Carthage (35 page)

“You, sir? What would you choose?”

The Lieutenant was addressing the Investigator who was the sole person in the tour-group who seemed to have challenged the Lieutenant’s authority.

The Investigator shrugged. He, too, would not choose. “I would force the state to choose. I would not participate in my own death.”

The Lieutenant said, exasperated, “But you would! If it was a matter of the easiest death—or what you think is the easiest.”

The Investigator persisted. “No. I would not participate in my own death because I would not grant to the state that power over me.”

“But then, you would be granting to the state the power! What you say doesn’t make any damn sense.”

The Lieutenant seemed offended, genuinely annoyed with both the Intern and the Investigator. Two such very different individuals, clearly strangers to each other, yet clearly temperamentally akin. You felt that, if the Lieutenant had his way, he’d have sentenced half the visitors in the tour-group to death just to teach them a lesson.

“I suppose you think, sir, that the death penalty is ‘barbaric.’ That’s what you think?”

“Did I say that? I don’t believe that I said anything like that—the word
barbaric
never crossed my lips.”

“But you think so, sir! Don’t you! You are some kind of—leftist-liberal judge—you are not a Florida judge . . .”

“I am not a
judge,
Lieutenant. Not even a retired judge.”

“Well, so—a lawyer, then. A professor. You’d let murderers
go
? Rapists, serial killers—child-killers?”

But the Investigator was too canny to be drawn into a heated discussion with the Lieutenant at such a time and in such a place. The Intern guessed, he was eager to take forbidden pictures of the robin’s-egg-blue death-chamber and would speak no more to the Lieutenant.

“Well, now—who will volunteer to step inside? Just for a minute, to demonstrate.”

The Lieutenant meant the diving bell. The Lieutenant leered at his captives, who shrank from his gaze.

How hateful this was! A nightmare, and there was no way out except to comply with the Lieutenant.

“We require a volunteer. Who?”

The Intern didn’t wait for the Investigator to signal her. She said, “I will, sir.”

The others stared at her. The Intern saw gratitude in their faces.

The Lieutenant seemed annoyed. “You! Well, fella—have to give you credit, you’re a stubborn little guy. But there’s other folks here, could help us out . . .”

“I will do it, sir. To spare anyone else.”

In a daze the Intern approached the robin’s-egg-blue octagon. Her head was ringed with headache-pain and her stomach churned with nausea. At least she was so small, she had no difficulty stepping through the doorway and into the interior; she had no difficulty straightening to her full height. (The ceiling inside the bathosphere, that seemed oppressively low, was in fact, at its apex, at least seven feet high: an adult man could stand comfortably in such quarters, for a while at least.)

The Lieutenant was glaring at the Intern. Yet, the Lieutenant was pleased with the Intern: the way the Intern had seemed to be obeying
him.

The Lieutenant leaned inside the doorway, gruffly instructing the Intern to climb up onto the table and lie down on her back.

The Intern complied. The ugly bathosphere ceiling was close above her head and so she shut her eyes. The Lieutenant’s voice continued, with restrained excitement.

“There’d be the Death Team, if this was an execution. They’d be strappin’ the little fella in, he wouldn’t have gone inside by himself.”

The Lieutenant spoke with regret, this wasn’t an actual execution, or even any kind of demonstration. But it was all the tour could offer.

“We never had any ‘Old Sparky’ like I said—our ’lectric chair is in storage. Lethal injection, there’s nothing much to
see
.”

Yet the Lieutenant continued in a zestful manner to describe botched lethal injections he had witnessed over the years: “Like, your veins are all wizened from shooting heroin, they’ve got to stick you all over—arms, legs, inside-thighs—feet, haunches—underneath the jaw—foot. Poor bastids like a pincushion some of ’em, squeaking
No no no more! God help me I am sorry
.” The Lieutenant paused, for effect. “And sometimes the chemicals are botched, the solutions ain’t right, or what they call in the right ‘proportion’—so the stuff that comes into the condemned man’s veins is fiery-hot—like acid—and he’s screaming, inside the head-hood. Even with a rag or a sponge in his mouth, he’s screaming and you can hear him. No ‘merciful death’—it ain’t what they deserve. So don’t waste pity.”

