Cut to the Bone

by Shane Gericke

  “Freakin’ hilarious for Earl,” Red said, flaming the bowl.

  * * *

  Danny stepped out of the pink-sloshed bathtub and walked into the bedroom. He pulled a black suit, white shirt, regimental tie, and socks from Dad’s closet, thankful Mom hadn’t had the heart to throw them out. They fit surprisingly well. He’d have to go without underwear. He couldn’t wear another man’s shorts. Not even Dad’s, not even under this circumstance.

  “Don’t worry, Mom, it’ll be all right,” he said, slipping his feet into a pair of waxed Florsheims. Another perfect fit. “I’ll take care of everything.”

  He kissed her cheek and pulled Earl’s keys from her purse.

  Time to do what she couldn’t, and he hadn’t.

  “‘Scuse me a minute, boys,” Doc said.

  He walked to the bathroom and guzzled vodka from his pocket flask. This burn was harder to deal with than the others. He liked Earl. They’d have been friends if he wasn’t a cop-killer. But he was, so there you go.

  He wiped his mouth and went back to work.

  The court clerk crossed his arms, tapped his foot.

  “Don’t get impatient with me, young sir,” the head of the duplication center said, glaring over her glasses. “I’m repairing the mimeograph as fast as I can.”

  “Sorry,” the clerk said. “But if I don’t get this decision out soon, the chief’s gonna haul me up the flagpole and see who salutes.”

  Earl glanced at the clock as his cell door unlocked for his lawyer.

  One hour.

  “Anything?” he asked.

  The lawyer grinned.

  Danny pulled off Illinois 53 and into the Stateville parking lot. Gravel dust swirled around the fresh-waxed Ford Galaxie. He didn’t see Teddy Rehnt. He wasn’t surprised - in his gruff way, the enforcer was as close to Earl as he was, and taking this equally hard. Danny didn’t blame him a bit for skipping the circus.

  Tingling and lightheaded, he locked the car up tight. Walked away. Returned a minute later to recheck each lock - no sense losing Earl’s Galaxie to a thief. Realized he was dawdling.

  He headed for the entrance.

  “My legal eagle says the court might actually call this off,” Earl told Doc. “He’s wetting his pants he’s so excited. What do you think?”

  “Warden Gabriel will stand next to the telephone during the process in case that very thing happens,” Doc said.

  His hangdog expression said not to count on it.

  “Let’s just keep a good thought, then,” Earl said as the escort team marched up. Eight of them for one of him. I still got it, baby. “And if it doesn’t work out, hey, everyone dies, right?”

  Doc shook his hand. Several crew-cuts hawked and spat, disgusted at the deference.

  “See ya in the next,” Earl said, winking at Doc, then holding out his arms for the manacles.

  They chained the condemned prisoner tight, then marched him down the vaulted hallway and through the steel door that marked the end of Death Row.

  * * *

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Detective Burr said, planting his hand in Danny’s chest. “Thought you and brother were splitsville.”

  Danny cast his eyes down, pup to alpha. “I don’t have a choice, sir,” he said. “My mother intended to be Earl’s family witness, but she came down with pneumonia last night.”

  “Pneumonia?”

  “That’s what she says. But it’s probably just worry,” Danny said. “Long and short is my mother can’t be here for her son, and begged me to do it instead. What choice did I have?”

  Burr searched his face.

  Danny shrugged, hoping “her son” instead of “my brother” reinforced his expression of helplessness, duty, and anger at having this odious chore dumped in his lap. He’d practiced on the drive here, and hoped it would be enough.

  Burr looked at Rogan.

  Rogan nodded.

  Burr lifted his hand.

  “Thank you for understanding, sir,” Danny said. “It’s not that I want to be here, but . . .”

  “Hey. Family. Whaddaya gonna do, huh?” Burr said. He patted Danny’s shoulder and pointed to the main door. “Through there.”

  A guard frisked Danny twice, then escorted him to the witness room set aside for relatives of the condemned. Danny looked around. A scatter of empty chairs, a window, and him.

  He sat in the second row, shaking so hard he thought he’d vibrate apart.

  Earl wrinkled his nose at the continuing assault of Hai Karate. Prison electricians bustled about, checking power lines and connections. He’d tried chatting up the first one, but the guy only blinked, like a hoot owl. The second one turned away after mumbling he wasn’t allowed to talk to condemned prisoners.

