The Last One (594 hits)
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Submitted by Rizzo (View user info) at 2004-04-16 18:30:24 EDT
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Bennie's Journal
January 16, 2004
Towels. Towels are pillows and blankets. Towels keep the cold out of the cracks, and the heat in the building. Towels make great pets.
Towels are the official currency in this neck of the woods.
Towels can sometimes double as pretty good ovens too. You know, for cooking. We don't get a lot of good cooking around here. Old Orlando went nuts again on Monday and demanded he get put on food loaf. Wouldn't you know Warden had the whole pod on food loaf by that afternoon? That's the third time that's happened in five weeks, second damn week in a row. My digestive system can't take that stuff any more. They say it's nutritionally adequate, but that's got to be a bunch of hogwash. If it's so adequate why does the whole pod lose ten pounds apiece whenever Orlando starts yelling up a storm and they put us all on that God-awful stuff? Next thing you know, I'm pooping out raisins and carrots all week. Fortunately for me, Sister Marjorie came by and left me a present - a prayer book and money. Money - sixteen whole dollars! The Saint Herman covenant put it together out of their own funds and now I'm living like a king. One pair of cotton boxer shorts, two nice thick commissary towels just like the one Reggie keeps under his bed, a Snickers, and the essential ingredients to make one mouth-watering Chi-Chi. Yep, Reggie was right - these commissary towels double as the best ovens on Pod X. No wonder he kept that dirty ass towel to himself, washing it and scrubbing it in the sink and all with the scummy ass prison issue soap for the last three years. Hell, he know he put that towel in the laundry, Warden going to take it. These babies are thick enough for hanging. It's surprising they let us buy them in here. I guess because it cost us an arm and a leg, and then they keep them for themselves if you throw them in the laundry.
Thank you God for Sister Marjorie. Thank you God for this wonderful towel and this wonderful Chi-Chi that I'm going to be cooking up shortly. I got the little old towel soaking in the 190 degree spigot and I'm just biding my time. The bluebird never came by the window today. Missed out on some nice tuna and cheese Chi-Chis, that stupid dummy. I guess that old food loaf chased him away too. Hell, I wouldn't want to fly through freezing cold to get poisoned by that crap either.
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Bennies Journal
September 3, 2004
This place keeps creeping into my veins, like a disease. I can't take it anymore, but at least I've got it. By God, I've got it. They gonna kill me in a few weeks, put the needle in and take my pulse and my soul away, but they got a surprise coming. Oh, yeah, I been talking about it here for a long time, but I can't really say what it is because these guards are getting suspicious and all. They're seeing me laying here all glass-eyed and just this morning they tossed my whole cell again looking for heroin. I ain't never done heroin in my life. How the hell would I ever get heroin up to X-Pod? Hell, they search our assholes three times a day while we're locked in our cells. Nobody's sneaking a goddamned thing in these cells. Nope, we invent things here. We become inventors because we ain't got a choice. I'm gonna let it go at that. I ain't gonna write anymore about it here because if they find out they gonna toss this place upside-down looking for the cure. There ain't no cure. They're ain't no cure for death and theyre ain't no cure for the suffering these condemned prisoners all gonna have to suffer when they cut their ankles open, shove a needle in there, and collapse their hearts with pancuromium bromide and their lungs with that searing potassium fucking chloride. I've got a different plan. Bring it on, Warden, because this will be the first of many. You broke old Bennie here, but Bennie gonna turn around and break you back, and break you when you least expect it. And this is only the beginning. God help us, this will only be the beginning.
Goodbye.
***************************************************************
It was a warm and sunny day, and that's what made it so sad.
Benjamin was eating an apple purchased from the commissary. Three dollars and thirty nine cents. "What time are they taking you to the hole, Reggie?"
"Eight a.m. I'm tired of this shit."
"We all are, boy. Just keep your chin up. 'Member what I told you?"
