But he’s got some injuries that are real odd. I realize it’s not your case since he’s not dead. He hasn’t regained consciousness but no one’s saying right now whether he’ll make it. He was found behind a grocery store on Patterson Avenue in the county. My heart sank as I reached for paper and pen. He was shot in the head and there may be some sexual components involved.
I hoped I wasn’t needed at a scene.Įarlier this evening, a thirteen-year-old white male was abducted after leaving a convenience store on Northside. What’s the problem? I asked, staring tensely at the TV. But we’ve got a situation we really need your help with. I’m trying to reach Kay Scarpetta? Uh, the chief medical examiner, Dr. Hello? asked a male voice I did not recognize. I answered it expecting my deputy chief or some other member of my staff whose evening, like mine, was on hold. The news determined whether I went on to bed or drove downtown to the morgue.Īt almost ten P.M. Like the rest of Virginia’s citizens, whenever an execution was scheduled I found out from the media whether all appeals had been exhausted or the governor had granted clemency. I supposed it would always intrigue me that poetry and cruelty could reside in the same heart.įor the next few hours I paid bills and wrote Christmas cards while the television played mutely. But the business of the day distracted me and his meditation had remained in my pocketbook. Waddell’s meditation had been published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch and I had taken the clipping to work to add to his growing file. I imagined a young black man in the hot cab of a pickup truck and wondered if his head had been full of murder back then. I built a fire in my living room and envisioned Virginia farmland and tomatoes ripening in the sun.
Small raindrops spun in my headlights, the night gloomy with fog and bitterly cold. It was dark out when I drove to work that morning. The Monday I carried Ronnie Joe Waddell’s meditation in my pocketbook, I never saw the sun. When you think it’s safe to stop looking that’s when you’d better start looking, brother. The dark is his friend, flesh and blood his feast. They say it happened in September when the sky was like a robin’s egg and leaves were on fire and falling to the ground. What’s a man supposed to feel when he’s about to be gone? I open my eyes and see a blank wall going on forever. I can’t use the john, blow my nose, or smoke without guards taking notes. I imagine driving the pickup truck, sweat shining on my face in that no-future place I swore I’d leave. I dream of roasting peanuts in a tin and when the tomatoes are in eating them like apples. I remember raking hay in the heat of day and getting no pay compared to the way white folk live. I lie on my iron bed staring at my dirty bare feet and the white toilet missing its seat, and when cockroaches crawl across the floor I don’t jump anymore. (A MEDITATION AT SPRING STREET BY THE DAMNED)
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