J. J. White

 

 

It didn’t feel like an execution to Claude. The antiseptic smell of the small room, its walls painted a flat aquamarine hue, reminded Claude of the few times he had been in a hospital.

His executioners were as diligent, professional, and as void of a pleasant disposition as any nurse who had ever administered their miracle concoction into his veins. These chemicals though, were hardly what anyone would describe as a miracle concoction, unless of course you were a relative of Claude’s victim.

“This is to help with the IV insertion,” the thinnest of his executioners said as he poked the hypodermic needle in Claude’s arm.

“It won’t leave a bruise will it, buddy?” Claude asked, trying to get a rise out of the resolute technician. Claude’s sarcasm flew over the head of the man so he decided to omit any more attempts at levity.

 It was a serious procedure after all, and the man was just trying to relieve Claude of a little pain by educating him on the process. It wasn’t necessary. Claude had always been somewhat obsessed with executions over time and knew a great deal about them. All three of his executioners and the ten or twelve witnesses outside the small death room would be surprised to know just how much knowledge he had of the process.

After all, he’d been in prison fourteen years on a first-degree murder conviction for a crime he didn’t commit and ten more for one he did, which gave plenty of idle time to read about nearly everything, including the marvelous art of killing criminals for the state. And then of course, there was his past.

Claude had burned the entire procedure into his brain long ago, ten years ago to be exact, right after he killed the prison guard, because he knew the good State of Florida would eventually have to discontinue the barbaric ritual of boiling the brains and innards of their most debauched criminals and progress to lethal injection.

Claude’s thoughts distracted momentarily as the cute one of the three executioners strapped Claude’s arms to boards that jutted obliquely out of the top of the gurney. It gave the impression of a crucifixion with Claude’s arms outstretched above his head. The young man seemed a little too fastidious with the plastic tie wraps.

“C’mon son,” Claude said. “Ease up a little, huh? Can’t feel my damn fingers. Afraid I might get loose and toothbrush you or something?”

Claude was referring to the creative way he had stabbed a prison guard with a sharpened toothbrush in the hapless guard’s eye. The squishy noise the homemade shiv made as it passed through the eyeball and penetrated the brain, still made Claude go all goose bumpy.

The cute technician eyes widened with fear and he loosened the straps slightly, prompting a huge sigh of relief from Claude.

 Claude could read eyes. He’d had that ability for what seemed like forever. The fear in the cute executioner’s eyes was the easiest of the three to read. The others, a little more difficult, but the thin one’s eyes expressed a good amount of empathy, while the third man, ‘Mr. overweight for his height,’ showed what Claude assumed was derisiveness. Yes, the fat one would look forward to Claude’s eventual demise, but would wax melancholy without the suffering.

Claude sure knew how to read them. Just like the guard with the toothbrush adornment, he read all their eyes. Maybe that’s why he stabbed Billy Lang in the eye, because Claude saw in Billy that look of condescending superiority. How could he let someone get away with that? He couldn’t, and he didn’t.

* * *

“Your honor,” the elegant defense lawyer emoted. “I am not asking the court to believe my client innocent of the charges brought against him. He freely admits that he killed the guard without conscience, without remorse, without regard to the feelings of the victim’s relatives left behind to mourn. What I am saying, is that he is not alone to blame for the murder. Some responsibility must be leveled on the state for what they imposed on my client with fourteen years of injustice!”

The defense attorney flailed his arms to dramatize his eloquent rhetoric. Claude just smiled ever so slightly and folded his arms across his chest as in an act of defiance more so than to keep warm in the cold musty court.

“Yes—yes, we’ve gone over that numerous times, counselor,” the judge said. “We don’t disagree with you that your client was unjustly convicted of a murder he didn’t commit. That is not what this trial is about. This trial, counselor, as you know, is primarily about the murder of a prison guard. A murder your client admits to. Is it not?”

“It is your honor. What I am asking is for the court to agree that my client was not a murderer until fourteen years of incarceration shaped him from a good honest citizen into a monstrous animal. He did not commit the deed. You—the state—the citizens of this city—the government—they killed that guard just as surely as my client. Their forced imprisonment of the defendant created that monster, and they, not my client should be found guilty!”

The judge applauded.

“Bravo—bravo, counselor, a marvelous performance, but the facts are the facts and all your rhetoric and flowery prose cannot change facts. Give us facts. Give us something that will prove your client innocent of killing his guard. Give us facts that will prove the state, and not his malevolence, employed him to remove a human being from this world and leave a grieving widow and four young impressionable children to mourn their irreplaceable loss. Show us that, counselor.”

The lawyer shook his head. “I cannot. I ask you only to judge my client objectively. Had it been your son imprisoned for a crime he did not commit, would you not decide differently?”

The trial was a farce in Claude’s opinion. He knew the outcome just as sure as everyone in the enormous courtroom knew. No judge would allow a person of his perversions, his evil mind, loose on a god fearing respectable society. A good thing too, for if they ever did make the mistake of releasing him into the community he would wreak a plethora of crime the city had never seen.

Good for them. They reaped what they had sewn. Fourteen years earlier, he walked down a singularly desolate street after having a quite physical and noisy session of lovemaking with a particularly attractive young maiden in the tall grass of a meadow. At least he thought she was a maiden. Perhaps not, but regardless, they parted amiably.

So, it was a surprise to him when he was arrested for the murder of the deflowered maiden. Very surprising. It was difficult for Claude to defend his innocence as well as explain his whereabouts at the time of the homicide.

The trumped up charges held spectacularly in court. The best defense lawyer in the country, who coincidentally now defended Claude in the murder of the guard, could not be expected to save his worthless hide from prison.