Reggie huffed and frowned at the cement floor. "Yeah, I know."
Benjamin's eyes squinted. "Did you pay him like I told you?"
Reggie shot Benjamin an annoyed smirk, the veins in his skinny arms flaring out. "Yeah, I paid him. What do you think I'm stupid or something?"
"I'm just saying," Benjamin responded as he glared at his apple, "they gonna open you up and search you like a sofa cushion. You better not think you gonna get the money to Fatass by sticking it up yo' asshole or in ya mouth."
"It's been taken care of, trust me." Reggie was annoyed, and justifiably so. He was going to the hole for the second time in four weeks, and this time he was going for no discernable reason.
The two prisoners paused in the early morning sunshine, not saying a thing for four minutes. This wasn't unusual. On death row, there's plently of time to pause and say nothing.
Benjamin, whispering: "Did you practice?"
A deep breath from Reggie. "Yeah."
"Nervous?" Benjamin said with a smile.
Exhale from Reggie. "Yep. What if I can't break it?"
Benjamin moved towards the bars in his cell and stuck his ashy hand as far through as he could. "Give me your paw man." Reggie's hand was much bigger and he could only fit a few fingers through his own cell door, but the two men eventually touched fingertips. "Now listen to me. You gonna break it when the time is right. Fatass is prison staff, but he's like one of us. He's sympathetic, and he's dumb, and he'll help you."
"But what if he forge-"
"He ain't gonna. Now listen. You gotta know this routine Reggie. You gotta know it. When you get back out of the hole they gonna have me all strung up in the death house waiting to go. I ain't gonna be able to help you, Reggie, so it's up to you to know how this works and to understand how powerful it is. You ain't gonna suffer in there, Reggie, and I ain't gonna suffer on the table either, but once I'm gone it's up to you to spread the word about how this works and keep it out of the hands of those that are trying to make our lives painful while we in hea'. Now, now don't write it down ... and don't tell no one that you can't trust. Treat this like your baby, man. It's your baby, and ain't a goddamn person gonna take it from you and hurt it. And spread the word. Get it out there to the people that need help. Help them with their suffering, Reggie. And when the time comes, help yourself, okay? Put yourself down and stay down, and find someone in here like us who you can trust with the last breaker word, just in case they grant you clemecy or something. Don't leave yourself stranded and don't-"
Reggie squeezed Benjamin's frail fingertips and sobbed. "Bennie, I want you to know my word."
"No!" Bennie whispered. "No, there ain't no reason to do that. Fatass should be the only person-"
"Apple. There. It's apple. I just wanted you to know Bennie, cuz it feels good for me to let you know I believe in this. I believe in this and I believe in you."
Benjamin smiled, a decade's worth of freeze-dried coffee stained on his front teeth. "Okay, Reggie. I love you man. Now for mine. Just remember it. Don't write it down. You can do it."
Reggie clenched his fists in concentration, as if he were preparing himself for a basketball game. He had a hard time remembering things.
"Your my best big friend. So who's my best little friend?"
Reggie exhaled and relaxed his fists. This would be an easy one. He smiled. "Aw, yeah. Thanks Bennie. I know that. It's bluebird."
Benjamin pushed his forehead hard against the cell bars and let out another coffee-stained smile. Reggie did the same. They both wanted to get a good look at each other. From their view they could each barely make out the tops of their skulls and one eye, but that was enough to make them happy. It would be the last time the two men would ever see each other.
Less than thirty seconds later, Guard McCovey took Reggie out of his cell and brought him to the hole.
