tight huddle.
Ed smells sour – like he hasn’t showered in days,
but I don’t let go.
I breathe him in until he unpeels himself
from us,
waves towards a table.
‘KFC!’ he announces.
‘I told them I didn’t want anything special,
but the warden ordered this anyway.
Chicken, fries, coleslaw, potato salad.
Looks good, right?’
He drums the air with his hands.
‘And what made me happiest of all …’
He points to a bucket filled to the brim
with cans of Dr Pepper.
‘Soda!’ he shouts.
‘You’ll spend all day in the bathroom,’ Aunt Karen says,
crossing her legs,
pawing the gold crucifix
hanging around her neck.
‘Thank goodness,’ she says,
touching an electric fan next to her which
is slowly whisking hot air around the room.
At the table,
Ed fills a plate with food and
brings it to Angela. ‘Wanna drink?’
‘You eat it.
We’ll get something later,’ she says.
Ed shakes his head.
‘I want us to eat together.
A last supper.
You can pretend I’m Jesus.’
The guard laughs, but not unkindly.
Ed turns to him.
‘You want something to gnaw on, John?’ he asks.
‘You haven’t had lunch yet.’
‘No, Ed. I’m good. You dig in.’
Ed fills a second plate,
hands it to Aunt Karen,
then another for me.
I stare at the food on my lap.
How will I force it into my mouth?
Ed fills his own plate and sits next to me,
hands me a can of Dr Pepper.
‘This is nice,’ he says. ‘Right?’
I try for a smile
cos Ed’s right – it is nice
not spending our last hours
fenced off from each other
by Plexiglas.
But I can think of better days
we’ve had
together.
LIBERTY STATE PARK
It was spring.
Ed was fifteen.
I was five.
Angela had made
a lopsided spongecake
with Reese’s Pieces stuck into the cream frosting.
Aunt Karen brought a bag of cold burgers.
Mom was wearing sunglasses.
We sat on a blanket and ate.
Ed cut the cake and we all sang him ‘Happy Birthday’.
He said,
‘That’s a kickass cake, Ange,’
biting into the first slice.
I couldn’t keep my eyes off the jungle gym,
wondering when we’d be done
so I could play.
Ed noticed. ‘Let’s go have fun, Joe!’
He reached for two more slices of cake,
handed one to me,
stuffed the other piece into his mouth.
Then
he grabbed my arm,
pulled me up.
‘God, Angela, you’re some baker,’ he said.
And we were off.
That was a better day.
SIX O’CLOCK
Father Matthew shows up at six.
As Ed is introducing him to Angela and Karen
a yellow phone attached to the wall rings.
The guard answers it,
mumbles into the mouthpiece.
He holds the receiver over his head,
calls over. ‘It’s Alan Mitchell.’
Angela puts her hand over her mouth.
Ed shuffles to the phone.
Everyone in the room is silent.
‘Yeah. OK.
I understand.
Yeah. OK.
Yup.
OK, thanks, Al.’
Angela goes to Ed, puts a hand on his arm.
‘Gotta wait,’ Ed says.
‘Al’s driving up here now. Said he’ll explain.’
I exhale;
I’ve been holding my breath since the phone rang.
Ed looks at the clock over the door.
Six hours left.
Six hours and one minute.
IRREGULAR
Al storms in at seven thirty,
shakes everyone’s hands,
takes a seat.
His blue suit is creased.
His tie is undone.
He’s out of breath.
He glances at the guard,
the door.
‘I was in the governor’s office in Austin earlier
to file the petition for clemency.
As I was doing it,
I looked over at his secretary’s desk
and the denial was coming out of the printer.’
Father Matthew sits up. Aunt Karen frowns.
‘What does that even mean?’ Angela asks.
She twirls her hair
around and around her
pointer finger.
Despite the fan it is sweltering in here.
I need air
but I can’t leave.
Not now.
‘I don’t know,’ Al says.
‘But it’s highly irregular and probably illegal.
I asked to speak to the governor personally.
