Authors: Les Edgerton
This, literally, was the end of my part in the affair. I turned my back on the whore, and she tore off down the river path. A few steps away, while still within earshot I heard her bellow again—oh, nauseous sound! —and I turned just in time to see her clumsy foot trip over a vine and pitch her forward against a large boulder lying part-way in the shallows of the river. Her head struck first, sounding much as an egg does when you hurl it at someone’s door, as we used to do on Halloween as children. She fell heavily into the water and sank until all that was visible was the blue of her buttocks and a trail of bubbles and froth from her submerged head.
Could I have saved her you ask? Yes, I suppose I could have. There would have been time enough had I been so inclined. It took her body at least ten minutes or so before it worked its way into the heavier current and drifted away. But, pray tell, why should I have? All she had done for me was to plunk her uninvited slut’s body down in my space, violate my peace and tranquility, deride and insult me, and then screech like a banshee. For that I am obliged to save her worthless carcass? I rather think not. I didn’t push her; she fell of her own accord, or at the least, of her own oafish carelessness, and it was no business of mine that I could see.
I did what any honest man would do; I went about the business I had come there to do. I resumed fishing, although it was useless. As much as I tried to recapture my equanimity and serenity, the cow had thoroughly sabotaged any semblance of restfulness. My day of leisure was destroyed, and I ended up trudging home disconsolately, my entire outing in ruins. You would think that sufficient punishment for my small part in the mishap, but such is not the way of life. Man is like unto the God he has created in his own image; he demands not an eye for an eye, but ten-fold for one. So I sit here, bound for glory as the song is sung and have for companionship, you, my future listener, and this half-eaten, greasy, cheeseburger.
A thought just crossed my mind. Listening to my tale you might assume me bitter, angry. You are mistaken. I am by nature a humble, unassuming man, content to live in a house by the side of the road like Thoreau and let the rest of the world pass by on their frenetic way. I have been caught up in something that is not my doing. I struggle not to be bitter, but you might allow me some leeway in that, considering. All in all, the whole misadventure bores me to distraction. I am not afraid to pass on to the next stage in life nor do I especially or eagerly await it. What can I do about it? Nothing. Exactly nothing whatsoever. Therefore, the intelligent act is to merely wait out the allotted time and then any and all questions will be answered, I presume. (I am speaking of death, if you have not yet comprehended that.) Personally, I believe I will simply cease to exist, or at least my consciousness will, and my physical form will merely change as the lump of coal becomes ashes when burned or a diamond when pressured, even as it was once a tyrannosaurus, but I still cannot deny a slight doubt as to the veracity of that presumption. After all, I really don’t know, nor does anyone else so far as I can determine. Look at it this way: forty-four years ago I emerged from a womb into an existence I knew nothing about, and it proved tolerable. I’m sure the next stage will prove much the same. I only hope that no infernal rocking chairs exist in the realm I am to enter nor anyone to hold you prisoner in one.
I am to die at dawn. It will be the last frame of the only film I have a reliable memory of appearing in, the one we agree to term the earthly one. Whether a new one will begin for me upon the termination of the old is a matter that has been debated forever, if we are to believe that pack of formal lies known as recorded history.
Should I choose the firing squad, there will be a dozen or so soldiers in a plumbed line who will follow a series of commands from their superior who will stand slightly to the side and issue orders he is perhaps even now rehearsing before a mirror, trying out different voices to get the most authoritative one.
