Doing Time (46 page)

The whistles shrieked on, on into the night, but their shrillness was gone now, replaced by a tremulous wail that scaled down with the diminishing velocity of the steam. A film of moisture covered him as the steam settled on the wail, already dissipating,

He got off the wall and started climbing again. A knot, another, and another. The great pain, never gone but somewhat abated, returned instantly and fired him anew. But he climbed on. Now he saw the top, but he could hardly grasp the last knot as the angle of the rope and the wall was acute. He worked his hand behind the rope, burning his skin, and pulled himself up so that his eyes were level with the top. With a great final effort he threw his hand, arm, and elbow up and on the surfaced top and pulled himself onto it.

He lay on the wall, the pain pummeling his body, trying to breathe. The top of the wall was wet and slick with the rapidly condensing steam. A new wave of pain fired in his chest, and death edged closer. The cloud had become a thin mist. He had to get down before it vanished. Now. But he couldn't move; he had to rest.

Looking off, he saw the river. His river. At night it held a special appeal for him. It lay quiet and still, hushed in its banks, sliding slowly and silkenly, a lover's hand, sliding yet, ever gently, ever southward, winding down and down, tracing softly in its childish scrawl the way to the warmth of its design: its delta. The moon emerged and caught the river; out, out in its deepest channel, it quicksilvered and shuddered, and from high on the wall, the old man watched with an appreciative eye.

But the river was dying too. Once, running free and wild with a deep and fierce independence, it had had an autonomy that had not escaped his notice, but now, dammed and sluiced, polluted and spoiled, under the indifferent care of the Army Corps of Engineers, subjected daily to the flagrant abuse of industry and the apathy of a disinterested public, it was dying. In the hazy collage of his memory he saw the sickly bullhead and its oily iridescence. He dismissed the image, but the boy's face surfaced. He had left no mark on the kid. When the old man died, everything about him would die too. He had nothing to leave the boy who had rejected the legacy of the stories, and so, with a strange and comforting simplicity, known only to the very young and very old, he willed the boy his river and thought of him no more.

The mist had all but evaporated, but he remained lying on the wall, exhausted. He felt he could take one deep breath, and with its expiration, he could let his life escape from him. But he had known too many Jerry Daytons and Roy Bollingers, too many gangsters and colorful characters to go out like that — it was no way to end a story. What had once run deep in the river still ran deep in him.

He got up quickly. Pulling the rope up, he unhooked it, removed the grappling hook from one side of the slate top, and rehooked it on the Up of the other side. He dropped the rope down the opposite side of the wall and climbed down with a long forgotten sprightliness. When he got close to the ground, which was higher on this side, he dropped to his feet, almost falling. There was no gtass on this side, only cinders, and they crunched and shifted familiarly beneath his feet.

Suddenly, in the nearest tower to him, the door flew open, banging against the guardrail that ran around its platform; instantly, all along the line of the wall, all the tower doors flew open, and before he could step from the shallow shadow of the wall, the spotlights had him — an ancient moth, caught in the cones of light. Just above him, to his right, from the near tower, a shotgun shell jacked into its chamber with a terrifying, metallic finality. The sound of the bolts going home to their chambers was repeated all along the line.

“Halt!” the guard in the tower above him yelled. The old man kept on walking. “Hallttt!!!” the tower guard screamed.

Unafraid, the man kept walking. The cones of light made a garish escort. He knew they wouldn't shoot. Not now.
Not going in this direction.
Reaching the harsh daytime glare of the inner prison yard, the cones left him as though he was no longer of interest. The inmates who worked nights in the powerhouse, alerted by the jacking shells, came outside and watched, stupefied. The old man continued to walk toward his old cellblock, wondering vaguely what old friends he might see, what stories he might tell, and selecting one of his favorites, he dusted it off a bit and added a twist here and there. A barge sounded on the river. The even hum of its engines told him it was going downstream.

