William Bernhardt - Death Row

In the death chamber, the phone rang.

The bell made Andrew jump a bit. He knew that would be the governor’s office, calling to give them the go-ahead. A moment later, the warden, a large man with a short haircut and wire-frame glasses, put the receiver down and said quietly, “It’s time.”

Goldman’s rabbi said some kind of prayer over him. Didn’t sound like last rites, and he didn’t hear any Hail Marys. Andrew didn’t know anything about Judaism, but he knew what he’d be praying for if he were the one strapped to the table. Please God-get me out of here. And if You can’t get me out of here, at least give me the strength to get through it without humiliating myself.

On a signal from the warden, the two members of the chemical team-that was the user-friendly name they gave the actual executioners-would each push one of the two buttons on the machine’s control panel. Only one worked, and they didn’t know which. That way, they didn’t know for sure who had pressed the button that put the man to death. One of the buttons would cause stainless-steel plungers in the delivery module to be lowered into the chemical containers, which would force the poisons through the tubes and into Ray Goldman’s vein-first, sodium pentothal, then pancuronium bromide, then potassium chloride-to put him to sleep, then stop his breathing, then stop his heart. A medical doctor and nurse stood in attendance with an EKG, but other than giving notice when the heart had stopped beating, they had little to do. There wasn’t much the doctor could do, since the AMA didn’t allow doctors to participate in executions. The nurse would find a vein for the IV. And that was important. Lethal injection was supposed to be a quick, humane method of execution, but Andrew was all too aware of the Texas case in which it took the executioners forty excruciating minutes to locate a viable vein on a condemned heroin abuser.

Ray Goldman didn’t struggle, thank God. In the course of four executions, Andrew had seen about everything. One of the men actually told jokes before he was killed. One of them did finger exercises. What the hell he thought he was getting in shape for, Andrew couldn’t imagine. All of them sweated, and all of them cried, eventually. Who wouldn’t? How could they help it?

“Carrie? Are you out there? Are you there, honey?”

No one answered him, and with the tears clouding his eyes, he was having a hard time seeing anything. Was she here? Sure, she hadn’t written in a while, hadn’t come to visit for years, but he understood that. It was hard, waiting, hoping, when time after time their appeals failed and their prayers were squashed. But she was here with him now, even though he couldn’t see her, right? She was, he was sure of it. She had to be.

“I don’t want to die like this,” Ray said, to no one in particular. “I don’t want to die like a dog, strapped to a table. I don’t want to die alone.”

None of the guards would look at him. Even the rabbi didn’t make eye contact.

“It isn’t right!” Ray shouted. “I don’t care what you call it. Killing people isn’t right!” He twisted as much as he could, which wasn’t much. He strained against the straps that bound him to the table. He realized now why they had pinned him down early.

He was helpless to stop this. But oddly enough, Ray felt a calm blanket him. It was over now. There was nothing he could do. Nothing anyone could do. And for once, that was okay. It was time for it to be over. Relief was on its way.

When Andrew took his position behind Ray Goldman’s head, the man looked up at him, right into his eyes and said, “Thank you.” Andrew just about lost it. Just about lost it once and for all.

The nurse approached the table and slid the EKG pads under the neck of Goldman’s shirt. She flipped a switch on the machine, and they could all hear the steady beep of Goldman’s heartbeat. For now. She instructed Goldman to make a fist, swabbed the inside of his elbow with a cotton ball, and in a mercifully short period of time, managed to slip an IV needle into a vein. With two strips of surgical tape, she fixed the needle into place. For the moment, Goldman received a simple saline solution. But that wouldn’t last long.

The preliminaries were complete. The warden removed the death warrant from his pocket and began to read. “Raymond Daniel Goldman, you have been found guilty of eight counts of murder in the first degree by the State of Oklahoma and have been sentenced to death by lethal injection.” He paused, folded up the warrant. “Do you have anything you wish to say?”

The tranquillity that had embraced Goldman melted away. He began to wail. His voice was frenzied and desperate. “I did not kill all those people. I did not mutilate them. I couldn’t!”

Andrew felt his hands trembling. Whether the man was lying or telling the truth, it was horrible. The tension in the room was all but unbearable.

“I love you, Carrie!” Goldman screamed. “I know you’re out there! I love you!”

The warden removed his glasses, which was the signal to the executioners to let the chemicals flow. The chemical team looked at each other, then stepped closer to the machine and laid their hands on the buttons.

Goldman closed his eyes. The rabbi began muttering something in Hebrew.

“I didn’t do it,” Goldman said, gasping for air in great heaving gulps, his chest rocking. “I didn’t. Tell them, Carrie. Tell them I didn’t do it.”

Andrew looked away.

And then the phone rang. The ring was jarring, strange. Everyone froze. The warden seemed confused for a moment, then he raced to the phone. “Stop!” he ordered. “Don’t do anything.”

“What’s happening?” Goldman cried, his face wet with tears. “What’s going on?”

The warden was on the phone for more than five minutes, most of that time just grunting or saying “I understand.” Before the call ended, a clerk raced into the room waving an extra-long piece of paper.

The warden studied the document for a moment, then cleared his throat. “Mr. Goldman?”

Goldman was shaking so hard he could barely speak. “Yes, sir?”

“Mr. Goldman, it seems you have received a temporary reprieve. Thirty days, courtesy of the federal courts.” He turned to his staff. “Gentlemen, you may stand down. Please unstrap Mr. Goldman and return him to his cell.”

As soon as he was off the table, Goldman fell to his knees. “Thank you!” he cried out, his eyes closed, hands clasped. “Thank you!” His rabbi knelt beside him, and together they said another prayer.

Andrew felt a wave of relief so intense he could barely stand. He placed a hand against the wall to steady himself. When he finally felt he could walk reliably, he inched toward the warden.

“A reprieve from the federal courts, sir?” Andrew said. “How in the world did Goldman manage that?”

“He didn’t.” The warden was still staring at the paper, in particular scrutinizing a signature at the bottom of the page. “Do any of you boys know an attorney named Benjamin J. Kincaid?”

Ben tapped the side of his head, just to make sure the old noggin was working properly. “You ate your shorts?”

“Right.”

“Like… literally?”

“That’s what I’m tellin’ you.”

“I mean, I’ve heard people use the expression. Eat my shorts. But I’ve never met anyone who actually did.”

The young man on the other side of the acrylic barrier sighed. Clarence Brown was a long-legged white kid, almost seven feet tall, and Ben knew from the referral file that he was barely twenty years old. “Look, the cop pulled me over for no reason at all.”

Ben glanced at the file. “His report says you were driving erratically.”