  He gave up.

  The biggest annoyance wasn’t death, he decided. It was his freshly shaved skull. It itched like lice bites, and he couldn’t scratch it - his head, chest, waist, thighs, shins, forearms, and biceps were cinched to the oak with leather straps. Even if he managed to free a hand, his head was covered by the skullcap that contained the entry electrode. All he could do was rub the arms of the chair real hard and hope it fooled his skull.

  “Danny’s a good kid,” Burr said, lighting another Camel. “Sucking it up to help his ma.”

  “Yeah,” Rogan said. “I guess we all got our crosses to bear. His is Earl.”

  Kit Covington danced an imaginary partner through her bedroom, swirling and twirling, happier than she’d been in six years. Her man would be in her arms tonight, his tour of duty over. As soon as Wayne cleared the driveway, she dropped the kids at her mother’s, stopped for a manicure and wax, then shopped for the perfect lace negligee. In every war, the victor got the spoils. She was his.

  “Finally,” the court clerk muttered.

  He grabbed the damp purple mimeos, hustled to the press room, and threw them on the release table. The milling news hawks snatched them like free pretzels.

  The UPI bureau chief whistled, then pounced for his phone.

  * * *

  Earl hummed tonelessly, gazing at the curtains that separated him from the carton of eggs who’d watch him sizzle like Oscar Mayer’s bacon. You want me to die because you think I did it. What the hell do you know?

  The thought held no rancor, though. Earl stopped being angry the moment he decided to keep his mouth shut about who’d really killed those cops.

  He wasn’t nearly as scared as he thought he’d be. He knew why - he’d kept Danny safe. That’s why he took without complaint the food, the beatings, the humiliations, the bullshit solitary, and now the 2,000 volts. So his brother would live. He smiled, proud of himself. Even though I’m sitting, I’ll die on my feet. Not a bad way for a man to go out.

  A crew-cut sauntered into the death chamber and pulled the restraints even tighter. He knuckle-clanked the skullcap twice, whisper-cursing Earl in richly creative shades of blue mixed with the names of the dead cops. Earl didn’t respond. What was left to say?

  The crew-cut left.

  He glanced at the clock over the curtains. It was twice the size of the one outside his cell. Had three hands instead of two. The extra, fire-engine red against the black of the others, hopped a precise distance every second. It made no noise, but he heard every tick.

  He tried to swallow when it landed on six. Couldn’t.

  No spit.

  Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding.

  Flash.

  The copyboy raced over. The quarter-mile of presses in the basement were already spitting out Red Streaks.

  “It’s Furman!” he bayed across the newsroom.

  * * *

  The curtains drew back like it was movie night. Earl peered through the glass. Twenty-four eyeballs stared back. None was familiar.

  A second, smaller, curtain shimmied to his right. Earl looked sideways, expecting to see Mom.

  “Danny!” he shouted, equally stunned, overjoyed, and gut-shot. “What are you-”

&
nbsp; “Mom just couldn’t do it, and asked me to come instead,” Danny shouted back. “I’m here for you, brother. The Monroe boys will ride this fire to the end.”

  The intercoms clicked off, turning their talk to pantomime.

  In the adjoining anteroom, a rigid copper switch, burnished bright for conductivity, slid into a willing prong. Dynamos kicked to life under Earl’s slippered feet. Danny felt the vibration and stifled a gasp. The public address crackled like AM radio in a thunderstorm. Earl locked eyes with Danny, thinking how happy he was Mom stayed home ‘cause he sure didn’t want her seeing this. Danny stared back, thinking of when those grade-school bullies knocked him off his Schwinn Black Phantom and said it was theirs now, punk, and Earl got it back, and Dad swabbed ointment on Earl’s ripped knuckles, not asking a single question, just patting his eldest son’s head. The official witnesses bit their lips and held their breath. Covington zithered his pocket comb, thinking of Andy and raspberry jam. Doc’s nostrils flared from hard breathing. Crew-cuts cracked their knuckles. Most stared with unvarnished glee. Some looked away, mumbling. Earl rubbed the chair like God gave a damn. Danny said anything that came into his head, just talking, motioning, moving toward the glass. The guard warned him to sit. Earl kept nodding, picking up a few of the lipped words and guessing the rest. The warden watched the hotline. The governor ignored it. Mom turned a degree colder. The red hand joined the blacks at twelve.