Claude was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of his young lover. Only the memory of her enthusiastic lovemaking kept his sanity for those fourteen years.

He learned much while in prison; knowledge, arts, skills and most importantly, how to defend himself from others intent on his submission. He learned fast. He learned well. He learned the numerous ways to kill a human being and after years of animalistic survival, he used his skill to remove from earth, a particularly annoying and condescending guard.

* * *

The thin executioner, Claude reckoned, was in charge of the procedure. The two others acted only on orders from him. The man slipped one of the two IVs into the ports the fat technician had installed in Claude’s veins earlier. What a sight Claude must seem to the witnesses watching from the adjacent viewing area. How disappointing it will be for them to watch him fall asleep. For after all that is what it will seem, a sweet, comfortable drift into sleep.

Out of the corner of his eye, Claude saw the widow of the eye impaled guard, sitting quietly, unemotionally, in her seat. He half expected her to mouth the word thank you to him, for he had made her a millionaire when he snuffed out that ridiculously stupid guard. The ungrateful bitch.

After the state decided, yes indeed, they had imprisoned Claude unfairly for the murder of his lover, they graciously awarded 2.3 million dollars to him as retribution for the fourteen years of hell they put him through.

After paying his lawyer, Claude graciously turned the rest, over a million, to the widow of Billy Lang. It’s true Claude’s real intention was to have the court see this gesture as proof of his rehabilitation, but in the end, it did nothing for his cause, and they sentenced him to death, regardless.

The stupid bitch. The least she could have done ten years ago was ask the court to spare his life.

Thin guy leaned over the gurney to talk to Claude. “I want you to know, that you will feel no pain. The solution we’re running now is just saline. When the warden gives me the signal, I will inject five grams of sodium pentothal. This is a barbiturate that will render you unconscious. Once you are out, the other two chemicals, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride will complete the procedure to expiration. It’s a simple procedure and you’ll feel no pain.”

Claude jerked his arms and legs up against the gurney restraints frightening the technician, who backed away.

“Restraints are good,” Claude said loudly. “Otherwise you’d be pulling those scissors out of your head, junior.” Claude smiled. He still had his menacing touch. “Turn around, junior. I bet you shit your pants.” Claude smiled again until he saw the doctor enter the room. He was there to pronounce him dead, later. It was the same as it always was. Each time identical, only the method changed.

Claude was indeed an expert in executions. He knew them all. The messiest was beheading, a favorite of both the East and the West until the seventeenth century. The axe, no matter its size and weight was a miserable and inefficient method at best to execute a man. So many times, it took several blows to decapitate the poor soul.

The guillotine was a much-improved method of beheading, and in Claude’s opinion, still the most humane administration of state vengeance.

Hanging still surfaced in some countries, including the United States, but there was always the risk of the condemned suffering a slow, painful death. Cruel and unusual for sure, Claude thought.

However, in Claude’s opinion, electrocution was the cruelest way to kill. No one knew just how painful it was. Well—no one other than himself.

* * *

There would be no surprise outcome in the trial. Claude had resigned himself for the guilty verdict issued by the sagacious judge and jury. No matter. He had no regrets of his past, just an overwhelming fear of the future.

“Will the defendant please rise.” the judge ordered. Claude and his lawyer stood. The judge continued. “I must first commend your counselor, Marcus Tullius Cicero, on the exemplary defense he presented in your case. He put forth a good argument that the state was somewhat responsible for creating the malevolence that controls your very being. However, as I stated previously, the facts show two things:  One, that you are innocent of the murder of the vestal virgin, Tiberia Aemilianus and two, that you are guilty of murdering the centurion Lucius Capito. With those facts in mind, the jurors have awarded you, Claudius Pictorus, the sum of 100 sesterius for your wrongful arrest in the first case.

“In the second case the jurors sentence you to death for the murder of Lucius Capito. With the power bestowed on me by the emperor Caesar, I sentence you to be executed by beheading, one hour before dusk, tomorrow. So it is said, so it will be done.”

Claude spoke up. “Senator, may I be allowed to speak?”

The judge nodded. “Yes—briefly.”

Claude smiled and continued.

“Senator, I wish to bequeath 50 sesterius of my award to the widow of the guard I am accused of murdering and the other 50 to Masavo.

Masavo was the executioner known to use a very dull sword for beheadings unless bribed ahead of time, in which case he would lop the head off in one tremendous blow, alleviating any unnecessary pain for the condemned.

The senator nodded approvingly. “A wise choice, young Claudius.”

* * *

The time of repentance had arrived for Claude, but he felt no atonement. He had been through this so many times in the past that the whole ritual of execution bored him.

First in Denmark, where the brute sliced through his neck with a double-sided broad axe. Then the beheading in Rome, where the sword was thankfully razor sharp. The rest of his executions, faint memories. The French guillotine, the hanging in England, the firing squad in Spain, the electric chair in New York and now, lethal injection in sunny Florida, and each for murdering a guard.

Perhaps in the future no guard will be posted and Claude may live into his senior years, but he doubted it. More likely, there will be a new and even more humane method of disposing of society’s dregs. Perhaps vaporization? Perhaps. Then only a janitor would be needed to sweep away the remains.

The thin technician hung up the phone. Obviously, the warden had not granted a stay. The fat technician grinned as the thin one pressed the button to start the procedure.

Claude stared spellbound at his lower body as skin melted off his bones, leaving only a chalky white skeleton on the gurney. It was just his imagination of course. The same vision he had each time before the executioner delivered the fatal blow. It was a vision he’d endure through eternity, as he continued to live his virtual hell.

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