by Del Howison
“Well, sir, the governor’s office wants—um—wants you to.”
The governor knew that he was running the unit according to regulations. So why would he be sending this legally protected felon here on a harassment mission? “The governor’s office,” he said. “Fine.”
Suddenly a weariness overtook him. As she left he said, “Close my door.” He leaned back in his chair. Last night, very late, he had taken his old telescope out in the backyard. In times past, there had been stars from horizon to horizon. He’d stood there last night in the thick air and seen not one. Not one single star. The weather report had said it was clear and 68 degrees. Well, they hadn’t mentioned the haze, had they? And it hadn’t been any 68 at his house. At four minutes past midnight on February 20, his thermometer had read 82 degrees. Of course, the official records were changed and that was what the weatherman had to go by.
You didn’t want environmentalists with treason in their eyes to make a stink about “record heat” in the foreign press. “Pollution means work,” the president had said, “and American work is the work of God.” Therefore, he did not need to add, pollution is a holy thing.
His phone rang. He looked at it. Jenny cracked the door and gestured wildly.
Hal’s heart was fluttering like a moth when he picked up the phone. Immediately, he heard the vice president’s resonant but warm accent, gentle with the music of the South. “Good morning, Warden,” he said.
“Mr. Vice President, this is an honor for myself and for all of us here at the Russell.”
“It’s truly an honor to be talking to the man who will carry out the first public execution in this country since 1936. Did you know that, Warden Michaels?”
The vice president was known for the depth and accuracy of his historical knowledge. Hal did indeed know, but he remained silent. Not for a mere prison warden to step in the way of something the vice president of the United States cared to say.
“Well, it was in Kentucky. They charged admission. Is the state of Texas charging admission?”
“Yes, sir, a donation of one thousand dollars or more is being required for auditorium admission. And the state is getting eleven million dollars from Fox, of course. That’s been in the press.”
The vice president chuckled. “The London Times claims more like fifty million.”
“Well, sir, I don’t have access to the foreign press, but I do believe that the governor said eleven million was the correct figure.”
There was a silence. “Perhaps so,” the vice president finally said. “Perhaps so. Again, accept my congratulations and my support, and my personal assurances that the EU extradition on you will not be honored.”
Hal waited for the dial tone, but it did not come. “Sir?”
“Ah, Warden. We have a little, uh, pool up here. You know, an office pool?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I just thought you might be aware that the president is in at seventeen minutes. And, uh, if that was a good bet?”
No wonder the White House had requested the medicals on the private run. The man had suffocated for fourteen minutes, and he had a bad heart. “I think, given the condemned man’s age and state of health, that seventeen minutes is a reasonable bet.”
“Because, it would be—you know—if the president won …”
“Yes, sir.” He could see to it that the thing would end after seventeen minutes. The network contract called for fifteen minutes guaranteed, to make certain of adequate commercial time. Anything over that would be considered gravy, anyway.
With that, the vice president hung up. Hal stared at the phone. He was absolutely stunned, and not about the office pool at the White House. The execution was a sensational bet in Las Vegas, in Atlantic City, you name it.
No, the betting had not concerned him, what had concerned him was the way the vice president put it when discussing the indictment. Until this moment, it had seemed distant—fictional, even. The president had declared that the United States would never honor extradition of Christians to stand trial in the courts of secular countries, but the Arab Confederation, a bunch of EU toadies, had threatened an oil cutoff if the demanded extraditions did not take place.
The administration was going to give in, Hal thought. “God help us,” he murmured, “praise thy name.”
At that moment, Jenny rushed in and grabbed his cheeks and shook them. “You were wonderful, you brilliant man! Oh, let’s call Maddie, let’s play it for her!”
“Play it? You recorded it?”
“Darned right I did, and you are saving it for your grandchildren, mister, or both of your wives are gonna whup your cute little bottom!” She giggled. She was ten years Maddie’s senior, but she still seemed so wonderfully girlish.
Seeing as his children with Jenny were grown, it was Hal’s duty to live with Maddie and his younger family. Jenny chose to stay in their old house in Gladewater, where it was quiet. But the two of them still took every other weekend for themselves, and she “Aunt Jennie’d” the new gang of kids with truest mother love.
Holidays, the whole clan got together, both wives, all nine kids, assorted dogs, cats, gerbils, birds, and fish, and he and Jenny and Maddie celebrated a night of conjugal enjoyment together, with each woman taking her turn beside him, separated only by the marriage sheet with its neatly hemmed hole.
When he was a boy, multiple marriage had been banned in the United States, but the Reconstruction Congress had allowed it for those declared righteous by national churches, according to the legally established definition of the term. This definition included a minimum of ten years’ documented church membership and attendance, involvement in Christian charity, tithing according to established standards, a spotless arrest record, active proselytization of the Christian faith, and, of course, ownership of property. In other words, except for the ten-year requirement, the same criteria that had to be met before a church would certify a parishioner to become a voter.
Hal fulfilled all of the requirements, and had been declared among the righteous by old Pastor Williams, God rest his soul, on the day the Separation of the Righteous Act became the law of the land.
