David Dow - The Autobiography of an Execution

I paced in the hall while Shirley made me a copy of the order. I have been reading these boilerplate warrants for close to twenty years, but they still take my breath away. I called Jerome, who had left the office and was on the way to the prison to see Henry. Jerome would deliver the news in person. I don’t like for my clients to learn from a letter or even by phone that a date has been chosen for their deaths. I realize that it’s absurd. What difference does it make how you’re told when you’re going to die? None, probably. But we all have our little idiosyncrasies.

I got in my truck to drive to my office at the law school. You don’t see many homeless people in Houston. They’re there, of course, but unlike New York or San Francisco, where you have to hurdle them on the sidewalks, you can pretend like they aren’t here, because they aren’t in my neighborhood. But I see them when I’m at the courthouse. So I keep a stack of twenty or thirty one-dollar bills in my truck. The experts say that they’re just going to buy booze. For all I know the experts are right, but I’ve never figured out why that means I shouldn’t hand out the money. If I’d been alive five hundred years ago, and been a Catholic, of course, I’d have been one of the sinners buying indulgences.

There’s one homeless guy, Stan, who lives with his three dogs and a grocery cart under the freeway where I turn left. How can you turn a blind eye to a man who shares the food he scavenges from Dumpsters with his dogs? He has a squeegee in his cart. I usually give him a dollar not to clean my windshield and Milk-Bones for the dogs. The first time I gave him money he asked me my name. I told him my friends call me Doc. He said, Cool, then I’ll call you Doc. Some days I give him cans of tuna, or crackers and cheese. He says, This is nice, but I’d prefer some beer. Last Christmas I gave him a six-pack of Shiner. He said, Whoa. The good stuff. Thanks, Doc.

I saw Stan on the day the judge signed Quaker’s death warrant. He said, Hey Doc, you’ve looked better. I nodded and gave him the whole stack of ones.

HENRY QUAKER’S STORY was treacly sweet. He and Dorris had been sweethearts at Yates High School. He carried her books to school, literally, and held her hand in the halls. They got married a week after they graduated, in 1983. Their son Daniel was born seven months later. Henry felt like he had to do something dramatic. He had a son on the way. He intended to support his wife and child, but he had been only a mediocre student. Although he loved to read, he had no skills and no prospects. So he enlisted in the army. It would be a living, and he figured he would get the job skills he needed to take care of his family. Dorris went to pharmacy school while they lived on the base, learning how to mix IVs. Henry learned heavy-machine maintenance and read a lot of books. They were a charming cliché. Charisse was born four years later. Henry served his time, became a reservist, and started welding in Houston. The pay was twice what he made as a soldier. He said he was deliriously happy. He would drink a beer after work with his buddies, but he was home in time to bathe the kids and put them to bed. On Saturday nights, he and Dorris paid a neighborhood kid to babysit, and they would go out to dinner and to the movies.

Then, in 1989, Henry was working at a chemical plant in Pasadena. Leaking gas ignited an explosion that measured over 3.0 on the Richter scale. You could feel the ground shake for miles. Henry escaped with barely a scratch, but his two best friends burned to death in a massive fire that took half a day to contain. Henry heard them screaming, first for help, then in agony. Their bodies were literally consumed by the flames.

A week later he was back on the job. Between the day he returned and the day his family was killed, Henry did not miss even a single day of work. But he stopped reading books and stopped going out for a beer after his shift. His coworkers described him as sullen and withdrawn. They said he did his work like he was hypnotized. No one could remember the last time Henry laughed or even smiled.

When police arrived at the Quaker house following the 911 call, Sandra Blue told them that Dorris and Henry had been separated for a few months. She said she didn’t know him very well. He was quiet. When Sandra would see him in the mornings before he moved out, he was always polite, waved, said good morning, asked her how she was doing. He still spent a lot of time with the kids, shooting baskets, playing catch, going for ice cream. Even after they split, Henry came over to the house twice a week to pick up the kids. He adored them. Sandra had never seen or heard him yell at either of them, and she’d never seen or heard Henry and Dorris fighting.

She said there was no chance that Dorris was seeing someone else. Henry was the love of her life.

Police found Henry at a construction site in the medical center. He was sitting astraddle a beam eleven stories up, welding. He was a suspect because the spouse is always a suspect. When police told him why they were there, he started to shriek.

He made more than $30,000 a year. He had good health insurance. When it looked like they were headed for divorce, he told Dorris that they should stay married until she found someone else just so she and the kids could still be covered under his insurance, which was much better than the coverage Dorris had. The police asked Henry whether they could look inside his truck. He said that sure they could. A detective saw what he thought was blood. He read Henry his rights. A day later, the DNA lab reported that the blood was Daniel’s.

AFTER WE CHOSE the date for Quaker’s death I left the courthouse and drove to my office at the law school. I asked my assistant to send an e-mail to my students saying I was canceling class. I closed my door and sat down to play poker. I entered a $2 tournament online. It took four and a half hours. I won $37. I poured myself a small Knob Creek and drove home.

Katya was in the kitchen making pasta for Lincoln, who was sitting at the table reading. He said, Hi, Dada. Katya looked at me and said, What’s wrong?

I tried to make myself smile, but I couldn’t. Lincoln said, Dada, did you give away all your money again?

When Lincoln was two I realized he was smarter than me. I said, Quaker’s date is February fourth. Katya wrapped her arms around my shoulders.

Lincoln came over and circled his arms around my waist. Looks like it’s time for a group hug, he said. I touched his hair, then his earlobe. He said, Mama, is the pasta ready yet? I’m hungry.

HENRY TOLD HIS TRIAL LAWYER, Jack Gatling, that he thought Dorris might have started seeing someone about six months before she was killed. He wasn’t sure. He didn’t know any more because he didn’t ask. He didn’t ask because he didn’t want to know. He didn’t want to know because whatever she was doing was his fault.

His lawyer asked him whether he was having an affair. Henry looked at him like he had a mouse hanging out of his mouth. He shook his head. Henry told Gatling that the only woman he had ever loved or slept with was Dorris. Gatling wrote the word lovesick on his legal pad. He doodled a broken heart. I had these pieces of paper in my file. When I showed them to Henry, he smiled. Henry told Gatling that Dorris first brought up the possibility of divorce two years before they separated. He answered, Whatever you want, baby. Dorris said, I want you to be the way you were. He said, I want that, too. I just don’t know how. But he said that he would try. He told his lawyer, I might not have acted like it, but I loved my family. I could never have hurt them. Gatling put a question mark after lovesick .