  And the lightning bolt hit.

  “Gwaa!” Earl puffed as the electric chair groaned like a peep show. If the restraints hadn’t been sufficiently tight, the surge would have flung him against the window, bug on a Peterbilt. His joints twisted, his backbone collapsed.

  Four seconds.

  He turned the red of boiled lobster. Spittle leaked from both corners of his grimace. His eyes banged Tilt with each shift in the alternating current, wildly spinning the witnesses. Danny punched one thigh, then the other, then the first, then the second.

  Twelve seconds.

  The 2,000-volt hotshot, designed to instantly blow out the central nervous system but hardly ever did, dropped to 500 for the secondary burn.

  Springfield dentist Frank Mahoney felt his spine tingle as the condemned’s eyes bored in. “Did not,” they seemed to whisper. “Did not did not did not.” Then they rolled up, like those zombies on late-night TV. He fumbled for the airsick bags the warden promised. Leila Reynolds, a bookkeeper for a Chicago auto dealer, handed over two of hers.

  Sixty seconds.

  Tertiary burn.

  The official executioner was a Stateville groundskeeper who needed the stipend for his kid’s braces. He cranked the voltage back to 2,000, exactly as the manual dictated. White lights dimmed to bronze throughout the prison as the dynamos suckled electric milk. Three thousand convicts flung curses, food, and feces.

  The lightning hit again.

  Bones snapped as Earl’s fingers twisted into square knots. If he hadn’t clipped his claws to the quick last night, they would have driven through his palms, Jesus nails. Skin blistered under the electrodes. Blood misted through his protruded lips.

  “The condemned prisoner has bitten through his mouth guard,” the executioner said for the benefit of the tape recorders logging the event. “Cleaving his tongue and causing extensive bleeding that the witnesses can see. We need to reinforce it for next week’s burn.”

  Danny, barely breathing, clenched his hands till finger bones crackled.

  Ninety seconds.

  Quaternary burn.

  Glowing maroon blotches spread across Earl’s face. His skin slid around, and his eyeballs wormed from their sockets. Pinkish foam dribbled from his nose as capillaries burst. T-bone and sweet potato from last night’s Last Supper bubbled down his chin.

  One hundred twenty seconds.

  “I’m so sorry, Earl,” Danny whispered. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry . . .”

  As WGN Radio telegraphed updates, Teddy Rehnt crossed his arms one way and his legs another, face contorting, eyes burning, wondering who he could maim for this.

  Greasy smoke erupted from the skullcap, followed by metallic blue whomps of flame.

  “The doctor should include electrode integrity in his final examination,” the executioner intoned. “The guards missed the gapping of the skullcap, and it’s causing a severe arc.”

  Four witnesses gagged. Three sat unimpressed, one trembled like aspic. Frank Mahoney fainted on Leila Reynolds’s shoulder. Brewster Farri, a John Deere mechanic from Moline, thrust his fist in the air, shouting, “Amen!”

  Wayne Covington laughed.

  Danny Monroe stared unblinking through the windows. These people were barbaric. That anyone with a soul could volunteer to witness this cattle slaughter was beyond comprehension.

  Two hundred forty-seven seconds.

  Earl’s body temperature had risen to slow-oven. His muscles crawled like spiders. His gallbladder poached in its own bile. His skin took the sheen of old ham. The grounding electrode burned a hole in his maniacally twitching left calf-

  “Oh no,” the executioner gasped as the telephone rang.

  Three seconds later the grim-faced warden drew his finger across his throat.

  The executioner yanked male from female, uncoupling the dynamos, brightening the lights.

  “The Supreme Court just struck down capital punishment,” he heard the warden announce over the PA system. “All executions nationwide are canceled. The court ruled five to four that state execution statutes are applied too unevenly to be constitutional . . .”

  Doc rushed into the chamber, heart rabbiting. He grabbed Earl’s wrist to search for a pulse. He yelped, yanking his hand back from the fry-pan heat.

  “Undo those straps,” he ordered. “He might still be alive.”

  The crew-cut stuck his hands in his pockets.

  Doc pushed him aside and placed his stethoscope, careful to keep fingers well above the steel listening bell. He tried chest, neck, and wrist, then shook his head four times.

