Power in the Blood (35 page)

He responded, “That tall, pretty classification officer. Medical called her in on an emergency transfer.”

Immediately my heart started racing. I jerked my entire body around and quickly scanned the parking lot with my eyes. In about ten seconds, to my horror, they locked on her car.

Why had she come? Hadn’t I warned her? God, please let her still be alive.

The noise and movement of inmates and officers during the day was replaced by an eerie silence and the lonely stillness of night. I quickly walked to the medical building. The officer’s desk was vacant. I walked past the nurses’ station to find one elderly nurse dozing with her head on the counter.

I continued toward the infirmary to find that there was no officer in the infirmary control room either. I walked through the control room and discovered that there were no sick inmates in the infirmary, which explained why there was no need for an officer.

When I walked into the infirmary, I saw Sandy Strickland sitting alone on an exam stool beside one of the beds. Her upper body was slumped down on the bed, her right hand extended, rubbing the bed gently. I could hear her crying from the moment I entered the room. Between sobs she said a single word: “Tony.”

As I approached, she must have heard my footsteps. She jerked up, looked puzzled, and began wiping her eyes.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she asked.

“I just came from viewing a videotape of what Thomas and Johnson did to you here in this very room.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said nervously. “What video? What do you mean?”

“I mean Skipper recorded a video of Thomas and Johnson’s attack on you.”

“What are you talking about?” she said, trying to sound outraged, but her voice broke, and she began to cry.

“Skipper got it all on videotape, so there’s no point in denying it,” I said.

“That son of a bitch,” she said, expressing the same sentiment that Merrill had. And then it hit her. “Oh, my God, he could have stopped it. That sick bastard.” She was silent as she contemplated what he had done to her. Her face expressed the horror of what she was experiencing. After a long time she said, “Why?”

I couldn’t answer that question.

She cried.

I was trying to be gentle and patient with her. I had to keep reminding myself that she was a murderer. “I think I know why you killed them, but I still don’t understand why you just didn’t turn them in. They would’ve been punished.”

“I didn’t want Anthony to be punished. I loved him. I just wanted to free him from that nigger inmate and that fat bastard banker’s grip. They turned Tony into a monster. He used to be so gentle and kind. They took that away from him. He never made love to me again,” she said and began to cry even more. After crying for about two minutes, her face turned hard and bitter. “He would only fuck me after they sunk their claws in him. They gave him AIDS.”

“What?” I asked in shock.

“Yeah, me too. It’s just a matter of time for me anyway. I’m dying. You’re not. They gave it to me, not you.”

“But you said . . .”

“I know, but I had just found out, and I was so angry, and I knew you were looking into what had happened. So . . .”

“So you lied to me.”

“Yes, I blamed you. I blame everybody at this fucking place.”

“You didn’t blame Skipper for what happened to Anthony?” I asked.

“Yeah, I blame him the most. He’s hard to get to though, but eventually I will.”

“No you won’t,” I said. “I’ve got to turn you in.”

She looked at me with pure rage. “Of course you do, you’re a man, aren’t you? All you pricks stick together, when you’re not sticking each other,” she said as the bitterness and guile spewed out of her mouth. “Sick pricks, everyone of you.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“I loved him. He was different. You should understand that, you’re a preacher. I’d do it all over again for him. I loved him.”

“Then why did you kill him?” I asked, but what I was thinking was,
I don’t have AIDS. I’m going to live—a little longer, anyway. Thank you. I’m sorry for being so angry with you. Please forgive me.

She looked confused. “I loved him,” she yelled. “I didn’t kill him. I killed those other buttfuckers to protect him. I didn’t kill him.”

“Well, the courts will have to decide that.”

“The hell they will. You won’t turn me in. I’ve got that bitch from classification that you’re in love with. I’ll kill her. I’ll slice her open, you prick,” she yelled.

She spun around on her stool to face the bed behind her, pulling off the sheet in one fluid motion.

On the bed behind her, Anna was bound and gagged. Her eyes, filled with tears, expressed the terror she was experiencing. For one brief moment, when our eyes met, there was a quick flash of relief. But that soon changed when Sandra Strickland pulled out a scalpel from her pocket and placed it at Anna’s throat.