He told me it was a clerical error and that
he’d be getting to our petition
before eleven o’clock.’
‘We leave at ten,’ Angela says.
Father Matthew mutters beneath his breath,
a prayer,
and Aunt Karen joins him,
a final call
to God
to intervene
where man has
stood aside
and watched.
TEN O’CLOCK
Before I’ve time to decide on the last words to say
to Ed
it’s ten o’clock.
A different guard comes in.
She doesn’t speak,
stands there seeming sorry for herself,
like she’s the one being tortured.
Al stands. ‘Time to go,’ he says. ‘I’ll wait outside.’
He grabs an envelope, shoots through the door.
Father Matthew follows along with the guard.
Aunt Karen takes Ed’s hand.
‘I’m praying for you all the time,’ she says.
‘And I’m so very, very sorry.’
Ed kisses her forehead and she scurries out,
so
it’s just the kids now,
the three of us
alone
for the first time in ten years.
Angela holds the back of a chair.
I steady myself on her arm.
I want to whimper,
feel like collapsing.
But I have to hold it together
for Ed.
No use him seeing his siblings crumble.
He has to know we’re OK.
Ed faces us. ‘This isn’t the end.
In an hour Heath McDowell
will make a call and you’ll be back
tomorrow afternoon
wondering when the hell you get to go home.’
His voice is wispy;
he hardly believes it himself.
Ed feels out of reach,
like I’m seeing him from
across a football field.
Will he hear me if I speak?
Can he understand
when he’s so far away?
‘Ed,’ I whisper.
‘Come here, Joe.’ He reaches for me,
takes me in his arms, squeezes.
Then he pulls Angela into us too
and we are silent,
cos nothing can be said now
that matters
all that much.
The clock ticks loudly.
I don’t know how many minutes pass
but Al returns. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says.
‘They’re calling time.’
Ed releases the embrace
and Angela stumbles,
saves herself by reaching for my hand.
I hold her up, help her step away from Ed.
She isn’t crying.
She sounds like she might be sick.
I reach forward one last time and hold him.
‘I’m glad we got this time together,’ I say.
Ed pulls away, his eyes swollen with tears.
‘Take care of yourselves, OK?’
And then he turns,
puts his back to us completely.
I hold Angela’s hand,
pull her
out of the room as quickly as I can.
The guard shuts the door.
I fall to the floor.
And from the closed room we can hear Ed.
He is howling
our names.
WITNESS
Angela collects her bag,
about to follow Father Matthew to the visitors’
cafeteria
in the main prison,
where they’ll wait a couple of hours
until the witness gallery is ready.
Angela will watch the state murder Ed,
something she can never unsee,
a movie that will play
for the rest of her life.
‘There’s no reason to do this,’ I tell her.
She is crying,
snot running into her mouth.
‘He can’t be alone,’ she snivels.
‘But you’ll be alone,’ I tell her.
Aunt Karen offers Angela a Kleenex.
‘I’ll be the witness,’ she tells us. ‘It’s the least I can do.’
But Angela is adamant.
She will not relinquish this role.
‘He’ll be expecting me,’ she says.
‘Then I’ll wait with you,’ Aunt Karen insists,
and all three of them
leave through a
heavy metal door.
BELIEF
Nell opens her arms and takes me in.
‘Let’s go for a drive,’ she says.
Behind her,
protesters’ candles blink.
I could join them, as I planned,
but my voice will make no difference.
I’m not in any mood to pray anyway.
I don’t believe in God today.
I don’t even believe in people.
IN THE DARKNESS
A hill overlooks the farm.
I drive, Nell grasping my knee.
She pats it now and then, and asks, ‘Are you OK?’
I nod, though I’m not.
I’m afraid I might pass out,
veer off the road into a ditch,
vomit all over myself.
I fix my eyes to the road,
focus on the car moving.
If I cause an accident I’ll hurt Nell;
I don’t want that.
We stop at the lookout point.
