew that would be his last visit home. There was no other reason for him to come back. I was on the front steps of the church, Lee was with me, and we both watched him drive away. There I was burying my wife, and at the same time watching my son disappear for the last time."

"Did you try to find him?"

"No. Not really. Lee said she had a phone number, but I didn't feel like begging. It was obvious he didn't want anything to do with me, so I left him alone. I often wondered about you, and I remember telling your grandmother how nice it would be to see you. But I wasn't about to spend a lot of time trying to track y'all down."

"It would've been hard to find us."

"That's what I heard. Lee talked to Eddie occasionally, and she would report to me. It sounded like you guys were moving all over California."

"I went to six schools in twelve years."

"But why? What was he doing?"

"A number of things. He'd lose his job, and we'd move because we couldn't pay the rent. Then Mother would find a job, and we'd move somewhere else. Then Dad would get mad at my school for some vague reason, and he'd yank me out."

"What kind of work did he do?"

"Once he worked for the post office, until he got fired. He threatened to sue them, and for a long time he maintained this massive little war against the postal system. He couldn't find a lawyer to take his case, so he abused them with paperwork. He always had a small desk with an old typewriter and boxes filled with his papers, and they were his most valuable possessions. Every time we moved, he took great care with his office, as he called it. He didn't care about anything else, there wasn't much, but he protected his office with his life. I can remember many nights lying in bed trying to sleep and listening to that damned typewriter pecking away at all hours. He hated the federal government."

"That's my boy."

"But for different reasons, I think. The IRS came after him one year, which I always found odd because he didn't earn enough to pay three dollars in taxes. So he declared war on the Infernal Revenue, as he called it, and that raged for years. The State of California revoked his driver's license one year when he didn't renew, and this violated all sorts of civil and human rights. Mother had to drive him for two years until he surrendered to the bureaucracy. He was always writing letters to the governor, the President, U.S. senators, congressmen, anyone with an office and staff. He would just raise hell about this and that, and when they wrote him back he'd declare a small victory. He saved every letter. He got in a fight one time with a next-door neighbor, something to do with a strange dog peeing on our porch, and they were yelling at each other across the hedgerow. The madder they got, the more powerful their friends became, and both were just minutes away from making phone calls to all sorts of hotshots who would instantly inflict punishment on the other. Dad ran in the house, and within seconds returned to the argument with thirteen letters from the governor of the State of California. He counted them loudly and waved them under the neighbor's nose, and the poor guy was crushed. End of argument. End of dog pissing on our porch. Of course, every one of the letters had asked him, in a nice way, to get lost."

Though they didn't realize it, they were both smiling by the end of this brief story.

"If he couldn't keep a job, how did y'all survive?" Sam asked, staring through the opening.

"I don't know. Mother always worked. She was very resourceful, and she sometimes kept two jobs. Cashier in a grocery store. Clerk in a pharmacy. She could do anything, and I remember a couple of pretty good jobs as a secretary. At some point, Dad got a license to sell life insurance, and that became a permanent part-time job. I guess he was good at it, because things improved as I got older. He could work his own hours and reported to no one. This suited him, although he said he hated insurance companies. He sued one for canceling a policy or something, I really didn't understand it, and he lost the case. Of course, he blamed it all on his lawyer, who made the mistake of sending Eddie a long letter full of strong statements. Dad typed for three days, and when his masterpiece was finished he proudly showed it to Mother. Twenty-one pages of mistakes and lies by the lawyer. She just shook her head. He fought with that poor lawyer for years."

"What kind of father was he?"

"I don't know. That's a hard question, Sam."

"Why?"

"Because of the way he died. I was mad at him for a long time after his death, and I didn't understand how he could decide that he should leave us, that we didn't need him anymore, that it was time for him to check out. And after I learned the truth, I was mad at him for lying to me all those years, for changing my name !and running away. It was terribly confusing for a young kid. Still is."

"Are you still angry?"

"Not really. I tend to remember the good things about Eddie. He was the only father I've had, so I don't know how to rate him. He didn't smoke, drink, gamble, do drugs, chase women, beat his kids, or any of that. He had trouble keeping a job, but we never went without food or shelter. He and Mother were constantly talking about divorce, but it didn't work out. She moved out several times, and then he would move out. It was disruptive, but Carmen and I became accustomed to it. He had his dark days, or bad times, as they were known, when he would withdraw to his room and lock the door and pull the shades. Mother would gather us around her and explain that he was not feeling well, and that we should be very quiet. No television or radios. She was very supportive when he withdrew. He would stay in his room for days, then suddenly emerge as if nothing happened. We learned to live with Eddie's bad times. He looked and dressed normal. He was almost always there if we needed him. We played baseball in the backyard and rode rides at the carnival. He took us to Disneyland a couple of times. I guess he was a good man, a good father who just had this dark, strange side that flared up occasionally."

"But you weren't close."