The Lieutenant’s listeners shuddered. The Lieutenant was an impresario at the mast of a careening amusement-park ride—roller coaster, demon-twister. You could not escape the hellish ride until the Lieutenant released you.

Visitors asked questions—the Intern couldn’t hear. A roaring had begun in her ears, a pounding of blood like a distant surf.

The Intern was fingering the leather straps. Fortunately the Lieutenant hadn’t asked her to place the straps over her arms and legs. She understood that an IV line, dripping toxins into a vein, would be inserted in one of her arms, or in the back of her hand.

At a little distance the Lieutenant was speaking. In his bragging bullying way, that had an undercurrent of excitement.

The Intern began to remember—something.

The Intern began to remember—how she’d lain curled upon herself. Not on a table and not on her back but on the ground crawling, and her face bloodied, her nose and mouth bloodied, dirt in her eyes.

Don’t want you get away you disgust me.

“Thing is, a death warrant is served these days it don’t mean what you’d think. There’s all these appeals—‘writs’—‘briefs’—‘arguments’—drags on for years. Any man—or woman!—gets to Death Row, let me tell you ‘innocence’ ain’t no likely factor in what got him here. Might be he’s ‘innocent’ of the crime for which he will be executed but no way he is
innocent
—or her. That is a statistical fact.”

There was a pause. The Intern shut her eyes harder and strained to see and to hear.

She was very frightened now. A sensation as of death was upon her, a numbness in her feet, her legs—rising . . . A numbness in her fingers, and in her face. Her tongue he’d ripped out.

So she could not speak. Would not ever speak.

. . .
can’t talk? Maybe she’s deaf too.

Face looks broke. Lemme wash that blood away.

Whoever done it he’ll come back. They always do.

“Our last execution was in February. Like, a month ago. There’s been an execution—this ‘Richard Karpe’ in the news—that’s been postponed two, three times. Jesus! Nobody thinks this is any damn good for all involved like the victim’s kin nor even the condemned man himself jerked around like a damn puppet. A condemned man comes to terms with his life, he’s ready to die. You can ask them on Death Row, most of ’em will tell you. Most of them is solid Christian-religion, by that time. They will tell you. ‘Let’s get on with it,’ they will say. This last one, Pop Krunk. Have to tell you, I kind of got to like Pop Krunk—and Pop Krunk liked
me
. He was seventy-six when he died. He’d been in Orion since 1987. Before that, Raiford. He’d done time for robbery, aggravated assault. He was an old-timey kind of character with long hair, long beard—like in the Everglades, you’d find. Sent to Death Row after he beat to death somebody resisted him in a robbery, also he had warrants on other probable homicides in Tampa, that caught up with him. Pop would say he was ‘conned’ into it—confessing—then tried to ‘recant’ like they do—but the judge shut that out, fast. Right-away there’s some team of young lawyers trying to get Pop’s sentence overturned, and a new trial—Christ knows why! You can always have a new trial, there’s never gonna be any trial that’s ‘beyond a shadow of a doubt’ whether somebody’s lawyer falls asleep in court or shows up sick or drunk—that’s how it is. So last month they’re arguing for another reprieve, trying to argue the governor into commuting his sentence, Pop Krunk himself never bellyached he was afraid to die or treated unjustly, least not to
me.
His Last Supper was a good one: Big Mac with French fries, fried onion rings, chocolate milk shake. Asked if I would keep him company and I said
yes
but the sad thing was, old Pop started eating pretty hungry then kind of slowed down, and never got to the halfway point even, laying down the Big Mac saying shit, he ain’t hungry no more.

“Would you like the milk shake? Pop says. So I says OK, thanks!