1978, Iowa State Penitentiary
Fort Madison, Iowa

Capital punishment has been at the center of controversy during the final decades of the century. In 1972, the United States Supreme Court struck down the death penalty laws on grounds that they were being applied in an “arbitrary and capricious” manner
{Furman v. Georgia),
violating the U.S. Constitution, The Court passed to the states the responsibility of drafting legislation that either abolished the penalty or reinstated it in a less discriminatory way. More than six hundred people had their lives spared. Thirty-eight states now have capital punishment. The exercise of the penalty continues to discriminate against the poor and people of color. It is our nation's highest-stakes lottery.

There are now more than thirty-five hundred people on death row, and nearly five hundred executions have taken place since the reinstatement of capital punishment in 1973, with a record-breaking seventy-four in 1997. Nevertheless, the abolitionist movement continues to grow. The case of Mumia Abu-Jamal and his writings have drawn many to it. Co-founder of Philadelphia's Black Panther Party and a popular radio journalist very critical of police brutality, he was convicted of murder and in 1982 sentenced to death. (Since Pennsylvania reintroduced the death penalty in 1978, Philadelphia authorities have sentenced to death more than eight times as many blacks as whites.) Then Sister Helen Prejean's account of her experiences as spiritual adviser to the condemned,
Dead Man Walking;
the movie based on her book; and her devoted activism helped to spur the formation of abolition committees across the country. Polls consistently show that support for the death penalty plunges in direct proportion to information about possible alternatives. Meanwhile, the restoration of death rows affects all prisoners, as Judith Clark's poem, closing this volume, shows.

Though from a certain vantage we all sit on death row, some of us know this better than others. The condemned struggle for physical, mental, emotional, and moral survival — and sometimes growth — like other convicts. But, like saints and existential philosophers, they also face the rigorous spiritual test of making annihilation their familiar while remaining human.

With executions multiplying across the land, prisoners awaiting release see the condemned as their doubles in extremis. Prompted by the restoration of the penalty to New York State, Kathy Boudin, in “For Mumia: I Wonder,” seeks counsel from one more versed in resisting despair. What do you do with fear, how do you plant hope, she asks, and “how you grow your life / in a row they call death.” Those who sit or have sat on the row offer a range of answers.

With remorse so deep and comprehensive it becomes visionary, Stephen Wayne Anderson's dreamlike meditation seems to say. Remorse for his crimes deepens with recall of early sorrow and expands with grief for the executed who have gone before him.

With a questioning sprit, Jackie Ruzas answers, in a haunting meditation written during his trial for a capital crime. The question he puts to the friendly priest drives him away. As Ruzas's whole life fills his empty cell, he poses riddles to himself and the condemning world that few would dare to raise themselves.

With bravado and gallows humor, Jarvis Masters would reply from San Quentin. The split consciousness of time and reality that prevails on death row gives form to his witty poem in which instructions on making prison hooch strictly alternate with the judge's intonation of his own grisly recipe for the poet's execution. Absorbing this ultimate prison toast, one wonders for whom the second cup of pruno is intended — the judge? the reader?

Death row writers are sometimes blessed with a capacity to see human experience whole, to break down imaginative barriers separating their readers from themselves, to engage us despite ourselves. Anthony Ross's story opens with the electrifying image of the condemned protagonist Walker in a coffin surrounded by mourners in dinner dress. As the centerpiece of a public feast, he reminds readers of our complicity in human sacrifice. Walker takes our imaginations hostage, enlisting each of us as his double, and craftily defers his own ultimate challenge to us when he writes: “Imagine seeing the end … your end — every day, until you die.” Before being executed, Walker refuses the invitation to say any last words. But as the acidic gas seems to ignite his lungs, consuming his last chance to speak, he thinks, “Yeah, I do have something to say.”

If, when we catch our breath, we wonder what it was that Walker had to say, we have only to consult ourselves. Ours, after all, is the last word.

