Ryan stared at Connolly: Connolly ignored him. He was sitting in his pod sorting through his mail. His lawyer had brought it all in for him. Anything that went through the mailroom tended to get ripped up or stomped on by the Aryans.
Letters, books, a 500-piece puzzle of a United Ireland. All carefully sorted.
"When are we gonna do it?" Ryan demanded.
"All in good time," Connolly said, without looking up from the letter he was reading.
"I thought being in the IRA would be a bit more, you know, lively than this."
"Sorry to disappoint," Connolly said. Ryan bristled.
"It might not be what you're used to," Connolly continued, "But this is an army. We're a wee bit more disciplined. Oh, brilliant," he said, ripping open a package, "It came. This is for you."
Ryan perked up.
Connolly tossed him a little booklet: Ryan caught it.
Buntús Cainte, the cover said. A first step in spoken Irish.
"You've got to be fucking kidding me," Ryan said.
"Every word of Irish spoken is like a bullet being fired in the struggle against imperialism," Connolly said. "Have a read of that tonight. I'll help you with the vocabulary exercises tomorrow."
Cedar Junction, 2001
Somebody's sitting in the counselling room when he walks in. A chick in a headscarf: the one who visits all the Muslims on death row. She's pretty.
"I'm Catholic," Chris pointed out as he sat down.
She shrugged. "Whoever did your intake form has bad handwriting. I looked under 'religion' and it could have been a C, could have been an M..."
"Aw, you just wanted to get me alone."
"Mr Keller," she said, "I'm here to deliver a message."
"Uh-huh," Chris said slowly.
He didn't know any Muslims.
Unless - but no. No way.
She handed over a letter.
"What's it say?"
"I don't know," she said. "I don't read his mail."
He looked down at the envelope.
Blank. No address. Well, duh. Probably easier to hide.
"They're gonna strip-search me on the way outta here, and you'll be in deep shit," he said. "'S probably a felony, right? A prisoner can't write another prisoner?"
"So you're going to open it and read it in here, then give it back to me," she said.
He didn't want to open it while she was watching.
Her face turned pitying: she turned away, watched the wall.
He felt a spike of rage. He hated not being able to control his face in front of strangers, hated it, hated -
Nothing else to do. He opened the letter.
It wasn't from Beecher at all.
Chris recognised the handwriting - used to see it on dockets when he worked in the storeroom at Oz.
Keller, it read,
I offered spiritual counselling to a mutual friend before last year's events.
Said knew that Beecher put the hit out on Hank, Keller translated in his head.
I can no longer spare much time to attend to his spiritual needs - events overtake us.
No idea what the fuck that meant.
I am offering you some advice.
Your timely confession has saved our mutual friend much grief.
He has made an application for parole, which has a chance of being successful due to the special circumstances of his case.
A chance.
I suggest that you cease contact with him.
Chris's hands clenched the paper.
Your decision to confess showed a strength of character it did not previously appear you had.
Now you must make another decision. Will you allow our mutual friend to move on to a new phase of his life? Or will you make demands? Impose yourself on him with no regard for his family or his future?
Ask yourself if that is the right thing to do, or the loving thing to do.
God is the greatest.
Chris started ripping up the page.
He could tell the headscarf chick was startled but working hard to hide it.
He wondered if he was as transparent to her as she was to him. He wondered if the state could hurry up and kill him faster.
"Any response?" she asked coolly.
"Tell him he's a son of a bitch," Chris said, "And tell him I know he's right. That clear enough?"
"Clear as mud," she said, shoving the ripped-up letter into her handbag. "I'll call the guard."
Her eyes flicked across his face - she looked unsure. "If you do want spiritual counselling..."
"A priest," he said. "I wanna go to that chair in a state of grace."
Chris stared at the computer monitor. No adult education classes in Oz: instead you did your GED on your own out of a book then took the tests online.
He clicked around on the screen. Language arts, math, social sciences - Christ, it couldn't be too hard, right? Dumber people than Chris had graduated high school.
But what if he did his applications, studied dutifully, took his tests - then failed? He'd look like an idiot.
He was getting that old helpless feeling again and he didn't like it.
Decision made. He wouldn't waste his time.
The damn computers kept freezing anyway.