Almost Home (26 page)
Authors: Damien Echols
For the first three years that we were together we couldn’t even touch each other. When she came to see me there was a sheet of glass separating us. It was maddening, and we often blew through the screen at the bottom of the glass just to be able to feel each other’s breath. I loved to sit and look at her, as she has an
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absolutely perfect body. It’s every man’s fantasy—like a 1950s pin-up model. To have such intelligence in a body like that is a miracle. She takes exquisite care of herself, and it shows. At the age of forty she looks like she’s in her mid twenties. It inspires me, makes me always try harder to be better for her. She says I know everything, and is always amazed by the information I can supply on any topic she thinks of. The thing is, I do it just the dazzle her. I devour books by the box-ful, just to impress her with what I know. I exercise twice a day—push ups, sit ups, jumping jacks, running in place, and yoga—just so she’ll be as enamored with my body as I am of hers.
We finally got to touch each other for the first time in December of 1999, when we were married. So far we’ve had the first and only Buddhist wedding ceremony in the history of the Arkansas prison system. The guards had no idea what to make of it. It was a small ceremony that lasted about forty-five minutes, and we were allowed to have six friends there to witness it. Afterwards people said it was so beautiful that they forgot it was taking place in a prison. At one point I broke out in a cold sweat and nearly fainted, just because that’s every man’s genetic predisposition to weddings.
Lorri (that’s her name, by the way) now lives in Arkansas. She moved here to start a whole new life and be with me. She is to me what Sharon is to Ozzy. She keeps every aspect of my life neatly filed and managed, even when I rebel against it. She now represents me to the world at large. When she sits in at a meeting everyone has learned that it’s the same as if I were sitting there. She is the only person I’ve ever trusted to take care of me as if she’s taking care of herself. When things need to be done “out there,” I can rest easy knowing she will tend to it.
I spend every day of the week looking forward to Friday, when we have our weekly picnic. Everything else is just a countdown to those three hours. We don’t spend all our time waiting on some distant day when I’m out of prison, because we have a life together right here and now. This is our life, and there is not a moment that we’re not in each other’s minds and hearts.
Her parents are both extremely supportive of our relationship and make trips to the prison for occasional visits. They’ve been a hell of a lot more accepting than I would have been if I had a daughter and she announced that she’d married a guy on death row. My son loves her as well, and she gets to take on the role of stepmother whenever he comes for a visit. She’s better suited to the part of parent than I, because I’ve still not gotten used to someone addressing me as “Dad.”
I would gladly go through everything I’ve been through again if I knew that’s what it took for Lorri to find me. She found me when I was drowning and
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breathed life into me. I had given up and she instilled me with hope. For the first time in my life, I am whole.
I’m guessing that brings me to the present. I’m now at the same prison as Jason and Jesse Misskelley, although we can’t see each other or communicate. I found my way here a little less than a year ago, when I was awakened at two A.M.
by a group of madcap funsters with M-16 assault rifles and attack dogs. They roused all thirty-seven of us up, wrapped us in chains, and packed us into vans like sardines. There were eight prisoners and two guards in each van. It was a tight fit and a long, uncomfortable ride.
Once we arrived here we were placed in what amounts to solitary confinement. It’s a concrete cell with a solid steel door. We never come in contact with other inmates, and you can only talk to the person next to you by pressing your face into a crack and screaming. It’s pretty filthy, as we’ve been here for almost a year now and my floor hasn’t been swept or mopped once in that time. They clean outside the cells if an inspection is coming, but never inside. I haven’t felt sunlight on my skin in over nine months. It took a while to adjust to the constant confinement and isolation, but I don’t even mind it now. You have a hell of a lot more privacy, which can be a rare commodity in prison.
My first two appeals were turned down by the Arkansas court system. Big surprise there, eh? I’m now preparing to enter federal court, but at least now I have competent attorneys, due in large part to Eddie Vedder. Eddie has shown himself to be a true friend time and time again. How many rock stars do you know that visit guys in prison when they come through town? It’s always a tremendous amount of fun whenever he stops by and tells of his latest adventures.
I’ve also got my fingers crossed right now, hoping the results of a DNA test come back soon. It seems to take forever sometimes. DNA testing has come quite a ways in the eleven years I’ve been locked up. They can do things now that they couldn’t do a decade ago. There was no way to do it until now because no one could afford it. The difference now is a one man army named Henry Rollins who has worked his ass off to make sure it happens.
I’m still stunned every time I see a letter arrive in the mail with a return address for “H. Rollins,” because it hits me that I’m trading correspondence with a living legend. He’s determined to see the truth come out, and nothing stops him once he’s made his mind up about getting something done.
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It’s things like that, which really let me know how far this case has come. Still, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared sometimes. Every once in a while I’m damn near petrified, but I have no choice but to struggle on.
XXXIV
Recent events in my life include being adopted (again) and catching a glimpse of Jason. The adoption was completed just last week. At thirty years of age I was still parent shopping. Cally, also known as “Mama Muse,” decided she was no longer content with a houseful of cats ad decided to adopt me despite my constant sar-casm. The nastier I am, the more she brags to all her friends about me. This is a woman who has pictures of barnyard animals on her socks and listens in to every conversation around her in the coffee house. She insists on sending me progress reports on the health of her ninety-nine cats, including which ones have diarrhea.
Her job is to help shape the minds of today’s youth by giving advice at a school in California. And people wonder how Californians gained the reputation of being fruitcakes. I point the finger of blame at Cally. You know she can’t be normal—she voluntarily chose to adopt me, after all.
The Jason sighting took place on a Friday afternoon while Lorri and I were in the midst of our weekly picnic. I looked up to see him about thirty feet away in the hallway, looking at me through the glass. He raised his hand and smiled, then he was gone, like a ghost. I wish I could have talked to him, if only to say, “Just hang on.” That’s the same thing I keep telling myself.
Just hang on.
Damien Echols
5/22/04
9:38 P.M.
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