them? If they had half a brain, they'd know. It's all there…in the case file. Maybe if you knew, you could write something that didn't suck. I read your book, William, and I hope you can take a little constructive criticism: it's shit.'
'Why those characteristics, Orson? Male, white, middle-aged, overweight?'
'What's your theory,' he asked. 'I know you've got one. Hell, everybody does.'
'I don't think there's any significance. You just killed those sort of men to make people wonder. White, middle-aged, overweight men are in abundance. In fact, I don't think you had a reason for killing period. You're so fucked-up you didn't need a reason.' I stopped for a moment. Orson was hanging on every word. 'You just liked the control.'
A grin slid across Orson's face. 'You're wrong. Just like those other assholes. But I do like control, William.' His eyes were on fire again. 'You can't imagine what it feels like to talk to someone while you're sliding a blade across their throat.' He slid his finger slowly across his as he spoke. 'You can smell the fear dripping from them. I especially like it when they beg for their life. Grown men weeping, shaking, trembling. The last one I killed shit all over himself, and do you know why? He knew who I was. I made him say my name. Ginsu Tony. Over and over as I slid the knife across his throat. Told him exactly why he was a victim. I told him the answer! Why I killed men like him!' Orson was in hysterics. 'So actually, there are 38 people who know why I kill, but they're all dead. You can't tell me that's not funny.' His laughter was foreign and eerie, and I stared at him in disgust.
'You people just don't have a sense of humor.' He said
'You're proud of yourself aren't you?' I asked.
Orson couldn't help but smile.
'I'm going now.'
'Wait.' Orson said.
'See you at 10:30.'
'William,' he began sternly, but I cut him off.
'You think you'll shit your pants when the electricity comes?' The color left Orson's face as I put the phone down. He stared with an instinctive, emotionless gaze, but I turned away and knocked on the door.
At 10:20, twelve authorized media witnesses and twelve official witnesses including myself were escorted to the witness room. When we were seated, a black curtain was spread, and we peered into the claustrophobic confines of the execution chamber.
Everything looked exactly as the escort staff members had described it. Orson was already strapped into the electric chair. He wore a blue, dress shirt, trousers, and white socks. He smiled when he caught my eyes, and my heart began to pound and my stomach grew sick. There were five men in the room with Orson, and they were all waiting. One man held a phone, one guard stood by a closed door, a physician stood closest to the chair, and the executioner and superintendent stood rigidly beside the control panel. Every face save Orson's was grave, but a sneer tugged at his cruel, thin lips.
The three-legged chair was constructed of massive oak timbers. It rested on rubber matting and was bolted to the concrete floor. Straps ran across my brother's lap, chest, arms, and forearms, and a leg piece was attached to his shaven right calf. It held a sponge soaked in a saline solution between his skin and an electrode. Orson also wore a metal headpiece. Another dripping sponge rested on his scalp, separating another electrode from his skin so it would not catch fire when the electricity came. Electrically-conducive gel was smeared about the crown of my brother's head, and it shone in the hard light of the execution chamber.
The man with the phone looked at the superintendent and shook his head. The superintendent approached Orson, and his footsteps echoed through the speakers in the witness room. He glanced at us through the glass with a solemnity that put knots in my stomach, and then he turned to my brother. He said his full name, Anthony Orson Thomas, the way they always say it, and preceded to read the death warrant. When he had finished he said, 'Mr. Thomas, you can make a statement now if you wish.'
Orson could not move his head, but his eyes passed over the witnesses. They came back to me, and he smiled as he stared into my eyes. 'William,' he said, in a voice that was almost nostalgic. 'When you embrace it, you'll find escape, but not until. The longer you wait, the stronger it grows, and when it finally does take control, there'll be nothing you can do to stop it.' A touch of sadness entered his voice. 'We could've done something amazing, brother.'
His eyes moved to the other witnesses. 'Any families of the victims here?' The women beside me tensed and muttered under her breath, and a man sitting near the glass stood up.
'You killed my brother you son of a bitch. I came here to watch you die.'
'I remember your brother,' Orson said. 'He cried like a baby while I slit his throat. He begged me…' The speakers in the witness room went dead, and the escort told the man by the glass to sit down.
'Are they gonna do it now?' A woman asked. Our escort nodded.
The executioner slid a leather hood over Orson's face and returned to the control panel. I remembered everything the escort staff had told us as I watched the executioner close the safety switch and engage the circuit breaker. He put his finger on the execution switch and looked at the superintendent. I held my breath. When the superintendent nodded his head, I turned away. I stared at my watch and counted through the three cycles: 2,300 volts for eight seconds, 1,000 volts for twenty-two seconds, 2,300 volts again for eight seconds. The gasps and uninhibited utterances of the other witnesses made me nauseous, and I was thankful that the airtight glass kept the sweet scent of charred flesh from my nose.
When the current was stopped, I lifted my head. The execution chamber looked no different except for a thin layer of smoke that encompassed the room. The five men were staring at Orson's body, and with the mask and the headpiece supporting his head, it looked only motionless, not dead. After a moment, the physician examined Orson's body for vital signs. He shook his head when he had finished and signed the death certificate. The man holding the phone notified the Governor that the execution had been carried out, and we were led from the witness room.
I'm sitting on my bed in the Big Horn Motel. It's 12:15, and moonlight is streaming into the room, illuminating these pages. I've just cracked the seal on a fifth of Jack Daniels, and I'm going to get as shit-faced tonight as I've been in a long, long time.
There is a memory that has been haunting me for the last hour. We're eight years old, it's summertime, and Orson and I are playing in the woods under a warm, Michigan sky. Like many young boys, we're fascinated with animals, and Orson catches a lizard that's scampering across a rotten log.
We're thrilled with the find, and I tell Orson to hold the lizard down. With a smile on his face, he does, and I extract a magnifying glass from my pocket. The sun is bright, and in no time, there is a small, blinding dot on the lizard's slimy skin. The light burns through, and Orson and I look at each other and laugh, enthralled as the lizard squirms to get away.
'It's my turn!' He shouts. 'You hold him.'
We spend the entire afternoon torturing the poor creature. When we're finished I throw it into the grass, but Orson insists on taking it with him. 'I own it now,' he says. 'It's mine.'
I can see the skyline of mountains rising above the trees as plainly as if it were day. The ice fields and patches of snow in the high country glisten in the yellow light, and I'm thinking that I may stay in this country for quite some time. There's something about the openness here that draws me. The East is claustrophobic, so dense with trees that you often miss the sky. But here, the sky is unavoidable. From horizon to horizon it extends. It's bigger than anything, and if you need to, you can lose yourself in it.
DESERT PLACES ALTERNATE ENDING
I've let it slip in a number of interviews that there were major alternate endings to both Desert Places and Locked Doors, and over the years, I've gotten quite a bit of email from fans wanting to read these original
