It springs from the piney woods of East Texas unexpectedly, like an unrepentant gargoyle atop a serene house of worship. To those behind the double fencing of heavy gauge chain link and razor wire, the Allan B. Polunsky Unit is just Polunsky. Among the many souls inside are three hundred waiting for the solitary drive of fifty miles to a death house within a place called The Walls.
I have been tasked to deliver grim news to Polunsky and it eats at me like guilt. Preoccupied with how I am to do this thing, I have forgotten both change and lunch. Polunsky allows no paper currency inside its perimeter. A vending machine stands in line of sight of the heavy sliding doors leading to visitation, inviting the nickel, dimes and quarters possessed by visitors determined enough to navigate their way to it.
On visitation days, lawyers share the space with the friends, partners and children of those inhabiting Polunsky. In a kind of fellowship, all share the indignities of perimeter searches, picket towers, and pat-downs to share time with those who cannot leave with us. A handful of visitors with receivers in hand are perched on metal stools, talking through partitioned glass to hosts clothed in prison issue. They share news from the free world, while children run behind them or sit nearby playing with imagined dolls because real ones cannot be brought inside.
Inside Polunsky, cries reverberate off the cinder block, steel, and tempered glass to someone who would soon have to hear what I was dread to share. It knots my chest. I stand in front of the vending machine, delaying, my mind racing with thoughts of escape. I take my hands from my pockets and stare at sweaty, shaky palms.
In a sudden start, a child stops beside me, dressed in soft yellow relief against the sharp angles and metallic grays of the room. I look down to a girl of perhaps ten, hand outstretched. In that hand are several quarters. A smile warms the face as I feel the sincerity of her offering wash over me. I cup my hands and she pours the quarters into them like a small officiant sharing a Eucharist of body and blood.
I smile but she has turned and is running down the row of visitation carrels, chasing some unseen apparition. I feed the quarters to the machine, make a selection, peel back the wrapper and start the walk to deliver what honor and dread require.
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Lane can be found on Twitter @lanethibodeaux1