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The Huntsville death house, also known as the Walls Unit, is a whole lot smaller than one would expect it to be. Since its inception, there hasn't been a single execution that hasn't sold out. Michael Dunne had been reporting executions for the Huntsville Item for the last seven and a half years, so it was nothing new to him. The routine was always the same - check in, get searched, get lectured about the process, sit in the cramped room on the wooden folding chairs, and wait. Sometimes the prison got it right, sometimes they put the needle in wrong, sometimes they couldn't find a vein if the guy was a druggie or underweight, sometimes they all packed in there and the prisoner got a last minute pardon right before the mystery executioner hit the first button. Mike saw the executions that went as planned, the eyes of the condemned rolling back into eternity as they slipped away peacefully into heaven or hell or whatever you chose to believe. Other times he saw death in its worst forms. A convulsing prisoner bleeding from every orifice, paralyzed by the chemicals and unable to cry out. A needle inserted improperly, causing the prisoner's arm to swell up and burst during the procedure. Other botches too gruesome and pitiful to explain.
Mike Dunne had seen pretty much everything inside the Walls Unit. But he had no idea he was about to witness history with the execution of Benjamin James Connor.
Connor was tried and convicted for the rape and murder of 11-year-old Katrina Watts Turner of Maverick County. In Texas, a prosecutor can seek the death penalty if the victim was a minor or if the victim had been sexually assaulted before death. Both had been done in this case, so when Connor was convicted it was a no-brainer for the jury to recommend death for the killing. The sheer gruesomeness of the crime itself would have persuaded the jury to vote death regardless - Katrina was chopped up into pieces after her murder and then shipped FedEx to several politicians in Texas, including the governor and the attorney general. When Connor was caught there was so much hatred behind the crime it was a miracle that he didn't get lynched before he made it to trial. Connor's trial was typical in nature for one in Texas. He was poor and black, he had no money for a good lawyer, and while there was no solid DNA evidence connecting him to the victim, he had no alibi for the night of the murder. The smoking gun, according to the prosecution, was a partial fingerprint of his found on one of the boxes used to mail Katrina's chopped up body. Connor repeatedly told his court-appointed attorney that his job at the time was to fold boxes in FedEx offices and that's how his fingerprint ended up on one of them, but the naive laywer didn't care and never brought it up at trial. It took the jury less than two hours to convict Connor, and he was sentenced to death the following week. The entire state of Texas let out a sigh of relief upon hearing this, but Connor continued to profess his innocence for eleven years, right up to the moment of his last statement, which was in written form and sitting on each wooden folding chair in the death house.
At 7:01 p.m. on September 22, 2004, the curtain to the Walls Unit death chamber was opened. Lying on the gurney, only eighteen inches from the glass, was Benjamin James Connor. He was dressed in a white T-shirt, khaki pants, and slippers. He was wrapped from his chest to his ankles in a white sheet. The intravenous line could be seen snaking up the right side of his pants. Mike knew that before the execution an untrained guard had slashed open Connor's leg, cut through muscle and fat tissue, grabbed a hold of a live vein and stuck the needle directly into the vein. The procedure was called "venous cut-down," and it was something taught to paramedics and hospital workers who had to find veins right away, but it was also widely used in the prison systems to insert the death needle.
Connor didn't react when the curtain opened. His glassy stare remained fixed on the ceiling. Mike figured that Connor received a heavy dose of sedatives shortly before preparation and that Connor, being as old as he was, probably couldn't handle them. A red phone sat on a table behind the gurney, and other than that there was nothing in the room. The witnesses squirmed in their seats in anticipation of the event. Most of them never saw a man actually die in front of them before, so they didn't know what to expect. Mike wasn't about to ruin the surprise, but most likely it would go the way it always went - quietly, efficiently, and without fanfare. The whole process was so septic that it almost seemed like a trick when it was all over. Most victims' families, when questioned after the execution, complained that the prisoner got the easy way out for his crimes. Mike always nodded his head politely when he fielded these answers, but he knew better. The chemicals that would be coursing through Connor's veins would be anything but pleasant. They'd knock him out with the first dose of stuff, but he'd most likely wake up in the middle of the whole thing, completely paralyzed and unable to communicate the sheer minutes of agony his body would be experiencing from the second and third doses.
