by Brian Hodge
My lawyer turned out to be a lying bitch. I shouldn’t have been surprised by her treachery; she sort of caught me off guard. I thought maybe an ugly chick might be more reasonable, but no. I should have made them get me a male lawyer I could trust. That bitch told me if I had that surgery, and went to the doctors, and didn’t do anything stupid at the hospital, they’d let me go.
I took those stupid pink pills for months and months after the operation. They made me tired all the time; plus, I couldn’t even get a hard-on in the shower. I was doped up and stupid and barely able to get around. Next thing I knew, they pronounced me “sane” and said I had to have a trial. If I were crazy then, how could I be sane now? I felt worse on those pills than I ever did without them.
That wasn’t the worst of it. That bitch lawyer came to see me before the trial, all dressed up. She said she hadn’t wanted to bring up the subject with me until there was something to worry about. When I asked her what the fuck she was talking about, she frowned and sat down right next to me. I thought she might try to kiss me or something, but luckily she didn’t.
“Do you remember where exactly you took your last victim?” I couldn’t figure out why she’d ask me that. We’d gone there with the cops.
“Of course,” I said.
“Well, in the most technical sense, you took her over the state line. She was in the state of Indiana when she died.”
“So … what?” I was getting scared. This didn’t sound very good.
“Well, they’re going to try to extradite you to Indiana for a trial, for both the victims at the rest stop. They’re going to try to get—to get the death penalty.” I felt like she wasn’t even talking to me. Not me. How could this be happening to me? I’d already been through so much … losing Dami and the girls, then Elise dying and Chandra hating me. I’d lost my oldest, dearest friend to murder and now the people of Indiana wanted to kill me. They didn’t even know me!
My lawyer didn’t do anything to help me. She babbled a bunch of stuff and then stood there, silent, when the judge said trying to put me to death was “how justice would be best served,” I could have burst out crying right then and there. Everyone hated me so much, and there was nothing I could do about it.
They made me come here so I could be held legally accountable for what happened to those girls. Whatever did happen to them, they pushed me to it. It’s not as if I went out looking for them. They enticed me. Even Mama said so. Plus, the doctors said I wasn’t responsible due to that brain tumor they took out, so how come I was responsible now? It was all so unfair.
The trial went on forever and a day. On TV, trials are exciting and dramatic. In real life they’re so boring you want to fall asleep. Hour after hour of pointless, stupid questions that didn’t really prove anything. Doctors talking all about my brain and showing X-rays with big, dark spots drawn in for effect. That bitch lawyer didn’t even mention the Red.
After Fran got done bad-mouthing me, another girl got on the stand. I’d seen her before; I was sure of it. She had such a sweet face. Slowly, it came to me. I remembered that she liked pot and ice cream and Led Zeppelin. How did they find out about her? I’d been so careful. I didn’t do anything bad to her, and here she was telling anyone who’d listen that I was some kind of monster. I let her go! I drove her to the freeway and had her get out of the car. She just stood there crying, and I drove away and left her there. Alive! How could that possibly make me look like a bad guy? This whole thing was fucked up.
They believed everything that Casey girl said. She was so fresh and pretty and young, even after all this time. She sat there in the witness box in a virginal pink dress, wearing a gold cross around her tiny little bird neck. I could have squeezed the life right out of that neck, but then I’d be every bit as bad as they were saying. She told them I made her smoke pot, that I put my hands all over her and tried to have sex with her when she was asleep. I didn’t make her do anything, not really. And what did it matter if I touched her while she was asleep? It was just a trick to get sympathy. I swear, women will complain about anything.
I couldn’t stay mad at her, though. She was so beautiful. I wanted to hold her close to me, just like before. I wanted to take her someplace nice, hang out with her and have some cheeseburgers. We could talk and drink and screw, just generally have a good time. But these girls, they always had to ruin it. Nothing was ever good enough for them. And now, they wouldn’t be happy until I was dead. None of them would. They were the real monsters.
Every day I sat there in court, where people looked at me like I had the Devil inside. Every night they sent me back to the jail, where everyone yelled stuff at me as I walked by. Filthy, mean things. I knew they’d hurt me if they could. One of the guards told me they wanted to make sure I lived long enough for the state to fry me. He actually said that. That lawyer didn’t do a damn thing about it. Ugly and useless, she was.
When they were finally done asking questions and making speeches, the jury went off to decide what was going to happen to me. Twelve people I’d never met before got to sit in a room and eat sandwiches and look at pictures and decide whether or not I got to live. It was inhumane. Unholy. Only God should have the right to decide if a person lives or dies. Someone dying on accident, that was one thing. But planning out a murder and doing it in front of a crowd, on purpose? That was just wrong. How could anyone defend a planned murder in what’s supposed to be a civilized society?
We waited to hear the verdict. My lawyer said it could take days for them to decide because it had to be unanimous. I couldn’t imagine all twelve of them would decide that I should have to die. How could they? People are basically good. My blood would be on their hands—nobody wants that, right?
