Power in the Blood Read Online Free Page A

snowstorm. Watching the flying peanuts sail through the vacant room inspired a troubling thought. If as a pastor of a prestigious church in north Atlanta my ornate office had been an expression of who I was trying to be, maybe my current empty and sterile surroundings were an expression of who I really was. My office had nothing personal save three pictures that inspire me hanging on one wall: Martin Luther King Jr. and Billy Graham, for obvious reasons, and Jimmy Carter, to remind me that the best man was not always the best man for the job. A portrait of Jesus weeping sat on the right corner of my desk, his dark eyes drinking in the sorrow and suffering of the world. Daily I read his words, “I was in prison and you visited me.”
    At the height of the peanuts’ performance, Superintendent Stone walked in without knocking. I felt every muscle in my body grow tense: an instinctive reaction—like braking at the sight of a Highway Patrol car.
    “Chaplain Jordan, may I speak with you for a moment?” Mr. Stone said as he closed my office door. He made no attempt to hide his annoyance at the floating Styrofoam swirling around him.
    “Of course. Please have a seat.” I motioned him to the blue vinyl chair opposite my desk that inmates used when they had spiritual and some not-so-spiritual problems. He paused before sitting and removed two handfuls of packing peanuts from it, ever diligent to care for his expensive suit. Had he been aware of the sweaty, soiled inmate uniforms that normally occupied the seat, he probably would have left the peanuts in place.
    As I sat down, the envelope on top of my lopsided stack of mail slid off, revealing an inmate request form from Ike Johnson. I was stunned. Quickly, I opened my center drawer and placed it inside.
    Before he started talking, Edward (not Ed) Stone paused to clean his charcoal, wire-rimmed glasses. Like everything he owned, they looked expensive. As he removed them carefully from his face and wiped them with the spotless white silk handkerchief bearing his initials in bold black block letters, he treated them like they were costly jewels. I suddenly realized that the glasses, like everything he owned, seemed so expensive because he treated them that way. As he made these exact, intentional motions, I had a chance to really look at him for the first time. He was much leaner than I had thought. I had seen skin that was darker than his, but not by much. He had all the African features of a man from Nigeria. His nearly hairless skin was smooth and had a slight sheen about it. His movements were slow—not hesitant, but deliberate and economic. He knew exactly what he was doing and the precise amount of energy required to do it. He did everything as if it were the most important thing he would do that day.
    Edward Stone’s minimalist actions and conservative policies reminded me of the effects poverty has on people. No matter how successful they become, they always keep plenty in reserve for fear they will have to do without again. My grandmother, a child during the Great Depression, was the same way. It was apparent that Edward Stone and I came from different eras, mine a result of his.
    “How are you doing” he asked, paused, then added, “you know . . . with what happened yesterday?”
    “I’m okay. I appreciate the time yesterday afternoon to pull everything together.”
    “That was a bad thing you had to see. You’d have to be an idiot to try to escape, but to try it in that manner, you’d have to be suicidal.”
    “Perhaps he was,” I said with a slight shrug.
    “Maybe. I don’t know. But that’s what I want to find out. The thing is, his name came up in another matter that we were considering investigating.”
    “Really?”
    “Yes. I had not put much stock in the earlier reports, but now . . . I am not so sure.”
    “I can see how this would give the investigation a new priority,” I said sarcastically, but only slightly, and he didn’t seem to catch