“Pretty, isn’t she?” Strickland asked. “Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll let you have her when I’m finished. You know, a little souvenir. A forget-me-not. I won’t be around, but I bet you’ll think of me every time you see her. You think she’ll be as pretty in death as she is in life?

I want to cut her. I want to slice her open,” she said her voice becoming that of a sadistic child.

“No, Sandy. Don’t. I’ll do whatever you want. I won’t tell anybody. Just let her live. Take me. Cut me instead. I’m a man. I know you’d rather cut a man, wouldn’t you?”

“Yeah,” she said excitedly, and as she did she pressed the knife too hard against Anna’s throat. As Anna began to scream, muffled by her gag, blood started pouring out of a small opening on the right side of her neck.

“Here I am, Sandra. Cut me. I have all the evidence. She knows nothing. If you kill me, then all of this will be over. Cut me, Sandy.”

“I will,” she said as she stood up. “I’ll cut you bad. I’ll cut you good. So good. But it won’t bring Tony back, will it? WILL IT?” she screamed.

“Miss. Sandy, you okay?” Allen Jones asked as he stepped into the infirmary.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she said as he walked over towards her and stood between us. Her knight in shining armor. He quickly glanced at Anna, but made neither expression or comment.

She looked back at me. “I was on vacation, out of town, when my Tony was killed. I didn’t do it. I loved him. I couldn’t kill him. I want him back.”

I thought about what she said. She was right. She couldn’t have killed him. I glanced at Anna, the blood still oozing out of her precious neck.

God, help me save her. Don’t let her die.

I decided to go in a different direction to see what would happen. “That’s what killed him,” I said. “Your love for him got him killed by someone who loves you.”

“What? Who?” she asked, shocked that someone would kill her Tony because of her.

“Him,” I said and gestured with my head toward Allen Jones.

The moment of truth was upon us. It hung in the air like a bad smell. I saw the look of revelation and realization on her face. I pressed on.

“He was watching that night,” I said. “He can be seen just behind Skipper watching what they did to you on the video. So he decided to kill them, but you beat him to the punch on Johnson, so he waits for his chance to get Thomas. When you were away, his wife got him out of confinement by her accusations against me, and it got him killed. Her, too.”

Jones looked away from me and back toward her. She looked at him with pure contempt.

She said, “I loved him, not you. I loved him, and you killed him. You stole him from me.” She started toward him on the offensive. When she reached him, she slapped him hard across the face. He didn’t flinch. “You dumb nigger, you took him from me. I loved him. I didn’t love you. I DON’T LOVE YOU,” she yelled even louder.

Strickland swiped at Jones’s face with the scalpel, slicing his cheek open about three inches. As the blood began pouring out of his cut, it spilled onto the ground and mixed with Anna’s blood, his blood defiling hers.

And then it happened. Jones brought both of his arms up in one quick motion, wrapped his hands around her neck, and snapped it like a twig. Her body went limp, her head fell unnaturally to the side, and when he let go of her, she crumpled onto the floor as if all her bones had been removed. Jones spun around and ran straight for me.

Not so long ago, I had made a vow not to injure another person ever again as long as I lived. But, what I did, I did out of instinct and training, not pledges or promises. It was strictly action and reaction, nothing more. And it was more in hopes of saving Anna, who lay unconscious now, than defending me.

Just before he reached me, I snapped out a hard right jab square on his nose. It stunned him, and blood started to pour out of it, but he was not about to stop. He came again, this time ducking his head down and tackling me like a football player. I was still sore from my last beating and I felt it everywhere as I hit the floor. He sat back onto my chest now, brought his left hand down hard on my chin.

I brought my midsection up, rocked forward, then back, and brought my legs up and wrapped them around his neck. I jerked them back down again hard, and he went down with them.

I jumped to my feet and looked around. There was still no one in sight. Anna’s entire bed, once white, was now crimson. She was dying. I ran over to the door. It was closed, which meant it was locked— it locks from the outside. Normally, just inmates were in here.

