I hand the letter to Aunt Karen.
‘You wanna help?
Deal with this,’ I tell her.
Because I can’t do it.
PLANNING
A neighbour in Arlington had diabetes
that did her in last December.
I’d never seen so many flowers,
lilies that stank up the church.
Angela’s friend Susie-May died
in a car accident on her way home from Montauk.
She was tanned,
newly engaged.
Everyone said she would’ve made a great hairdresser.
But it happens, doesn’t it?
Death.
Either suddenly or steadily.
But you never put it on your calendar,
X marks the spot –
let’s get the headstone in a Black Friday sale
and have the name chiselled into it.
You can never usually plan on death like that.
A CHANCE
In a pocket of silence
between greedy
bites
of jelly doughnuts
in Wakeling’s strip mall parking lot,
Nell says,
‘Dad thinks Ed has a chance in
DC tomorrow
at the Supreme Court.’
‘Really?’ I ask.
It’s raining heavily for the first time since
I arrived,
washing all the humidity out of the air.
The car’s wipers swish
back and forth.
‘Yeah,’ she says,
so what do I do?
I start to
get my hopes up.
HOPE
It’s the hope that’ll kill you.
UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT ORDER
(ORDER LIST: 576 US)
AUGUST 15, 2016
CERTIORARI DENIED
MOON, EDWARD R.V. COMMISSIONER, TX DOC. ET AL.
The application for stay of execution of sentence of death presented to Justice Williams and by him referred to the Court is denied. The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied.
THE WRIT
So.
I guess that’s it.
The Supreme Court have denied Ed’s appeal.
GET OUT
Angela is in her bed shirt,
hair piled on top of her head,
eyes ringed with black make-up.
‘The lawyers always have final appeals.
I’ve seen documentaries. I’ll call Al,’
Angela says.
She rummages in her purse
then turns it upside down,
the entire contents chaotically spilling on to the
unmade bed.
She grabs her phone,
scrolls through it.
Ed’s only hope now is Heath McDowell and
there’s little chance of the Texas governor
showing leniency towards a convicted cop killer –
not when he’s up for re-election.
And yet I say, ‘It’s gonna be OK,’ cos
it’s what Angela needs to hear.
Suddenly
she swings for me
like a feral cat.
‘Get out!’ she shouts. ‘I don’t need your horse shit.’
‘Angela.’
‘Get out!’ she screams.
I leave,
closing the door gently behind me,
while Angela smashes up the bedroom.
MORNING RUN
I keep my eyes firmly fixed ahead,
don’t look
left or right,
hammer the cement with my feet,
pummel my way through town
running faster, faster, faster.
If this were a race
it would be my personal best.
I can feel it without checking my watch for timings.
And at Nell’s, I stop,
morning sweat
dripping from the end of my nose.
I call. She picks up after two rings.
‘The Supreme Court said no,’ I tell her.
‘I’m outside. I need to see your dad.’
Her bedroom blinds open
from the bottom
up.
She is at the window in a purple vest,
one strap down at the shoulder.
‘I’ll wake him,’ she says.
HUDDLE
Philip Miller isn’t wearing any shoes
and it makes him seem vulnerable,
with those very old white feet.
He sits opposite me, at the table,
hands clasped.
Nell puts a plate of cookies between us,
two mugs and a coffee pot.
‘I’ll go get ready,’ she says, and rushes away.
The warden
pours himself a large, steaming mug of coffee.
I hold my head in my hands.
‘I’ve no idea why I’m here,’ I say,
staying where I am cos Ed needs help
and I don’t know who else to ask;
Nell’s dad is the only person I know with power.
‘Washington denied our appeal,’ I tell him.
He nods. ‘I got a message. I’m very sorry.’
His eyes are bloodshot;
I’m sure he’d go back to bed, if given the option.
But I guess he’s going to be kept pretty busy now.
‘Can you predict which guys will get a call
from the governor?’ I ask.
He frowns. ‘No. A stay of execution
happens for so many reasons.’
‘Like what?’
He brushes his hands through his hair.
