“I’m so glad you’re here, Miss Iris. I can’t believe this.”
Cody slowly eases his right hand through the bars. She takes it with both of hers and gives a good squeeze. “I can’t believe it either, Cody. Is this really happening?”
He nods as he slowly pulls his hand back and looks at her. She’s in a wheelchair because, as she explained in one of her many letters, she suffers from bouts of severe bursitis in her knees and other joints. Her lower legs and feet are covered with a thin blanket. Above that she wears a pretty green floral dress and plenty of jewelry—long necklaces and bulky bracelets. Cody notices the jewelry because he certainly stole enough of it in his heyday. She has a round face with a big smile, a long nose with red-framed glasses perched on the tip, and sparkling blue eyes. Her white hair is thick and wavy and has not thinned at all.
She sees a skinny boy with bushy hair who could convince no one that he is twenty-nine years old.
In their twelve-year correspondence they have divulged most of their secrets.
“Yes, Miss Iris, this is really happening. My lawyer, Jack, says we’re down to the lick log, as they say. Got that from one of those cliché books you sent.”
“You use too many of those clichés and metaphors.”
“I know, I know. So you say. But I love a good cliché, one that isn’t used too often.”
“Well, you need to avoid them, most of the time.”
“I don’t believe this. Here I am at the end and you’re still grading my papers.”
“I am not, Cody. I’m here because I care about you.”
This hits him hard and his knees almost buckle. He’s never heard this before. He walks to the bars, grabs two of them and sticks his face between them, as close as he can get. He whispers, “I care about you too, Miss Iris. I can’t believe you’re here.”
“Well, I am, and evidently I don’t have much time.”
“Neither do I.”
“So, what can we talk about?”
“How’d you get here?”
“I convinced Charles to drive me. He’s my new boyfriend.”
“What happened to Frank?”
“He died. I thought I told you that.”
“I don’t think so, but in all honesty, it’s not easy keeping up with all of your romances. You were quite fond of Frank, as I recall.”
“Oh, I’m fond of all of them, at least at the beginning.”
“There have been quite a few.”
“I suppose. To be honest, Cody, I was kind of tired of Frank. So far I’d say that Charles has far more potential. You know what they say. If you really want to know someone, just take a trip with them. Well, we’re in the middle of this trip, and so far so good.”
“Thank you, Miss Iris. I can’t believe you’ve come here. It’s a thousand miles, right?”
“Nine hundred and twenty-seven, according to Charles, who has this odd habit of counting everything. It’s sort of annoying but I haven’t said anything yet.”
“When did you leave Nebraska?”
“Around noon yesterday. Stayed in a motel last night, separate rooms of course, then drove all day today. I’ve done it before, if you’ll recall.”
“How could I forget? Eight, ten years ago. You showed up here and they wouldn’t let you in.”
“It was awful. My son Bobby drove me all the way down, our last road trip together I can promise you that, and they made us wait in this small, smelly room with no air-conditioning, it was August if I remember correctly, and then they told us to leave, rather abruptly. Said you had done something wrong and got put on probation and couldn’t have visitors. It was just awful.”
“And it was a lie. I’ve never been on probation. They didn’t like me because I kept suing them in federal court and kicking their butts. We had a terrible warden back then and he hated every one of us on death row. He somehow managed to make our miserable lives even worse.”
She takes a deep breath and looks around, trying to absorb the place. “So this is death row?”
“Smack in the middle of it. Twenty cells on this wing, twenty on the other, no vacancies anywhere. No room at the inn. Around the corner, behind the East Wing, known here affectionately by the guards as the ‘Beast Wing’ because that’s where they tend to put the nastier boys, there’s a small square addition known as the Gas House. That’s where they do the dirty work of killing us in private so the good Christian folks who love the death penalty don’t have to actually see it in action. I’ll be going there in less than two hours.”