Ashes to Ashes (9 page)

Chapter 8

Sleep had been no friend to Ashe. His dreams,
whenever he was able to fall into a deep enough sleep to have them,
had been filled with images of Owen, lying dead in his bed, his
skull blown out from the back. There hadn’t been any sensations in
the dream except for sight and Ashe seemed to be viewing the death
from the doorway of the bedroom, as an observer afraid to pierce
the barrier. As he peered into the bedroom, he saw that everything,
the bed, the ceiling, the floor, and the walls were covered in
blood. However, the blood was not crimson. It was a light blue. The
blue blood was everywhere and it almost resembled the beginning of
a clear, cloudless sky.

Death never created a clear blue sky in its
wake, he was sure.

Scott had never entered the dream, either as
witness or killer. Even in his dream, Ashe was uncertain of his
son's role in the shooting.

Due to the restless sleep and bright blue
dreams, the psychologist found himself in his cage, pulled up to
his desk, at 6:12 A.M., which was slightly over an hour earlier
than his day usually begun. Massaging his temples, he tried to rub
away the sleepiness so that he could focus. Sitting on the desk was
Scott's dream journal, opened to the third page. Next to the
journal was a tiny notebook. If, while reading through the journal,
anything jumped out at him as possibly being important, Ashe could
write it down.

Three pages in and Scott had written nothing
but strange images and fragmented recollections.

...watched myself from above, leaving the
white house from the front door. I walked around the left side of
the house. As soon as I went around the corner, a dim, dark figure
also came out from the front door of the house, following me. The
figure wasn't fully there. It was barely visible. I don't know why
it was following me around the white house, but I don't think it
meant me harm. At least not yet. It was watching and waiting. This
isn't the first dream. Always the white house and dark figure. What
if the figure is death, following me from a safe distance. What
will happen when it decides to catch up to me? I can't say for
sure...

The journal did not contain any times or
dates, so Ashe had no idea how old any of the entries were. They
could be days or years old. The thought frustrated him. But he kept
the journal opened and read on to the next page.

...blue lady laughing. Blue lady dancing.
Blue lady...

The journal should not be years old, he found
himself sure. It was barely over half-way filled. Scott had begun
writing down his dreams when he was young and, even if he threw
them out along the way, there should have been more than one
journal hanging around. Where were the other journals? Where were
they? Did Scott throw them away? The other ones most likely didn't
matter, anyway, because the one in front of Ashe appeared to be the
most recent. And the most recent journal would hold the answers, he
hoped.

For a moment, Ashe leaned back in his chair
and closed his eyes. Jerking back forward, he pulled the small
black and gold container from the pocket of his slacks. The little
piece of plastic was a true enigma. It looked like a lipstick
container, but obviously held no actual lipstick. It
was
a
container, but it was too small to hold most things.

What was inside of it?

Ashe opened the container and tried to peer
inside. Tilting it in slow circles, he tried to get some light to
fall into the opening. Finally finding the right angle, the above
light revealed what appeared to be a thin, barely noticeable
cluster of white powder at the bottom. It was barely there.

Drugs? Ashe wondered. Could drugs be the main
factor in everything?

Closing the container, he placed it in the
spine of the journal.

A cup of coffee steamed nearby, the aroma of
the caffeinated beverage filled the small room. Taking the white
dome lid off of the cup, he sat and enjoyed the aroma. He never
allowed sweetener or creamer to touch his coffee…it took away the
bite of the drink. Whenever he drank coffee, Ashe needed the
bite.

He took an easy sip. The sip stung his
tongue, but he took another one immediately after.

Opened and pushed to the side of his desk, a
laptop chirped. The tone was a
beep
, short and sweet,
letting Ashe know that he had received a new email. Making sure
that his cup of coffee was out of the way, he quickly pulled the
thin black laptop over to him. Maybe it was a message from Oscar,
an update of some kind on his son's case. Perhaps Scott had been
located. No. If Oscar had found anything new, especially Scott, he
would not use an informal email. Oscar would have called.

