Gospel According to Prissy Read online

  Copyright 2013 by Barbara Casey

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means, including mechanical, electronic photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer, who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper or broadcast. Requests for permission should be directed to [email protected], or mailed to Permissions, Strategic Media Inc., 782 Wofford St., Rock Hill Sc 29730.

  eBook ISBN 978-1-4675266-9-2

  Print ISBN 978-0-9852440-2-6

  10-digit ISBN 0-9852440-2-X

  To my parents, who taught me the joy of observing life.

  With love.

  “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

  Matthew 19:14

  “Then Joseph’s master took him and put him into the prison, a place where the king’s prisoners were confined. And he was there in the prison. But Santa Claus was with Joseph and showed him mercy, and he gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. And the keeper of the prison committed to Joseph’s hand all the prisoners who were in the prison; whatever they did there, it was his doing. The keeper of the prison did not look into anything that was under Joseph’s hand, because Santa Claus was with him; and whatever he did, Santa made it prosper.”

  The Gospel According to Prissy

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  CHAPTER ONE

  LARAMIE LARKINS KRUGER drove up to the hospital emergency door. It was the second time in twice as many weeks. The hand that had been holding a bloody towel against the left side of her face somehow managed to push the car door open. Her other hand rested in her lap, limp and useless. A hospital orderly standing outside by the front entrance saw her. He crushed his half-smoked cigarette into the concrete container of sand provided and quickly located a wheelchair for her.

  “Jesus, Ms. Kruger, what have you gone done to yourself now? You been working on that old house again, haven’t ya?”

  Lara closed her eyes and let the strong hands of the orderly gently position her into the wheelchair. “Thanks, Ben.”

  “I told you to call me next time you needed something done and Mr. Kruger wasn’t around to take care of it. Didn’t I? Didn’t I say that?” He pushed her through the emergency entrance and over to the sign-in window where an elderly woman smiled and handed her a form.

  “Back so soon, Mrs. Kruger?”

  Lara stared at the piece of paper that had been secured to a clipboard, but her eyes wouldn’t read the print. She couldn’t pick up the pen anyway. Ben took the clipboard from her and began filling in the information next to her name: Age, 31; Time, 1:15 p.m.; Insurance, on file; Nature of Visit, cuts and bruises caused by accident. It was always the same.

  Lara and Jake had been remodeling the old Victorian home they bought when they moved to Rocky Mount six months earlier. Everyone knew they were doing it. In a town the size of Rocky Mount, nothing went by unnoticed. Since they were doing a lot of the work themselves, it was easy just to say she slipped off a ladder, a rotten floorboard gave way, something had fallen on her – whatever. No one questioned her answers.

  “My, my. Looks like you got scraped up pretty good, Mrs. Kruger.” The elderly volunteer worker smiled sympathetically and took the form Ben had just filled out. “What happened this time?”

  Lara tried not to grimace from the pain. It felt like one of her ribs was broken. “I yanked too hard on the door of that old shed in back we’re trying to convert into a garage and it gave way.” The lie came easily.

  “Is Mr. Kruger with you?” The old woman with short violet hair and faded blue eyes adjusted the reading glasses that had slipped down on her nose and glanced around.

  “No. They’re planting soybeans in Edgecombe County today. He’s up there.”

  The old woman nodded, still smiling. “It’s that time of year, ain’t it? Well, the doctor will be with you shortly. We’re not too busy this afternoon.”

  Lara thanked her, and Ben pushed her into the waiting area. Only two other people were ahead of her. She could stand the pain a little longer. What she couldn’t stand was the realization that she had spent the past nine years of her life married to a man who was now a total stranger, and it sickened her. But she must try not to think of that now. She had to stop the pain first and heal her body. Then she would think of it.

  Ben reached down and set the breaks on the wheels of Lara’s chair. “You don’t look too good, Mrs. Kruger, if you don’t mind my saying. I’ll go see if I can’t scare up a doctor who can see you right away.”

  Lara shifted her weight slightly and when she did something hot and sharp plunged into her stomach. She caught her breath and held it, unable to call out for help. She was aware of the seat of the wheelchair. It felt wet and sticky.

  “I had to bring my husband in to get a fish hook took out of his hand, don’t you know. Been fish’n now goin’ on sixty years and he gets a fish hook caught in his hand. You’d think he’d of learned by now how to fish.” The frizzy-haired woman sitting nearby stopped talking long enough to take a breath, then looked at Lara quizzically. “What happened to you, honey?”

  Lara bent over, digging her fingers into the arms of the wheelchair, trying to balance herself, trying to breathe, trying to control the horrible, searing pain.

  “Are you all right?” the woman asked leaning toward Lara. “You look a little puny.”