And why should it not be? Abraham had two wives and Jacob four, and the Lord spoke of loyalty in marriage and the sanctity of the bond, not of the number of wives. In his humble opinion, the Christianization of marriage in the United States had resulted in a vast increase of human happiness.
It was then, as Jenny was turning to leave the office, that he noticed Henry Clair standing in the doorway. He stood up. “Henry”—he crossed his office—“welcome.” He took Henry’s hand in both of his own and pumped it. “Come on over here,” he said. “Just sit right down.”
Instead, Henry backed away from him. His face, usually so genial, was gleaming with perspiration. His heavy eyes glowered. “Hal,” he said, and then he held out a thick document.
Hal looked down at it, perhaps two hundred pages spiral bound. The cover was blue with a red cross at the top. Beneath it, in black typed letters, “Report for the International Red Cross Committee on State of Texas Prison Russell Unit Number One, Hellman, Texas.”
“I guess we didn’t pass.”
Henry said nothing.
Hal took the report from him. “Should I read this, buddy?”
“I got into the Disciplinary Center,” he said, his voice flat and dull.
The tone was surprising, although it should not have been, of course. Henry and his Red Cross team were an irritant. The government was about to withdraw from the International Red Cross, and none too soon, in Hal’s humble opinion.
“Well, that’s part of the prison,” Hal said. Henry had a right to do just that, acting under treaties signed before the destruction of Washington, treaties that had been confirmed in the years after the bomb, when the country was helpless and in chaos.
“Hal, I saw an organized system of torture.”
“You saw a system that imposes effective discipline on difficult prisoners.”
&
nbsp; “I saw a human finger, Hal, that I was unable to trace. A human finger in a garbage can, wrapped in plastic wrap. Nobody would explain that to me.”
“An accident.” He knew exactly what happened in that program. He’d designed it himself. The control of so many prisoners with so few guards required a copious flow of information. The removal of a finger was an effective inducement.
“Hal, I think if you look at page 121, you’ll see that we were able to disinter the body of a man who died while in your disciplinary area.”
It felt as if the world had shattered around him, shattered like a pretty glass ornament fallen from a Christmas tree. “That’s impossible.”
“The family approved the disinterment.”
“What family?” They were liable to criminal prosecution, no question. There had to be some law.
“They’re now in Canada, Hal, out of your reach forever. You can read the autopsy report. In fact, I’d be very pleased if you could figure out how to explain that the needles the man swallowed were an accident.”
“It must’ve been suicide.”
Now he drew something else out of his briefcase. A black DVD holder. “This was taken in one of your interrogation rooms. It shows a man called William George Samuels being forced to swallow needles, among other things. I have your own approval, signed by you, as an appendix to the report itself.” He paused. “Now, if you’ll just sign for this copy. I need a confirmation that this has been tendered to you as per paragraph 141.2 of the treaty protocol.”
“I refuse to sign.”
“So noted. You taking the wives out after the execution?”
“No, I hadn’t planned—”
“It’s such a great day for you, Hal, I thought you’d be out celebrating.”
“It’s a man’s death.”
“Cause for celebration, considering that he aborted a hundred and sixteen fetuses.”
“Murdered a hundred and sixteen human beings.”
A hardness came into Henry’s eyes. “He carried out these abortions when it was still legal to do so in the United States.”
“The man murdered babies and the law states that it’s retroactive to the first abortion performed in this country post–Roe v. Wade. Henry, hey, I’m just carrying out the law, here. I’m not a bad man.” And he wasn’t, he was a good and holy man, a Christian to the depths of his merciful heart. “It’s a blessing on the guilty that they be punished in this life, that they may be free in the next.”
Without another word, Henry turned and left.
Jenny said over the intercom, “The scouts are in your conference room, baby.”
Hal stayed where he was. His chest hurt. He took deep breaths, one, another, trying to calm down. “Jesus,” he whispered, “help me here. Help me with this, Lord.”
That Red Cross report was supposed to remain confidential, but it would not; the sleazy European government would leak the damned thing far and wide.
He went over to his desk and poured himself a glass of ice water from the engraved silver pitcher his first son had given him. Roy, beloved Roy, dead of radiation poisoning. Did Henry know what that was like? How it felt to see the skin fall off your beautiful twenty-two-year-old boy, to listen to him begging God for death? Did Henry know how it felt to try to comfort the mother of such a son—Jenny out there—who had held Roy in her arms while he died?
The boy had walked all the way from his congressman’s apartment in Alexandra, Virginia, to Atlanta. All the way in the horrible days after, when the smoke from Washington blew all the hell over the place, contaminating everything from Richmond to Boston, dear God, and breaking the United States, breaking the greatest country in the world with a bomb built in Iran, yes, out of Russian parts, for sure, and brought here in an Indonesian oil tanker, black ship up the Potomac, oh God.
