A Book of American Martyrs

by Joyce Carol Oates

  In a lowered voice that startled Luther, for it was so close to his ear, Reverend Davey said, “They are here, Luther. Two of Timothy Barron’s adult children.”

  To this, Luther had no reply. A strange numbness had settled upon him like a thin mist.

  Reverend Davey said: “I’ve spoken with them. They are still—both—aggrieved about the loss of their father.”

  “But none of my family is here?”—Luther was concerned to know.

  “No, Luther. They are not.”

  His heart lightened. This was a relief to hear. He could not bear to disappoint them further.

  “Will my body be sent to them, then? For—burial?”

  “Yes.”

  Still it was not too late for his sentence to be commuted. And there was the possibility of—what was the word?—clemency. Well before this time in the past the call had come to stay the execution but still it was not too late.

  A test from God. As God had tested and tormented His only begotten son. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?—Jesus had cried on the cross.

  “There are many protesters outside the prison, Luther. Some are carrying picket signs with your name and picture on them, and some are carrying picket signs protesting capital punishment—‘A Civilized Nation Does Not Execute.’”

  Luther felt a twinge of guilt. Who were these people, and why did they exert themselves on behalf of him? It was only God’s intervention that mattered and if there was not God’s intervention, the exertions of these others were in vain.

  “It is very touching, Luther. To see so many protesters.”

  But Luther was not listening closely. He was being led along a windowless corridor. And then, along another windowless corridor. His pride was somewhat wounded, the COs who urged him along did not allow him to walk at a quickened pace—as Luther would have done, voluntarily—but pushed him forward as one might push forward a recalcitrant man or one who is unsteady on his feet.

  Some men had to be carried to the execution chamber, it was said. Refusing to walk, or paralyzed and unable to walk—carried in chairs, or pushed in wheelchairs, or carried on stretchers.

  Recalling then he had not finished signing the copies of the New Testament left for him by Reverend Davey in his cell. Half-consciously he’d been thinking he would finish the signing later that night, or in the morning, but when he tried to explain to Reverend Davey, Reverend Davey interrupted as if unhearing.

  “It isn’t much farther, Luther. Jesus is with us now.”

  His footsteps slowed—what was this room? The ceiling was low and the lights were very bright inside as in an operating room. Luther hesitated and was gripped by both arms rudely and walked through the low-ceilinged doorway.

  “There is no need for that!”—Reverend Davey spoke reprovingly to the COs.

  Luther was beginning to feel light-headed. Barely could he see for the brightness of the lights in this cramped space that smelled of disinfectant and something sweetly chemical. Barely could he hear Reverend Davey ask if he had any final words as he handed Luther a small microphone.

  Final words!—the thought was so strange to him, his lips lifted in a smile.

  Final words. He had never been one to make others laugh (like certain of his friends at school) yet a wild impulse came over him, to pat at his pockets as if searching for final words. But there were no pockets in his clothing.

  Luther could not speak for it seemed to him that he had used up all of the words of his life.

  And how strange, Reverend Davey had handed him a microphone. It came to Luther, the first time he would hold a microphone in his hand, and the last time he would hold a microphone in his hand, were one and the same time.

  Shyness came over him. His throat had shut up tight.

  A microphone! Like someone on TV.

  The execution chamber was much smaller than he had expected—and the ceiling strangely low. He worried that it might be soundproof—(he had heard that it was soundproof)—in which case, if a call came to stay the execution, the ringing might not be heard inside the room.

  Nor could he see through the Plexiglas window, that was a horizontal window of about eight inches in height and seven feet in length, with pushed-open black curtains at both ends. But he knew that there were witnesses beyond the barrier—the prison warden and other authorities, law enforcement officers, relatives of the deceased. Strangers assembled to witness a death.

  Not his death but a death. A large clumsy bird flapping its wings, a death could happen to anyone in this vicinity.

  There, the gurney to which the condemned man would be strapped. It was surprisingly narrow, spare. It did not seem long enough for Luther Dunphy’s body, or substantial enough.

  A metal rod with straps extended perpendicularly from the gurney, about twelve inches from the top. Luther stared at this trying to think what its purpose might be

  “Luther? Have you anything to say?”—Reverend Davey repeated.

