Riven - Jerry B. Jenkins [41]
“You’d get your share of those. I don’t know, Thomas. My fear is you’re out of options. But I’m not going to try to talk you into anything.”
Thomas turned and stared out the window, exhaling loudly. “Well, where’s the opening?”
“The state penitentiary.”
“Right here? It’s a supermax, isn’t it?”
“State-of-the-art for the worst of the worst, they tell me. There are something like twenty-two thousand inmates in this state, and the worst nine hundred or so are here at Adamsville.”
“Quite a mission field.”
“Now you’re talking.”
“That would be a baptism of fire, Jimmie, when the worst place I’ve been is Cook County and that more than twenty-five years ago. How’d this position come open anyway?”
“Our guy’s retiring. Been in the system forty years. Lots of rules and law changes make it almost impossible to get a chaplain in there, but because we had one for so long, and the administration loved him, we can grandfather in someone new if we act fast.”
“Who would the new guy work for? You or the state?”
“The state, but while it includes benefits, they don’t pay much, so we subsidize. It’s still not much, Thomas, but it’d be regular and you wouldn’t have to worry about congregations coming up with your salary.”
“That would be nice.”
“You’re open to this?”
“Grace and I will pray about it.”
“See why I didn’t want her to come? She couldn’t visit the prison anyway, and if she did, she might be against it.”
“Can I visit?”
“We can see. But Chaplain Russ is happy to talk to you, provided you’re at least curious.”
“Oh, I’m at least that.”
“Then you’ll forgive me if I wave him over?”
“Excuse me?”
“He’s here, just in case. That’s him in the corner.”
A large, ruddy, robust man in his late sixties smiled shyly and raised his brows. Thomas offered a subdued salute, and Jimmie beckoned him. He brought his sandwich and coffee with him.
After quick introductions and a laugh when Thomas said he felt conspired against, Ross said, “Reverend Carey, I’m not gonna try to sell you on this. Fact, I might try to talk you out of it. It’s not for a weak man, not for someone looking to take a break.”
“Oh, I assure you—”
“’Cause let me tell you what ASP consists of, bein’ a security-level-five institution. First off, it’s got a death row. There’s nine in that pod right now. Then you’ve got your real baddies, lifers who have murdered, raped, abused, whatnot. Then you’ve got your attempted escapees from other facilities. There’s none of that here, understand, because this place was built in what’s called an envelope design. Other words, say a guy somehow escapes his cell—which hasn’t even happened since this place opened ten years ago. These guys are in their houses—that’s what we call their cells—twenty-three hours a day. They get an hour alone in the exercise unit, which is just a few feet away from their cellblock, and every three days they get to go to the shower. That’s the only chance they’d get to try to pull something. But let’s just say they did. From the exercise area or the shower, they subdue a corrections officer—don’t ever demean those professionals by callin’ ’em guards, by the way, or worse, turnkeys or screws—and somehow get out of the cellblock. That’s just the first of eleven envelopes they’d have to open to even get out to the yard, which is surrounded by walls, guarded by sharpshooters in the towers, and covered by razor wire. And every one of those envelopes is constantly watched, live and on monitors, and every door can be unlocked only with the cooperation of an officer in a control unit.”
“So, like you say, it’s not going to happen.”
“Exactly. And you can imagine what that kind of living does to a man, especially a convict.”
“If these guys are in their cells, their houses, all that time, when do you have chapel services?”
“Oh, you don’t. You gotta