The Law of Second Chances

29

Benny was escorted from the cell block by two guards. They walked for several minutes down long, narrow corridors. Eventually the guards placed him in a small room and told him to sit in a chair facing a rectangular opening with bars across it. One of the guards stayed in the room with him and stood against the back wall. My own little private visiting room with a butler, Benny thought. I wonder if they have carpeting on death row.

I’m wisecracking to myself, he decided. I must be going crazy!

Moments later a short, stocky Latino man came into the part of the room on the opposite side of the barred window and sat down facing Benny. Benny had never seen him before.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Luis Melendez,” the man answered.

Benny struggled for a few minutes to remember where he had heard the name before. Then it came to him from deep in the recesses of his brain, behind closed doors. As he remembered, he stiffened. His stomach started to churn. Rage began to swell. Part of him wanted to leap through the bars and grab the man by the throat. Another part wanted to bolt from the chair and run like lightning as far away from this man as he could.

Benny caught his rage before it got out. He struggled with it for several moments, acutely aware of the guard behind him. He finally concluded he had two options: ask the guard to take him back to his cell, or quietly ask Luis Melendez what he wanted. He chose the latter.

“What do you want?” he said quietly.

“I want to help.”

Once again the rage began to build and once again Benny fought it down. This needs to be said, he told himself. He bit his lip and waited for the beast within to subside. Then he began to speak, again in a low voice so the guard would not hear.

“Where were you when I was four years old and I was taken from my mother because she was strung out on drugs? Where were you when I was dumped in a foster home with two animals who beat me every day and locked me in the closet when I cried? I called out to you every day for help. I wanted you to rescue me, to tell me everything was going to be all right. But neither of you ever came.”

“I tried to find you, Benny, I did.”

“Oh yeah, it’s pretty hard to find foster kids, especially when you’re the real parent.”

“I wasn’t thinking straight back then,” his father protested. “I didn’t think to look right away in the foster care program for you. When I finally did, you were gone.”

“Whatever. You’re too late now. You know, back when I was a kid, I went from fear to terror to ‘I don’t give a shit’ to being so angry I could scream. I took it and took it and stuffed it in every day and it built and built. Eventually I dreamed of killing those two animals and then finding you and killing you and her.” Benny was struggling to keep his voice low. “I never went near a gun my whole life, but I thought about it plenty-about putting one right between your eyes. That man stood over me and I had a gun. I killed him and now you’re too late.”

Luis just kept looking at his son. Then, as quietly as Benny, he said, “I’m not going to give up. I can’t do anything about what’s already happened, but I’ve found you now and I’m going to do everything I can to help you.”

“Fine, you do that. You spend every fuckin’ dime you have. I hope it kills you, ’cause it ain’t gonna save me.” Benny turned to the guard. “I’m ready,” he said and stood up to leave.