  All this while Luther’s heart was beating hard and steady. His heart did not believe that this would happen to him. At last he began to speak slowly into the microphone as if each word were being pulled out of the air with difficulty.

  “In Jesus’s name—I repent my sins. The act that I did—that brought death to Mr. Barron—I did not intend. It may have been—the shotgun went off by itself . . .” Luther paused, breathing audibly. His forehead shone with perspiration.

  Gently Reverend Davey urged: “Yes, Luther?”

  “—yet it is my fault I know. Because the shotgun was in my hands. I—I beg forgiveness from the family of Mr. Barron who—whose life—was taken from him wrongly . . . And if you cannot forgive me I understand . . . It is only Jesus’s forgiveness that matters.” Again Luther paused. He was swallowing compulsively and his eyes had filled with moisture.

  “Yes, Luther? And—?”

  “May God have mercy on my soul, that I have done such an act. And all other—other—mistakes of my life, that are my fault alone and no one else’s.”

  Abruptly Luther ceased as if he had run out of words.

  Reverend Davey was deeply moved. Bright tears streaked his ruddy cheeks.

  “Luther, thank you! God bless you, my son. Now let us pray.”

  His instinct was to kneel but they would not let Luther kneel. Their hands gripped his upper arms tight. He would pray standing as Reverend Davey stood awkward on his feet in the presence of the Lord until at last his knees began to shake.

  MADE TO FEEL LIKE SHIT coming to the prison.

  Protesters with picket signs in the roadway. Waving signs and shouting at me.

  Their eyes on me like they knew it was me—the executioner.

  And the shock in Luther’s eyes when he saw who was waiting for him.

  Feeling like shit. Like Judas.

  In Luther’s eyes there was that thought too—like Judas.

  But there was forgiveness in his eyes too. For Luther Dunphy knew that I was his friend.

  Asked him to lay on the gurney and he did. When he had to lean on me, to lift himself up onto it, I felt how strong he was, the hard-quivering muscles of his arm. It is always strange to stand so close to a white man. You expect them to shudder away from you. I thought if he tried to fight us we’d need at least four men—two to hold the ankles and two to hold the wrists. But Luther Dunphy didn’t fight us.

  Then, we strapped him down. Fumbled with the damn straps. You could hear him breathing like through his mouth and not his nose—like an animal panting.

  On the other side of the Plexiglas the sons of bitches watching. Fuckers sitting in seats like in a little theater and the closest seats maybe two feet from the window. Their knees had to be pressing against the window. The way the lights are you can’t see the “witnesses” too clear because of reflections but you know that the sons of bitches are there.

  The warden and the assistant warden and officials from the prosecutor’s office. Law enforcement, journalists.

  A son and a daughter o
f one of the victims were there. We had been told.

  Now Luther Dunphy was lying on the gurney still-like and strapped down and his left arm stretched out on the rod. And it happened in that way that is what we dread the worst—it was not possible to find a good vein.

  Sticking the needle in the man’s arm, trying to raise blood into the hypodermic, and feeling the man stiffen with pain (but not saying anything—like Luther wanted to spare me)—this was damn hard.

  Soon, I was sweating.

  Tried all the veins I could find in his left arm, and not one of them worked. Or maybe I just did not know how to do it—fuck!

  You wind a rubber strip tight around the upper arm to make the veins bulge but a vein can “roll”—just rolls away from the fucking needle.

  If a man is dehydrated the veins are not firm. Maybe Luther Dunphy had not drunk liquids in a while.

  In the right arm I tried with a large ropey blue vein running the length of his arm but I had forgotten to use the rubber strip so I wrapped that tight around his upper arm and tried again—no luck. Damn vein just rolled away from the needle. Sweating bad now and poor Luther was trying not to groan with pain from the fucking needle. And he was bleeding bad from me sticking him.

  Finally after eight stabs it looked like the line was in, at the crook of his arm, that soft skin at the elbow, and we could start the first drug—the barbiturate.

  This is the sleep drug—the anesthesia.

  The containers are clearly labeled. There is number one and there is number two and there is number three.

  The instructions are printed clear in steps. From this point onward there would be an estimated ten-eleven minutes at the longest before the man is dead.

  But then, the fucking line came out! The needle sunk into the skin at the crook of the elbow just popped out and started bleeding.