Then, they will fire their rifles. What is interesting is that not all of the rifles will be loaded with live rounds. One will contain a blank cartridge, filled only with powder, no lethal missile. This is so no one (of the soldiers) will know whose bullet it was that murdered the condemned. This is to salve their consciences, only I have a feeling that most of the participants care not a whit if theirs was the deadly round, and another part of that suspicion is that they will secretly take credit for my death in their own minds. Perhaps there will be arguments over warm beer later. “Yes,” one will start, “it was my bullet did him in. I can tell the difference between a live round and a dummy. A live round kicks more… and boy, did mine kick! Yes, I am the one who slew him. There is no doubt.” This may lead to a fight, as another will chime in. “Yes, I felt the same thing—I know what you’re talking about, but your aim is notoriously lousy. You are such a conceit to imagine yours was the bullet. I am the best shot here, and I aimed for the throat, and that is where he was struck the most. That was the wound that killed him. I saw where your bullet struck. Did you see that chip fly off the wall to his left and slightly above his head? There was a large puff of powder and pebbles. That was your bullet, my friend. That is where your bullets always land Monday mornings out on the firing range. Ask the sergeant. High and to the left. Am I right?” This would be addressed to the rest of the assemblage, and the battle would be pitched. It would be interesting to discover who came up with this concept of a blank cartridge. I would think a religious man, a priest. That is the kind of thing they study for, the kinds of moral conundrums they delight in providing.
Or, I may choose the gallows and throw them all into a tizzy. Some will be disappointed and some will feel grateful.
Six-thirty-two is my appointed time to die. That is the time the weather bureau has decreed to be official sunrise, regardless of God, and the great political entity of this state soberly relies on the weather bureau’s proclamation as the officious time in which to satisfy Section 911, Sub-Para 11 of the State Penal Code. That’s the section dealing with the execution of convicted and justly-sentenced capital-crimes felons.
I die at dawn.
A voice speaks, knocks me out of my reverie.
“Truman.”
The turnkey stands before my cell.
“Less than twelve hours, Truman.” He smiles not. He is of a mind that he is a serious man and doesn’t seem to take pleasure in these announcements, but has an obeisant need to please me for some reason, and he has decided that to tell me how much time I have left is news I am eager for. I am not. Indeed, I care not a whit one way or the other.
I scarcely know him, even though he has been a part of my present situation, i.e., Death Row, for some months now; I am a natural reticent and he seems much the same. At least till this day our conversations for the large part have been sundry and sere. His tone, when announcing the hours I have left, is that of the Queen Mother’s emissary announcing an impending presentation to the court with Her Highness on some momentous and grand occasion, most certainly one of a serious mien. I idly wonder if my Maker and the Queen of England and all such in that capacity compare notes on how to receive recalcitrants and if there is a school of such for their turnkeys and heralds or if they learn on the job through a kind of osmosis.
He is gone now, padding away on mushy brown brogans on the wet, cold stones outside my cell.
Earlier, he brought my last meal. They make such a big to-do about that. Three were in attendance: besides my turnkey, two other guards, neither of whom I’d seen before. Sort of the gastronomical committee, I suppose. It was probably a form of titillation for them. Each had a suggestion: two for steak and one for pheasant under glass, which exhibited, in my humble opinion, a lack of imagination and/or intelligence; therefore, to be perverse, I submitted my order for a cheeseburger, French fries and a strawberry shake. Perversity wasn’t the sole reason for my selection; that was what I was actually hungry for.
It sits here now, half-eaten. For some reason I have little appetite. I will never admit it to my jailers, but I had a craving for the pheasant after just one nibble of the cheeseburger. It was chilled when I received it, and they had forgotten extra ketchup that I had expressly ordered for the fries. I like to smother them—my secret vice—and looking at them in their cold, naked little bodies angered me although I hid my feelings, and even though they offered to fetch me ketchup from the prison dining room, I had already surrendered my appetite and told them not to bother, not without, I am ashamed to confess, a hint of peevishness in my refusal. I am allowed. It is my last day on earth.
The thing that stands out in my mind about this place is the dampness. Even on the hottest of days, there is a clamminess that persists and soaks into one’s bones.
And the noise. It is never quiet, even at four in the morning. This is a very old prison, much unlike what I understand to be the layout of the modern ones. The Death Row here is not housed in a separate building, nor even in an isolated wing; no, it is simply the top tier of four tiers in this cellblock, which is given the dreary and unimaginative name of “J” Block. A bureaucratic name. No one seems to know what the J stands for, if anything. Below me are the normal inhabitants of any prison. Murderers, thieves, forgers, drug dealers, rapists, a child-molester or two—the usual citizens of this society. Even a cattle rustler I’ve been told. Never does the mantle of silence descend upon this cellblock. At night, there are screams here and there: men bellowing, I assume from the tone of their yelps, in the throes of passion, while the objects of their affection scream in shrill voices, often for their mothers. At midnight, a train passes by outside and blows its whistle, and the din increases for a period.