  Lara felt it first, running down her leg. And then she saw the blood. Bright red blood soaking through her yellow slacks. The woman saw it too and screamed.

  Lara took short quick breaths. She wanted to wipe the perspiration from her face, but she couldn’t let go of the arms on the wheelchair. If she held on, she wouldn’t panic – she wouldn’t lose control. She saw Ben and a doctor come running down the hall toward her. She felt the blood-soaked towel she had been holding against her face earlier slip from her fingers. She heard the screams of the woman fade somewhere off in the distance and the sound of rushing water. Then she lost consciousness.

  * * *

  Miriam Temple finished printing out the weekly reports and stacked them in the out box where her secretary would get to them later. Then she read over the list she had prepared earlier that morning of things she needed to get done. “Oh, shaw,” she whispered under her breath. The most tedious thing about her job was all the paperwork. Endless reports, schedules, budgets, mandates, updates, special requests and who knows what else from other departments within the State government – all of it time-consuming and unnecessary as far as she was concerned. And all of it interfering with what she enjoyed doing the most – counseling and working with the inmates – her girls. She hated to be rushed, especially today of all days. She had hoped to talk to some of the new inmates before the end of the day, but the way things were going, it didn’t look like there would be time. Micromanagement and outside demands would win once again.

  The intercom on her phone buzzed. She had asked her secretary to l
et her know when he arrived.

  “He’s at the gate, Warden. And the plumbing is acting up again in the kitchen.”

  “Shaw,” she repeated, this time a little louder. “Find out where he’s headed – the auditorium or my office. And then call Walter and see when he can get over here to work on the plumbing.”

  Miriam walked away from her desk and paused in front of the unframed full-length mirror she had salvaged from the recent renovations in the women’s shower rooms. The edges were chipped and blackened, and there was a fairly large crack that ran vertically from one corner to the other. The condition of the mirror was the result, no doubt, of one of many displays of frustration and anger within the prison walls before she took over. Still, the mirror served its purpose. On those rare occasions when Warden Miriam Temple of the Braden Women’s Correctional Institution needed to be sure she looked her best, at least she could do so in the privacy of her own office.

  Studying her reflection, she saw a tall, aging fifty-nine-year-old woman with dark hair streaked with gray cut in a simple shag, myopic brown eyes made evident by the wire-framed glasses, and a raw-boned body that could be considered well-proportioned if it weren’t for the fact that it was about twenty pounds on the heavy side, fifteen of which had settled around her thighs and buttocks. “Pear shaped, as opposed to apple shaped,” she frequently reminded herself, “so that means at least I won’t die of a heart attack.” The fact that her ear lobes were also plump and didn’t have the diagonal creases indicating some type of heart disease seemed to confirm that fact. She didn’t know if these old-wives’ tales she had grown up with were really true, but she liked to keep an open mind, especially when they worked to her benefit.

  She normally didn’t wear make-up, but this morning before leaving for work, she had dug out her small tapestry bag that held what few cosmetics she owned and applied a little blush and a touch of lipstick. She rubbed one cheek with her hand now, thinking that maybe she shouldn’t have bothered. She didn’t need to impress anyone. Even if there had been the awkwardness that sometimes comes with being a large woman, it had been replaced years ago by the confidence born from a privileged background and the level of acceptance and comfort from which she viewed herself.

  Her dark gray suit and crisp white blouse were clean and unwrinkled, thanks to the prison laundry facilities. The plain black pumps she wore looked both practical and appropriate to complete the over-all appearance of discipline, control, strength, and above all, a positive attitude. It was the attitude within the prison that Miriam had worked the hardest on when she took over as head warden six years earlier. There had been a stifling wave of hopelessness and despair among the female inmates so thick it made it difficult to breathe. This was manifested daily in brawls, food fights, and a behavior of non-compliance in general. “Animals get treated better than we do,” had been the mantra at the prison.

  For six years Miriam had been working fourteen-hour days, overseeing the operations of the facility, staying on top of problems, writing reports, and talking to every person she could reach about helping to set up programs for “her girls” as she referred to them. Each of Miriam’s programs offered something to a few of her girls, but not to all, something she struggled with daily. She constantly researched what other correctional institutions were doing not only in this country but other countries as well, trying to come up with new ways to stimulate her girls and help them feel enthusiastic about their lives.

  It had worked. She started getting noticed after the first year of her tenure. Complaints from the prisoners dropped, a State audit confirmed that for the first time in over a decade the prison budget would be in the black, and the over-all appearance of the facility was vastly improved. Government officials who previously had been reluctant to show interest now started to open doors for this hard-working, persistent, and obviously dedicated woman.

  And then Prissy had been born.

