It wasn’t our first go-round on the topic. “I hope I’d have enough sense and skill to evaluate their sincerity and skill. And not judge them or any person on their race.”
“Yeah, well, if you have to have a dish perfect before you eat it, you’re always going to starve to death, cookie, and that’s a fact. It’s pretty darned hard for the rest of us to be perfect enough for you.”
I was just perfect enough not to tell him he could get himself to Petra’s damned fundraiser. At the bank, I waited in the lobby while he went to his safe-deposit box. He returned, glowing with justifiable pride over his collection: a Bronze Star, a Purple Heart, his Good Conduct Medal with stars, and his ETO medal, also with stars. I left him polishing them while I drove west to the Big House.
It wasn’t even as though I wanted to visit Johnny, certainly not that I wanted to go to Stateville. I had been locked up once myself. It had almost killed me, and the helplessness and pain from those two months still haunt my nightmares. Prison is one endless round of violations of every human boundary—your mail, your time alone, your time with others. All these are invaded. Someone listens to your phone calls. Toilets and showers are open to any prurient guard. And your body itself is constantly violated, you being powerless to protest the frequent strip searches.
As I left the interstate for Route 53, my stomach twisted so hard that I doubled over at the wheel and had to pull off the road. I knew I would be searched, and that was the problem. I kept telling myself that it was impersonal. Too many people—civilians, lawyers, guards—had smuggled in weapons and drugs to exempt anyone from a thorough inspection of person and property. But the thought of willingly submitting to it turned me so cold I was shaking. I switched on the heater despite the warmth of the July day. Gradually I calmed down enough that I could drive through the gates.
I showed the sentry my letter from Greg Yeoman announcing me as part of Johnny Merton’s legal team. I showed my letter from the warden authorizing my visit this afternoon. The guard did a thorough inspection of my car, including the old towels I keep in the backseat for the dogs.
When I passed through the three sets of razor wire, the electronic security, and the body search, I felt myself shriveling, disappearing into a numb place so I couldn’t feel pain. I was panting when the search was finished and I was escorted into the lawyers’ holding pen.
Like everything at Stateville, the room was old and poorly lit. The sagging deal table where I was going to meet Merton might have been manufactured in 1925, the year the prison opened. Stateville consists of a series of circular cellblocks, with a guard station in the middle of each. Guards, in theory, can see all the cells without the prisoners being able to tell if they’re observed.
As it stands today, the lighting in Stateville is so bad that no one can see much of anything. Many of the inmates spend days in the dark. Pigeons fly through their cells and along the corridors, getting in easily through the cracks in the windows and walls, but, like many of the humans, never finding their way out again.
Because of staff shortages, the men are essentially in a Supermax facility, allowed out briefly once a day, often going weeks without getting to use the exercise yard. Their starchy meals are slapped through the bars at them. I guessed that’s why Johnny agreed so readily to let me be part of his legal team. Even if the state wouldn’t let him use a gym or a library, they had to let him see his lawyer.
I’d been in the meeting room more than an hour before the locks scraped back. A guard came in with Johnny in cuffs and seated him at the scarred table. He left us alone for a minute, then returned with two Styrofoam cups of coffee. Johnny clearly had clout! The guard stepped to the corner of the room, supposedly out of earshot.
“So, little white girl lawyer couldn’t take the heat at Twenty-sixth and California.” Johnny gave me an evil grin. “Had to jump to the pig side of the fence, huh?”
“Good to see you again, too, after all this time, Mr. Merton.” I sat down across from him.
Actually, seeing Johnny was a shock. He was almost bald, and what remained of his close-cropped hair was white. He had once been lean and lithe, as supple as his anaconda namesake, but the loss of exercise and increase of heavy food had weighed him down. Only the anger behind the tearing in his bloodshot eyes was familiar. That, and the coiled snakes tattooed on his arms.
“And what brilliant new insights are you bringing to my legal team, little white girl?”