The Autobiography of an Execution

I said, Which one of you gave her my cell phone number? Gary stuffed half a cake donut into his mouth. Kassie stared at me. I looked at Gary and said, Was it you?

He swallowed and said, Are you kidding?

I said, Well, she got it from somebody.

Jerome said, That’s pretty weird.

I said, I think she might actually be bothered by the case.

Kassie said, Right.

I reached for a glazed donut and took a bite, and I felt happy. It was three days before Christmas. We had an execution date in six weeks and a hearing in five, not a lot of time. I said, Tick tock, folks.

QUAKER’S ONLY LIVING blood relative was his mother, Evelina. Quaker was the younger of two boys. His older brother Herbert died of a heroin overdose when Quaker was eight. Quaker found Herbert lying on the floor of the bedroom they shared, a tourniquet around his biceps, a needle hanging out of his arm. He dialed the operator and said his brother was asleep and wouldn’t wake up. EMT workers found him next to the body, saying, Open your eyes, Herbie. Please open your eyes.

Evelina had heard the news that we were going to have a hearing. She called me. She said, I apologize for bothering you, sir. I know you are a busy man. I told her that she wasn’t bothering me. She said, I need to do what I can to help Henry. My manager said he can give me the week off so I can come to Houston. Is that what I should do, sir? She lives in Temple, a four-hour-drive away, and works as a cashier at a grocery store. I told her she didn’t need to do anything and there was no reason for her to come to Houston. I tried to explain that the hearing was going to involve technical legal issues. I promised I would call her every day to let her know how things were going. She said, You do believe that Henry is innocent, don’t you, sir?

I decided to stop at the pool on the way home and go for a swim. I had an hour before Lincoln’s last t-ball practice of the year. It was four o’clock. The pool was empty. I tried to count my laps, but I kept losing track. I couldn’t stop the number 4 from appearing in my brain. They were scrolling across my retina on a film reel that counts down from ten until the movie begins, but every frame had the number 4, and it didn’t stop. 4, 4, 4, 4, 4. It was in black-and-white. The color part of my brain had malfunctioned. I wondered what it would be like to see the world without color, like a dog. I realized I knew already from old TV. Perry Mason was black-and-white. So was Leave It to Beaver. Wally and the Beav. If the older brother is a delinquent, does the younger brother have a chance? Then another 4 appeared, and I lost the thread of my thought. I looked at my watch and decided to swim for twenty minutes. I proposed to Katya on February 4. She and I walked with Winona over to the park where we had had our second date, a picnic lunch. I unhooked Winona from her leash and she stood next to me, leaning against my legs, wanting to be even closer, not understanding the physical limits on proximity. Katya and I sat on a bench and I opened a bottle of champagne I had in my backpack. I told her she was the most amazing person I had ever met and would she marry me. Saying that meant more than her answer. To me, the moment was more magical even than the day we got married, because it was just us. Had I forgotten all that when we settled on the same date for Quaker’s execution, or did I have some unwarranted faith that we’d survive that day?

I looked at my watch. I’d been swimming more than half an hour. I pulled myself out of the pool. My heart was racing like a newborn’s. Wasn’t it Rousseau who loved mankind and hated man? That’s me. I do not want my clients to be executed, and I can’t stand them. Why can’t I help somebody who didn’t kill someone?

Before I left my office that afternoon I decided we would do nothing to try to stave off the execution of Ronnie O’Neill. He’ll be the first person executed after the new year—on January 12, if all goes according to the state’s plan. We can’t help everyone, and we’re focused on Quaker.

