Yes, No. 44371 knows all there is to know, and now with the mask over his face it seems like he knows too much. He knows that despite more than one hundred years of practice, perfection in the art of judicial “electro-cution” remains elusive. And so, weighing heavily now on No. 44371’s mind as they clamp the cold electrodes to his shaved legs is the botched execution in the year nineteen ninety of Jesse Tafero in Florida. During the first two cycles, smoke and flames twelve inches long erupted from poor Jesse’s head. A funeral director with some experience in these matters opined that the charred area on the top left side of his skull, about the size of a man’s hand, was a third degree burn. But Jesse was dead, sure enough.
Also on No. 44371’s mind while he waits is the glowing torch made of Pedro Medina’s head a few years later in the same Florida Chair. Witnesses reported that smoke filled the death chamber again-although no one thought it impaired visibility-and argued over whether the smell was of burnt flesh or burnt sponge from the saline-soaked pad squeezed into the copper headpiece to promote conductivity. Pathologists found a third degree burn and some charred material on Pedro’s skull, but at least his eyebrows and lashes had not been singed the way the flames had scorched Jesse Tafero’s face.
The guards tug at the leather straps around No. 44371’s chest and waist, and now he starts to blink faster and swallow harder.
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, when for humane reasons, society no longer destroys even rabid dogs this way-and the Electric Chair in most states has already taken its place in the museum of horrors beside disembowelment, the rack, burning at the stake, the noose, and the guillotine-No. 44371 need not have faced execution in such a brutal manner. In fact, four years before his death sentence was issued, the governor of Pennsylvania signed a law making lethal injection the preferred method of execution in the Commonwealth. But death by “Old Sparky,” as some referred to the Chair, was the one condition No. 44371 insisted upon in his agreement with the district attorney to plead guilty to two counts of kidnapping and two counts of first degree murder and irrevocably waive all his rights to appeal. When his lawyers refused to assist him in striking such a deal, he fired them on the spot.
“Maybe an injection of drugs can dull society’s conscience of what it plans to do to me,” he boldly proclaimed to his fellow death row inmates, “but I won’t take ’em! I hope my body bursts into flames and burns the prison to the ground! I want history to remember what happened to me and to the Rabuns of Kamenz! I won’t deny my actions or my beliefs for anybody! Did the martyrs in the Colosseum deny their faith? Did Christ himself? Would the world remember any of them today if they were dealt a dreamy death with the prick of a needle? When humanity nailed Jesus to a cross, it nailed itself to the cross; and when humanity electrocutes me in the Chair, it will electrocute itself in the Chair!”
Such was the courage-or the madness-of No. 44371.
The district attorney was more than happy to seek a special order from the court to accommodate the unusual request in exchange for eliminating the risk of an acquittal by reason of insanity or the endless appeals that could delay an execution, by any means, for decades if not permanently. Yet even with the guilty plea entered in the docket and the special order signed, fifteen years had passed because neither No. 44371 nor the district attorney considered the possibility of collateral appeals being filed by opponents of the use of the Electric Chair.
Now, at long last, all those appeals have been overruled. The death warrant has been signed, Old Sparky has been removed from the museum of horrors and returned to the death chamber, the possibility of a stay of execution has passed, and No. 44371 is finally about to be granted his wish. But now he is having doubts. After all those years of studying judicial electrocutions, he cannot control his panic in these final, terrifying moments. The leather mask reeks with the vomit of dead men, the copper cap scratches into his naked scalp, the electrodes dig into his legs, and his waist and limbs are lashed too tightly against the rough wood. He imagines the current crashing into his skull, detonating his brain like a bomb before plunging down his spine and fusing his gut under the intense heat, imploding his bowels; he sees it leap from his legs like a crazed demon, carrying his soul down, down into the earth. Then nothing.
No. 44371 hears the heavy breathing of the guards, heavier now than even his own breath because his lungs are afraid to breathe because the next breath might be their last.
“Mount Nittany! Mount Nittany!” he mumbles despondently, trying desperately to conjure his last glimpse of the mountain from his cell window before they removed him to the isolation chamber yesterday; he had decided this view would calm him in the final moments. And, yes, yes, the paper! It’s still in his fingers, a single sheet sent by his father, to whom he had not spoken in so many years but whose last name would now be forever inked into the annals of the condemned. On the sheet is a passage from St. Luke.
“Maybe,” wrote his father, “it will be of some comfort to you.”
But what did it say? The words! What were the words? No. 44371 has forgotten them already.
“Doug! Doug!” he cries out.
“I’m right here,” says the guard, attempting to sound reassuring while trying to steady his own nerves and bear his own fear and guilt. In these final moments there is compassion even between inmate and jailer. They’ve known each other for so long that they wonder how they’ll be able to get along without each other; but they know too there’s a job to be done and each man must play his part. There are no hard feelings.
“Doug, I can’t read it. Read it to me, Doug.”
No. 44371, whose arms are strapped to the chair, is trying to wave the sheet with his fingers and nod his head in its direction, but he’s strapped too tightly and can’t move.
“Just a second,” the guard says, turning toward the narrow slit in the wall where the executioner stands. “I think… Yeah, it looks like they’re ready now,” he says.
“Wait!” No. 44371 pleads. “Please, Doug. I can’t remember the words. I haven’t given you any trouble.”
“Okay, okay,” Doug says, “I’ve got to take it from you now, anyway.” The guard retrieves the paper and says to the executioner, “Just a second.”
“Read it, Doug,” No. 44371 cries. “Read it.”
Doug wipes away a small tear from his eye. “Okay, here’s what it says:
And there were also two other, malefactors, led with him to be put to death. And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left… And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us.
But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus, ‘Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.’
And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.
No. 44371 takes a deep breath and smiles beneath his mask.
“Thanks, Doug,” he says gratefully. “I remember now. You’ll put it in my pocket when it’s over, right, like you promised?”
“Sure, Ott,” Doug replies, relieved now that the prisoner seems calmer. “Sure, just like I promised. We gotta get started now. It’s almost ten past.”
“Okay. Goodbye, Doug.”
“Goodbye, Ott.”