  A preemie, but none the less a healthy, beautiful baby girl, its mother was one of the inmates serving a life sentence for killing a police officer – another case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was this baby that inspired Miriam to go after the one thing that she was most proud of – the addition of a wing that housed the nursery and children’s pre-school center. This was a special facility to be used not just by staff members, but also by those incarcerated single mothers who had no one else to take care of their children, or for those women who gave birth while serving time at the Braden prison. Miriam learned early on the one thing that bothered her girls the most was not being able to spend time with their children, and over seventy percent of the inmates at Braden had at least one child under the age of eighteen. There had been various programs tried at other institutions in an attempt to address the situation, and all had accomplished limited success. The MINT (Mothers and Infants Together) program at the Federal Prison Camp in Bryan, Texas, allowed a two-month period of bonding time between mother and infant. A Florida facility had set up virtual family visits in a new pilot program using television monitors. A few states such as New York, Nebraska and Washington allowed infants to live with their mothers for a year to 18 months. And in Santa Fe Springs, California, female inmates lived in a converted school building with their children up to age six. It was this program in Santa Fe Springs that interested Miriam the most, and she advocated setting up something similar at Braden.

  Trying to get support for the idea of this kind of facility was the most difficult thing Miriam had done so far. Community leaders and government officials just couldn’t seem to justify spending money on something that would house infants and children within a prison. It was distasteful, and with the economy being in a slide, it wasn’t considered a popular way to spend tax payers’ money. But Miriam persisted and with her down-home, non-confrontational approach, easy Southern charm, and the Department of Social Services behind her, the grant was finally approved.

  Her girls knew what kind of criticism she had drawn, especially from the community, for even suggesting such a project. They respected her even more because of it. And now, exactly six years, seven weeks, and eleven days after Miriam Temple was named warden of Braden Women’s Correctional Institution, the governor of North Carolina was making the short, fifty-four-mile trip from the State capitol in Raleigh to present her with an award. The award meant nothing to Miriam; she knew it was little more than a photo op for the governor in an election year. But the growth and development of her girls, and a positive change in their attitudes did. Besides, any good publicity the Braden prison received usually meant that she could count on more community support down the road. Not only that, it was good for the morale of her girls.

  Miriam heard a tap on the door and Alice stuck her head in. “He’s parked in the east lot – a bus and a limo – along with about twenty other people, most of them reporters. He’ll be going directly to the auditorium. Everyone else is already there. And Walter is coming over now to fix the plumbing.”

  “Thanks, Alice. Let them know at the gate that Walter is on his way and to let him through. Has Prissy been taken care of?” After the new family wing was built, Prissy and her mother were the first residents to move in. Prissy, now six months shy of her sixth birthday, was an unusual child as well as exceptionally bright. She had learned to walk at seven months, and she was stringing words together into sentences before her first birthday. By age two, she was reading. Her ability to memorize was uncanny. She also had the “gift of prophesy,” as Tanya, her mother, explained it. She knew the Bible by heart, and no matter where she was, the child would recite Bible verses, although usually she would mix other things she had learned about within those verses that were totally unrelated. Not only that, but she had the ability to appropriately apply the verses to any given situation. It was one of those unexplained mysteries that Miriam didn’t feel the Governor of North Carolina should be exposed to at this particular time, especially considering how difficult it had been to convince him of the benefits of the family
wing to begin with. All Miriam needed was for Prissy to stand in front of Governor Rushing and start quoting Old Testament scripture on the misdeeds of those in authority, which she could very easily do.

  “Roylene has taken her to the kitchen for some chocolate ice cream. Then they are going out to Prissy’s special place. Roylene said she will keep her there until the ceremony is finished and the governor is out of here.” Roylene was one of several guards assigned to help with the children in the family wing, and it was her responsibility more than any of the others to watch over Prissy.

  “How’s Tanya?”

  “She’s still in the infirmary.” Alice shook her head. “She’s not doing well at all.”

  Miriam nodded, smoothed her skirt, and marched out of the office with Alice following closely behind.

  * * *

  The black shiny limousine waited outside the gate of Braden Women’s Correctional Institution, a yellow converted school bus stopped a short distance behind, while the guard called the warden’s office. Scott Lassiter felt like a one-armed paper hanger, a description he applied to himself on a daily basis, juggling sheaves of paper and pulling up files on his laptop. The governor, as usual, had waited until the last minute – the very last minute – to bone up on the purpose of this photo op which happened to be with the warden of Braden Women’s Correctional Institution, Miriam Temple. Even though Scott had been Governor Garland Rushing’s personal assistant for three years now, he still got nervous being in such close proximity with the man, especially when he was being peppered with questions.

  “What projects have we funded for the prison since Miriam Temple became warden?”

  Scott rapidly tapped some keys on his laptop and said a silent prayer of thanks when the file he was searching for appeared on the screen.