Men sobbing. An irritating noise from women, but a patently pathetic sound from men.
Most of the men here loathe the sound of that whistle it would seem, from the curses and cries that emanate from the tiers below. As for myself, I barely notice it, other than the elevated noise level it elicits always wakes me, and that is bothersome. Annoying.
There are three of us on Death Row. The fewest of any place in the country. That is because this state doesn’t warehouse condemned men like most others—they do what the court orders and kills us. Me, I prefer this policy. It is straightforward and honest.
I’m in the middle cell. There is an empty cell on either side of mine and then there is my neighbor.
Even though they bring us our meals, we are treated much the same as the other inmates. The only utensil we are allowed is a large, metal soupspoon. They are afraid to let us have a knife or a fork for obvious reasons. We carry the spoon in our back pockets everywhere we go. From time to time, there’s a shakedown and they inspect the spoon to make sure we haven’t filed the handle down on the concrete floor to sharpen it into a weapon.
They needn’t worry about that with me. I’m a peaceful man and have no desire to harm anyone. Except, perhaps, that odious turnkey! (That was a joke, you understand.)
We aren’t allowed any detergent to wash our spoon with and can only rinse it in the small sink in our cell.
We eat beans for every meal, including breakfast. You have to bite down carefully and slowly on each spoonful. The warden has an allowance for our food and if he can save money from his allotted budget, he is allowed to keep the savings for himself. Beans are the cheapest foodstuff he can purchase, so it’s included on the menu for every repast.
The reason you have to bite down carefully is that the merchants sell the beans to him in one-hundred-pound burlap bags. They’re sold by the weight. Therefore, they always include a shovelful of gravel in each bag. They cheat the warden and the warden cheats us. That’s where it ends, as there isn’t anyone below us that we can cheat. The buck stops here, so to speak.
The inmate cooks don’t bother to sort out the gravel. They’re criminals, not master chefs, and therefore possess no pride in their craft.
On my first day in here, I bit down on a rock and cracked a molar in half. I haven’t been to see the dentist about it as I’d already heard the tales about the medical care in here. They’re either Third World refugees with questionable degrees from Caribbean schools, or they’ve got drug or alcohol habits. The state doesn’t pay them much, so most supplement their incomes by selling the drugs in their possession to inmates. The Novocain the dentist uses is an anesthetic in name only. It’s mostly distilled water from what I’ve been told, and I consider the information reliable.
I’ve grown accustomed to the throbbing and rarely even notice it by now. Even if the dentist here were a Park Avenue professional performing some kind of charity act by administering to convicts once a week and had the finest of drugs, I wouldn’t have him look at it or fix it. What for? I’m going to die anon. How possibly would it profit me if I were to die without a toothache? I don’t think I’ll be fearful when my time comes, but if for some reason I am, the ache in my jaw will take my mind off of my impending fate a bit, perhaps. Or not. We shall see.
We who are on Death Row are afforded somewhat larger cells than those in the general population. There are no windows in the backs of our cells, and there are solid walls separating us on each side from our neighbors. I look across to the far wall at a barred window that overlooks the yard in the center of the prison, but I can’t see anything but the sky as we are too high and the windows are above me. If I stand at the cell door, I can see part of the walkway directly in front of my cell and perhaps a foot or two to each side. I see the railing on the walk, but we are too high to see the ground floor where the cellblock guard sits at his desk from our cells. I can hear the guards when they walk by. Their shoes have a heavy sound, very distinct. When other inmates pass by, theirs is a decidedly softer sound. The shoes the state issues us have more of a crepe sole, not exactly like a tennis shoe, but softer than the leather of the guards’ footwear, which is more of a boot. Except for that turnkey. His step sounds more like ours.