Life After Death: The Shocking True Story of a Innocent Man on Death Row (19 page)

Fifteen

T
he guards brought another tour in today. That happens every month or so. Sometimes they bring in a group of teenagers they want to scare into submission. The kids stand around shuffling their feet as the guards tell them that if they continue living the way they are now, then sooner or later they’ll wind up here. They always say that Death Row is the worst. They tell the tourists that in this barracks are the people who would murder their children and rape their grandmothers. In truth, the people who commit the most heinous crimes aren’t on Death Row. They’re out in the general prison population with much lighter sentences. Most of the people on Death Row are here for no other reason than that their case got more publicity than others. The difference between a man receiving a prison sentence and a man receiving a death sentence could be decided by nothing more than a slow news day.

The tours aren’t always just kids. Sometimes they bring in church groups, or people taking certain college courses. One thing they have in common is that they all know my name. I’ll often hear them ask the guards, “Where’s Damien Echols?” The guards point me out, then the people in the group gather in a circle and whisper as they stare at me. They do it without any trace of self-consciousness, as if I am an animal that has no idea what’s going on. As if I don’t have the slightest trace of humanity. Most haven’t a clue as to how socially inept their own actions are. My family has been here visiting me when a tour comes through, and they’ll stand around staring at my family and me as if we were put there for their entertainment. It would probably be humiliating if my feelings weren’t buried under a mountain of disgust.

I have always lived in my head, but once I was locked in a cell I
completely
retreated into the world of the mind to escape the horrendous environment. I leave my body here to cope with the nightmare while my mind walks other hallways. I have to sometimes listen to my body, but it’s hard. If my attention wanders for even a split second I automatically retreat down into those psychic rabbit holes. People tend to think of the soul as a man-shaped thing composed of a vague ghostlike substance. In reality it’s more like some God-almighty haunted house, in which the rooms are constantly shifting, moving, and reconfiguring themselves. A small broom closet becomes a cavernous ballroom behind your back. You always see movement in your peripheral vision, but never can find the source of the faint noises that seem to be coming from around some forever distant corner.

Ghosts can haunt damned near anything. I have heard them in the breathy voice of a song and seen them between the covers of a book. They have hidden in trees so that their faces peer out of the bark, and hovered beneath the silver surface of water. They disguise themselves as cracks in concrete or come calling in a delirium of fever. On summer days they keep pace like the shadow of our shadow. They lurk in the breath of young girls who give us our first kiss. I’ve seen men who were haunted to the point of madness by things that never were and things that should have been. I’ve seen ghosts in the lines on a woman’s face and heard them in the jangling of keys. The ghosts in fire freeze and the ghosts in ice burn. Some died long ago; some were never born. Some ride the blood in my veins until it reaches my brain. Sometimes I even mistake myself for one. Sometimes I am one.

Sixteen

L
iving with Jack was worse now than ever before. I could tell he really didn’t want me there but felt like he had no choice in the matter. While I was in Oregon he had been renting a small room in West Memphis that was barely bigger than a closet, so he had to find a new place. That place turned out to be a tiny trailer back in Lakeshore. It was barely big enough for us to stay out of each other’s way. I can’t recall speaking to my parents at all during this time, although my mother may have been in touch with Jack.

Unsurprisingly, Jack didn’t have a single friend in the world. Every moment that he wasn’t at work was spent in a chair in front of the television. Other than yelling at me, the only topics of conversation he employed were how my sister had ruined his life by telling Social Services that he had molested her, or how wrong my mother had treated him by filing for a divorce. He was sickening to me, and I hated the very sight of him in his sweat-stained shirts.

He went to bed at eight o’clock every night, which meant that I was forced to do the same. After eight I was not allowed to turn on a light because he said it would keep him awake, so there was no reading. We didn’t have a phone. I couldn’t watch TV or listen to the radio—not even a Walkman. He claimed he could hear it playing in his room even with the headphones clasped firmly to my ears. I couldn’t go out after six o’clock because he would have to sit up and let me in. When I asked why he didn’t just give me a key, he said because he wouldn’t be able to fasten the chain lock, and I’d wake him up coming in. He had three locks on the door and still felt the need to prop a chair against it every night so no one could break in. The only thing a thief could have taken was the jar of pennies next to Jack’s bed or the huge picture of Jesus hanging in the living room. Only a true crackhead would break into that place.