The warden came in wearing a gray suit and red tie that matched the color of the phone on the table behind Connor. He picked up that phone, spoke a few words to the governor, and then hung up. He then left the room and returned with a small microphone, which he spoke into. The voice boomed through the crappy P.A. system in the witness chamber. A few witnesses covered their ears and coughed from the feedback.
"Inmate Connor, would you like to make a last statement?" The microphone shifted to just over Connor's mouth. Only the soft sound of his breath came through the P.A. Chills went up Mike's spine and he frowned. Something wasn't right.
The warden squinted and left the room. A split second later he came back with an Oriental man wearing a doctor's smock. They chatted behind the glass, the words not making it to the witnesses. The Oriental man looked concerned, and the warden's stone countenance shifted from resolute to puzzled. Yep, something wasn't right. In all the years Mike had ever reported on executions, he never saw anyone other than the condemned and the warden in the death chamber. Who was the Oriental man? Why was he in the death chamber? What was so important about this man who was about to die in a matter of mere minutes? Normally, execution notices would be buried in the second half of the local section of the Item, but not this one. No, Mike was going to insist putting it on page one, even if it got put below the fold. Something strange was going on here.
Connor continued to stare at the ceiling. Was he dead already? There was no way to know. All the medical equipment hooked up to Connor was out of view.
The Oriental man left the chamber. The warden ran his hands through his hair and then cleared his throat. Mike knew that the clearing of the throat was the signal to begin the execution, but he had never seen the warden run his hands through his hair. Ever. The man was unfallable in any situation. Something was wrong. Questions would have to be asked. Am I a big enough gun to call the questions to this man? Mike thought. He would probably have to call in backup. Something went very wrong here. Something didn't go the warden's way. What does he know? Who was the Oriental gentleman? Can you say Front Page?
Connor experienced all three chemicals in his veins in six minutes. He didn't so much as fidget the entire time. His eyes remained fixed on the ceiling throughout the procedure. At 7:11 p.m., the warden appeared in the death chamber with the microphone. He cleared his throat again, and spoke. "Physician Wang reports the time of death at seven o'seven P.M. Central Daylight Time, September twenty-second, year twenty oh four." Then he left. Mike was the first person to leave the death house. He grabbed his stuff from the front desk, walked outside and powered up his cell phone. The first call went to his secretary Ann, who was always in the office.
"Ann, do a PhysAdopt search in the state of Texas for a Dr. Wang." PhysAdopt was the doctor database used in Texas to keep tabs of doctors practicing in the state. Every Texas physician had to subscribe. Even the ones who pronounced condemned prisoners dead.
Mike heard typing on the other end. He was sweating bullets through his tweed blazer. A pause, and then a voice in the earpiece: "One Dr. Wang in Texas. Wheeler County. He's a dentist."
Mike's heart jumped in his throat. There was no Dr. Wang. Who had pronounced Connor dead? Who the hell was that Oriental man in the death chamber?
"Thanks Ann." He pressed end on the flip phone, closed it, and took a deep breath. Then he opened the phone again and made another call. This time it was to the editor of the New York Times.
***************************************************************
Reggie leaned his head on the cinder wall and stared out of his little window. It was seven fifteen, and the protesters hadn't let out a cheer, which meant that Bennie was dead. There would be no clemency, and there was none expected, but the finality of it all had just started to sink in. No more friend, no more neighbor, no more confidant. Reggie only hoped that Bennie's plan had worked as flawlessly as his did while he was in the hole. Fatass had come through. Good old Fatass. White guy, but Reggie was quickly learning that white did not mean bad. There were a lot of good white guys in prison, and it was a shame that Reggie hadn't taken the time to find all the good white guys out of prison. That was okay. It was water over the dam, and Reggie was not about to waste time worrying about all the bad things he did to all the good white guys out there. He had more important things to worry about.
He had to spread the word, regardless of how dumb he was.
