My sandwich was now a bitter-sweet memory. Sweet because it tasted great. Bitter because it was all gone. I cleaned up the mess and tossed the trash into the metal waste can under my desk. My hands were greasy, so I made my way out of the old former 1920s downtown Albany, Sherman Street garment factory office, down the narrow corridor to the washroom. Opening both the hot and cold spigots on the old white porcelain sink, I took a good look at myself in the mirror, at the somewhat rounded face supporting a salt and pepper goatee that matched closely the head of cropped hair that didn’t seem to be receding as fast as I once thought. For ages, I contemplated pulling out the razor, going Bruce-Willis-bad-ass on my scalp, but then thought better of it since I’d probably end up looking like a cue ball with whiskers.
I still had hair, after all. So why not flaunt it?
I looked into my brown eyes—eyes that were still bright. Still optimistic. A far cry from what they once were back when I was the warden at Green Haven and my life was turned upside down, not only by the hit-and-run that killed my wife, Fran, but also by the escape of a cop killer right out from under my nose. The then-acting Commissioner of Corrections laid the blame squarely on my size forty-four shoulders, which meant one of two things. I could either face prison time inside my own joint—a situation which, when translated, meant a sure death sentence—or, I could go after the killer on my own, bring him back in on my own terms rather than risk him getting away for good.
A splash of cold water on my face.
It came back to me then. The desperate feeling of knowing a cop killer has just walked out the front door of your prison, so to speak. I knew exactly how the warden of Dannemora felt right now. How desperate he must be. If he’d been experiencing night sweats and tremors over the past two nights. I wondered if he’d slept at all or if he’d spent most of his time pacing the floors, questioning himself, wondering precisely where he went wrong. I wondered how many phone calls he’d already ignored from the commissioner. From Governor Valente. Phone calls from state police, the federal marshals, the FBI, from Sheriff Hylton. Phone calls from the news, both local and national.
I wondered how much he was drinking. Smoking. Drugging. Trying to douse the pain that burned like a flame inside his belly.
Most of all, I wondered how badly he wanted to run away.
Pulling a handful of paper towels from the dispenser, I dried my face and discarded the used towels into the trash. On my way out of the bathroom, I caught my eyes staring back at me in the mirror once more. I stopped and gazed into them. But something else also drew my attention. The paper towel I’d just discarded. I could see it in the mirror, resting atop the rim of the wall-mounted dispenser. The wet, crumpled paper resembled a face. Or, not a face necessarily, but a profile. It was a strange if not eerie play of light and shadow miraculously distributed onto the paper towel to create a 3D face. In the mirror, I could make out the eyes, the long nose, the lips, and a chin that might have been covered with a beard. It was a white face. A white face that reminded me of Christ.
I wanted to laugh. Because who the hell saw the face of Jesus in a used paper towel? The same kind of people who saw his face in a grilled cheese sandwich, I guessed. But then, it wasn’t very funny. Turning, I went to the dispenser and shoved the paper towel farther down inside.
Turning back to the mirror, I once more caught my reflection.
“Sure you wanna take on this job?” my eyes said. “Sure you wanna reopen all those old wounds? Maybe Paper Towel Jesus was trying to send you a message, Keeper. Stay away from this one. It will cost you. Physically, emotionally.”
I exhaled, nodded.
“Oh Christ,” I said aloud inside the small ceramic tiled bathroom. “I’m not sure what to do.” I shook my head. “Yes, you do. You know exactly what to do. A couple killers are on the loose, and some innocent people might need your help, Jack. The warden of Dannemora Prison needs your help. The sheriff needs it too. The escape isn’t their fault, right?” I sighed. “Well, I guess we’ll see about that.”
“That settles it, then,” said the voice inside my brain. “What’s right is right until it’s not right anymore.”
I turned from the mirror, faced the paper towel receptacle. I knew Jesus was inside of it.
“There but for the grace of God I go,” I said. And then I walked out.