Jack Echols was always angry. Sometimes it was at a simmer and other times he erupted into a screaming fit, but there was always anger. I couldn’t tiptoe around him or stay invisible in such a tiny place, so his rage was always directed at me. He did nothing but sit in his chair stewing and brewing, filling the rooms with misery and hatred. It was unbearable. Brian had moved to Missouri the day after I got out of the hospital, so my only refuge was Jason’s house. I slept there as often as possible.

For reasons unknown, Jerry Driver had also told Jack that I was to check into his office once a week. Every Monday I made the five-mile trek to Driver’s office, where he and his two sidekicks (Steve Jones and another, whose last name was Murray) would question me. Their approach no longer seemed friendly. They had switched tactics and become downright antagonistic. Most often Driver and I were alone, but if one of the other two were there, they’d appear to be deep in thought while Driver asked one “satanic activity” question after another.

Jack worked at a roofing company, and during the winter months and rainy days jobs were often postponed, so he would take me to Driver’s office. As long as Jack was present, Driver would refrain from his usual insanity. His beady eyes gleamed and his whiskers twitched as he stared at me across the desk, but he managed to restrain himself. After Jack came with me every week for over a month, Driver must have grown exasperated, thinking he’d never again be able to see me alone. Admitting defeat, he said I no longer had to check in.

While Jason and Domini were in school, I had nothing to do but read. I educated myself since I couldn’t go to school. I spent most of every day in the West Memphis Public Library devouring book after book. I loved that library. I reread the Stephen King novels so often that the two librarians who worked there would hold a new release in the back for me to read first. There was something a little creepy about all that knowledge housed in one place. It gave the books a slightly sinister aspect.

I eventually took my old principal’s advice and got my GED. I was hoping I’d have to attend classes or something, but no such luck. I passed the test with flying colors.

Being that I was still on the antidepressants given to me during my first visit to the hospital, I had to make periodic visits to a local mental health center, where a doctor would refill my prescription. They never bothered to reevaluate me or question whether I still actually needed them; I’d just be handed a prescription like it was a hall pass.

I thought my life was pretty dull, but Jerry Driver must have believed otherwise. One day Jason and I were sitting in Jack’s trailer watching television while he was at work. I answered a knock at the door to discover Bo, one of the local Lakeshore youths. He was sweating and breathless as he came in and helped himself to a soda before telling me that Driver was around the corner at the Lakeshore store, asking questions about me. “He asked me which street you live on and I said I didn’t know,” Bo informed me, without a trace of irony in his voice. Driver had also told everyone at the store to stay away from me because sooner or later I was “going down,” and anyone who was with me would meet the same fate.

Upon hearing this news, Jason looked at me with an irritated expression on his face and said, “What the fuck are we doing? We never do anything, but this freak is telling everyone we’re ‘running wild.’ Doesn’t he have any real crimes to solve?” Apparently not.

The last time I saw Driver before my trial was the night of the high school homecoming football game. Jason and I went to it because there was absolutely nothing else to do. We had to walk home after it was over, which is when we were intercepted by my old friend. He was driving up and down the streets of Lakeshore, probably looking for me. He asked where we were going, what we were doing, and so on. When he finished the interrogation we continued on our way to Jason’s trailer, where we passed the night watching horror movies. I forgot all about this incident until I was on trial for murder and Driver testified. He told a great many lies, some of which were that Jessie Misskelley was walking with us that night, that we were all three carrying staves and dressed in satanic regalia, and that he believed we were returning from some sort of devil-worshipping orgy. The jury ate it up like candy and loved every sordid detail. A story straight from the tabloids, right next to “Bigfoot Sighted!” or “Bat Boy Born in Cave!” This was
evidence
.

The misery of living with Jack reached a fever pitch when he decided that I should have a job and that I was incapable of finding one for myself. The truth is that it’s almost impossible to persuade someone to hire you when you don’t have a car or anyone willing to drive you to work. I had tried everywhere. Jack persuaded his boss to hire me to work alongside him doing roof construction.