I was wrong. Just four hours went by before the jury came back with a decision. We all went back into the courtroom, cameras and stuff all over the place. Everybody was totally quiet. I wanted to throw up; I could barely stand. But I did stand. I stood there like a man when they read out my fate, in front of God and Mama, the cameras and everyone.
“Guilty.” It was the only word I heard, the only one that mattered. It was over. I was dead. Not today, but soon. Mama jumped up and screamed insults at the jury, using language so foul I thought for a second it wasn’t really her. My ugly lawyer started in with her babbling about appeals and whatever. I wasn’t really listening to her. I could only think about what they were gonna do to me. I felt so ascared. Firing squad? Electric chair? I didn’t know, but it was going to be just horrible.
Chapter Sixty-Five
(Mama)
A Mother’s Heart
No one could know a mother’s suffering in a situation like this. I don’t suppose there are many on God’s earth who could have endured the tests I’d received from our Lord. My only son was being taken away from me—and by the very people whose job it was to keep society safe. My little Pooter was always such a good boy. At least I took the time to prepare him for—maybe not this—but any kind of test our Lord could place in his path. Pooter knew from a very young age that life wasn’t fair and that he shouldn’t ever expect it to be.
I had to rework my mortgage loan with the bank, to get enough money to pay that legal firm. I didn’t know how I was ever going to pay them back. They sent us over a plain, stocky woman who seemed like she was all business. Didn’t see a cross ‘round her neck, so I had no idea whether or not I could trust her. Pastor Simms said we didn’t really need to trust her. We just needed to prove my little Pooter innocent.
“We don’t really prove people innocent.” She talked to me the way you’d talk to the town drunk, slow and loud. Put a little education in someone like that, and they think they know every last thing about everyone. I was payin’ her good money to help my boy. The last thing I needed was an overeducated legal hack treating me like I was some kinda backwoods hillbilly trash.
“I know that,” I told her. “I’m not stupid, you know.” Her eyebrows raised up for a second, mocking me. “If they find my boy
guilty, they’re gonna kill him. You said so. All I care about is bringin’ my little Pooter back home.”
“Mrs. Goretti,” she sighed again. I wanted to slap that smart-alec look right off her face. “That’s not going to happen. Your son was convicted of multiple homicides. We’re doing everything we can, but at this point there isn’t much left we can do.” I didn’t believe it. How could anyone really believe my Pooter would do such evil things? They’d framed him. The police and those foreign girls … they hated him. And this lame excuse for a lawyer was telling me she couldn’t even stop an injustice as blatant and obvious as this one? It was as if the whole world had gone insane.
I knew God was testing me. I was like Job. Satan would never get to me. I’d survive these horrible accusations against us. I would triumph over the evil incarnate that plagued us both. Our Lord and Savior would never let such a terrible fate befall us.
The smart-alec lawyer brought over a bunch of papers and books I couldn’t find any time to read. Who had time to read about laws and protests when your only son was due to be murdered? Besides, all that legal whatsis and loopholes were for guilty men trying to get away with their crimes. My boy didn’t deserve this and everybody knew it. Those girls enticed him; I’ve said it again and again. Little Pooter was a simple boy who couldn’t resist their wiles. That was his sin to bear. You couldn’t put every sinner to death. There’d be nobody left on the earth.
A mama’s job is to teach her children how to be good Christians and how to reject Satan in all his forms. I did that the best I could until meddlers got involved. I knew it was trouble. I should have kept Pooter home and safe with me. I didn’t normally abide meddlers. This time, though, the Devil must have got a hold of me. I took the path of least resistance just that one time. I’d always regretted it. Turns out, I was right all along. Few years back, that prissy Boy Scout master of his was in the paper. Got caught having sex with a young boy. You see that a lot with these bookworm types. Sick, unnatural urges. They use all that readin’ and brains to subvert God’s laws. I admit I failed my Pooter in that one, small way. I never should have let him near that godless pervert. We could just be thankful that heathen never did anything unnatural to my boy. He surely would have told his mama if anything untoward had happened. Our Lord was steady in watching over my little Pooter back then.
That lawyer woman told me she’d worked on “several viable appeals.” I didn’t really know what all that meant, but eventually she convinced me that she was doing her best. Instead of going to service three times a week like I’d always done, I started going every morning. I lit a candle for my son and prayed to Jesus to spare him. I didn’t ask our Lord for much; it seemed like He could grant me this one request.
I wrote a letter to the governor. She wrote back saying she didn’t have anything to do with my boy’s execution. It was illegal to murder people here in Michigan, even for the government. Those hicks in Indiana and Ohio … government lynch mobs was all they were. My boy wasn’t some Negro drinking water at the wrong fountain.
A week or so after I heard back from our lady governor, I turned on the news and saw her giving a pardon in a crime “connected to the Bus Token Murders.” It was strange. My brother Stanley used to give Michael bus tokens when he was little. Weird coincidence, I guess. The TV showed the governor coming out of the court building where my boy had almost been shot to death. She stood at a podium and said that, as governor, she didn’t see the point of victimizing an innocent person any further. She said all charges would be dropped. The crowd around her cheered.