I turned around to see Jones getting to his feet and reaching into his back pocket. In another moment he produced from his back pocket a surgical knife similar to the one he had used to kill Thomas.

“You get my letters, fucker?” he hissed at me.

“Yeah, but you just
killed
the woman those letters were meant to protect,” I said in a voice that said,
You’re not only a psychopath; you’re an idiot, too.

“Well, think about this,” he said. “When I finish with you, she’s mine.” He slung his head toward Anna.

“You won’t touch her,” I said, rage pouring out through my tone more than my words. “I won’t let you touch her. IT’S OVER!” I yelled.

He rushed me again. I braced myself for impact and crouched in a defensive stance with my knees bent slightly and my arms up. About halfway to me, his feet flew up into the air and he came crashing down to the floor in a hard thud. He had slipped on Anna’s blood. Her blood saved my life.

He got to his feet again, though, his face registering the stunned feeling he was experiencing. He rushed me again, only slower this time. Just before he reached me, he stopped, his eyes focusing on something behind me.

I spun around to see Merrill Monroe, my friend.

Merrill pushed open the door and stood with an officer’s baton ready to do battle against the forces of darkness.

“Come on, nigga’,” Merrill said in his don’t-fuck-with-me voice as he stepped in front of me. “Let’s get it on.”

Jones’s eyes widened, and just before he started his run towards Merrill, he looked like a rabid dog I had once seen. He ran towards Merrill with his knife in his right hand, extended up and pointing towards Merrill’s heart, unaware that Merrill didn’t have one when he was in these situations. Merrill seemed to wait until it was too late. Jones was right on him before he brought the baton down on his head furiously. Jones stopped, bent down, and dropped the knife. Blood continued to pour from his nose and cheek. He did not, however, fall to the ground. His mistake.

Merrill brought the baton back and down across the left side of Jones’s face. His whole head jerked back to the right, and blood and teeth spewed out in that same direction.

“Don’t fuck with my only white friend,” he yelled. And that was that.

“She cut Anna,” I said, gesturing toward Sandra Strickland as I ran over to Anna’s bed. “We’ve got to get her to a hospital, now.” Reaching down to apply pressure on her wound, I felt her long, elegant neck, her precious warm blood, which there was a lot of, and a faint pulse. I felt a pulse.

“We’re in a hospital. Let’s see if we can wake somebody up around here,” Merrill said as he dashed off to get some medical personnel to come and help save our friend’s life.

Which they did. Not, however, without laying me on a bed beside her and taking some of my blood and pumping it into her. My precious, powerful, virus-free, life-giving blood.

Perception is reality.

Like the family member who breaks out of the dysfunctional cycle, Merrill and I were viewed as troublemakers at best and traitors at worst. We had delved into the sewer, and we wreaked of it. Those investigating the matter felt that the smell of the sewer on us pointed to our guilt. Like rape victims, we were being blamed for what had happened.

The next three days were filled with interviews, inquiries, and reports with both the DOC and the FDLE. They grilled us for hours— they smelled smoke and were diligently searching for fire. Merrill and I were treated with suspicion and sarcasm. It was as if we were inmates who were suspected of committing a crime. When they finally finished with us, they said that although they couldn’t prove that we had committed crimes, they did, however, hold us responsible for Sandra Strickland’s death.

I held me responsible, too. I just didn’t see it coming. Not once did they mention her crimes. Through it all, Tom Daniels avoided being in the same room with me, and when that failed, he avoided eye contact and interaction.

I did not, however, lose any sleep over Tom Daniels.

It was late Friday afternoon, and I was seated on the edge of Anna’s hospital bed. The sun, refusing to go quietly into the night, shone brightly through the open shades, striping the bed and warming the room with a natural heat that made me long for an afternoon nap in a hammock. The door was closed, and we were alone.

Anna was wearing an oversized cotton nightshirt with bouquets of violets against a soft yellow background. Her hair hung straight down to the smattering of dark freckles just above her breasts and had the fluffy look of having just been blown dry. The bandage on her neck was smaller than the one the day before, and when we had hugged, I had smelled the slightest hint of her perfume.