The job was hard, boring, and dangerous, but the worst part was that I never had a second in which I was out of Jack’s presence. We got up at sunrise and didn’t get home until nightfall. The only thing I could do was come home, eat supper, go to bed, and rest for the next day. I was chained to him day and night. This went on for months. I began to hate my life and could easily see myself trapped forever. Jack became more of a bastard by the day, and it wasn’t just me who noticed it. The people we worked with tried to be friendly to him but were met with hatefulness.

I grew more and more desperate to escape his presence. I racked my brain attempting to come up with an idea that would allow me to break free. Finally I discovered the answer, which Jerry Driver himself had handed to me. He had insisted that I be confined to a mental institution on two separate occasions, and now I would take advantage of it.

At my mother’s suggestion, I went to the Social Security office and applied for disability benefits. They looked over my application, which detailed my stays in the hospital, and declared me mentally disabled. I would be entitled to a check every month. I wasn’t allowed to work and draw the check at the same time, so this was my escape from working with Jack. The chain was broken. When I told Jason about it, he laughingly called them “crazy checks.” The name stuck, and that’s what we came to refer to my income as. “Have you gotten your crazy check yet?” Yes, indeed.

Doris and Ed, my paternal grandparents, moved to West Memphis, and I began to spend time at their house a few miles away. I would keep my grandmother company while my grandfather was at work. I dearly love my paternal grandparents. No matter how old I get I always feel like a kid around them. To have that feeling around anyone else would be irritating, but I didn’t mind it at all around them. It made life seem clean and simple. You can’t stay in a black mood when visiting my grandmother; it’s impossible. Jason usually went with me because he knew there would always be food there. As soon as we walked in she would begin preparing huge bowls of chili for us, or bacon and eggs with toast, sometimes pork chops or fried chicken. Dessert was always Dolly Madison cakes and ice-cold cans of Coke. My grandmother is a saint.

One day while I was visiting her, my mother called. My grandmother told her that I was there and then handed me the phone. I talked to my mother and father, who were both still in Oregon. It wasn’t unpleasant; they mostly asked what I was doing, where I was staying, how Domini and Jason were. I had my reservations, but didn’t mind talking to them. It became a routine that when I was at my grandmother’s house I’d speak to them on the phone. We were getting along, but I remained wary of them to a certain degree, like I would a dog that had bitten me in the past.

Domini now skipped school more often than not, and she stayed with me while Jack was at work. We never had a burning romance, but we kept each other company. I had no desire to get into another situation where I risked the sort of trauma I had experienced with Deanna, and Domini was safe. We were friends who had sex, and that’s the only type of relationship I was willing to have then. Perhaps that makes me sound selfish, but I will be nothing if not truthful. My worst fear in the world was having my heart broken. When she called me one day and said to come over, I already knew what was happening.

I knew exactly what she was going to say once I got there, but curiously I felt nothing. I knew my life was about to change forever, yet I was strangely detached. I wasn’t especially happy, nor was there sadness to speak of. There was neither excitement nor dread. I was a Zen master for a day.

When I arrived, Domini was smiling, glowing. She had an assortment of papers scattered across the kitchen table and her mother was with her. The papers were medical pamphlets. I sat in a chair; she sat on my lap and put her arms around my neck. She said the exact thing I knew she was going to. She told me she was pregnant.

Seventeen

F
or a split second today I could smell home. It smelled like sunset on a dirt road. I thought my heart was going to break. The world I left behind was so close I could almost touch it. Everything in me cried out for it. It’s amazing how certain shades of agony have their own beauty. I can’t ever seem to make myself believe that the home I once knew doesn’t even exist anymore. It’s still too real inside my head. I wish I had a handful of dust from back then, so that I could keep it in a bottle and always have it near.

Time has changed for me. I don’t recall exactly when it happened, and I don’t even remember if it was sudden or gradual. Somehow the change just crept up on me like a wolf on tiptoe. Hell, I don’t even remember when I first started to
notice
it. What I
do
remember is how when I was a kid every single day seemed to last for an eternity. Time was as long and drawn-out as a politician’s speech. I swear to God that I can remember a single summer day that lasted for several months. I was a sweaty boy with no shirt, sitting on my grandmother’s front porch while the gnats dreamily circled me. The days were so long that my young mind couldn’t conceive of a block of time that would make up an entire week. There had been summer, shorts, crew cuts, and Popsicles ever since the Big Bang, and only a fool thought it would ever end.