It was so simple, and Reggie was excited, but he had to be careful. He wondered if anyone noticed something peculiar about the execution of Benjamin James Connor. It wasn't Bennie's technique, and he didn't create it either. It had been passed down, from the notorious Timothy McVeigh, to the flamboyant David Paul Hammer, to old Bennie. When Bennie first moved from Federal Death Row to Huntsville, that's all he wanted to talk about. "Hey! Hey! You over dare! I gotta secret!" the old man would whisper over to Reggie's cell. "Shut the fuck up!" was all Reggie kept saying, and he almost requested relocation away from the old windbag, but instead Reggie became keeper of the key. Reggie kept thinking about Timothy McVeigh and the reports of his death. Stone cold face. There were hundreds of witnesses to that execution, and everyone thought McVeigh was just being his defiant evil self. Then David Paul Hammer did the same thing in June, and only Bennie and Reggie noticed when the news reports came through to the media. Bennie had been the third. Had it gone as planned? Nothing over the news wires yet, and Bennie's death wouldn't make the nationals, but maybe something would come through on the eleven o'clock locals. Something to tell Reggie that things went as planned. He just wanted to know that Bennie didn't suffer. Reggie knew that if it went right Bennie wouldn't have suffered. To Reggie, it felt like time had been put on pause in that solitary cell. Seven days had gone by in a blink of an eye. The technique worked. When he awoke, Fatass had been staring him down, a curious look on his chubby face. "Damn Reg," he said, "Look like you been staring at God or something." And he left it at that, but the curious look persisted. Reggie knew why. Fatass wanted to know. He wanted to know what was going on. Someday he would soon find out. Reggie had plans beyond the scope of what Bennie and Tim and David Paul had planned. The technique would spread far beyond the walls of death houses. It would be everywhere. It would be unstoppable. All the prisoners of the world would know how to use it. Reggie would be a hero. Bennie and David and Tim would be gods in the eyes of sufferers everywhere.
The bluebird appeared out of nowhere, and it startled Reggie away from the wall. Never before had the bluebird come to Reggie's window. It had always stopped at Bennie's. Now it was his friend. Reggie stared at it, right in its eyes. He could have sworn he saw the same squint in those eyes that Bennie used to give him when he was happy. It was all Reggie could do to keep from breaking down in tears.
Reggie sighed and started to peel his orange. Last orange I'm gonna see in a while, he thought to himself. If Bennie's execution went as planned, Warden would have all of Pod X knawing on food loaf by morning.
***************************************************************
NEW YORK TIMES
OCTOBER 16, 2005
FRONT PAGE
17TH GOES TO DEATH ROW UNDER THE SPELL
Still No Explanation on How to Break the Hypnosis
By Mike Dunne (Times Senior Staff Writer)
ATMORE, ALABAMA - "It's happened again." That's how the warden opened the post-execution press conference after Vladimir Markov was put to death at the execution house in Alabama. In essence, that's all he needed to say.
Markov became the seventeenth death row inmate in the United States to be executed under what prison officials have dubbed "the spell." Even under intense up-to-the-second supervision, Markov managed to hypnotize himself so that no method of outside communication could break through.
Thousands of researchers, scientists, and hypnotism experts have been brought in to explain how the phenomenon works, but to no avail. They are also trying to figure out how death row inmates in twelve separate states have managed to learn the technique while at the same time keeping it out of the hands of those outside the walls.
The New York Times, in conjunction with the Huntsville Item of Huntsville, Texas, reported last September of what many believe to be the first occurance of The Spell at the Walls Unit death row facility in Texas. Benajmin James Connor was executed among speculation that ...
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"I'm going to make this crystal fucking clear," the Warden had said standing out in the yard on that mercilessly cold day in December. "The next fucking prisoner that we find under one of these quote-unquote spells, whether it be in the hole, or in the yard, on the john, or in your fucking food tray, we here at the Red Onion Virginia State Penitentiary are going to beat the fucking spell right out of you until you wake up. Understood?"