I was so relieved I almost passed out from joy. I fell onto my knees and thanked Jesus for his kindness and mercy. Writing to the governor had saved my boy! I waited for them to show Pooter’s picture. But they pointed the cameras to—I couldn’t believe it. That girl, the one who’d shot at my only son? Shanda or whatever her name was. One of those heathen children born to that foreigner. Right there on the TV she said how happy she was that justice was being served. Justice? She got a pardon? Full clemency, they called it. She was going free for an attempted murder and my little boy was going to die. It was such a grave injustice.
Satan almost got a hold of me then. I stayed in bed all day, drank red wine well into the night. People from church who had started out so helpful and nice stopped coming around completely. Even Pastor Simms found reasons he was too busy to visit me. An old woman all alone in the world, and no one willing or able to help. I was lost without my Pooter.
I didn’t know how much time had passed when I got the certified letter from the State of Indiana. They had set a date to execute my boy and wanted to notify me, so I could be there while they put needles into him and ran poison through his body. On the twenty-fourth Sunday of this year, after midnight but before sunrise, I would no longer have a son. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.
Chapter Sixty-Six
(Mikey)
Waiting for the Miracle
A story like mine, if you were reading it in a book or watching it on TV, something would always happen to save the hero’s life at the end. I was sure something like that would happen to me. I couldn’t get my head around the idea that this all might really be happening. It didn’t seem real enough to be a permanent thing. The ugly jail uniform, the rotten food, guards being mean to me. It felt like something you’d put up with for a time, then wait for it to be over. I really wanted this to be over.
I’m not sure people even think about what they’re doing these days. Has anyone ever really thought about what the electric chair is and what it does? The black guard named Scott brought me a book about it, the history and who invented it and stuff. I thought it was real interesting; then I realized he only gave it to me to piss me off. He said he wanted me to “get a feel for what’s coming.” Asshole.
When it’s time for the electric chair, they strap you in. I always thought it was so you couldn’t get away. But no … they do it because when they start the electricity, you twitch and shake and maybe go into convulsions. So they strap you in so you don’t go flying out of the chair. Plus, they tape your eyes up so they don’t pop out of your head. Gross. Then they shock you, and a doctor comes in to check if you’re dead. If yes, they stop. If not, they shock you again for longer. Reading that book was making me pretty ascared. That Scott was a dick.
I was telling Mama about it the last time she came to see me. It was two days before my execution date, which I called my Death Date. She kept telling me not to worry. I reminded her about when I was eleven and I got shocked by the toaster, trying to get my Pop-Tart unstuck. It really hurt, and I was ascared to make Pop-Tarts for a long time after that. Jeanette used to make them for me. I never really told my sister how much I appreciated that. I guess that’s what happens when you think you’re close to dying; you get all full of regret. I bet every brother in the world wishes he could apologize to his sister for one thing or another.
“That’s not going to happen, no matter what,” Mama told me, with a kind of sad smile on her face. “They don’t use the electric chair here, Pooter. Not anymore.” Goddamn it! I fucking hated it when she called me that. At least nobody seemed to have heard her.
Mama went on telling me about how they were going to do it. She said it was a big machine and I’d just lay down by it. She said it’d be just like going to sleep. They always said that about death when I was a kid. It never made me less afraid of death, just scared shitless to go to sleep. I was still going to be murdered, and I knew exactly when. So not only was it going to happen, but they were making me think about it over and over before it did. It was like … torture … was what it was. It was inhumane.
If I were a puppy or a kitten, somebody would be outside this prison protesting my torture. But no. Everybody thought I was such a bad guy because of what had happened with those girls, and Elise. Elise wasn’t that great … these people didn’t even know her. I guess she wasn’t lying about being knocked up though. If it was mine, and who knew if it was, that’s
sort of sad. But those crowds didn’t even care how sad I was. Out there chanting against me and holding signs, they didn’t know the first thing about me. They only knew what they saw on the news.
“Pooter? Are you hearing me, boy?” Mama had been talking, but I forgot to listen. I did that sometimes, especially with these pills they made me take. I nodded, remembering to look her in the face so she’d know I was paying attention. “You have to get right with God before you … before the weekend.” Ha! The weekend. Funny way to say my Death Day.
I thought about getting right with God. I thought about it a lot. So many bad things had happened to me in my life. Dad dying, people being mean to me, my sister running away, Dami and the kids leaving me when I needed them most. It seemed to me that God owed me. After everything he’d put me through, I didn’t see one single reason to apologize to Him. Still, I sat there with my eyes closed as Mama droned on and on, reciting verse, waving her arms around, beseeching and imploring all dramatical.
Truth was, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to go to heaven. If my Angel was up there, and I bet she was, she’d be awfully mad at me. Now that I thought about it, she might not be the only one. I’d probably get more peace and quiet if I went somewhere else after … the weekend.
I gave the guard a list of what I wanted for my last meal. My final meal was the only other thing I thought about in here. It’d be the last thing I ever ate. It had to be perfect and delicious. I deserved at least that much after everything that’d happened to me.
