Prayer

In twenty years as a correction officer, no store ever stuck to me like Michael Wangler’s. at the time I met him, I was still young, I guess, only been n the job seven years or so, round about thirty, married, my kid, Katie, still in high school. Anyway, I wasn’t working gen pop, I was working death row. So it was late, getting close to lights out, I was on my last rounds. So I’m walking by Wangler’s cell. Wangler was a real animal. He was there because he’d been convicted of murdering a woman and her daughter in the first degree. Looks like he raped them before too, maybe slashed them up. I don’t know. To be honest, I don’t want to. If you looked in Wangler’s you’d see nothing. Nothing except the killer instinct. When I looked, I saw, though it took me a while to realize, addiction. In the joint, you see all types of addiction. Men addict to drugs, to sex, to TV, it doesn’t matter, you name it, they got it. But Wangler, Wangler took the cake; the guy was addicted to murder. That night marked five years to the day of Wangler’s waiting on death row. His third and final appeal had just been rejected. He was to be executed the next day. So that night I was just doing my job, hoping to get home soon, kiss my wife, see my kid. Just a guy, just a job. I’m walking by Wangler’s cell man, when the guy just calls out to me. So I ask him what he wants. He says he wants to talk. “Talk about what?”
“Me, man. What else? I’m about to die, I’m allowed a little selfishness.”
“That’s nice, kid. Tell why I should -”
“Na, man. Listen. Look, I’m a goner. Tomorrow night’s the night. Gotta tell, ya never thought I’d be marking my death date on a calendar. But that’s not the point. See the thing is, I gotta talk. Dead always gotta talk. When else we gonna do it? So anyway, you the only guy here. And here it is: I killed ‘em.”
“I know, Wangler. You were convicted by a jury of your peers, ‘member?”
“Again, you’ve missed the point completely homes. Not just them. I counted, I killed 27 women. Only caught me on those two. See I fucked ‘em, cut em, and killed em. I did it cause it made me happy man. I don’t care how fucked up it is. Cause, see, I never as been as happy as when I did that. I dunno why. Maybe God made me that way.”

“You saying God made you kill?”

“Not exactly. Cause I believe in the big man. But I don’t believe he’s listening, at least not to me. I think he put me on this earth, showed me woman, showed me his greatest creation, and let me pick. And see, his creation was so great that I loved it too much. I would fuck em, but it wasn’t good enough. They weren’t mine enough. I wasn’t getting all I needed from them. I killed em. I took what I needed. I took too much. Cause God, he puts women here, and they can gives us love, and sex, and cook for us, and smell good. And that should be enough. But I took advantage of the big man’s generosity. Its like he gave me, I dunno, a glass of wine, and I busted into his liquor cabinet and took the rest. So he put me here. I get it. I deserve it. Don’t bite the hand that feeds, they say.””So? Why you telling me this for? You’re gonna fry, it doesn’t matter now, if God can hear you or not.”

“I don’t know why I’m telling you. Absolution, maybe. But man, you believe in God?”

“Sometimes”

“Naw, man. That means you do. And means you know he ain’t always the most giving guy. Its okay, I forgive him for that, cause he gave me twenty-seven good women. But you know, not to fuck with I’m, cause he aint the most patient motherfucker. So I stopped asking, and let him do this. Man, you better clean your sins too, before you get here. But anyway maybe this is why I’m telling you. There one more thing I’d like to ask him, but he won’t give me. I’d like a thunderstorm, like when I was a kid. A real howler, biblical and shit, bucket after bucket of water, fearing for your life storm. But I pushed him see? And I won’t get it. Absolution homes. You gave me peace. You should look for it too.”

Last words he ever said to me. Or anyone. He left me shaken, somehow. I went home that night, ignored dinner, and prayed for the first time in two years. Absolution, he said. Still haven’t found it. Right after Wangler was executed, I mean like seconds later, the sky opened up, and it rained for twenty seven days straight. Maybe God was listening after all.


There was a prison movie on TV. I think my muse has developed ADD, and is highly influenced by outside sources. Also, it’s probably the first thing I’ve written that’s dialogue heavy, I tried to exclude profanity to the extent possible, but it is prison after all.