Now it was over, and George was dead and it was all his fault. George told him what to do but he didn't listen. He knew the password and he was supposed to holler it through the gate and into the hallway, but he couldn't. He just couldn't. He didn't know why, but he couldn't let them know an inkling about what he had learned. He heard the warden open the gate and say, "Wake up right now George." That was his cue, but now that he knew the technique he didn't want to be the one to break the secret. So he kept his mouth shut. "Beat him," was all he heard the Warden say, and they beat George for an hour and a half. They beat the life right out of him. George was dead. No watching the Super Bowl with George on Sunday. No more playing cards with George. No more talking about escaping the Onion with George. This place was hell, and the fire was only getting hotter, even as the cells became colder with the winter breeze.
They came in his cell a day after George died. They were dressed in suits. Right off the bat he knew they were far too intelligent looking to be part of the Red Onion. Only goons worked at the Onion. It had the reputation of being the hardest time you could do in the United States, and rightfully so. There wasn't a place he wouldn't rather be right now. This place was good for nothing but suffering.
"Mr. Delabaz, we want to ask you a few questions. Come with us." Then an Onion guard pulled him out of his bunk, handcuffed him, and pushed him in the right directions towards the front of the prison. Delabaz had never been in the front of the prison because cons weren't allowed there. Only normal people worked and walked through the front. Delabaz knew why he was going there.
They brought him to an interrogation room, sat him down, unhandcuffed him and handed him a bottle of water. He opened it and took a sip. It was the best tasting water he had had in a decade. He smiled, then stared at the two intelligent men in front of him waiting to ask him questions. There were no goons in the room, but Delabaz knew there was one peering through the one-way glass, more than ready to break his neck if he made a move for the men in suits. That wasn't going to be his plan. No, they would need more than goons and men in suits to help them here.
The suit on the right spoke first. "Mr. Delabaz, please tell us everything you know about George Cooley."
Delabaz smiled. "He was a good man. He was innocent of his crime. He was beaten to death by the goons in this shithole."
The suit on the left wrote something down on his legal pad, then he looked up at Delabaz. "Mr. Delabaz, we are prepared to grant you clemency for your information about the hypnotism technique used by-"
Delabaz extended his palms to the suits. "The Lord is my shepherd," he said, then he snapped his fingers and fell backwards in his chair.
The suits jumped up out of their chairs, and a half dozen goons rushed in and started beating Delabaz with batons. "STOP IT! STOP IT GODDAMNIT" the warden screamed behind them, and they did. There was a startling hush in the room. "Goddamnit, you fucking morons! Agent Carter, Agent Lewis, I apologize. I fear this man has put himself under the spell."
Delabaz never awoke from the spell. There wasn't a thing that anyone on earth could do to wake him up because Delabaz made sure there hadn't been a password. The Central Intelligence Agency studied Delabaz for as long as they could keep him alive with intravenous injections, then took him off the IV and let him die when it was assumed that they would never learn what they needed to know.
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"I don't know if I can do it Reggie." It was Fatass, and he was crying.
"You can do it, man, you can do it." Reggie handed Bennie's journals back to Fatass through the cell door. Fatass put them inside the back of his shirt. He was so fat that no one would notice the bulge back there.
"Reggie," Fatass mumbled, fighting back tears, "am I guilty of anything?"
A big smile blossomed across Reggie's face. "Hell no, you ain't guilty of shit. You just a fat ass white guard with a big ass human heart. You the reason all this happening all over the country. You're special man, you're special."
Reggie put a hand through the cell door and onto Fatass's shoulder. "Look, if it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have ever known how to master the spell, and all those prisoners out there all over the country wouldn't have been able to avoid all that suffering. You helped us man. You helped me, and you helped all the others out there, and you're helping all us in here. You're part of the reason all these guys ain't suffering. You're a legend."
Fatass sniffled. "You won't rat me out, will you?"