The email was from Warden Chase. The warden
was a workaholic after his own heart and Ashe was not surprised to
have a message from her at an early hour. Sometimes he even
questioned whether or not the warden ever actually went home, or
even had a home outside of the prison. Maybe there was a secret
bedroom connected to the warden's office, one where she slept and
bathed, never having to leave the premises. That might be why the
warden could be found in her office or roaming a nearby hallway at
all hours of the day and night.

Ashe sighed lowly. What could she want? He
wondered. The title of the message was a simple word. GRUB. He
immediately opened it.

Dr. Walters—

Your request has been approved.

--Chase

The message was simple like a twig but as
heavy a tree trunk. The psychologist couldn’t help but to smile.
After reading the email, Ashe suddenly vaulted from his desk and
headed out of his cage.

Chapter 9

On the other side of the prison was Solitary
Confinement, often referred to as The Lonely Mile. The stretch was
much less than a true mile, but when a person was standing and
taking it in, it seemed much longer than a single mile. The section
of the prison was a single narrow hallway, lit around the clock by
fluorescent lights, which glared off the pale linoleum, causing the
white floor to seem to glow at night. The walls were tan and
lifeless. On both sides of the hall were blue doors, made of thick,
solid steel. A single slot was at the center of each door, long and
wide enough to slide in a tray of food.

Ashe was aware of the stigma that often
accompanied the idea of Solitary Confinement, most of which were
not entirely true. Even though he had been on the mile numerous
amount of times, he sometimes found himself picturing jagged stone
cells, lightless and rat ridden, where men were thrown to rot and
starve, while rats scampered in and out of holes. But places like
Alcatraz were returning to the dirt, crumbling slowly to the
ground. The days of throwing men in
the hole
were long gone.
And justly so.

Ashe stood peering down the hallway, viewing
it from the other side of the locked entrance, which was a door
made with thick steel bars and unbreakable locking mechanisms.
Waving his hand impatiently, Ashe motioned to the camera above the
doorway once more. He waved it two more times, hoping to get
someone's attention in the security office. The sound of footsteps
grabbed his attention and he turned to see Matt Cummings walking up
to the other side of the locked bars. Matt was a young man,
employed at the prison for barely a year. Yet, the psychologist
knew the man on sight. It was not by choice. It was because many of
inmates that Ashe treated as patients found themselves, at one
point or another, sitting on The Lonely Mile.

Ashe rarely trusted young men like Matt, due
to the usually found inexperience and lack of plain old maturity.
It was nothing personal against the youth of the nation. They were
simply raised to be spoiled and selfish. But the young guard had
proven himself over the past year to be competent, sensible,
hardworking, and thorough in his job. Ashe felt a sense of respect
for the young man.

Matt was smiling apologetically and told
Ashe, “Sorry for the wait, Dr. Walters. I was cleaning up in the
bathroom after an...issue.”

Ashe noticed that Matt's right sleeve was
rolled nearly to his elbow. A brown rectangular bandage was
stretched across a section of his forearm. Tiny specks of blood
could still be seen on the edges of the bandage.

“It's quit all right,” Ashe replied,
adjusting his brown tie. “I know all about...issues.”

Matt chuckled. “I bet you do, sir.” Removing
his badge, which was clipped on his shirt pocket, the young man
passed it over a blinking red sensor. The sensor turned green.
Before the sensor could turn back to red, the young guard opened
the barred gate to let Ashe inside. “Welcome back to The Lonely
Mile, sir.”

Once inside, Ashe paused at the mouth of the
hallway. He spread out his arms and widened his stance. Matt
immediately began to pat down the psychologist.

“You don't need to do this every single time,
you know,” Ashe joked.

“It's procedure, sir,” the guard replied. “I
could pull out
the
wand
, if you like.”

Ashe faked a shiver. “No thank you.”

They both laughed.

“You really think that I would try to sneak
something in?” Ashe asked. “Break someone out? Shank someone in the
room?”

Finishing the rub and tickle, Matt said, “You
could try to smuggle in a dildo or anal beads.”

