He blew me a kiss.  As I was walking away, just before I got to the steel door that separated his world from mine, I turned back, and Bruce blew me a kiss.  That simple, humane gesture capped a week that scarred me deeply, a week that ended with Bruce strapped to a gurney while the state of Texas dripped poisons into his arm.

It started on a Monday morning in the middle of May.  My associate Collie drove with me to Houston to pick up my favorite nun, Sister Helen Prejean.  Sister Helen had worked with us on another death row case, the case of a man named Clarence, and now she was to visit him one last time.  We picked her up at the airport and were headed north to the prison in Huntsville.  I have a great sense of direction — so how did we end up going 20 miles in the wrong direction before I even realized it?  Sister Helen was a good sport about it.  She just kept plugging those quarters into the toll booths and telling stories in her wonderful Cajun drawl.

When we finally got to the Ellis Unit, where Death Row is housed, there was Clarence, his eager grin making me laugh in spite of the somber occasion.  He was such a simple man.  That someone as famous as Sister Helen would come to visit him, well that just tickled him.  He didn’t think about why she was visiting, he just savored that she was there.  Sister Helen leaned up close to the Plexiglas that separated her from Clarence.  They talked and laughed and prayed together.  I watched, wishing I could have a fraction of her positive energy, her ability to stay in the moment with him, to focus so intently on the person she was talking to, as if there were not screaming children, and crying mothers, and angry inmates just inches away.  She gave Clarence such a gift.

Sister Helen’s visit was over too quickly.  She had a plane to catch, so we headed back to drop her off in Houston.  Adding to the strain of an already intense day, we got snared in rush-hour traffic and missed our exit.  As we sat there, inching along, knowing that she would surely miss her flight, I thought perhaps this might be a gift too.  Maybe the gods had decided I needed more time with Sr. Helen and her healing energy.  During the delay, I soaked up her strength.  I think it helped me get through the next days.

The next morning, after a three-hour blur of a drive, I was back in Huntsville to see Clarence on the last day of his life.   In the visiting room, his mother and uncle were huddled in straight-backed chairs, leaning in toward the Plexiglas that separated them from him in an attempt to create a semblance of privacy, of intimacy, in a place designed to destroy such things.  Clarence was trying to find a way to make it easier for them, for me, as if it were somehow his responsibility.

Clarence tried to joke around.  In contrast, his mother was somber, so tight within herself that she existed in a place I could never reach.  I touched her arm just to let her know I was there and could see her pain and wanted like hell to do something about it.  But couldn’t.

Around noon, the guards told Clarence that his time was up.  I knew I’d see him again in a few hours, but watching him turn out of the visiting room tore me up.  I walked out of the prison with Clarence’s mother.  She was holding tightly to the red mesh bag that contained all his possessions.  I tried to think of something to say to her — a mother whose son, her only son, was going to be dead in a few short hours.  I couldn’t.

At 3:00, Collie and I went to the Walls Unit where the executions take place.  I  submitted to the metal detectors and followed a large guard whose shuffling limp reminded me of a stroke victim.  We passed through the regular visiting room, empty except for the wooden chairs and empty benches.  We walked along a corridor that led to the small cinder block building that houses the execution chamber.  As we entered through the gray steel door, I braced myself for my final moments with Clarence.

When I got to the death cell, there was Clarence, grinning.  “We fought a good battle, didn’t we, Rita?  We really made them work.”

“Yes, Clarence, we sure did.”  I didn’t want to cry.  I wanted to be as strong as Clarence.