The Ballad of Frankie Silver

Tennessee?”

“I want everything.”

LeDonne nodded at Martha. “You’ll have time for breakfast, too,” he said.

The officer-in-charge stacked the cardboard boxes on the bunk in Fate Harkryder’s cell. “We might as well get this taken care of now, Lafayette,” he said, but his tone was apologetic. “They’re moving you out of Two in an hour or so. To the quiet cell. I thought you might like some help.”

Fate nodded. “Thanks.” He noticed that Berry had said, “We’re moving you to the quiet cell,” instead of “We’re putting you on death watch.” A small point, perhaps, since it amounted to the same thing, but Fate’s existence had long been built upon small pleasures and petty annoyances in the great nothingness of prison time. Little things mattered. Berry wasn’t too bad for a guard. He was just doing his job. Maybe he understood things better than the lawyers did. You didn’t have to explain poverty to someone who worked as a prison guard.

Fate looked around, measuring his possessions, the accumulation of his entire adult life. They would fit easily into the four cardboard boxes. Now he must decide what to do with them. He began to take things off the shelf. Four bottles of Prell shampoo, a carton of cigarettes, a stack of unused yellow legal pads… He thought how people on the outside would shake their heads at such a pitiful excuse for wealth. “Give those things to Milton,” he said, scooping the cigarettes and toilet articles into the smallest box. “God knows he needs it. Especially the shampoo.”

It was a feeble joke, but Berry smiled anyhow.

“What happens now?”

Berry shrugged. “You’re going to get some peace and quiet,” he said. “But the accommodations are a little sparse.”

“Compared to what?”

“The quiet cell has bars, like a jail. It has a bed, a sink, a toilet, and a writing table. That’s it. You’ll be allowed fifteen minutes a day outside the cell to shower; otherwise, that’s where you stay.”

“No exercise?”

“Not anymore. You’ll have someone to talk to, though. There’ll be two guards stationed outside the cell at all times. And you can have visitors.”

“Good. I want Milton to come over and play cards with me.”

“Sorry. No contact with other inmates. You can see your lawyers, your minister, a counselor, or members of your family. Family can go to the regular visitors’ lounge. Noncontact visitation.”

“Has anybody asked to see me?”

Berry turned away and began to take the posters and photographs off the wall. “Not that I know of,” he said. “Of course, that stuff goes through the front office. They might not have told me yet.”

“Sure.”

“I hear that a bunch of reporters want to interview you, though. Big shots from national TV, even.”

“I’ll pass.” He set the last of his possessions into a cardboard box. “Okay. That’s it. Do we move this to the new cell?”

Berry shook his head. “Most of it, no. You can take a couple of the legal pads with you,” he said. “And a Bible if you’ve got one.”

“What do I do with the rest of this stuff?” Fate pointed to the collection of letters, the documents concerning his case, a couple of books, and the signed photograph from one of the film stars who was sympathetic to his cause.

The guard shrugged. “Give them away, I guess. Your family? Your lawyers, maybe? If it was me, I think I’d give my belongings to someone that would want a keepsake to remember me by.”

Fate nodded. “That makes sense.” He began to place the objects into the remaining boxes.

“Well? What shall we do with these things?”

“Throw them away.”

Burgess Gaither

EXECUTION

My day had come at last. Of all the days that I have lived on this earth-fewer than seven thousand of them, Miss Mary Erwin says, for I once asked her to do the sum for me-of all those days, there were only three that were altogether mine. I do not count the day that I was born, for that was mainly my mother’s time, and anyhow I remember nothing of it, so I cannot say if I was petted and made much of, or not. Perhaps they wished for another boy, and were disappointed when I arrived instead.

The first day that I can count as my very own was the day I married Charlie Silver. I suppose I should say that the day was half his, for Preacher said that being man and wife, we were to share our lives and all our worldly goods, but I don’t think Charlie wanted much to do with that day. He blushed and stammered, and tried to pretend he didn’t care a bit about all the foolishness of the celebration. A man is always a little shamefaced on his wedding day, like a fox caught in a baited trap, ensnared because his greed overcame his better judgment. The menfolk laughed at Charlie that spring day, and said he was caught for sure now. As the bride, I was praised and fussed over, as if I had won a prize or done something marvelous that no one ever did before, and I could not help feeling pleased and clever that I had managed to turn myself from an ordinary girl into a shining bride. Now I think it is a dirty lie. The man is the one who is winning the game that day, though they always pretend they are not, and the poor girl bride is led into a trap of hard work and harsh words, the ripping of childbirth and the drubbing of her man’s fists. It is the end of being young, but no one tells her so. Instead they make over her, and tell her how lucky she is. I wonder do slaves get dressed up in finery on the day they are sold.

The second day that was mine was when my baby Nancy came into the world, though that was one day Charlie claimed for his’n loud enough, as if I had nothing to do with it, laying there blood-soaked and spent on the straw pallet, while he strutted and crowed about how he was a daddy now. The way I saw it, she was five minutes his, and nine months mine, but I kept my peace on that, because in my joy I didn’t care at all that day who got the praise and the glad-handing. I had Nancy, and she was beautiful, and she was all mine, for I knew that after Charlie had done boasting about his firstborn, she’d see little enough of him. I wearied of her sometimes after that, when she wouldn’t leave off crying, or when she spit up on a dress I had scrubbed clean on a creek rock ’til my fingers bled, but for all the little bit of trouble she ever was, I long to hold her one last time, and I count the day that she came into the world as my greatest gift and glory.

The third of my days is now.

This day, the twelfth of July in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and thirty-three, is well and truly all mine, and I share it with no one. It is my last. In some ways it will be like my wedding day, for I will wear white and put flowers in my hair. A solemn old man will escort me through the staring strangers, and a preacher will read words out of a book. Sarah Presnell has told me all of this about how it will be. She will not speak about what comes after, and it makes her cry when I press her for more, so I do not ask about it any longer. But I think about it. I wonder which is worse-the death, not knowing what comes after, or the wedding, when you think you know, but you’re wrong. Perhaps dying is most like childbirth: a terrible, rivening pain, and then a great joy that makes you forget all that came before.

It is Friday, an apt day for a public execution killing the innocent, as Miss Mary has remarked more than once. So far no one has rebuked her for the blasphemy of comparing the death of our Lord to the legally mandated execution of a convicted murderess. I think we are all a bit ashamed about what will take place, for we think that the sentence is unjust, and we know that Miss Mary speaks rashly because she feels powerless to stop it. There will be a good many harsh words said of what we do here before it is over.

I find it ironic that of all the wagonloads of people who have come to town from