The Choiring of the Trees - Donald Harington [123]
Mr. Fancher escorted her to the warden’s office. The new warden, Travis Don Yeager, met her at his door and invited her in. He was about fifty, and her first impression of him was slightly more favorable than that of Harris Burdell: he seemed cut from the same mold, and she guessed that he, like Burdell, must have spent countless hours in front of a mirror practicing a look of fierce determination and strength. But he tried to be polite, at first. “Welcome to the Arkansas State Penitentiary, Miss Monday!”
“I’ve been here before,” she said.
“Yeah. Right. I didn’t think.” He made a mouth that might have been intended as a smile but came out as a smirk. “We oughta send you up to Jacksonville hee hee, our state farm for women hee hee, but we understand you prefer the company of males hee hee. I see you didn’t bring your suitcase hee hee.”
“I don’t expect to stay long,” she said.
“You gonna sleep in that dress hee hee?”
“If I sleep.”
“Hee hee! Baby, you got the right idea. If you sleep, that’s right, if you sleep hee hee. Well, are you all ready to go down and meet your roommate hee hee?”
“I’ve met him.”
“You have? Well, that’s nice. Did he tell you what he’s gonna do to you? Aint you just a little bit scared hee hee?”
“No.”
“Man’s a convicted rapist. Did a job so awful on a little girl they gave him the chair, only the second white man ever to get the chair in history hee hee.”
“I’m familiar with all the facts of the case,” she said. “I’m ready to go.”
“Are you now? Real eager and rarin to go? Hot to trot hee hee. You got it bad, sister.”
“If you don’t mind.”
“Don’t mind what?”
“I didn’t come here to listen to your jokes. I came to see Nail Chism.”
He dropped his light tone. “Sit down, lady,” the warden ordered her, gesturing to a chair.
“Why? Do I have to submit to an interview or make out an application?”
“SIT DOWN, Miss Monday,” he commanded, and put a hand on her shoulder and made her sit. Then he went around behind his desk and sat down. He studied her for a moment, and when he spoke again there was a remnant of the original politeness. “You honestly amaze me. You really came in here expectin us to let you move in with that rapist. You really truly meant to go through with it.”
“What are you telling me?” she demanded. “Aren’t you going to let me do it?”
“Do you think I’m crazy, girl?”
“I don’t care whether you are crazy or not. The governor told me I could do it. In fact, it was his suggestion.”
“Yeah, but he never thought you would. He told me to see if you showed up, he said he’d bet me that you wouldn’t show up, but if you did, to find out if you really wanted to do it. You honestly want to do it, don’t you?” The warden began shaking his head slowly back and forth as if he still couldn’t believe it. “Maybe you’re the crazy one hee hee. Don’t you know you’d never get out of there alive? That man’s got a dagger hidden somewhere down in his cell, and he’d slash your throat as soon as he got finished rapin you hee hee.”
“I’ll take the chance,” she said. “Isn’t that what this is supposed to be about? Taking the chance? Proving to all of you that he won’t rape me, he won’t kill me?”
The warden shook his head. “Too much of a risk. Maybe you’re right. But if you was wrong, and anything happened to you, the newspapers would really haul us over the coals, and your family would sue the state of Arkansas.”
She could only repeat, feebly, “The governor told me I could