Reggie laughed at the comment. "Hell, no, Fatass, never." The two were friendly enough that Reggie could call him Fatass without getting in trouble.
Fatass let out a big breath and a smile. "Okay, Reggie, I'll do what you said."
"Good. Just burn them somewhere away from here."
Fatass nodded. "I'll burn them in my fireplace. My FAKE fireplace, heh heh."
Reggie smirked. "Yeah, I'll take that fake fireplace right now any day over this fucking faulty ass radiator." It was December at Pod X, and the temperatures weren't even scraping thirty.
Fatass turned to go back to his post at the end of the Pod. "I love you Reggie. Thanks for making me feel special. Thanks for being a true friend."
"Man, anytime. Just promise me you'll lose weight by next year. Ya executin yourself with hot dogs and McDonald's."
"Reggie?" he said, "can I ask you a question?"
"Sure man, anything."
"Well ... " He paused and looked down at his shiny prison guard boots. "Will you let me be your keeper?"
Reggie smiled. Somewhere in his eyes, a tear welled up. "Sure man, come here."
Fatass pushed his ear against the metal bars. Reggie put his lips right next to the guard's ear and whispered the password.
It would never be uttered. Seventy-two hours later, Reggie Fox was executed at the Walls Unit for the armed robbery and murder of two Armenian gas station attendants in July of 1997. He was the twenty-ninth prisoner in the United States to go to the death chamber under the spell.
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The president called the press conference only fourteen days before Election Tuesday. It was rare that the president call a press conference at all, much less a press conference a fortnight before the country decided on his fate. But it had to be done. He had to get it out in the open.
The opening speech lasted two minutes and was more evasive than informative. It talked briefly about the phenomenon known as "The Spell," how the federal government was investigating the spell, how they couldn't reveal the results of their ongoing investigation at that point, and how the United States was doing whatever it could to keep the country safe from crime and to keep the criminals at bay both in and out of prisons.
"The floor is open to questions," the president announced at the end of his speech. The press group exploded in hands and beckons.
He pointed to Mike. "Okay, Mike."
Mike stood up. He was wearing an expensive blue suit, and his normally long hair was trimmed. "Thank you, Mister President. Michael Dunne, New York Times. There have been rumors that the advent of The Spell has caused several states as well as the federal government to reconsider the way criminals are punished. Is this true?"
The president was quick to respond. "Not true. We have no real reason to change the way we're doing things at either the state or the federal level. Criminals are criminals, regardless of whether or not they hypnotize themselves. They made the decision to commit a crime and under this system this is how they pay the price. There's no substance behind that rumor."
Mike was quick to snap back. "Mr. President, is it true, however, that there has been an increase in pressure on your administration to stop punishing hypnotized criminals because some think this is cruel and unusual punishment, for example, the beating of George Cooley in Virgina? Also, does it concern you that there are criminals protesting the death penalty on your very own gurneys by sending themselves to the death chamber under the spell? I mean, there are people out there that think the process of execution is cruel and unusual and that these criminals have found a way to avoid the suffering associated with that punishment. Can you tell us how you're going to address this issue?"
The president was quickly annoyed. I wanted to get Mike out of the way early, but CHRIST, he thought.
"Mike, I'm not really sure what you're trying to say here. These criminals, the ones you talk about on the gurney, are convicted criminals." Emphasis on the last two words. "By committing the crimes they did they chose their fates. In this country the death penalty is accepted by the democracy. The people of the United States choose their government, and they have chosen the death penalty regardless of whether or not the criminals are executed under hypnosis. Lethal injection is humane. It's a humane form of punishment. It's neither cruel nor unusual."
Mike jumped in, and the rest of the field let him go. "Mr. President, would you stand by that comment even if the people chose against capital punishment and even if it cost you and your party the upcoming election?"
The president paused, and then said. "I've already spoken my answer. Next ... okay Linda."
