Story XIX: Pigeons (Part 1 of 3)
A scheming prisoner on Death Row has one last jury to fool: God Himself.
This story is being released in both its full version, available directly below, or in three sections this week: Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday.
Part 1 of 3
Before Oklahoma put him down, Chester William was upper tier, North end of West Cell House. He had the cell we called the Drainpipe. I’d heard about him before I even transferred up to McAlester.
My first few years at OSP, I worked in the Y-buildings, then the warden handpicked me for West Cell. I’d run afoul with him about something. Prior to that, I’d never stepped foot, though I already knew about Chester and Chester Radio.
West Cell was probably a hundred years old when I started there. It backed up against the Administration Building. Nothing but a brick alley between the two, no windows either side. If there had been a way to measure it, the warden’s secretaries and death row murderers couldn’t have been fifteen feet apart, though I doubt a secretary ever lost a minute of sleep over it.
The administration called West Cell “Capital Case Housing.” The men called it “The Sewer” on account of being Death Row, but also on account of the plumbing. In the Thirties, there had been a first round of plumbing. Men still did their business in clear sight, but they could at least flush a toilet.
In the Sixties, they started over with the plumbing, and all that was left of that first round was Chester’s drainpipe into the alley. After Chester’s time, I saw men stuff it up with their pillows, but Oklahoma winter blew out of that drainpipe either way.
I never saw Chester do that. Fact, I know he didn’t.
Chester William was known for two things: triple homicide and lying.
Even by convict standards, he was a schemer. As a CO we had to know the schemers. When you’re transferred in, it’s the first thing they teach you. Who’s a “Tricky” or a “Picker.” Picker was short for “Soft Apple Picker.” You didn’t want to be a prisoner’s soft apple.
And Chester was a natural-born Picker.
Six months before any kind of clemency hearing, he’d start reading the Bible end-to-end. He had what we called a Warden’s Bible with golden edges, the kind the warden carried around in a cardboard box handing out.
Chester wasn’t just reading out a few chapters or verses. He went front-to-back, then back-to-front, every word, out loud, like a radio. Genesis to Revelation and home again. Everyone in earshot knew he was waiting on the Lord to “speak the language only the hell bound can hear.”
“Chester Radio,” we called it. That’s guards and convicts both.
Once the whole world knew he was reading the Bible word-for-word backwards, and he knew it would get back, he’d get up in front of the Clemency Board, or the Governor’s people, or whoever the A.G. sent down to OSP. He’d carry that Bible in with him to the interview. He’d say, “The Lord sent me to you with a message no man on Death Row wants to deliver, not to the men who hold his fate.”
“Repent.”
He bet the house on playing prophet.
Maybe hearing about all that backwards Bible reading and commotion stalled a few of them for a minute or two, and maybe it didn’t, but Chester never got the soft apples he needed: not five out of seven, or three out of five. Oklahoma Clemency saw through it. The Federal Courts in Oklahoma City saw through it, as did the Governor.
In April of 1977, the Supreme Court of the United States came back with a cert. America wiped its hands. This was right before my time in West Cell, but Chester told me personally a guard gave him the news, told him while delivering a breakfast tray. Didn’t even let Chester read it himself.
“It’s certiorari. They’re shutting down Chester Radio, my friend. Here you go and eat up.”
Chester William was headed to the Lounge, short for Basement Lounge. For the chair, in other words. They had him lined up for 1982. Five years out when I met him.
But then, when there was nobody left to fool, Chester William caught everyone off guard.
He started reading that Bible for real now and not so loud.
Maybe he had one more jury to fool, God Himself. One vote. “Chester’s still looking for that odd number,” was the joke. He started out reading a few hours a day, then half the day, and then he never stopped except for putting food in his mouth. Twenty-four seven. Three in the morning sometimes, I’d hear him whispering and turning pages.
It got around to Warden Michaels that Chester was still reading his Bible back-to-front, and he didn’t believe this was for real for a second, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. He came over to West Cell personally, told Chester to wind it up, or he’d move him to the Drainpipe.
“I don’t like the hijinks, and the Lord won’t either.”
Warden kept his word, showed Chester around his new cell himself. “Pray into the pipe, so God can hear you better.” You could have heard a pin drop after he said that. Even dead men thought Warden was on shaky ground.
But Chester kept on reading. Warden couldn’t stop it. Government is strange. You can put a man down, but you can’t take away his Bible.
Maybe a month later, Chester William surprised us a second time. He started sticking his arm up into the drainpipe. Now he was reading his Bible verses backwards with his arm all the way up, kneeling on the ground and pushing his head against the cement like he was listening for a heartbeat.
I asked him what he was doing, and he turned to me, his arm was up the drainpipe, and he said straight out, “Repent, Frank Andersen.”
He had no business using my full name like that, but then and there, he stopped reading back-to-front, right while I was standing there.
“In the beginning was the Word, Frank Andersen.”
Still makes the hair on my arms go up, him saying that and looking over at me on his knees.
So, I came around and gave Chester William the benefit of the doubt on how he saw it. The man was in the sewer of the Sewer. Nobody knows how they’d behave waiting to be put down, watching your calendar burn. And his thing was sticking his arm up a drainpipe in the middle of winter. I saw a lot crazier than that.
But I was a soft apple, and he got me.
Next part on Tuesday or continue with the full-length here now:
Love the line this section ends on - I'm hooked!
By the way, I've also written a short story about a man doing hard time named Chester. I guess that name just has good "felon" undertones! (No disrespect to any Chesters out there.)