David Dow - The Autobiography of an Execution

I said, I thought we decided not to do anything for O’Neill.

Jerome said, Actually, you decided that. But you said that it was based on nobody’s having time. I couldn’t sleep last night so I had eight hours to write the motion. I didn’t think you’d care what I did on my time.

I told him I would look at it right away.

There’s nothing quite like being the boss.

FOR THE NEXT FEW DAYS, I did not turn on my computer or check my voice mail. I was completely focused on trying to avoid being a terrible dad.

My dreams were not so forgiving. The night before I was going to drive to the prison, I dreamed that Katya, Lincoln, the dog, and I were hiking up at Guardsman Pass. It was late November. A dusting of snow covered the steel-hard ground. Deep in the forest, we drank soup from a thermos and ate saltine crackers and chocolate. When we got back to the truck I asked Katya where Lincoln had run to. She said she thought I had him. Winona was running back and forth, nose to the ground, agitated. There was less than an hour of daylight left. Katya and Winona took off to retrace our steps. Just then Henry Quaker came out of the woods, carrying Lincoln on his back. Winona started to bark, a sound of joy. Lincoln was saying, Hooray for Henry, Hooray for Henry.

Maybe we don’t love our son more than you love yours, but I’m certain we love him more than my clients’ parents loved theirs. Henry might have been an exception.

At dawn on the thirtieth I went for a run with the dog. When I got back I wrote a note for Katya and Lincoln saying I’d be home in time for dinner. I drove off to see Quaker.

ITOLD QUAKER that his mom had called me. He asked whether that was why I was there on the day before New Year’s Eve. I told him about the message from Green. He said, The only time I talk to the guy is to say, What’s up? I didn’t tell him nothing about my case.

I’d driven four hours to see a client who did not need to see me.

I asked Quaker whether he wanted anything to eat. He said, They got beer in those machines? He smiled. He said, You know, I was planning on going to see Dorris on the day the police came to get me.

I had avoided asking Quaker what had happened between him and Dorris, but I felt like I had to. It was like listening to a fairy tale. He had gone to a basketball game with her when he was in ninth grade, and that night when he got home he told his mama that he had met the woman he was going to marry. He said to me, This is corny, man, but the first time I talked to her, I felt like I’d known her forever. I knew we belonged together.

Nicole, the guard, came over. She asked Henry how he was doing. I would have sworn she winked at him. She told me Happy New Year and walked away. I looked at Quaker. He shrugged.

Quaker said, Was it love at first sight for you?

I said, I thought love was only true in fairy tales.

He said, Then for someone else but not for me. I love that song. Did you know that Neil Diamond wrote it for the Monkees?

I hadn’t known that. I said, Seriously?

He said, Yeah. Some famous jazz critic, first time he heard Bill Evans, thought the guy was a lounge player. Can you imagine that? Bill Evans?

I had heard that. I said, There’s a certain kind of talent that you have to learn to appreciate.

He said, The flip side of belonging together the way we did is that Dorris needed me, needed me a lot. She was one of those girls who needed to talk and talk. I didn’t have to say nothing, just so long as I was listening, you know? And she liked to be touched. Holding hands, neck rubs. Didn’t matter what. She wanted me to be close to her.

There was a fly buzzing around inside the cage where he was sitting. It landed on his hand. He didn’t try to kill it, just shooed it away.

He said, She needed intimacy . He stressed the word, like maybe I didn’t know what it meant.

He said, After the fire, I couldn’t give her what she needed. I tried. I really did.

His eyes lost focus, like he was seeing the scene. He continued, One time I had this dream that my hands got cut off, but I didn’t even know it till I sat down at the piano in church and couldn’t play. I looked and they were just stubs. I felt all them people in the pews watching me. That’s what it was like. I was trying, but what I needed was gone.

He did not need any reassurance from me. I don’t even know if he needed me to listen, but I wanted to. He told me about the morning it happened: He was fixing breakfast for Daniel and Charisse. Standing at the stove, wooden spoon in hand, he saw he was no longer what she needed. It was a vision, not a thought, and it did not come gradually, but instead overwhelmed him, suddenly, unexpectedly, and completely. He said, It reminded me of the story in the Bible about Esau, Jacob’s twin brother, how he’s born fully developed. It was like being in a fun house at a carnival. Nothing looked familiar. He wasn’t sure which of the kids asked him to put sausage in the eggs, or whether they wanted butter on their toast.

He said, It was sort of like losing my memory, except I remembered enough to know I was losing it. Isn’t that strange?

When he told her he was missing the parts that made them right for each other, Dorris said she could wait it out, wait until he was back to normal again, however long it took. But the way he was was the way he was going to be. He knew it. He fantasized about driving off into the desert, or swimming out into the ocean, and just surrendering. He said, God has a plan for us all. I was ready for Him to take me so He could take care of my family. I asked him why he hadn’t. He looked at me with what I thought was surprise, but it might have been pity. He said, The kids, man. I had two kids. The Lord will provide bread, but He doesn’t go to ball games or swim meets. Just ’cause I was no good for Dorris didn’t mean Daniel and Charisse would be better off with no dad.

One minute I felt like we were connecting. The next I felt impossible distance. I got up to go to the bathroom. I splashed water on my face and looked in the stainless-steel mirror at the dark circles under my eyes. There was no trash can for my paper towel. I flipped it into the toilet and flushed it away. I felt an overwhelming urge to go home. When I came out an inmate I had not met was wildly waving me over. I picked up the phone. He said, You know me? I shook my head. He said, I’m Greg Whitaker. Come see me, okay? I didn’t kill nobody. I was there, but I didn’t pull the trigger. Can you please come see me? I told him I’d try and I put down the phone. Whitaker? I knew something about the case but I couldn’t think of it. My brain felt thick.

I walked back over to Quaker. He was reading. I said, What did you tell your lawyer about the insurance?

Everything about him felt so sincere, so completely honest. I wanted him to lie to me. I wanted him to give me a reason not to believe a word he said. He said, Oh, the insurance. I wondered when you were gonna ask. That was the agent’s idea. I was just planning on getting insurance for the cars. She told me that it’s a good way to save money. I told Dorris about it. She said to go on ahead. We had two children. We needed to save for college. So I bought it. I kinda thought it was a waste of money, but they just took it out of my paycheck.

He said, Do you have life insurance? I told him I didn’t. He said, See, that’s what I’m saying. Smart dudes like you don’t buy it. Why should I?

We sat silently for a while. Then he said, How come you ain’t asked about the blood? I shrugged. Please, I thought, tell me a fucking lie. He said, If it was really Danny’s, it must have been from one of his nosebleeds. He had ’em all the time.