"No, we weren't close. He helped me with my homework and science projects, and he insisted on perfect report cards. We talked about the solar system and the environment, but never about girls and sex and cars. Never about family and ancestors. There was no intimacy. He was not a warm person. There were times when I needed him and he was locked up in his room."

Sam rubbed the corners of his eyes, then he leaned forward again on his elbows with his face close to the screen and looked directly at Adam. "What about his death?" he asked.

"What about it?"

"How'd it happen?"

Adam waited for a long time before answering. He could tell this story several ways.. He could be cruel and hateful and brutally honest, and in doing so destroy the old man. There was a mighty temptation to do this. It needed to be done, he'd told himself many times before. Sam needed to suffer; he needed to be slapped in the face with the guilt of Eddie's suicide. Adam wanted to really hurt the old bastard and make him cry.

But at the same time he wanted to tell the story quickly, glossing over the painful parts and then moving on to something else. The poor old man sitting captive on the other side of the screen was suffering enough. The government was planning to kill him in less than four weeks. Adam suspected he knew more about Eddie's death than he let on.

"He was going through a bad time," Adam said, gazing at the screen but avoiding Sam. "He'd been in his room for three weeks, which was longer than usual. Mother kept telling us that he was getting better, just a few more days and he'd come out. We believed her, because he always seemed to bounce out of it. He picked a day when she was at work and Carmen was at a friend's house, a day when he knew I'd be the first one home. I found him lying on the floor of my bedroom, still holding the gun, a thirty-eight. One shot to the right temple. There was a neat circle of blood around his head. I sat on the edge of my bed."

"How old were you?"

"Almost seventeen. A junior in high school. Straight A's. I realized he'd carefully arranged a half dozen towels on the floor then placed himself in the middle of them. I checked the pulse in his wrist, and he was already stiff. Coroner said he'd been dead three hours. There was a note beside him, typed neatly on white paper. The note was addressed Dear Adam. Said he loved me, that he was sorry, that he wanted me to take care of the girls, and that maybe one day I would understand. Then he directed my attention to a plastic garbage bag, also on the floor, and said I should place the dirty towels in the garbage bag, wipe up the mess, then call the police. Don't touch the gun, he said. And hurry, before the girls get home." Adam cleared his throat and looked at the floor.

"And so I did exactly what he said, and I waited for the police. We were alone for fifteen minutes, just the two of us. He was lying on the floor, and I was lying on my bed looking down at him. I started crying and crying, asking him why and how and what happened and a hundred other questions. There was my dad, the only dad I would ever have, lying there in his faded jeans and dirty socks and favorite UCLA sweatshirt. From the neck down he could've been napping, but he had a hole in his head and the blood had dried in his hair. I hated him for dying, and I felt so sorry for him because he was dead. I remember asking him why he hadn't talked to me before this. I asked him a lot of questions. I heard voices, and suddenly the room was filled with cops. They took me to the den and put a blanket around me. And that was the end of my father."

Sam was still on his elbows, but one hand was now over his eyes. There were just a couple more things Adam wanted to say.

"After the funeral, Lee stayed with us for a while. She told me about you and about the Cayhalls. She filled in a lot of gaps about my father. I became fascinated with you and the Kramer bombing, and I began reading old magazine articles and newspaper stories. It took about a year for me to figure out why Eddie killed himself when he did. He'd been hiding in his room during your trial, and he killed himself when it was over."

Sam removed his hand and glared at Adam with wet eyes. "So you blame me for his death, right, Adam? That's what you really want to say, isn't it?"

"No. I don't blame you entirely."

"Then how much? Eighty percent? Ninety percent? You've had time to do the numbers. How much of it's my fault?"

"I don't know, Sam. Why don't you tell me?"

Sam wiped his eyes and raised his voice. "Oh what the hell! I'll claim a hundred percent. I'll take full responsibility for his death, okay? Is that what you want?"

"Take whatever you want."

"Don't patronize me! Just add my son's name to my list, is that what you want? The Kramer twins, their father, then Eddie. That's four I've killed, right? Anyone else you want to tack on here at the end? Do it quick, old boy, because the clock is ticking."

"How many more are out there?"

"Dead bodies?"

"Yes. Dead bodies. I've heard the rumors."

"And of course you believe them, don't you? You seem eager to believe everything bad about me."

"I didn't say I believed them."

Sam jumped to his feet and walked to the end of the room. "I'm tired of this conversation!" he yelled from thirty feet away. "And I'm tired of you! I almost wish I had those damned Jew lawyers harassing me again."

"We can accommodate you," Adam shot back.

Sam walked slowly back to his chair. "Here I am worried about my ass, twenty-three days away from the chamber, and all you want to do is talk about dead people. Just keep chirping away, old boy, and real soon you can start talking about me. I want some action."

"I filed a petition this morning."

"Fine! Then leave, dammit. Just get the hell out and stop tormenting me!"