Time's Witness by Michael Malone Page B

Cadmean shook his painted blueprints down at me. Upstairs, the holding cell was asleep and peaceful. From the poster on my office wall, Elvis looked like he was having too much fun ever to get fat and sick and die. While I was checking in with Sergeant Davies, we heard loud shouts and sobs coming from the interrogation room. Hiram said, “Billy Gilchrist on a crying jag. Seems to think they executed George Hall tonight, and he's praying for him.”
    Gilchrist, a local low-life alcoholic, had gotten religion about a year ago; it hadn’t stopped his binges, but it often gave them a remorseful flavor. I said, “Come on, Hiram, drunk prayers are still prayers, aren’t they? Seems like Christ hung out with lots of boozers himself.” Turning his back on me, Davies snapped paper into his old Royal and typed away.
    Unlocking the interrogation room, I spotted Gilchrist literally on his knees, banging his head on the carpet, shouting and blotto. He took a tone with the Lord that explained why Davies hadn’t been sympathetic. “God, help me, goddamnit! Where are you, you fucker!” He was about sixty, wino-skinny, bleary blue eyes, yellowish-white hair combed forward over the baldness. He stank to high heaven—or wherever his prayers were going. When he sawme, he sobbed, nose, mouth, and eyes all running. “He put me by myself! Get me outta here! Not my fault. Can’t stand be all lone. Ostrichized. Need a drink.”
    I pulled him to his feet; he was so light he flew up like a paper puppet. “Billy, you need to get yourself calmed down. Stop that bawling.” I walked him to the corner where he’d dragged the pallet Davies had made, laid him down on it, and covered him up with a blanket. “The sergeant says you think they killed George Hall tonight? Well, they didn’t. Fact is, Hall got a reprieve from the governor. A reprieve. ”
    He snorted back tears in jerks. “Reprieve? Not dead?”
    “No. Now, Billy, you lie back. We can’t have you keeping all our other guests awake. You can leave in the morning. George Hall, is that what's got you all upset? You used to be a pal of his or something?”
    But Gilchrist had abruptly passed out, snoring. Safe and sound in the sleep of the dead drunk.
    Home in River Rise, a grin of a moon was laughing at A.R. Randolph's bridge over the Shocco. My apartment was freezing cold, one of the strings of colored lights had burned out on the little spruce I had in a bucket with its bad side to the picture window. Martha Mitchell had pooped in the kitchen for spite right next to the magnetized swinging door I’d had specially built so she could lead an independent life. She was upstairs in my bed, burrowed under the quilt Alice MacLeod had made for me. “I got your message, Martha,” I said. “Bitch.” She gave me a nasty look, which I returned.
    Yawning, I piled suit, cummerbund, tie, and shirt back in the rental box; even the cuff links came with the outfit. In the mirror I saw a tall skinny man with thick hair the color of tobacco, a bony face, and blue eyes. One day a long time ago Lee Haver came to school with a robin's egg. She held it up near me and said, “Cuddy Mangum, this is how blue your eyes are.” From then on, I liked my eyes best of my features, though my ex-wife, Cheryl, didn’t appear to single them out as anything special. Cheryl and I had some great times in bed, but the memory must have faded fast while I was sleeping solo in a soggy minefield; it's clear that a sense of historywasn’t Cheryl's strong suit.
    History's what I study. Time's witness, Ben Jonson called it, advertising Sir Walter Raleigh's History of the World. History of the world. Imagine thinking you could think that big. ’Course, Raleigh never finished the story. Twelve years on death row before they cut off his head. He ran his finger along the axe blade and joked, “A sharp remedy, but a sure one for all ills.” I’ve been told I’ve got a sense of humor, but I’ve got nothing to match that