He doesn’t want to do this,
explain the process or give me any insight into the
unpredictability of it –
the randomness.
‘A few years ago a guy called Neil Huddle
set fire to his house and killed his
wife and kids for insurance money.
You know how much?
Sixty thousand bucks.
That’s what his family were worth.
There was so much evidence against Huddle,
his own mother said he was guilty.
But two hours beforehand the governor
called me up,
told me to pull the brakes because Huddle’s lawyers
proved he was crazy.’
He pauses.
‘I mean, you kill your family for peanuts,
I’d say you’re a few peppermint creams
short of a Christmas box.’
‘So he got off?’
Should Al put forward this case for Ed?
Could we say it’s unnatural to be so calm
about your own death?
Or maybe I could convince Ed to
attack a guard or eat his own crap.
It would be a long shot,
but that’s the stage we’re at.
‘I had to send him to a top-security mental hospital
so he could get better,’ Philip Miller says.
‘And he did. They said they
made him not crazy any more
then sent him back to us for execution.’
He is talking quickly, angrily.
I wait a moment
to summon up some courage.
‘And can you stop it?
If you called the governor and explained
that Ed’s a good guy
and doesn’t deserve death?’
‘What do you think, Joseph?’
He holds my gaze
and I want to hate him
but I can see he isn’t proud of his power.
‘No one ate the cookies,’ Nell says.
She looks at us anxiously.
‘I gotta go be with my family,’ I say, and stand,
then sprint away
as I did the last time I was here.
I don’t stop running
until I’m back at the apartment.
NOSY PEPPERS
Ed knows about the Supreme Court decision,
smiles anyway and says,
‘Let’s make the best of our last couple days.’
And we try.
We rag on each other,
tell stories from when we were kids.
Then
Ed turns to one of the guards and asks,
‘What does a nosy pepper do?’
She searches for a serious answer.
‘I don’t know, Edward.’
‘It gets jalapeño business,’ he says,
and laughs from the pit of his tummy,
which makes me laugh
and Angela
and even Aunt Karen.
After a couple of minutes the guard snorts.
‘Jalapeño business. Oh, OK, I get it.’
JOKES
‘Knock-knock,’ Ed said.
‘Who’s there?’ I asked.
‘Moo.’
‘Moo who?’
‘Cows don’t say who, they say moo.’
Ed tittered
while I fell
on to the rug laughing.
I was four.
I couldn’t tell my own jokes,
only laugh at Ed’s.
But I tried.
‘Knock-knock,’ I said.
‘Who’s there?’ Ed asked.
‘Moo.’
‘Moo who?’
‘Moo-boo-too-loo!’ I told him.
I laughed. Clapped my hands.
Ed rolled his eyes.
‘Not quite,’ he said. ‘You gotta have a punchline.
Like, a bit that makes people laugh cos
you’ve been clever with your words.’
‘I got smarts,’ I announced.
‘You’re a smartass, you mean,’ he said and
patted my head.
I chewed my sweater cuff,
tried to figure out what made Ed’s joke funny,
my joke lame.
And then I said, ‘Knock-knock.’
‘Who’s there?’
‘Ghost.’
‘Ghost who?’
‘Ghosts don’t say who, they say BOO!’
Ed winced as I screamed the punchline at him,
then put up a hand for me to high-five.
‘Now we’re cooking, little man,’ he said.
‘Hell, that joke was better than mine!’
THE VIGIL
Candles and poster boards held high,
hymns and prayers mumbled
into the night air.
‘That’s for Ed,’ Al says,
meeting us as we leave the prison
and stating the obvious.
These are Ed’s supporters,
people who don’t want my brother to die,
gathering around the prison like the survivors
of an apocalypse.
‘They come every time.
And they’ll be here until the end.’
The End:
the words burn
and I have to
rest my hands on my knees to stop myself
falling over.
Angela rubs my back.
‘Let’s go,’ she says. ‘Tomorrow will be a long day.’
But it won’t.
August 17 will
come and
be gone again
before we’ve had time to do
anything
that will ever matter.
