Take Me There (31 page)

“We’re gonna be okay,” I tell her.

My mother sits up tall. “I believe you.”

“Believe anything you want,” says Eight Ball. “But somebody goin’ down.” He points the gun between my mother’s eyes, but for the first time since that night in the pantry, she doesn’t look afraid.

Something changes in Jess’s eyes as well. I follow her gaze out the kitchen window and that’s when I see her—my grandmother—Levida—wearing the black dress, storming toward the house and carrying her shotgun.

If only I can stall Eight Ball. “Wait. I’m the one you want. Let them go.”

“Yeah, but their lives are worth more than yours.”

“You know I didn’t mean to kill Two Tone.”

“Yeah, but he’s still dead.”

“Which one of you good-fer-nothin’ bastards shot my pig?” Levida yells, bursting through the kitchen door. She shoots, aiming for Eight Ball, but hits the television screen, blowing glass everywhere.

A piece of it hits Eight Ball in the face, cutting his eye. He screams in pain and covers his face with his hands. Meanwhile, Levida takes aim at Ajax, shoots out the window behind him, but comes so close to hitting him that he drops his gun and has to scramble across the floor to get it. Spider
momentarily forgets about me and points his weapon at my grandmother.

Shoots.

Grazes her arm.

She falls to her knees, holding her bleeding arm against her body.

I press my .22 against Spider’s back, right behind his heart, and pull the trigger. He falls facedown as a pool of blood gathers under him. I grab his semiautomatic. Hear sirens approaching in the distance.

Turn to Ajax, and find him holding his gun and smiling, pointing it at Jess, then my mother, then back at Jess. “Choose!” he orders me.

“Don’t do it,” I say. “The cops are on their way. Look, I’m putting the gun down.” I set Spider’s Glock on the coffee table.

The sirens grow closer.

He moves the gun between Jess and my mother. “Which one is gonna get the first bullet?”

I hear car doors open. Close.

“Time’s up,” Ajax says, pointing the gun at Jess’s head.

“No!” I scream. I pick up the Glock and shoot him in the face, just as the cops burst through the door. I feel the bullet from Arnie Golden’s service revolver hitting my right shoulder.

Then I drop the gun.

Fall to the floor.

And pray.

W
HAT HAS HAPPENED SINCE THAT FATEFUL
T
UESDAY
night is a matter of public record. Eight Ball was extradited to California on a weapons charge. I was sent to the county lockup in Austin, where I awaited trial. I hoped to be acquitted of killing Ajax and Spider, given the extenuating circumstances. What actually happened was that the testimonies of Jess and my mother and grandmother were ripped apart by the DA, while I was portrayed as a cold-blooded multiple murderer who killed a boy in California, then fled to Texas as a fugitive.

According to the district attorney, I had chosen a path that led me to be in a place where killing Ajax and Spider was inevitable. Ajax, a young man with no criminal record whatsoever, was a poor, unfortunate soul who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And so here I am, a resident of the men’s prison in Huntsville, Texas.

I got a letter from Wade a few months back saying he and
Dorie were expecting a baby and that he’d decided to become a preacher.

Levida visits me every Saturday afternoon and updates me on her two favorite pets—a three-legged hog and a three-legged dog.

My mother and Jess went back to California. My mother sold the house, which I’d deeded to her, and bought a music studio where she teaches voice lessons.

Jess got into Stanford. By day she’s a pre-law major, but by night she’s lead vocal for a group called the Legal Limit.

They still write every week and come to see me when they can.

Through their letters and my father’s book, I finally learned to read. Through the poems and letters I wrote to them, I learned to write.

The horror of this place where I am locked away is indescribable. At night I cover my ears so I won’t hear the weeping, begging, and screaming of the voices that echo off the concrete walls. By day I watch the faces of men who have no hope, no love, and no purpose.

But I am not one of them.

I have loved and been loved, thoroughly and deeply by good and decent people who believed in me. Who let me dare to believe in myself.

Despite everything that has happened, I know that I have good inside of me, just like my father had good inside of him.

Parole is still a long way off, but I’ve been told that Governor Banks can grant me a pardon if he chooses. I think if he really knew what happened, he might. I believe he is a fair man. He offered me mercy once, on a hot Texas summer night, and I
wonder if he might search his heart and offer me mercy once again.

The DA never mentioned me pulling a gun on the governor. It wasn’t among the charges. Meanwhile, I’m writing my story. But I’m also plotting my escape from this prison cell.

This is my plan.

I will do it with words.

I will write them by day.

I will write them by night.

I will write them on the walls,

the stalls, the halls.

I will write them in big bold ink

on posters I hang on the concrete blocks.

I will write them on little pieces of paper

I stuff into the mattress and the pillow.

I will write them with fingers

bent and cramped from use.

I will write them in blood

if I have to,

but only my own.

And I will keep writing them,

again, and again, and again,

until I fill this prison cell so full of words,

that the bars bend and buckle and burst,

because they cannot contain them.

And then

          I will

                   be free.

No book could ever be completed without the help, support, and guidance of friends, family members, and experts willing to share their time, experience, and wisdom. I am deeply grateful to the following people:

Those professionals in the legal system and in juvenile justice who shared their experiences and insights—Anthony Galindre, Pete Hackett, Judge Wyatt Heard, and especially Jim Willett, former warden of the Walls Unit, who went out of his way to send me photos of the prison, answer innumerable e-mails regarding a hundred different details, and even gave me a personal tour of the prison museum upon my visit to Huntsville. He has written a wonderful book called
Warden
, telling about his experiences with death row inmates. Some of his vignettes and insights have worked their way into the pages of this book.

Juan Melendez for sharing his harrowing experience of spending seventeen years on death row before being exonerated.

All the other people who graciously provided me with
information for my research, including Tom Houts, Michelle Lyons, Christopher Jochens, Jacob Lee Stuyvesant, J.J. Jaeger, and John Marsello.

My agent, Sara Crowe, and my editor, Anica Rissi, whose gentle guidance through the rewriting process helped bring my vision into focus.

Friends and family members willing to read early versions of the manuscript—Kimberley Griffiths Little, Lois Ruby, Pat Marsello, Tom Dean, and Kristen Dean.

Jimmy Santiago Baca for his amazing poetry, his willingness to share how he discovered his great passion for words, and for his continual work with youth at risk.

And finally, to William Butler Yeats, for the poems that continue to inspire us all.

C
AROLEE
D
EAN
lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with her husband, children, and a boxer named Maya. She enjoys long road trips through the desert where she can let her imagination wander and think up stories like this one. She also loves her work as a speech-language pathologist and the fact that it allows her to spend almost every day in high school. Find out more at caroleedean.com.