Warren Murphy: Death Sentence

"I heard it's painless," Remo said hollowly.

"You heard shit, man," Popcorn said vehemently. "Five dudes have gone since I come here. The Man say it don't hurt, but how do they know? They ain't sat there themselves. Ain't no one who sat on of Sparky ever came back to say, 'Shit, man, it's a cakewalk. Best way to go.' You know what they do, Jim?"

"Yeah," Remo said, surprised that his earlier craving for a cigarette hadn't returned. "I know."

"They strap you in so tight that if they rammed a red-hot poker up your ass, you couldn't even squirm. They hook you up forehead, leg, and jones. Put a veil over your face to deny a last look at the world. It be cold, man. Cold. Then they zap you. If you be lucky, you cook fast. I hear of suckers who had to drink Florida juice twice before the eyes turn white. The electricity, you know, it cooks the eyeballs white. You die like a blind man. There's nothing lower, not even a dog dies so cruel. Oh, Jesus. Why me?"

"Jesus? What happened to Allah?" Remo blurted out.

"That was for the brothers' benefit. I die Tuesday. Jesus is my savior now. Only I don't think he can save me now. "

Remo shuddered. Neither of them said another word for the rest of the night. After lights-out, the row fell silent, as if out of respect for the condemned man whose cell would be empty in a few days.

That night, Remo dreamed again.

In the dream, they came for him in the middle of the night. A monk came first. He had only one hand and offered his crucifix for Remo to kiss. Remo sank to his knees and obliged.

Then they walked him down the line. Remo was surprised, even in sleep, that the corridor was of cold gay stone. It wasn't Florida. It was Trenton. They strapped him in so tight he could barely breathe. Instead of a veil, they put a leather hood over his head. It was as heavy as a medieval torture device. Then they clamped the copper helmet over his head and screwed the electrode until it touched his sweaty temple. He already felt the coldness of the electrode at his leg, where it was affixed through the split in his trouser leg. He knew that coldness would snap suddenly into a red-hot bite when the switch was pulled by the executioner.

Even though there were no eye holes in the leather, Remo could see the executioner-a short nondescript man with a solemn face. He could see him reach for the switch. The switch came down and Remo's brain exploded into a white burst of light. His body jerked against the straps and in his mouth was an acrid taste as he bit down on something-something that he had been careful to keep under his tongue....

He couldn't remember what it was.

Remo snapped awake in the middle of the night. He could hear Popcorn's irregular breathing. Once the rhythms of his exhalations stopped, and resumed only after he let out a gusty sigh. Remo decided to leave him alone with his thoughts.

He had his own thoughts to think. The dream had seemed so real, just like the one of the previous night. But it was equally preposterous. Remo thought it was interesting that in the dream he had been executed at Trenton State. But then he remembered that at Trenton he used to dream of being in his Newark walk-up. And before that, when he was a free man, his dreams always took him back to the orphanage where he was raised, Saint Theresa's.

It struck Remo that his dreams were always behind the times. And he wondered forlornly if he would ever see a time when he would dream of being in Florida State Prison, and where he would be when that happened.

Eventually he drifted off. This time, he did not dream....

Chapter 6

Remo awoke before the morning buzzer. Groggily he rolled out of his cot. To his surprise, in the next cell, Popcorn was belting out an old fifties doo-wop song, "Desiree," performing the lead vocals, harmony, and "wah-wah" accompaniment not quite simultaneously, but close enough to be music.

"You okay?" Remo asked during the final fading "Oooo Oooo. "

"Sure," Popcorn sang. "I got it all figured out now."

"Yeah?"

"The state taketh and the state giveth away," Popcorn said archly, and burst out laughing.

"Glad you're taking it so well," Remo grunted, joining in the macabre mood.

"Sure, I ain't gonna die cooking on Sparky's frypan."

"No?"

"Crusher's gonna get me first, Jim. Told you I got it all figured out. He done threatened to kill me if you don't go down on him. So come yard time, you let him break my neck. You show him you ain't afraid of nothing. Maybe he let you be."

"You'll still be dead," Remo pointed out.

Popcorn snorted explosively. "A day early and a dollar short," he admitted. "But at least my death will count for something. It don't mean shit if I die sitting with state ghouls gettin' off the smoke pourin' out my shoes, mouth, and armpits."

"Thanks," Remo said tonelessly, wondering if he meant it.

"Don't thank me. Thank my grinnin' corpse," Popcorn shot back. "Maybe I'll take ol' Crusher with me and do everyone a favor. A man with nothing to lose can do most everything. 'Cept live."

"I heard that," Remo said tightly.

Breakfast was runny eggs and fat strips with the shadow of bacon meat on them. The bacon was cold by the time it reached Remo, and the smell of it nearly turned his stomach-as if it were cooked human flesh. There was a pint carton of orange juice and Remo tried that. It seared his tongue to taste and burned his throat going down. But it stayed down. He ignored everything else.

Today was shower day and Remo lay on his bunk waiting for the guards. He was getting tired of staring at the flat ceiling so he sat up and transferred his attention to the pink cinder-block walls.

"Hey, Popcorn," he called.

"Yo."

"What color are your walls?"

"Same as yours. Pink as quiff. "

"I hate pink."

"A hack once told me they painted every cell on the row pink to keep us poor Dead Men down. Scientist dudes think pink keeps our aggressions pacified. Makes pussies of us."

"You've been here awhile. Does it work?"

"Well," Popcorn said sadly after a lengthy pause, "I can't tell you the last time I got it up and kept it there."

Remo laughed out loud. When Popcorn didn't join in, Remo realized the little con had taken offense and was sulking. Remo decided to let him get over the mood on his own.

When the guards came, Remo knew at once that they had not come to escort him to the shower room.

Although he had no watch, and no window in his cell, he sensed it was too early for his shower. Only after they let him from his cell and walked him down the longest death row in the country did it dawn on him that no one else was going to a shower either.

"What's this, Adopt-a-Con week?" Remo asked, looking neither right nor left at the flanking C.O. s. "Your lawyer's here," one growled.

Remo's eyebrows lifted in surprise, but he said nothing.

As they approached the inmate-choked prison crossroads, the other guard called out, "Clear the hall! Dead Man walking! Clear the hall!"

Instantly, denim-clad population inmates returned to their cells or gave way like human traffic before a fire engine. Remo felt like a leper. It had not been like this up in Jersey, but then, no one on the Trenton State death row expected to be executed.

After they had passed, the human sea surged back into place. Remo felt countless eyes on him. He saw no sign of Crusher McGurk.

Near the warden's office, protected by bars of specialty steel, was a suite of conference rooms and outside of it a bright yellow cage. Not a cell. It was like an animal's cage.

Remo was placed in this. He took a seat on a hardwood bench and waited. The hours passed before a guard came and opened the cage. It was the squat one who had tried to strip-search Remo the day before. Pepone. He gave Remo a wolfish grin.