  Too. Late. He’s. Dead.

  The curtains closed.

  Frank Mahoney blinked awake.

  “I guess I fainted,” he murmured, looking sheepish.

  “I’m afraid so, dear,” Leila Reynolds said.

  “What happened? Is it over?”

  “Mr. Monroe is gone,” Leila said, patting his arm. “Better you didn’t see it.”

  Brewster Farri chattered about the skull flames. “Weren’t they amazing?” he said to the other witnesses, who’d lined up at the exit. “Those reds and yellows? And that crazy blue? Wow. My kid would’ve loved that. Looked like the Fourth of July, doncha think? Huh? Doncha?”

  Covington stayed in his seat, steepling his manicured fingers, mesmerized by the steam that curled from Monroe’s ears.

  “I got ya, Earl,” he whispered, recalling how the bastard’s grenades had so shredded Andy’s face that Pop had to bury him closed-casket. “I promised I’d burn you, and I did.”

  Danny walked out, climbed in the dusty Galaxie, gave Stateville the finger, and headed home for their dead mother, the ochre sky streaked with tears.

  Friday

  2:17 a.m.

  “Don’t say a word,” Emily murmured as she shut the door. She removed her jeans, top, and shoes, and snuggled under the hospital sheets. Thanks to her chat with the night nurse, no one would stop by to record Marty’s temperature. “Not even a syllable. Just rock my world.”

  2:27 a.m.

  “The plan must be perfect if you can’t find anything wrong,” the Executioner said, grinning.

  Bowie grinned back.

  Pleased at his approval, the Executioner stretched, then did thirty-five jumping jacks, push-ups, sit-ups, and knee bends.

  He repeated till his muscles shivered. Then took a shower.

  2:49 a.m.

  “Are we in Naperville, Grandpa?”

  “So it would seem,” said the Reverend Daniel Monroe, parking the bug-smeared church bus in the slot indicated by
the traffic warden. His wide-eyed congregants stared from the windows.

  Noise buzzed like locusts. Buses, trucks, cars, RVs, motorcycles, horses-and-buggies, and a bicycle built for two vomited protesters toward the chain-link fence. Hundreds of cops formed a loose ring around the base of the hill. National Guardsmen in desert camo filled the gaps. They looked like Robocops with their padding, helmets, and guns. Fire engines idled inside the fence, waiting to stiff-arm crashers. TV slow-danced the crowd, thrusting erect lenses toward willing mouths. Shirts ranging from “Have My Baby, Corey!” to “Naperville: Catch the Buzz!” sold fast, as did $5 water. The Justice Center - which Danny found grim enough in abstract but totally inhuman now - glittered large and lonely atop the garbage hill.

  “Golgotha,” he whispered.

  2:51 a.m.

  “What’s happening?” Dr. Winslow asked, stifling a yawn. She’d been paged at home because two of her ER docs called in sick.

  “Nothing,” said desk supervisor Jeanie Gee. “Had a flurry from two gravel trucks colliding, but that’s sorted. One funny thing, though.”

  Winslow raised an eyebrow.

  “A patient ordered three cans of whipped cream from food service. I checked his orders. No dietary restrictions, so I sent it up to his room.”

  “Is the patient by chance Martin Benedetti?” Winslow asked, recalling Emily’s call around two seeking “hypothetical medical advice” for a “hypothetical patient.” Amused, Winslow said the “patient” could be “active” if he or she didn’t hit his or her head.

  “That’s right. The guy from the fire,” Jeanie said. “How’d you know?”

  “Lucky guess,” Winslow said.

  2:52 a.m.

  “Bird Nest to Castle.”

  “Go ahead, Nest,” said SWAT Lieutenant Annie Bates.

  “Everything’s good down here. How’s it look from the top?”

  Annie slapped a mosquito, made one more binocular sweep of the vast crowd.

  “We’re surrounded, the poor bastards,” she said.

  Branch snorted. “We must be in clover if you’re making jokes.”

  “Roger that,” Annie said. Branch was running the combined forces from the bunker near the main gate. She roamed the wide, flat roof of the Justice Center with her weapons specialists and spotters, anticipating problems. “The folks are great. No one appears angry, and there’s no fighting. Just singing, chanting, and praying.”