All of which I mention only to explain his attitude toward Frank Beachum’s innocence. That is, he had none. He never thought about it-or if he did, they were idle thoughts, and he attached no importance to them. He had come to care for Frank quite a lot-and for Bonnie too, though he sensed that he-that black people-made her uncomfortable. He hoped Frank wasn’t going to have to answer to God for murdering Amy Wilson but, in the end, he felt that was between Frank and God. His job, Flowers’s job, he felt, was to help Bonnie and Gail within the small range of his abilities, and to make sure that Frank didn’t go to his death without human solace, alone.
To that latter end, he entered the Deathwatch cell at five minutes to ten o’clock for his last visit with Frank before the execution. He saw at once that the prisoner was in a bad way. Frank was sitting on the edge of his cot, hunched over, staring at the floor, rubbing his hands together between his knees. His mouth was working, his face was sallow and his eyes were unnaturally bright. The sight of him came as a small shock to Flowers, who had last seen him when he had come to collect Gail. Then, the prisoner had seemed grief-struck, but straight, composed, inwardly strong. Now, there was nothing radiating from that bent and twisted figure but panic and wretchedness and fear. The preacher guessed what had happened right away: Frank had put all his will into a show of strength for Bonnie and the child; and now that they were gone, he was suffering the inevitable reaction.
Beachum jumped when the bars slid back: he hadn’t heard Flowers come into the cell. Startled from his reverie, his eyes flashed to the clock at once and then he swallowed and breathed again: no, not yet; it wasn’t time yet.
As Benson shut the cage again, Flowers moved to the cot and stood over the condemned man. Beachum ran his fingers up through his hair and Flowers saw that his hair was damp with sweat.
“Getting late, huh?” Frank said with a nervous laugh-and he glanced up as if hoping Flowers would contradict him. He looked away again. “Yeah. Late. Yeah.”
Looking down at the bowed head, the lank hair, the reverend felt a terrible weary sorrow for Frank. For Bonnie too and for the little girl. For all of them: a terrible burden of pity. But then he felt that so often these days-pity, sorrow-and felt it for so many different people that it was less an emotion of the moment than an unshifting point of view, a filter over his vision. He even felt sorrow at his own sense of gratitude and vitality: the surge of petty pleasure he felt standing there that he was not Frank, that he was not scheduled to die at midnight. Like the second titmouse on a branch when a hawk swoops down and carries off his brother, he was thinking: God is good, God has been good today. Flowers felt pity for himself that he was as small and miserable a thing as that.
“Getting bad for you, is it, Frank?” he said.
“Bad! Yeah, bad, it’s bad!” And with that, Beachum shot off the cot, paced quickly to the cage bars and back. During that short journey, he went through a whole catalogue of nervous gestures: running his fingers through his hair, rubbing his hands together, wiping his mouth, casting his eyes at the clock and away and at the clock again. As he neared the cot, he pulled up short, staring at Flowers with those bright eyes as if he had just noticed the reverend standing there for the first time. “I mean, I didn’t do anything,” he said. “I swear it to God, Harlan. I didn’t …” He spun back to the bars, stepped to them, clutched them weakly with his two hands and bowed his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’m not doing too well here.”
Flowers walked up behind him, put his hand on Frank’s shoulder. “It’s an awful thing to face.”
“Hey, tell me about it, Reverend,” Beachum snapped. “You don’t have to face it.”
Flowers didn’t answer at first. He mostly went on instinct in conversations such as these. He tried not to think too much and hoped that God would give him the right words to say. In this instance, God seemed to come through for him. Because it occurred to him to say, “We all have to face it in the end, Frank,” and he didn’t say it, the words died in his throat. God apparently felt this was no time to get false and sententious. Flowers and Frank both knew which titmouse on the branch they were, and they both knew that Flowers couldn’t help but be glad.
“No,” the reverend said finally. “I don’t have to face it.”
Beachum butted his head against the bars. Softly, but it made Flowers flinch. “Sorry,” he said again. “Sorry, sorry.”
“Come on and sit down, Frank. Come on.”
Flowers tugged at his shoulder gently. Weakly, his arms hanging at his sides now, the condemned man came away from the bars. He shuffled back to the cot and sat down. Flowers pulled the chair over and sat in front of him, leaning toward him, searching out his downcast eyes. He waited for Beachum to speak again. This was hard in itself: keeping silent, watching the terror corkscrew through the other man, huddling within himself, within his own relative safety. Along with sorrow and pity, there was always so much else involved in these moments, so many less forgivable emotions. Not only the irrepressible joy of existence, but the pride of doing good as well, the self-satisfaction, and the excitement of witnessing a drama, as if you were watching television instead of a fellow creature in pain. Along with the sorrow, of which he was almost constantly aware, Flowers had lived these last five years-perhaps longer than that-with another feeling, more secret from himself, revealing itself only in sour surges that made him want to turn away from the sight of his own souclass="underline" He felt there was something rotten inside him, something rotten and low. Something unworthy.
“Man, it’s bad,” Frank broke out. He shook his head at the floor. “Man …!”
“You showed a lot of strength for Bonnie,” said Flowers.
“Yeah, yeah. For Bonnie and Gail.”
“And now they’re gone.”
“Yeah. Gone.” Frank shook his head some more. He had started to rub his hands together again. “They’re sure gone. Ain’t nobody home but us chickens,” he said with another dreadful laugh.
Flowers reached out and squeezed the condemned man’s arm. “What about God, Frank? You got trouble getting through to God too?”
“I lost it!” Beachum cried out like a child-a strangled cry. He threw his hands up around his head in frustration. “I had it. I had it and it just …”
Flowers leaned in closer, speaking without thinking; going on instinct. “God hasn’t lost you, Frank. He hasn’t lost sight of you.”
With an angry noise, Beachum jumped to his feet again, walked to the bars again, glanced again at the clock and away. He wrapped his arms around himself. This time, though, when he’d gone as far as he could, he stood still. He looked up at the ceiling, at the fluorescent lights. He closed his eyes.