“Did I say Pop Krunk was in a wheelchair? Started out just on crutches, his legs and hips was shot with arthritis, he wasn’t malingering but in pain you could see, his face all creased with pain, so he had this wheelchair from the infirmary, he spent most of his time in, in his cell. The death warrant’s delivered, once it is then the clock starts ticking, you know—only a call from the governor can defer it. But this time, there wasn’t gonna be any call. This time, Pop’s luck run out. He knew this. Like he could foresee certain weather—a hurricane, for instance. His bones just ached all the more, in that kind of weather. So he could foresee, no call from the damn governor. When the chaplain and us came to get him, Pop didn’t look nothing much like himself. Which is sobering to see. You come to expect a certain—you expect certain behavior from people you know. Drops of sweat were running down Pop Krunk’s face. He’d shut his eyes tight, his mouth, trying not to breathe. Trying to choke himself, suffocate himself, cut off his breathing. But he could not, the instinct to breathe is too powerful to resist. So next, poor bastid tries to hang back. In his wheelchair. He was panting, and sweating, and praying. We wheeled him into the chamber here, down a little ramp by the steps. But the wheelchair doesn’t fit into the diving bell, so he had to be hoisted to his feet and walked. I was one of the guards assigned to walk with him. Poor Pop Krunk shaking like I never seen him before. I’m saying to him—‘Pop! You can do it. Hell man, you’re gonna be OK.’ There’s the victims’ next-of-kin in the front chairs, some of ’em oldern Pop himself. Jesus they all been waiting a damn long time for this. And the warden is here, and prison commissioner, and some journalists. Pop was balking, scared. The wheelchair had to be surrendered. He caught on the edge of the doorway into the diving bell, his fingers had to be pried off. The chaplain said, ‘Don’t disappoint us, Pop. Not now. We expect more of you, Pop. There’s the relatives of the victims right here, looking for justice. You give ’em what they deserve, Pop.’ And Pop saw, this was only just. Right-away sat up straight as he could in that chair, they were strapping him in. All the witnesses were surprised. Pop Krunk said, with a sudden smile, ‘Hey! This is a beautiful day to die.’

“Saying so, was the signal. We lowered and secured the black hood over his head.”

He will hurt you again. He will murder you.

You can’t go back. Not ever.

. . . will protect you. I swear.

The Intern had ceased listening to the Lieutenant’s voice. The Intern was feeling that her heart had been slowed and stopped and was being revived now again and she did not know where the strength would come from, to return her life to her.

Men had died on this table, on which she lay. In the robin’s-egg-blue diving bell, men had died hideous deaths. Those others, who’d preceded her, the old man—Pop Krunk—had died strapped in here. They’d stabbed needles into his skinny old-man arms and drained poison into him and he’d slumped and ceased breathing and the witnesses could see nothing further except that the black hood over the head had slumped, and was no longer the head of a live man.

In desperation the Intern managed to sit up. Heavy air pressed against her: she was feeling weak. She stumbled to the door of the diving bell and past the surprise-faced Lieutenant and the other visitors to the door of the execution chamber which the Intern shoved open, in an impudent outburst of strength.

There were upraised voices behind her. Abruptly now, the tour would end.

The Intern had stumbled outside, and had fallen. But the Intern was breathing normally. The Intern had not fainted. The Intern’s knees had been scarred, years ago. The old scars had not been lacerated. For the Intern wore corduroy trousers, to protect her legs. The Intern lay where she’d fallen on a patch of scrubby ground outside the execution chamber at the farther end of the bleak cinder block facade of Death Row. She was summoning strength, to stand. The Lieutenant called after her in reprimand. The Lieutenant called after her, annoyed. And the Lieutenant was frightened, for a civilian fallen on his tour, a civilian casualty, was not a good thing. This was not a good thing for the Lieutenant, and for the Orion tour. The Lieutenant exited the execution chamber to approach the Intern who was trying to rise now, on her knees. Was her face bleeding? Was her nose dripping blood? The Intern wiped at her face in chagrin, shame. The tour-group visitors were peering at her, some of them. From the doorway of the execution chamber they were peering at her. They were not clear what had happened. What had happened? In the diving bell, the Intern had obediently lain on the table in compliance with the Lieutenant’s command but then, suddenly, she’d jumped down from the table, and escaped. You could see that the Lieutenant was not accustomed to being disobeyed.

The Intern had panicked, and begun to faint. That must have been why she’d stumbled outside. And now the white-haired gentlemanly Investigator pushed past the others, to come to her.

Help her to her feet. She was on her knees shivering with cold.

Belatedly realizing, he’d wanted her to take pictures inside the diving bell! Of course.

Why she’d been outfitted with the Sony watch. Was that why?

Her brain was working fitfully. Her brain had been deprived of oxygen, toxins in her bloodstream and her brain had begun to die.

But that was why he’d given her the watch of course. Why he’d wanted her to accompany him to this terrible place. And she had not thought of it, at all. She had thought of other things but she had not thought of that.