Communication

The Shepherd

by CALVIN KERLEY 
06/13/24
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The Shepherd

I know these guys are scoundrels. Believe me, I know. The men in this place didn’t get here playing hopscotch. They’re here because they did bad things, or broke the law. It’s my job to make sure they don’t break the walls of this prison.    

There’s something a lot of people don’t know about these “bad” men, these ugly, low-iq, genetic lottery losers who were often just as despised by others before they committed their crimes as after. Some of them feel pretty bad about the things they’ve done, and really want to change. Some of them do change, though they will never receive a chance on the outside. I’ve seen this kind of regret break a man’s spirit in ways you can’t imagine, relegating his existence to depression, weeping, and constant nightmares. Most prison guards, if not most people, would not feel one ounce of sympathy for such men, saying that such emotional torture is less than what they deserve, and would even find some pleasure in knowing that the villains on this earth experience hell both before and after the grave. Sure, I used to feel the same way. The logic of this attitude is so precise, so perfect. But I have found that human beings, even at their best, are neither precise nor perfect.           

We had a real bad boy down in solitary confinement: a celebrity serial killer who did some pretty nasty stuff to kids and old ladies. The kind of atrocities the media eats up and humanity never forgives. He would eventually be executed. 

I was given the task of watching over his pod, serving his meals, whatever was needed. I never actually laid eyes on him but twice. Once, when they brought him in. The second time when the big day finally came.   Neither of these moments laid a big impression on me. A few days before the execution, however, the two of us had an encounter that I recall almost every day since. 

Meal tray in hand, I pushed the button to open his window so that the food could be slipped through. The door rose slowly, squeaking.  I sat the tray down and spoke through the tunnel.  

“Lunch is served.” I said, pushing it across.   

Just as I lifted my hand to press the button for closing, I heard a weak voice call out from inside. 

“Can I talk to you, just for a minute?” It said. 

Against regulations? Yes, But considering the circumstances, that he had been locked up in solitary for over two years and can’t have had more than one or two conversations in that time, and since he only had three days left to live, I judged the case an exception. 

“Alright. What’s on your mind?” I said, dreading the write-up.  

“What’s your name?” He asked. 

I gave him my middle name, Tucker: a white lie.   

“Tucker!” He called out passionately as if it were the name of his firstborn child. “I won’t be alive much longer, Tucker.” 

“Yes, I know.”  

The cell was quiet for a few seconds, and I thought about closing the door. Then he spoke again.  

“I had a dream last night, Tucker. About my Aunt Charlotte.”  

“Your Aunt?”  

“Yes, I wish I could see her again.” His voice became pregnant with emotion. “She was the kindest person I’ve ever known.”  

I leaned closer.   

“She sounds like a nice lady. Tell me about the dream.” I said.   

 “It was wonderful. She had her arm around me, and we sat on a swing together, the one in her back yard. She sang to me.  She had a beautiful voice. I remember the song, but not all the words. All I can recall now is that it was about loving others, and being kind, and-“ 

Faint sobs emerged from the tunnel. I waited for a few seconds as this continued, thinking it best to let him finish.They gradually died away, and I probed further

“That sounds nice. You were lucky to have her in your life.”  

“Yes, so lucky” He said, repeating the words “so lucky” several times with progressive softness.  “Now all I can think about is how much I would have disappointed her. She used to tell me that I was a good boy, and that I had a heart full of kindness. I believed her every word. How could this happen, Tucker? How could I have become such a monster? How could I have done these horrible things to those kids, those old ladies?” 

My response had a certain cruelty in the moment, but it was the natural question.

“Only you can answer that.”    

A painful whine erupted from across the tunnel.  

“Oh, I do! And it breaks my heart that I know exactly how I became what I am. What happened is that I grew up, and saw that the world was a cruel and heartless place. That there was no kindness, no love. The judgement and coldness of others pounded me like a hammer driving a nail, and after a lifelong battering, I couldn’t believe Aunt Charlotte’s words anymore. How does one survive, Tucker? How does one survive in a world without love?” 

Though I didn’t want to admit, I could not deny that there was some truth in his words. Life is cruel. The world is a selfish and harsh place.  My own experience had taught me that. 

“I’m still figuring that one out myself.” I said, hesitantly.  

“Eventually, I decided that the only way to survive was to hate the world as much as it hated me. So when the hammer pounded me, I pounded back. I pounded with all the anger and ferocity in my being. I wanted to hurt everyone who believed in kindness, like kids, people like my Aunt Charlotte, crushing their illusions just as mine were crushed. But now the evil is dragging me down, Tucker. Dragging me further away from kindness than I’ve ever been, into the dark. It’s a horrible place, Tucker. I don’t want to go there. ” 

Before this, I had only known him to be a monster, without feeling or remorse, locked away in his own moral universe separate from the rest of mankind. I didn’t know what to say, and looked at the ground. He continued. 

“I wonder, Tucker. I wonder every day about the person I could have been, had I clung to my childhood illusions. I wonder where the kindness that Charlotte saw in my heart disappeared to, and where it was as I looked my victims in the eye. I wonder how such a horrible person could have ever taken up residence inside me. If you’ve ever asked yourself what it is that I do with my time alone in this cell, Tucker, it’s wonder.” 

In this monster’s voice, dripping with conscience-stricken agonies, I heard the fragments of what once had been a good person: a good person never realized, cast away into the darkness, left only to mourn that he never saw the light of day. I could not deny that I felt pity for this person, and it sobered me to think that I’m one of the precious few to have ever known him. In three days he would be gone forever. 

“I wonder too.” I said, pressing the close button.  

As I walked away a muffled voice yelled “Goodbye, Tucker! Goodbye and thank you!” 

I couldn’t see people the same after that day. I couldn’t see criminals the same. No longer could I see the inmates in my charge as human trash swept into the garbage bin of society, fit only for disposal and elimination. Instead, I saw only men. Men with deeper regrets, deeper sorrows who responded to life’s troubles in the only foolish ways they knew how. I am not the guard of these prisoners, but their shepherd, returning the wanderers who have strayed from the fold. Instead of fighting against the armor of evil that covers their surface, I now reach for the good man inside each of them, encouraging him to come out in the sunlight where he belongs.