by Scott Caputo
Fr. Miguel wanted to make sure we knew
what we were getting into.
“A man is going to die tonight,” he said.
“No one will think less of you if you don't go.”
I wanted to take a stand for something.
Fr. Miguel and his generation had protested wars at my age.
At some protests, he was even arrested.
I wanted to prove I was interested in more
than just studying books.
Nine of us went with him. It was already approaching midnight,
the sky shone like a chain link fence.
He spoke on the way, a lonely trek across desert,
the cacti appearing as men paralyzed in the moonlight.
He said, “This man has done horrible things.
He killed three people, one of them, a 7-year old girl.
But he was literally kicked into existence.
His father kicked his mother in the stomach while she was pregnant,
causing an early birth.
He spent many of his early years in a closet.
I do not say these things to excuse him,
but you should know more than the newspapers say.”
We arrived at a roadblock of police cars;
a cop directed us to a circle of people already holding candles.
In the distance, I could see the dull orange glow of the prison,
and far down the road was another gathering of people
whom I could not hear, but I imagined the angry confrontation
if our groups should meet,
a clash of shouting voices and raised fists.
I held a candle; I watched as a loudspeaker
was passed from person to person, some angry, some sad.
One man berated us, saying nothing we did was enough,
that we had failed because it was still going to happen.
We could feel the approach of midnight; clouds hid the moon from sight.
We grew silent. Some people fell on their knees.
Far away I heard the single cry of a coyote.
I tried to pray
but all I could think was how I had been in class that afternoon,
how my probability professor filled the board with theorems,
saying we needed to prove them to understand them.
I saw myself raise my hand; I kept raising my hand,
as the professor erased the board again and again.
I heard whispers around me. Fr. Miguel spoke into my ear:
“We got word that he's dead.”
For a moment, I was back in the hospital
with my mom and my uncle
as we watched my grandmother die,
how mysteriously the breath leaves the body.
We all blew out our candles one by one,
then got back into the van.
On the ride home, our jaws were locked shut,
the words were simply not there.
The world of my classes was beyond my reach.
I had been there when a man was killed in our name.
I wanted to stay awake, but the heaviness bound me, pulled my eyes shut.
I would gasp awake suddenly, only to fall back asleep,
unable to wake up, my hands clenched.
I do not remember how we got home,
only flashes of Fr. Miguel driving, his face unexpressive,
the headlights of the van barely denting the darkness of the desert.
Had I imagined the moon before? Was it still there?
I do not remember how I got back to my apartment,
how I got ready for bed, how I found my way back
to the world I knew before.
The Last Hour Before Midnight first appeared in Red Rock Review