The psychologist nearly choked on his breath.
“This part of the jail is male only.”

“My comment still holds.”

They both laughed again.

“I figure that you are here to see Grub,”
Matt assumed. “For whatever it is worth, Grub is an okay guy. For
whatever it is worth. You know what I mean?”

“I do.”

For a couple seconds, Ashe thought about the
implications of agreeing with that statement. Grub, by all normal
legal standards, had been proven to be a terrible man, deemed
unworthy to be among civilized human beings. Yet, he conceded with
the young guard’s statement nonetheless.

Sighing quietly, he pointed down the hall,
“Same room?”

The young guard nodded, holding up six of his
fingers.

“Thanks. Go ahead and hit the button when I
am there?”

“Can do, boss,” Matt agreed, turning and
entering a nearby door that would take him into the security
office.

Without another word, Ashe wandered down to
Grub's room. The door was plain, blue, and seemingly harmless.
Being plain did not always mean harmless, a fact in which Grub
himself would be an example. Glancing over his shoulder, he nodded
toward the security office the exact moment the electronic locks
disengaged. Ashe grabbed the solid steel door handle and pulled the
door open.

He thought of Scott's dream journal and the
ghostly figure of death following his son around the white house. A
real shiver touched his skin. Death was indeed following his son,
wherever he could be. Death was circling him along with the YPD,
led by an old family friend. It seemed ironic. Which was more
dangerous? Death? Or Oscar Harrison?

Once the door was fully outward, Ashe went
into the isolation room and greeted Grub. He pulled the door
closed. “Hello, Grub. How are you this morning?”

The bulky bodied inmate was squeezed into a
petite desk, one that resembled the same type of uncomfortable
metal and wooden thing that had once been used by the psychologist
during High School. It was one of the few pieces of furniture that
each isolation cell had. Grub was hunched over a picture, a crayon
in hand. The man had only been in the cell for a few days, but
there were already several colored pictures stuck to the usually
bare walls. There were pictures of Mickey Mouse, Dora the Explorer,
and a group of characters that Ashe did not recognize off hand

Coloring calmed Grub. And for such a simple
art form, if it can be called art, Grub was indeed an artist. Using
the crayons, he didn't just add color to the outlined images. Grub
added texture and quality to the blank, lifeless pictures, whether
it was cartoon characters or scenes in nature. It was somewhat
amazing what Grub can do with a kid's toy.

Hearing the greeting, Grub raised his head.
He looked a lot older than Ashe knew him to be. Wrinkles and worry
lines covered his face, giving it the depth of old age. Grub
couldn't remember his exact birth year and his parents were
deceased, obviously unable to give any information. But through a
long and frustrating investigation, Ashe was able to locate a birth
certificate.

Grub was 23 years old. And looked 40. He was
born Arnold Buford. Grub was a nickname that his parents had given
him as a child, because he would pull grubs from the dirt and eat
them. Or at least that was how Grub remembered it. He always
laughed whenever he told that story. It was one of the few good
memories of his parents.

“I am good this morning,” Grub answered. He
followed it with a childish giggle, adding, “I was hoping you were
a lady.”

“Why do you hope that I was a lady?” Ashe
asked, concerned.

“I wanted to look at your boobs,” he replied,
immediately lowering his eyes. “I'm sorry. I should not...say
that.”

“That was inappropriate. Right?”

“Yes,” Grub acknowledged, lowering his head.
“In…appropriate.”

“Would you like me to sit with you?” Ashe
asked, motioning to the spare chair.

Grub nodded giving Ashe permission to pull
the only other chair in the room away from its usual spot on the
wall. Ashe placed the chair directly across from Grub. During their
sessions, the psychologist always sat across from Grub, at eye
level, instead of behind a desk. As an equal. Face to face, instead
of from behind a desk. If Grub felt insecure or judged in any way,
he would never say a word. And there was a lot about Grub that
needed to be heard. He just needed someone to look past the label
of Mentally Disabled Monster and listen to what he had to say.