And now they were going to burn him in the world press and make him the Butcher of the Russell Unit, you see if they didn’t, in Le Monde and the London Times and the Frankfurter Allegemeine Zeitung—oh, he knew them all—the heathen papers of the heretic countries, the countries that harbored to this day the very same America haters who had blasted Washington to radioactive smoke and memories, and Roy, dear Roy, with his laughing eyes and his curls and how Jenny had cried at the barbershop that first day, and his voice on the phone every evening, “Hi, Dad, guess what happened today?”
O America, you of the dead sons and daughters and the lost road, the freedom road we had to step off just for a few years as the president said, God love his strength and his humanity, just a few years off the freedom road while we recover, and we make this the Christian nation that the pilgrims intended from day one, and then when we are Christian and pure and good in heart and deed, we will be free again before God and man, free again.
He got up, threw back the rest of the water, told his heart to either stop hurting or stop beating, and went in to see the scouts.
His big table that was normally surrounded by the business types who kept the massive factory that was the Russell Unit humming was surrounded on this morning by a spit-and-polish troop of Texas Ranger Scouts in their handsome black uniforms and gold sashes. They were fresh of face, their eyes pure and full of boyish excitement, their cheeks glowing. How beautiful they were, good Christian children, each with his cross and his Lone Star on his starched collar.
“Well, boys, I hope you have good seats for the program today.”
Their captain rose. “Sir, we’re in the front row.”
“In front of all the cameras—that’s good. Don’t you boys turn around, now, or your face is gonna be plastered all over some foreign news program.”
“Yes, sir, Colonel Watts told us. Sir, why is the foreign press allowed in our country?”
“I think you boys might be able to answer that yourselves. What would happen if we kicked them out?”
“We’d be free to make America Christian faster.”
“So true. But they would also kick our reporters out of their countries. So we would no longer get news from the heretic world. And if that happened, something might sneak up on us, something we wouldn’t like.”
He continued his give-and-take with the boys as long as he could. Five minutes. The execution was scheduled for noon, and he wanted it to start on the dot. He sent them out to the auditorium with Fred Watts, and told Jenny to let the death house know that he was in motion.
“The prisoner is in prep,” she called after him. “They had to give him Zofran—he was puking all over the place.”
“Figures.” The man was one of three dozen condemned abortion doctors on the unit. He was fifty-two and a real coward. Not a Christian, had had to have spiritual advice enforced.
The man had killed one hundred and sixteen human beings and you would think he was some kind of saint or martyr for all the howling that was going on abroad. The U.S. press was uniform in its praise of the action, and of the decision to go back to the Bible and execute these people in a way that fit the horror of the crime.
What would be just about a man who had murdered a whole damn nursery full of babies getting put to sleep like a beloved old hound? That was not right, which was obvious, which anybody who thought for one single second about it had to see.
And yet here he was indicted and he couldn’t even show his kids the darned churches of Spain without risking jail. What in God’s good name was just about that?
He knew that he had that press conference, but he was running late and he could not allow that to get in the way. The U.S. reporters all had his printed Q&A; they’d use that. The foreigners could stuff that Red Cross report down each other’s throats.
The death house was stifling. He went along the Row, past the silent cells. There was no talking allowed on death row, so the men inside did not make a sound. They’d learned the rules, some of them the hard way.
When this was built, each cell had been intended to confine a single prisoner. There were six to a cell now, and death row had only post-appeals prisoners, pe
ople who were certain to die. The rest of the condemned, those still on appeal, were held in the general population, which was a bomb waiting to explode, which he had told the governor time and again.
He turned the corner into the ready room, and there was good old Sol Goldberg, Jesus love him, sitting there in his orange prison-issue underpants, shackled and gagged, listening to the Reverend T. Holden Stanley read from the Book of Job.
“The gag is new.”
“Reciting illegal prayers,” Dr. Karen Unger said. “Jew stuff.”
“You look real pretty, Karen,” he told her. She did, too, all made up with a new hairdo and all.
“The TV people did it,” she said, her voice bubbling. “They say we’re gonna have a worldwide audience of more than two billion, Hal; can you imagine that?”
He tried to chuckle. The reverend finished and closed his book. “You hear that, Sol? Karen says you’ve got a kind of a biggish audience.”
Sol stared at him in silence.
He and Karen went down the short corridor together to the stage. In the center was a steel chair with leather manacles. Lights went up, cameras turned on. Hal waved a hand, and the shadows again descended. It wasn’t time for that.
“Sir, what about the press conference?”
“Varden? Ve haf kestion!”
“Then learn to speak English. Karen, this looks just fine. Real fine.” He lowered his voice. “Duke let me in on a little secret. The president’s at seventeen minutes in the White House pool.”
She smiled softly. “I think you better be at seventeen minutes, too, then, Hal.”
“You can control it that well? An absolute flatline at exactly seventeen minutes?”
“You bet, fella.”
Back in prep, the prisoner was being given an enema.
“Is that gonna be enough? We don’t want him letting go out there.”
She indicated a thick black plug in a silver dish. “That’ll keep him dry, no matter how much peristalsis we get.”
“Three minutes, sir,” a guard said. Hal winked at the scouts, who were scuffling and laughing, typical boys. He hoped they’d be properly respectful of the state when the execution was in progress.
