Life After Death: The Shocking True Story of a Innocent Man on Death Row

I
completely
retreated into the world of the mind to escape the horrendous environment. I leave my body here to cope with the nightmare while my mind walks other hallways. I have to sometimes listen to my body, but it’s hard. If my attention wanders for even a split second I automatically retreat down into those psychic rabbit holes. People tend to think of the soul as a man-shaped thing composed of a vague ghostlike substance. In reality it’s more like some God-almighty haunted house, in which the rooms are constantly shifting, moving, and reconfiguring themselves. A small broom closet becomes a cavernous ballroom behind your back. You always see movement in your peripheral vision, but never can find the source of the faint noises that seem to be coming from around some forever distant corner.
    Ghosts can haunt damned near anything. I have heard them in the breathy voice of a song and seen them between the covers of a book. They have hidden in trees so that their faces peer out of the bark, and hovered beneath the silver surface of water. They disguise themselves as cracks in concrete or come calling in a delirium of fever. On summer days they keep pace like the shadow of our shadow. They lurk in the breath of young girls who give us our first kiss. I’ve seen men who were haunted to the point of madness by things that never were and things that should have been. I’ve seen ghosts in the lines on a woman’s face and heard them in the jangling of keys. The ghosts in fire freeze and the ghosts in ice burn. Some died long ago; some were never born. Some ride the blood in my veins until it reaches my brain. Sometimes I even mistake myself for one. Sometimes I am one.

Sixteen
    L iving with Jack was worse now than ever before. I could tell he really didn’t want me there but felt like he had no choice in the matter. While I was in Oregon he had been renting a small room in West Memphis that was barely bigger than a closet, so he had to find a new place. That place turned out to be a tiny trailer back in Lakeshore. It was barely big enough for us to stay out of each other’s way. I can’t recall speaking to my parents at all during this time, although my mother may have been in touch with Jack.
    Unsurprisingly, Jack didn’t have a single friend in the world. Every moment that he wasn’t at work was spent in a chair in front of the television. Other than yelling at me, the only topics of conversation he employed were how my sister had ruined his life by telling Social Services that he had molested her, or how wrong my mother had treated him by filing for a divorce. He was sickening to me, and I hated the very sight of him in his sweat-stained shirts.
    He went to bed at eight o’clock every night, which meant that I was forced to do the same. After eight I was not allowed to turn on a light because he said it would keep him awake, so there was no reading. We didn’t have a phone. I couldn’t watch TV or listen to the radio—not even a Walkman. He claimed he could hear it playing in his room even with the headphones clasped firmly to my ears. I couldn’t go out after six o’clock because he would have to sit up and let me in. When I asked why he didn’t just give me a key, he said because he wouldn’t be able to fasten the chain lock, and I’d wake him up coming in. He had three locks on the door and still felt the need to prop a chair against it every night so no one could break in. The only thing a thief could have taken was the jar of pennies next to Jack’s bed or the huge picture of Jesus hanging in the living room. Only a true crackhead would break into that place.
    Jack Echols was always angry. Sometimes it was at a simmer and other times he erupted into a screaming fit, but there was always anger. I couldn’t tiptoe around him or stay invisible in such a tiny place, so his rage was always directed at me. He did nothing but sit in his chair stewing and brewing, filling the rooms with misery and hatred. It was unbearable. Brian had moved to Missouri the day after I got out of the hospital, so my only refuge was Jason’s house. I slept there as often as possible.
    For reasons unknown, Jerry Driver had also told Jack that I was to check into his office once a week. Every Monday I made the five-mile trek to Driver’s office, where he and his two sidekicks (Steve Jones and another, whose last name was Murray) would question me. Their approach no longer seemed friendly. They had switched tactics and