Then one day I turned around and realized that entire years were slipping through my hands like water. Youth had been stolen from me while my back was turned. It’s still happening now. It seems like no sooner does the sun rise than it’s already setting again. Now I watch while years flip by like an exhalation, and sometimes I feel panic trying to claw its way up into my throat. Time itself has become a cruel race toward an ash-colored sunset. It opens doorways to disease and leaves me empty-handed. I truly don’t understand how it happened. How it
continues
to happen. Even looking directly at it doesn’t change anything, no matter what the old people say about watched pots never boiling. Forever can be measured with a ruler, and eternity is no longer than a stiff breeze.

God, I miss the sound of cicadas singing. I used to sit on my front porch and listen to those invisible hordes all screaming in the trees like green lunacy. The only place I hear them now is on television. I’ve seen live newscasts where I could hear them screeching in the background. When I realized what it was I was hearing I nearly fell to my knees, sobbing and screaming a denial to everything I’ve lost, everything that’s been stolen from me. It’s a powerful sound—the sound home would make if it weren’t a silent eternity away from me.

Hearing the cicadas is like being stabbed through the heart with blades of ice. They remind me that life has continued for the world while I’ve been sealed away in a concrete vault. I’ve been awakened on many nights by the feel of rats crawling over my body, but I’ve never heard summer’s green singing. The last time I heard it, I had yet to see my twentieth birthday.

People in places like West Memphis don’t like
anything
that stands out, including intelligence and beauty. If a woman is smart enough to take care of her body so that she doesn’t become a sexless lump, she will get looks of hatred from the local women. They will cast the evil eye at her as they help themselves to another plate of biscuits and fried pork chops. If a man is a little too intelligent for the taste of the locals, he will soon find himself ostracized. Most don’t have either the self-discipline or the self-respect to better themselves, and they despise anyone who does, because it makes them feel small and inadequate. Unless you want to be the target of resentment you have to keep your head down and shuffle your feet along with the rest of the herd. The one thing above all else that is not tolerated is magick. Any trace of wonder or magick must be snuffed out at all costs. Then instead of mourning its loss, they’ll pat themselves on the back. Nothing can be mundane enough to suit the herd. Bland country faces in bland country places.

When I was a kid, somehow a story started circulating in West Memphis. I can only guess at its origin, but something about it horrified me. In fact, the whole town was pretty on edge. People were claiming to have seen a dog with a man’s head. It was rumored to have escaped from a traveling carnival freak show that had come through the area. A preacher swore that he spotted it looking through a window of his house. Neighbors stood on their lawns in the evening with the same facial expressions they wore when scanning the skies for tornadoes. “Get back in the house,” they would snap at the children who were drawn out by the hovering sense of excitement. I’m certain I wasn’t the only one who began having bad dreams about the dogman.

Eventually people seemed to forget about it, and it faded from the conversations. The
feeling
never left, though. A vague atmosphere of dread and dangerous fear seemed to hover like a fog for the next decade. It was the sort of fear that robs people of their ability to think clearly. It was the kind of fear that usually ends up with a frightened mob hurting someone.

In this part of the world all shrines are built to honor the great spirit of mediocrity. The celebrations are for mediocre events, and everyone praises a mediocre god. Heads upon pillows dream mediocre dreams and loins all give birth to mediocre offspring. At the end of a pointless life awaits a mediocre death. Love comes wrapped in a bland little package and fulfillment of the biological urge leads to swift decline. There are no monuments to greatness in this land of stupor.

Down here in the deep, dark South we know and live with the real world. Candy-Land idealism is quietly suffocated in the relentless humidity. This is the world where fist meets face. This is where the calluses on a man’s hand are bigger than his conscience, and dreams get drowned in sweat and tears. Mutually assured destruction rides the roads on gun racks in the back windows of pickup trucks. The goodness of human nature gets packed away with childhood toys, and the only third eye I have is the one I use to watch my back. Everyone puts on their Sunday best and pays tribute to religion’s slaughterhouse and then dines on a cannibal communion. People put their backs to the stone in the field and push until their entrails rupture, and they drag their meals from the earth with bleeding hands. Education is foreign to the sunburned beasts of burden, and the painkiller comes in black-labeled Tennessee bottles. No one here moves quickly, but
everyone
moves with absolute certainty.