CHAPTER EIGHT
The news reached even into iron and stone.
Elijah Cox sat on the edge of his bunk, shoulders squared, watching the corridor on the other side of the bars. When the guard passed earlier, carrying the folded newspaper meant for the officers’ lounge, Cox had seen the headline in black type:
TELEVANGELIST JONATHAN WHITFIELD FOUND DEAD
He hadn’t needed to read the rest.
It was written already in the faces of the men around him, in the murmurs that ricocheted off concrete walls, in the way the prison’s daily rhythm faltered like an old clock.
Some prisoners chuckled, others cursed, some whispered that the pastor had been cursed by his own Lord.
Men whose faith was little more than a superstition suddenly stood straighter, sniffing judgment in the air.
There were three things – an Unholy Trinity – that got the cons excited. When a short-eyes – a child molester – came onto the wing. When the drugs ran out. And when someone ‘big’ was murdered, in or out of jail.
Cox only bowed his head when the news came in. Not in grief. Not in satisfaction. In confirmation.
The death of Pastor Jonathan Whitfield had not surprised him. Nor the manner of it. Delicate work, by a craftsman. Chosen well. Jakes looked like he carried bricks for a living, but he was surprisingly agile.
Although Cox had rights over two beds, in the daytime he sat very still on the top bunk, spine ramrod straight, hands resting neatly on his knees.
Stillness was his weapon here. Most of the cons filled their days with noise and threats, constant grandstanding and contesting, like little boys.
But Cox cultivated silence like a monk in his cloister.
It gave him authority. It gave him control.
And because his cell was visible through the bars, everyone who passed could see just how in control he was.
It was in that stillness that the guard came for him.
“Cox. That guy who requested a visit. Did you give consent?”
Cox looked up slowly, those eyes giving nothing away. “A visitor?” His voice was calm, deliberate, each syllable carved.
“You must have consented. Because he’s here. Looks like a Chaplain.”
Cox allowed himself the faintest of nods. He hopped down from the bunk. The cuffs closed over his wrists with their cold bite. Shackles clinked around his ankles, the chain short enough to shorten his stride.
He did not resist. Chains were expected. They were part of the ritual. He moved in a way that said you cannot chain my heart.
The guard – an older man with a slight limp - escorted him down the corridor.
Prison smell: disinfectant layered over men’s sweat, stale bread from the kitchen, metal rusting where paint had peeled.
The doors they passed were studded with eyes, some curious, some hostile, some hungry. Whispers followed:
“Hey preacher man, there’s no savin yo ass”
“Chaplain wanna confess something?”
Cox ignored them.
The visitation room was a cold box of beige walls and bolted-down furniture.
A single table waited, with two chairs on opposite sides.
Once in the room, the guard guided Cox into the seat, secured the shackles to a metal ring in the floor, and stepped back to stand by the door.
A camera above his head recorded everything.
The visitor was waiting.
The man calling himself Father Michael Santos was in his early forties, with a neat conquistador beard which, like the hair at his temples, was just starting to turn silver.
His collar was crisp, his black shirt uncreased despite the damp morning air.
He had the build of a man who had known hard work in his youth—broad shoulders, strong hands—and yet his expression carried a gentleness that did not belong in this place.
Santos did not begin with the perfunctory small talk most chaplains favored. He did not offer hollow assurances of prayer or redemption. He simply studied Cox with keen, thoughtful eyes, then inclined his head in greeting.
“Reverend Cox. Thank you for agreeing to speak with me. I’ve applied for the chaplain’s post here, and as part of that process, I wanted to meet with a few… residents.”
Cox’s lips curved in the faintest suggestion of amusement. “Congratulations.” He rattled the chain lightly with one hand, as if he wanted to shake the chaplain’s hand, but couldn’t.
Santos smiled—not mocking, not condescending, simply patient. “I’m not here to press my version of faith on you. I suspect that would be… unnecessary.”
Cox tilted his head. “Unnecessary. An interesting choice of word. Do you consider me already converted, Father?”
“I consider you,” Santos replied evenly, “to be a man who thinks deeply about scripture. A man who interprets it with… intensity. I came because I want to understand how you see divine justice.”
Cox let the silence stretch. Many men flinched under his gaze, but Santos did not. His composure was steady, as if he had rehearsed calmness.