WHEN YOU KNOW BETTER
Aunt Karen doesn’t get into my space much,
sleeps next to Angela and only speaks
when she’s asked for her opinion.
But tonight she’s in the kitchen baking
cinnamon buns,
the smell
swelling up the apartment with a feeling
of family,
which I’m sure it’s never known before.
Angela sits on the floor in the sitting room,
piles of papers around her,
trying to
find a loophole somewhere,
a way to
postpone
what is speeding
towards us
like an unstoppable freight train.
‘Anyone hungry?’ Aunt Karen asks.
Her skin is grey,
her hair so thin and white
she’s turned into an old lady.
I go to her.
‘Don’t feel guilty any more.
You’re here. It’s more than Mom’s managed.’
‘Guilt would be easy,’ she says.
‘Guilt would be about what I’ve done.
But it’s shame I feel, Joe.
Shame that what I’ve done is
a reflection of who I am.
Who am I?’
Angela joins us.
‘You were an aunt doing her best.’
‘It wasn’t good enough,’ Karen says.
Angela elbows her tenderly.
‘Hey, when you know better, you do better.’
The oven begins to beep.
It beeps and beeps.
The cinnamon buns have baked.
I DREAM
their faces smeared with blood and dirt.
It’s a burnt-out city with kids tearing into enemy lines,
no weapons,
scrabbling around in torn vests looking for
bits of paper
to use as shields.
The guerrillas aren’t interested in words,
don’t care how young the soldiers are,
that most couldn’t grow beards.
They pull out machetes, slice right into them,
these boys,
leaving them
bleeding to death on the ground.
And in the background,
a diner’s broken neon sign
flashes ceaselessly.
LAST DAY
I wake before five.
I can’t get back to sleep.
I clock-watch,
flicking through photos of Nell on my phone.
She is scowling in each one.
I haven’t any of Ed –
they won’t let me bring my phone in.
Angela wanders into the living room in the dark
and then we are sitting
side by side on the
blow-up bed,
watching out the window,
Ed’s last sunrise,
a poppy-red sky he can’t see from his cell.
‘We can do this,’ Angela says.
‘Can we?’ I ask.
‘We have to,’ she reminds me.
NEED
Nell arrives at ten o’clock with a lasagne.
‘Sue said you have to eat.’
I put the dish into the refrigerator.
‘I can stay or leave. Whatever you need,’ Nell says.
‘I need to buy milk and toilet paper,’ I tell her.
It’s close to a hundred degrees,
the air hazy with humidity.
At the convenience store I put
milk, Pepsi and toilet paper into the basket.
Then I slip some hard candy
into the pocket of my shorts.
I have an urge to steal,
take something that doesn’t belong to me.
At the counter, Nell wraps her arm around my waist.
‘Do you want company later?
I can wait for you outside the farm.’
‘Definitely,’ I say. ‘I need you.’
As I say it, I realise it’s true.
‘I need you too,’ she says.
READY
Angela, Karen and I scrape around the apartment,
heat up
squares of lasagne
we never eat,
and check our phones for updates,
&nbs
p; the TV for news that never comes.
Nothing changes.
And all day long,
while we tread water,
the farm is getting ready –
filling needles,
checking straps,
rehearsing their parts like actors in a play
so everyone knows what to do,
won’t miss a cue
and mess up the whole operation.
I guess that by now
they’re pretty much ready.
AMAZING GRACE
The protesters sing outside the prison,
giving Ed a voice.
It’s well meant
but too late.
He needed support during his trial
and the early appeals.
They’re just here for the night,
the countdown,
cos this is what they do;
it doesn’t matter to them who’s for the gurney
or whether they’re guilty or not.
They notice us drive in, wave cautiously.
I wave back my weak-willed appreciation.
Maybe, afterwards, I should join them –
sing a couple of verses of ‘Amazing Grace’.
What harm could it do?
But not now.
Now it’s time to see Ed.
The last time.
It is too soon.
THE LAST SUPPER
Ed rushes at us and
a guard reaches with his arms to stop him,
but thinks better of it,
allows
the four of us to stand in a