As Ernie ambled back, I walked down the driveway to meet him at his car.

Well I was born in a small town. And I can breathe in a small town.

Gonna die in this small town. And that’s prob’ly where they’ll bury me.

“Please tell me you know who that was,” I said.

“Sure, that’s Laura Matthers. Her sister Kim and me are on the July jam court together Friday night.”

“This Friday night, as in three days from now?”

“Uh huh. But she’s got a boyfriend.”

“Ernie, they almost always do.”

3

The following morning I stood at my desk in my chapel office inside Potter Correctional Institution, a stack of mail and the package containing my new computer in front of me.

Moving the unopened mail to one side, I ripped into the box and extracted the computer inside, releasing a flurry of small packing peanuts as I did.

At that moment, Warden Stone walked in without knocking.

Every muscle in my body grew tense.

“Chaplain, I need to speak with you for a moment,” he said as he closed my office door behind him.

He made no attempt to hide his annoyance at the floating Styrofoam swirling around him as he removed two handfuls of packing peanuts from the chair across from my desk before sitting in it.

Stone was always dressed impeccably in expensive suits that looked to be tailored, and he always took great care to protect them. Had he been aware of the sweaty, soiled inmate uniforms that normally occupied the seat, he probably would have left the peanuts in place.

As I sat down, an envelope on top of my lopsided stack of mail slid off, revealing an inmate request form from Ike Johnson.

Stunned, I quickly opened my center drawer and placed it inside.

Before he started talking, Edward not Ed Stone paused to clean his charcoal wire-rimmed glasses. Like everything he owned, they looked expensive. As he removed them carefully from his face and wiped them with the spotless white silk handkerchief bearing his initials in bold black block letters, he treated them like they were costly jewels.

As I watched him, I realized that the glasses, like everything he owned, seemed so expensive because he treated them that way.

As he made these exact, intentional motions, I had a chance to really look at him for the first time. He was much leaner than I had thought. I had seen skin that was darker than his, but not by much. He had all the African features of a man from Nigeria. His nearly hairless skin was smooth and had a slight sheen about it. His movements were slow but not hesitant—more deliberate and economic than anything else. He knew exactly what he was doing and the precise amount of energy required to do it. He did everything as if it were the most important thing he would do that day.