Chapter Eleven
A Phantoms Goodbye
“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.” – Oscar Wilde
The sun had fully risen and was no longer shining directly on us. The harsh exposure that had highlighted his features during most of our time together had disappeared, and now a man with a softer face sat before me—a man counting down the minutes he had left and trying to hide it.
“As you know, from the reports and news I’m sure when this all happened, that man who got away was the same bloodied man who ran up to those two officers and begged for help that a maniacal killer was after him and then bled out on the sidewalk waiting for the ambulance. We both know that those dying words, all but nearly sealed my fate as the senseless murderer once the word got out. Even after the trial and details about each specific victim a majority of the public still wanted to see me behind bars, and I couldn’t disagree with them.”
Stephen paused, the smile from his face fading as he looked down at his hand once more and traced up and down his palm with the tip of his thumb.
“Although the clerk at the convenience store said that I saved her life, her final words “he looked happy while killing him” did more harm than her testimony. Then of course there was that poor girl in the truck, she hated me with a passion, she even was one of the biggest advocates to have me get the death penalty.” Stephen laughed. “I guess she loved her husband a lot more than she feared him. Then of course no one knew about that poor girl freezing on the side of the street because she never came forward and spoke to the police. She probably was afraid they’d arrest her on something, or maybe they’d just ignore her like society had already been doing. But then, there was that final girl that I brought to the hospital. Although she survived and doctors said was on the brink of an overdose, I think that the trauma of that night scarred her, and watching her on that stand, being forced to relive that horrific night over and over again during the trial. I’m sure that’s why she took her life.” Stephen laughed, still staring into his palm, but his laughter was much different than before. It was pained, as droplets fell from his face, and he took sharp breathes in after each erratic giggle.
A fear began to grow in me as I watched Stephen sit there laughing, and behind that fear was pity. After a few more seconds of the uneasy laughter, Stephen calmed himself and with a big smile on his face and streaks of tears visible on his cheeks, he looked up and told me.
“Maybe she would have suffered less if I just let her die that night.”
The smile on his face slowly shrank and just as it disappeared, the corners of his mouth twitched, and I saw Stephen frown. It was only visible for less than a second, but my mind knew to save that image into its core. Quickly, without giving me a chance to speak he wiped his face clean with his forearms and continued.
“Nothing really worth talking about during my time in here though. Being on death row and everything, you’re mostly separated from all the other inmates. And because of how accepting I was of my sentence, the warden put me on suicide watch. Not all that interesting of a life at this point, now is it?” Stephen shined another quick smile.
“I wouldn’t say that exactly—”
Stephen scoffed.
I looked up at him from my notes with an eyebrow raised. I could see something was still bothering him. “Are you suicidal, Stephen?”
“Come on.” Stephen let out an unconvincing laugh and shot me a skeptical look.
I waited for him to answer the question truthfully. My silence seemed to make him uncomfortable.
He broke the silence with more fake laughter. “Come on …” He almost choked on the words. “You know, I asked for you specifically because I thought you’d have an interesting take on my situation and ask good questions before my execution.”
There was another silence as the smile on Stephen’s face became tighter and his hand tapped rapidly on the table. “You’re not going to ask me anything else?”
“Are you? Were you?” I asked, probing the same topic.
“What do you want to hear? You want me to tell you how every time someone was gone from my life this self-hatred gnawed away at every thought and sent me into a downward spiral for weeks at a time? How in some way I failed them all, leaving me to wonder why I was the one still here and they were taken? How I was never able to tell anyone what I truly felt because I was afraid, I’d inconvenience them, or they’d see me as less of a man? I think I’d be crazier if I didn’t have those thought’s, don’t you?” Stephen looking away as his eyes turned red.
“Why didn’t you kill yourself then? If you had nothing left in your life that was important to you, why didn’t you save yourself all those years of suffering alone?”
Stephen laughed again, dipping his head down but meeting my gaze again before answering. “Would you? Would you be able to do something so … permanent? No one knows what happens to us when we die. Maybe my parents were right, and there is a heaven and hell. Maybe killing yourself is a one-way ticket to one or the other. I don’t have the answers, but here’s what I do know—if I lived for another day, I’d at least be able to remember them. Sometimes remembering them also meant remembering the bad times, but the good times were so much more precious, that just by being able to think about them each day made life worth living, even if I had to live it alone. Even though I knew I’d never be able to see any of them again in this life, I knew that I could at least be with them in my thoughts, but if I killed myself, there was no guarantee I’d see them again, even in memory, and that scared me a whole lot more than living without them.”
Just then there was a knock at the door Clarence stood beside. He opened it and spoke briefly with another guard.
“Well,” Stephen said, “it looks like our time together has come to an end, Mrs. Silverman. It’s truly been a pleasure. Thank you for taking the time to come here and speak with me today.” Stephen, eager to leave now, stood from his chair and waited for Clarence to come and take him.
“Wait, Mr. Clark! I have just one more question if you will.”
He looked at me suspiciously.
I rolled my lips together and leaned forward so I could whisper my question without the guards hearing. Stephen leaned in too.
“Why lie?” I said softly.
Stephen’s eyebrows shot up and a smug smile grew on his lips.
I trembled slightly and felt myself beginning to sweat.