“Divine justice,” Cox said at last. “Few dare speak of it. Fewer still act upon it. Most prefer a comfortable, loving God who forgives without condition. They want mercy without righteousness. Comfort without judgment. A gospel watered down until it has no taste at all.”
Santos folded his hands loosely on the table. “And you believe your role is to restore that taste? To make the law sharp again?”
Cox inclined his head slightly. “The commandments are not suggestions. They are the framework of all creation. The Jews understood this: their word for a commandment is mitzvah, and the root of it comes from the verb ‘to do’ or ‘to make’. God built His universe with laws. So when men exploit faith for profit, when they take the Lord’s name in vain by draping it over greed…
the judgment is not cruelty. It is adjustment.
Alignment with the divine order. Another Jewish term: tikkun ha-olam. Mending the world.”
The guard scratched his nose. Santos leaned forward a fraction. “You speak of order. But order administered by whom? Who chooses the guilty, Reverend Cox? Who wields the knife?”
Cox allowed himself a pause. His mouth curved faintly again.
“Would you have us wait for lightning from heaven? Or for courts run by men who themselves bow to money, or the baubles you can buy with it? No, Father Santos. The commandments name the crimes. The scriptures name the punishments. Judgment only requires an obedient hand.”
Santos’s brow furrowed slightly. Not disagreement—consideration. “But obedience to whom? To your own understanding? To a prophet? To the still, small voice you claim is God?”
Cox leaned closer, the chain on his wrist clinking softly.
“Obedience to truth, Father. Truth is not relative. The Lord Himself wrote it with His finger on stone. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. These are not interpretations. They are absolute. The man who violates them brands himself. The hand that corrects him merely restores the balance.”
Santos let the words settle, like dust in sunlight. His eyes did not waver. “And yet—” he said softly. “The Christ you claim as Lord also said, ‘Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.’ Do you consider yourself sinless, Reverend Cox?”
A flicker touched Cox’s expression. Not anger. Not shame. Something closer to interest.
“I consider myself obedient,” he said. “And obedience is counted as righteousness.”
“By Abraham’s faith,” Santos countered gently. “But Abraham’s test was not to kill Isaac. His test was to trust God enough not to.”
The room fell into stillness. Even the guard seemed to hold his breath.
“Tell me, Father,” Cox said at last, “do you condemn those who profit from lies in God’s name? Do you excuse them?”
Santos’s jaw tightened briefly. “I have seen many men twist scripture to build empires. I have seen poor families emptied of their last savings by promises of healing that never came. Do I condemn it? Yes. But I have not acted as their executioner.”
“Then you have left them uncorrected.”
“I considered that I was leaving them to God’s judgement.”
“And now?”
Santos smiled. “Well, we all serve, in so many different ways.”
Cox smiled back. The guard looked at them both through narrowed eyes, as if unsure what was going on. He had the look of a tourist who suspects he’s being ripped-off.
“You have been called a zealot,” Santos said quietly. “Like the sicarii. Men of the first century, Judas Iscariot was one of them. They would strike with curved daggers in crowded places, believing themselves to be God’s hand against Rome.”
“But they targeted crowds of people,” Cox countered. “Anyone, everyone. They hid their weapons beforehand, to evade the searches by the soldiers. And then they ran amok. My concept of justice is targeted, not random. For that reason, I am no zealot, no sicari.”
“There’s a fascinating description in Tacitus,” Santos said, seemingly at a tangent. “The soldiers hunting the weapons down, flipping up tables in the taverna, even cutting up a fish.”
“Careful, Father,” Cox said, icily. “You’re supposed to be horrified by violence.”
The older guard shifted, muttering under his breath, but Santos ignored it.
Instead, he leaned back in his chair, regarding Cox as though they had all the time in the world. “I may visit again on a Sunday.”
“Sunday,” Cox repeated. “Yes.”
“Is there anything I can bring in?”
“I have everything in place now. But I could do with some gloves. It gets mighty cold on the exercise yard.”
“Are you allowed to wear your own things?” Santos cast a concerned glance at the guard, who stared straight ahead, unresponsive.
“Well now, I haven’t been convicted of anything yet, so all the while I’m here awaiting trial, I get to avoid the orange jumpsuit, and I’m afforded certain privileges in terms of possessions and commissary and so on.”
“I see.”