All decisions to do nothing are hard. This one was especially so. O’Neill is mad. Murderers are often sociopaths, but most of them are not crazy. Not so with O’Neill. He heard voices telling him to kill his ex-wife. He’d been sent to a mental hospital fourteen times. When the cops came to arrest him after the murder, they knew his name. O’Neill shouted to them through the window that he would be right out and surrender himself. They waited. O’Neill took a shower, dressed himself in a suit and tie, walked out the front door, and lay facedown in the grass until the police came over and cuffed him. At the trial, the judge let O’Neill fire his lawyers and represent himself. The judge knew one thing: You don’t lose any votes greasing the rails for murderers. O’Neill wore a purple cowboy outfit to court, complete with boots, chaps, and spurs. His Mexican sombrero hung from a string that circled his neck like a choker. He had a toy pistol in a holster on his hip. He issued subpoenas to Pope John Paul II, Anne Bancroft, and John F. Kennedy, Jr. He rambled like a lunatic while the judge dozed at his bench. The jury spent less than fifteen minutes deliberating before sentencing him to death. The judge appointed a new lawyer to handle the appeal. Then he let O’Neill fire that lawyer, too. O’Neill filed no appeal. He wrote a letter to the judge asking for a speedy execution date, and the judge obliged. I went to see him on death row to ask whether he wanted to reinstate his appeal. O’Neill leaned close to the window and whispered into the phone, No worries, sir. Their chemicals can’t kill me. They will make me invisible and I will walk out of here. I will put you on my witness list if you would like so you can see the miracle for yourself. Jesus has arranged it all. I’ll be preaching the good gospel by the coming dawn. I asked him again whether he wanted me to do something. He said, Don’t you dare. Then he said, And forgive me for saying this, sir, but if you try, I will be forced to strike you mute. Heed my admonition, sir. I implore you. I thanked him for coming out to see me. He held a finger to his lips and winked at me.

Jerome is the office conscience. He asked what we were going to do for O’Neill. He was holding half a fresh baguette, the only food he would eat all day. I noticed how thin his arms are.

So that I wouldn’t have to look him in the eye, I looked at the wall chart that shows the workloads of the lawyers in my office. No one has time to try to save O’Neill’s life. I said, Nothing. We’re not going to do anything. We don’t have any more capacity, and besides, O’Neill doesn’t want our help.

He opened his eyes wide and stared at me for a moment. He looked like he was rehearsing what to say. Then he turned and walked out without saying a word.

LINCOLN WAS WAITING in the driveway for me as I pulled up to the house. I changed clothes and we got on the tandem bike and rode to practice. The professional coaches were trying to teach the kids to field grounders. Lincoln was playing second base. The coach hit him a soft ground ball, and it rolled between his legs into right field. The shortstop, Alexander, came over to Lincoln and pushed him in his chest. Lincoln said, Hey, why’d you do that? On the way home, after practice, Lincoln said, Alexander is mean. He pushed me for no reason. I told Lincoln that some kids are like that. He asked me why. I said I wasn’t sure.

Here’s a bet I’d be willing to wager: Alexander is going to be a bully. He’s going to spend time in detention. He’ll get in some fights. But he’s a middle-class kid with middle-class parents living in a brick house in a nice neighborhood where people walk their dogs and kids ride their bikes in the middle of the street. He’ll never murder anyone. I’d bet my life.

We stopped at the grocery store on the way home. Lincoln wanted a slice of pizza. I asked the butcher for an organic chicken, which I planned to roast with olive oil, lemon, and lots of garlic. Lincoln said, Please don’t buy a chicken, Dada. When he was four, Lincoln loved chicken nuggets. One day he asked where they came from. I told him. He asked, Do they have to kill the chicken? When I told him that they did, he said, Then I’m not going to eat them anymore. It’s not nice to kill little chickens. He hadn’t eaten meat or fowl since. He has a Hindu friend at school. At a restaurant last week, when the waitress asked him whether he wanted a grilled cheese or a cheeseburger, he said, I have to have a grill cheese. Vijay and I are vegetarians. And I would also like some lemonade, please. And carrot cake for dessert.

When Katya was pregnant and the obstetrician told us we were going to have a boy, I knew I would love my son. Parenthood is just one cliche after another. What I didn’t know was that I would admire him.

I said, Amigo, I sure do admire you. But I like meat.

He said, Well, you shouldn’t. The animals didn’t do anything mean to you, did they?

That night, after Lincoln went to sleep, I told Katya about my conversation with Evelina. She drank some wine and said, You can’t save everyone, you know. She peeled the wishbone out from the piece of chicken she was eating. Here, she said, break this with Lincoln in the morning.

The next day, before he went to school, Lincoln and I broke the wishbone. Again he got the bigger piece. He said, Do you want to know what I wished?