"Thank you, Mr. President. Linda Mohr, Washington Times. Let's put George Cooley aside right now. How do you intend to address the beatings of other prisoners by prison guards in several state penitentiaries for refusing to cooperate when they put themselves under this hypnotic technique called The Spell?"
The president looked down at the podium and sighed. It was going to be a long night.
***************************************************************
They met in a bar in D.C., two strangers that, through correspondence, had become incredibly good friends. Mike was nervous as he sat down and ordered his first Crown Royal on the rocks. He had no idea what to expect.
A hand on the back of his tweed blazer. "Excuse me, is this seat taken?" Mike turned around to a well-built well-dressed man in his early forties, tan and with a touch of gray forming on his temples. It was Seamus.
"Oh my God, how are you?" was all Mike could manage, and then he embraced the man for what seemed like a full minute.
Seamus ordered a drink and then they chatted, first about the shitty weather and then about the World Series. The Washington Expos were one game away from clinching the title. Thank God the game was in Boston tonight, or it would have been called off on account of snow. It was twenty degrees warmer up there.
"Do you think they'll really announce it tonight?" Seamus said, sweat forming on his palms.
"As God as my witness, I saw the press release go out at three today. It's coming. The country is going to be shocked out of its skull." He looked at Seamus with a gleam in his eye. "We might have a revolution here, you know."
Seamus laughed. "Mike, if they don't revolt about that, they'll revolt up in Boston if the Sox don't win tonight. One way or the other, people're going to find an excuse to revolt."
Mike smiled as he looked the man over. He couldn't have imagined what Seamus went through over the past five years. All he read about Seamus seemed to make no sense. He couldn't imagine how this man was once an overweight, depressed, frightened prison guard that kept a big secret under wraps. It was rumored that Reggie Fox, executed prisoner in Texas, had called him Fatass when he worked in Pod X at Huntsville. Fatass, and here he is looking marvelous and holding one big story in his brain and dying to spew it all out. I'll be happy to take that off your shoulders, Mike thought. Somewhere at the end of the bar, an attractive young woman was giving Seamus the eye.
"Do you got the book, Seamus?"
He sighed and then grinned, a touch of his former Southern accent creeping through his voice. "You bet I do. Here you go."
He gave Benjamin James Connor's journal to Mike. Years ago Seamus had tried to burn it, but he knew, he just knew, that someday it would be valuable to someone.
Mike drew in a breath as he read the cover. "Bennie's Journal," it read in blue ball point ink. He opened to page one and skimmed the first entry. Nothing on The Spell there. Just something about towels and a bluebird. He would have a wonderful time reading all the entries tonight. That was for then. Now was the time for baseball and whiskey.
"Seamus," he said as he put his arm around the man, "if I lived in Massachusetts I would be the first person in line to vote for you for senator."
Seamus smiled as the first pitch of Game 6 of the 2010 World Series went across the plate for a strike. "Thanks Mike. Here's to a long friendship." They toasted and then turned their attention back to the game. A long wind-up, and then strike two as the leadoff hitter whiffed hard at a breaking ball.
***************************************************************
One hour and forty-seven minutes later, in the middle of the sixth inning, all major networks cut to the White House, where the president of the United States, the same one that Mike had interviewed just over two years ago, made a sudden and spectacular announcement. The United States of America had officially become the ninety-seventh country on Earth to abolish the death penalty at all levels, state and federal, as a form of capital punishment. Seventy-nine minutes later, Boston won Game 6 of the World Series on a three-run shot to right, sending the circus back to Washington. No one in America rioted over either event.
In the next twelve months, ten more countries would follow suit and also abolish the death penalty as a form of punishment.
In the year 2021, the United Arab Emirates became the last sovereign nation on Earth to cease the execution of human beings.
User Reviews
Submitted by screamfeeder (user info) at 2005-01-31 16:48:09 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Razor (user info) at 2004-05-19 17:40:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Solid.