I wonder what you do with fear

do you give it space to float

between the shadows of the bars that crisscross lines

of mousegray cinder blocks

In the mustard yellow lights does it change

into moving shapes of ghosts in pale green masks

I imagine

that you let fear flow

like tears

to wash away the salt it brings.

I wonder how you plant your hope

do you walk in fields of dreams

or find it in the magic of a spider's web

in the ceiling corner of your cell,

in the constancy of seasons,

in the tenderness

that somehow

survives.

I wonder how you grow your life

in a row they call death

Is it true

not enough hours in the day exist

to write all the articles in your mind

that sleep takes you away

from finding legal points to save the

lives of others on your tier

that life is full

when you are full of life.

I wonder what your lessons are

for those of us who now await

New York's first execution.

1995, Bedford Hills Correctional Facility
Bedford Hills, New York

The door,
I can see its molding if I scrunch in the
left corner of my cell
and peer through the bars to my right.
Each morning I awake
one day closer to death.

The prison priest, a sometime visitor,
his manner warm, asks
“How are you today? Anything I can do for you, son?”
“Is it just that I'm so easy to kill, Father?”
His face a blank, he walks away.

Play my life back on this death cell wall,
I wish to see my first wrong step.
To those who want to take my life,
show me where I first started to lose it.

1975, Madison County Jail
Wampsville, New York

Take ten peeled oranges,
Jarvis Masters, it is the judgment and sentence of this court,
one 8 oz. bowl of fruit cocktail,
that the charged information was true,
squeeze the fruit into a small plastic bag,
and the jury having previously, on said date,
and put the juice along with the mash inside,

found that the penalty shall be death,
add 16 oz. of water and seal the bag tightly.
and this Court having, on August 20,1991,
Place the bag into your sink,
denied your motion for a new trial,
and heat it with hot running water for 15 minutes.
it is the order of this Court that you suffer death,
Wrap towels around the bag to keep it warm for fermentation.
said penalty to be inflicted within the walls of San Quentin,
Stash the bag in your cell undisturbed for 48 hours.
at which place you shall be put to death,
When the time has elapsed,
in the manner prescribed by law,
add 40 to 60 cubes of white sugar,
the date later to be fixed by the Court in warrant of execution.
six teaspoons of ketchup,
You are remanded to the custody of the warden of San
  Quentin,
then heat again for 30 minutes,
to be held by him pending final
secure the bag as done before,
determination of your appeal.
then stash the bag undisturbed again for 72 hours.
It is so ordered.
Reheat daily for 15 minutes.
In witness whereof,
After 72 hours,
I have hereon set my hand as Judge of this Superior Court,
with a spoon, skim off the mash,
and I have caused the seal of this Court to be affixed thereto.
pour the remaining portion into two 18 oz. cups.
May God have mercy on your soul.

1992, California State Prison-San Quentin
San Quentin, California

“These are the graves of the executed ones,”
he announced with a somber, indifferent
kind of respect…
and yet later, in quiet reflection,
I understood his tone came up out of
that secret reservoir of the soul which knows
“I, too, could end up as forgotten dust;
I, too, might die for nothing.”

Often now I think back upon my journey
through that phantom land: a land caught
like evening haze at dusk, soon to perish
into the gathering darkness of night
but, for one brief moment, beyond time.

I recall its mute, mouthless people,
inhabitants of a dark land whose hopeless,
dying eyes gazed dully at my passage
from their skullish heads. They saw me
only as a traveler who wanted nothing
and took nothing from them. They knew only
that they were not harmed.

I remember the aura which lay like heavy
blankets over that tortured land, an aura
of scarred spirits vanquished by the
horrible vendetta of an angry god.

I remember the excited buzz of feasting flies
as they drank still-warm blood, ate the still-quivering
flesh, and lustfully gorged themselves
on all the disappointments man can devise.