From up here you can see the whole farm –
every rotten thing happening below;
cars and vans come and go,
lights in cells shut out,
and Section A
to the right,
the only part of the prison lit up –
bright lights against the black.
I reach for the radio. Nell stops me.
‘If anything changes, they’ll call,’ she says,
and she’s right; what else will I hear
over the airwaves
but people gunning for Ed?
Nell hands me a beer and a bottle opener,
strokes the back of my neck with her fingertips.
‘What can I do?’ she asks.
‘Nothing,’ I say.
‘Just sit in the darkness with me.’
A MINUTE BEFORE MIDNIGHT
Nell and I have had three beers each,
shared a titanic pack of Twizzlers.
My phone pings.
A message from Al:
Governor denied our appeal
for a stay. I’m sorry, Joe.
I’ll call you afterwards.
Al
MIDNIGHT
I stumble out of the car,
breathe in the moist air.
Nell is out the
passenger side,
comes to me. ‘What was it?’
I hold out my phone; she reads the message.
‘You’re going to survive this,’ she says.
She tries to wrap her arms around me,
but I step away,
lay my hands flat on the hood,
face the farm, their lights,
and imagine
the strap-down team
taking Ed from his holding cell
to the death chamber,
the murmurings of the priest’s final prayer,
Angela’s face as the curtains open
and she sees Ed, IVs in his arms,
head shaved,
body fastened down
too tight
And there’s Philip Miller nodding,
giving the go ahead for poisons to be pumped
into Ed’s body.
I stare at the moon,
round and the colour of oatmeal.
‘The moonrise was beautiful all month,’ I tell Ed.
‘It’s beautiful underneath this sky.’
IT IS DONE
Ed is gone.
TIME TRAVEL ME
Time travel me back.
Let me say goodbye again.
A minute more,
a moment,
a chance to see Ed’s face
alive,
hold his hand like we did when I was a kid –
feel his skin and smell him.
Time travel me back.
Let me relive any moment with Ed;
I’ll take him at his worst,
his moodiest.
Anything at all so long as he can hear me.
Time travel me back
so I can say goodbye and mean it.
Give me the final moment again
to use the words no one in our house
ever dared say to one another –
scared of being sappy or overemotional.
Give me the three seconds with Ed
and I will tell him the words and I will mean them.
I will say,
I love you.
DRIVING HOME
Nell drives and we don’t speak.
Every limb is numb
or aching.
My mind is racing
and then slow.
Never
again.
Never.
Never
again.
That’s when I’ll next see my brother.
BODY CURLED UP
I bolt upright on the blow-up mattress
on the living room floor.
‘Angela?’
She is standing over me,
body shuddering.
I pull her down
and she lies on her side,
face to the window,
body curled up like a baby.
She starts to shake.
I lie on the sheet next to her,
wrap her in my arms,
do nothing useful at all
except listen to the hurt.
ANOTHER NEXT MONTH
I get up early and
step around the blow-up bed where
Angela is still curled up into a small ball,
asleep,
dressed in her clothes from last night.
The door to the bedroom is closed.
May
be Aunt Karen is awake,
but if she wanted to talk, she would have come out.
I dress for my run and take off,
down the apartment block stairs,
through the parking lot,
along Main Street to the edge of town.
Usually this is where I head home,
where the sidewalk ends.
But this morning I keep going
down unlit streets,
past empty fields
and buzzing factories.
I run and run in the pre-dawn light,
not noticing too much the aching in my legs.
And I find the prison,
where I expect to see cameras,
a few remaining protesters holding banners aloft.
But it’s finished.
Over.
Like nothing ever happened here.
A janitor collects something from the ground
and throws it into a trash can.
The place is strewn with candy bar wrappers,
cigarette butts,
candle wax.
‘The party’s over, I guess,’ I say to him.
The janitor shrugs.
‘They got another party planned for
September sixteenth.’
‘Another execution?’
‘Sure. Dick Reese got a date last week.’
‘I missed that news,’ I say.
‘Yeah, well,
Dick ain’t got a chance in hell.
You know what he did?’