David Dow - The Autobiography of an Execution

I did know that, but Green did not wait for me to answer. He kept on: They should let us work, listen to the radio, something, you know what I’m sayin’? His right eyelid pulsed like a cricket was trying to get out. He rubbed his hand across his shaved head. He smiled. His two front teeth were gold. He said, When I do this to my hair the guards know not to mess with me. No ’fro for them to grab ahold of. I’m ready to rumble, man. You know what I’m saying? I been keeping it like this for almost a year. They gas me when they take me to the shower, but it don’t bother me none. I can hold my breath for twenty minutes. I wait till it’s all gone.

I looked at my watch again. He said, You gotta be somewhere?

I told him that I had to get back to my office to get something filed. He asked, Who for? I shook my head and didn’t answer. He said, Don’t matter. It’s good you came to see me. We need to be dialoguing. We can learn from each other. You got the book smarts. I know what’s going down in here. I tell you, and we can take it on. You can come see me on a regular basis, all right?

He said, Can you get me something to eat?

Death row has several vending machines, filled with junk food and soda. People visiting inmates can buy them food by putting change into the machines, pushing the buttons, and letting the guard remove the items and pass them to the inmate. Visitors cannot bring paper money into the prison. The prison has a lot of rules. I told Green I didn’t have any change.

Green had murdered two people. He said God had told him to do it. His lawyer asked the jury to rule that Green was insane. The jury said he wasn’t, and the jury was right. Green knew the difference between right and wrong. He was not insane. He was just crazy.

I said, Can we talk about the letter? What do you know that can help me?

He said, Hold on, bro. You got to do something for me first. You got to earn my trust. Then he was off and talking again. He was talking about filing a civil-rights suit against the prison so he could get different medication and satellite radio. He said the only stations they could get were Christian talk shows. He said they were discriminating against the Muslims. He said they punished people arbitrarily. He said the guards let some inmates use cell phones in exchange for sex or bribes. A lot of what he was saying was probably true, but what he wanted was somewhat outside my expertise and way outside my interest. I looked at his face and pretended to listen. All I heard was blah blah blah blah blah. I heard him say, You hear what I’m sayin’, bro?, and I felt myself nod. I was staring at the tattoos on his face, trying to figure out how to change the E into an S , seeing if I could find a way to make the G into an A . He must have asked me a question I didn’t answer. He stood up and banged the phone against the window. He screamed, Are you listening to me? I stared at him. He banged the phone again and said, I don’t even have to be talking to you, motherfucker, do I?

I said, No you don’t, just like I don’t have to be talking to you.

He said, Then get the hell out of here, motherfucker.

I have a confession to make. I had a pocket full of quarters. I do not like all my clients, and I did not like Green. He made the same mistake that death-penalty supporters routinely make. He assumed that because I represent guys like him, I must like guys like him. He assumed that because I am against the death penalty and don’t think he should be executed, that I forgive him for what he did. Well, it isn’t my place to forgive people like Green, and if it were, I probably wouldn’t. I’m a judgmental and not-very-forgiving guy. You can ask my wife. I would have left midway through his tirade, except I wanted to know what he knew. It appeared he wasn’t going to tell me, so I didn’t have any more reason to stay. I stood up. I said, Have a nice life, asshole.

ON SEPTEMBER 1, the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, Katya and I got married at the Doubletree Hotel near the Houston Galleria. Three months earlier, we sat with the executive chef in his kitchen, sampling wines and tasting tuna, halibut, and loin of lamb. While we were deciding on our celebratory meal, the Quaker family was dying on the other side of town.

Dorris Quaker worked the third shift at Ben Taub General Hospital. That night, she made fried chicken and biscuits for her two children, twelve-year-old Daniel and Charisse, who was eight. Their next-door neighbor, Sandra Blue, sat at the table drinking sweet tea while the Quakers ate. Sandra said that she left at nine, when Dorris started getting the kids ready for bed. A few minutes later, Dorris called Sandra and told her she was going to take a short nap and leave for the hospital in an hour. She’d get home at seven thirty the next morning, just as the kids were waking up. Daniel knew to call Sandra if he needed anything, and Sandra knew to call Dorris. This had been their routine since Dorris and Henry had separated three months before.

At eight the next morning, Sandra went outside to pick up the newspaper. Dorris’s car was in the driveway. The house was quiet. Sandra thought that the kids were watching TV and that Dorris was asleep. It was Labor Day. There wasn’t any school. At eleven, she noticed the quiet again. No one answered when she knocked. The door was unlocked.

As soon as she saw Dorris lying on the sofa she dialed 911, then she walked into the back bedroom and found the children. When police arrived, Sandra was sitting on the floor in the children’s bedroom, hugging her knees to her chest. A detective took her statement and sent her home.

ON THE DRIVE back to Houston from the prison after seeing Green, my cell phone rang. It was Jeremy Winston’s wife, Marie. Her voice was as thin as he was fat. She was calling to thank me for trying to help her husband. That was it, no other agenda. I’ve noticed that if you do the tiniest little thing for someone who has never received even the slightest kindness, you get rewarded with ridiculously effusive gratitude.

Katya handed me a glass of bourbon when I walked in the door. Happy anniversary, she said.

Shouldn’t we be drinking champagne?

Yes, but taste that. It’s a present.

I drank a swallow. Wow, I said. What did you pay for this?

Is it good?

Yes, I said. Amazing.

Then it was a steal. Come on, Lincoln’s already in bed, waiting for his story. I told him we were going to dinner and that Nana was staying with him.

Lincoln was in bed reading Amelia Bedelia. His nanny, Maria, has been with us since Lincoln was six weeks old. He calls her Nana. He said, Hi, Dada. Do you know what a pun is?

I said, Yes, amigo. I love puns.

He said, Me too. Puns are fun, get it? He said, Tell me a real-life story, okay?

I said, Okay. When I was a little boy, just about your age, I read an Amelia Bedelia book. In the book I read, she cooked an egg on top of a car. I asked my dada whether you could really cook an egg on a car, and he said that you might be able to do it if it was hot enough outside. So the next Saturday, after my dada got home from playing tennis, I went outside, and while he was swimming I cracked an egg on the hood of his car.

What happened? Lincoln asked.

I said, It was a big mess. The egg got hard and stuck to the car. I had to clean it off, and my dada made me clean the whole car.

Even the inside?

Yep, even the inside. I didn’t ever do that again.

Lincoln said, That’s a funny story.