Ellis
Copyright 2014 Matt Cairone
All Rights Reserved
Ellis packed his things into pillow cases, as the guards stood careless watch outside his cell. Today, for the first time in thirty-two years, he would walk in the open and breathe air on the outside. These were things he had not done since the door slammed behind him on September 1, 1982.
The guards were happy for Ellis. A judge agreed, after all this time, that he was not the man who raped the girl walking home from school. After all this time, a judge agreed that the prosecutor had abused his power, had abused his office and, in the process, had abused Ellis.
Ellis was of the mind that he was the only person in the world that believed he was innocent. Even those closest to him, at least to his way of thinking, had given up on him.
When the girl was raped, Ellis was cleaning the bathroom in his apartment across town. He had no idea that a few blocks away something was happening that would upend his world. He was just doing what he did every other Thursday afternoon. Using his day off to tidy up.
When the police came around to fetch him later that night, he was not in the best shape to meet them. Cleaning his place wasn't his only ritual on Thursdays, his day off. Another was drinking. The police found him drunk, and he made a real bad first impression.
Ellis couldn’t afford a lawyer, so the county appointed an overworked, inexperience public defender to help him. It was a classic mismatch, with Ellis on the wrong end of it. The prosecutor was running for re-election. And a pre-November conviction of a child raper made for great headlines and powerful ads.
Ellis stuffed the last of his things into the pillow case. He pushed down so he could tie the end closed. He did the same thing with the other sack. Then, he took a long, slow look around the cinder block cell. He ran his hand across the mortar. He pulled his fingers across the blotches of water that formed under the holes in the ceiling. He fondled the iron bars that crossed the small opening in the blocks to the walkway between the cells, the hole where they pushed food to him when he misbehaved and he had to eat alone.
The cell door was wide open; it had been all the while he packed. But he couldn’t seem to walk through it.
“You coming,” the one guard said, with a smile.
“Yeah, I’m coming,” Ellis said.
“Well, come on out. You’re a free man.”
The guard swung the door open as wide as it would go, and motioned for Ellis to come out.
“Yeah, I’m coming.”
Ellis grabbed the pillow cases, one under each arm, and moved through the doorway. As he walked down the hall, the others called to him and yelled to him and waved their hands through the small holes in the doors to their cells. It was some farewell.
When they reached the administrative offices, there was paperwork. Ellis stared at the wall while the forms were filled out and he signed everywhere that they pointed out for him to sign. At long last, the woman behind the desk gave Ellis a small bag with the things that he surrendered to them thirty-two years before. She asked him to check to see whether it was all there. He never opened the bag.
“It’s all there,” he said.
Ellis stuffed the small bag into one of the cases, and stood up. The warden stood with him. He approached Ellis and extended his hand. Ellis shook it.
“Now, Ellis, there are some reporters outside that are gonna wanna know how you feel, getting out after thirty-two years in prison for something you didn’t do.”
Ellis looked down while the warden spoke.
“You thing you’re gonna be okay with that?”
“I’d rather not answer no questions, warden.”
The warden looked at the guards and then back to Ellis.
“Who’s here to pick you up, Ellis?”
“Nobody.”
“Jesus Christ,” the warden said. “Nobody?”
“Nobody.”
“What about your family, the kids, an old friend for Christ’s sake?”
“I ain’t heard from any of ‘em for over ten years, warden. I don’t expect I’ll hear from ‘em today.”
The warden shook his head and breathed a long sigh.
“All right. We’re gonna get you a ride and take you around those news people so you don’t have to talk to them, at least not right now.”
The warden shook his head.
“Not now, anyway. After that you’re on your own. Would that help, Ellis?”
“Yes, sir. It would help a lot.”
The warden motioned to two deputies to get a car, and pointed down the hall to the service exit.
“Take him anywhere he needs to go in the city. And take him that way. I’ll go talk to the press. That’ll give you time.”
“Thanks, warden. That makes things easier, at least for a while.”
“Good luck, Ellis. I don’t know what else I can say.”
Ellis nodded, with a funny frown.
The warden patted Ellis on the shoulder, nodded to the deputies, and turned to walk outside.
The warden spoke in front of the cameras while Ellis slipped out the back.
“What do you have to say to Mr. Troy today, warden?”
“That I’m sorry for the miscarriage of justice.”
“Why do you think it happened, warden?”
“I guess people like to believe the machinery works. Makes ‘em sleep easy. Makes ‘em feel safe after something that shakes their foundation. Maybe the perception of justice is too powerful a thing.”
He paused, and when no question followed he said, “bottom line, I have no idea why this happened.” He was lying.