  (At this point the assistant warden entered the room with a curse yanking the black curtains shut so the witnesses could not see anything further. On his face a special look of disgust for me.)

  Had to start again and this time my hands were not too steady. And Luther Dunphy white-faced and trying not to gag. And I tried to keep my hand from shaking, holding my right hand with the needle with the left hand though I had not had a drink in many hours—not since driving to the prison.

  In the glove compartment of my car there’s a quart bottle of scotch. All I can think of is getting back to my car, opening that glove compartment and drinking from the bottle which I will do as soon as this is over.

  I will feel the warm liquor in my mouth, going down my throat and into my chest like the warmth of the sun. I will want to cry, I will be so grateful.

  How many stabs it took, I don’t want to remember.

  Gave up on the right arm and tried the left arm again and both arms bleeding from the damn needle. (Which was maybe blunt and dull now from so much use.) And so, we cut open Luther’s trousers, to try for a vein in the inner thigh, there’s a vein there (I knew from past experience)—a kind of a big fat vein. But by this time I’m shaking pretty bad. So I’m fucking that up too.

  But just keep trying. That’s all you can do. How many stabs of the needle until finally I got in a line—must’ve been an hour, or more. My fingers are numb and my neck is stiff from the tension. And Luther Dunphy squirming on the gurney trying not to groan, or scream. Finally now the anesthetic is dripping into the vein, or should be—(unless we screwed up the order of the drugs)—Luther is praying aloud Our Father who art in Heaven and suddenly he is crying I’m on fire, I’m on fire—like it’s the wrong drug, it’s the poison drug not the anesthetic—but we are certain that it is the right drug—but still Luther is crying and groaning and then he is screaming and writhing and vomit leaks from his mouth and his eyes roll back in his head but he doesn’t lose consciousness—he is not being put “to sleep”—the line has to be removed because some mistake has been made and a fresh vein will have to be found.

  Sick to death. So sick! Telling myself God damn you knew you should have told the warden to find somebody else and fuck that three hundred dollars.

  TWO HOURS, EIGHTEEN MINUTES were required for Luther Dunphy to die from the time he was strapped to the gurney to the time he was declared dead by the attending physician Dr. E——.

  His brain was extinguished by degrees. His soul was extinguished by degrees like a panicked bird fluttering in a small space being struck by a broom again, again, again.

  Into a vein in his left ankle the hot poison entered and once it began to stream inside it could not be stopped.

  It was astonishing to him—he could feel the hot poison entering. Yet still he could not believe that it was his death that was entering him.

  As the poison flooded his bloodstream his organs shut down one by one. Liver, kidneys, heart. His blood turned to liquid scalding lava. He was resolved not to scream but—he heard himself scream. A young raw boy’s voice. Oh God oh God help me. Oh God. He had been sweating and shivering and his teeth chattering wildly and now his temperature spiked. His heart was racing to keep ahead of the poison. He began to die in quicker degrees. His clenched fingers had turned white and were becoming cold, and his toes and feet were becoming cold. As his fingers became cold and numb they ceased clenching yet spread stiffly like claws. An icy mist crept up his body like a devil’s embrace. He had not given sufficient thought to devils and demons in God’s creation—that had been a failure of his. He had not truly believed in Hell. He had believed in Heaven but not so much in Hell. He was astonished at himself, to think—Am I still alive? And then, he was not alive.

  Neurons in his brain were extinguished like lights going out one by one—a string of Christmas tree lights. His most painful memories were extinguished. His birthmark was extinguished as if it had never clung to his cheek like a rabid bat. His happiest memories were extinguished. A very young child laughed into his face and closed its arms around his neck and was gone in that instant. Another cried—Da-DA!—and was gone in that instant. He was being lifted, with care—a woman’s hand gentle at the small of his back, and a woman’s gentle hand at the nape of his neck. A sweet smell of milk overwhelmed him. He was bathed in liquid heat and in blinding light opening his eyes wide, wider to take in such a wonder. Dr. E—— who’d been waiting outside the execution chamber in a private place as was his wont as a thirty-year veteran of Chillicothe not witnessing the horrific execution thus obliged to wait an unconscionable two hours eighteen minutes having to exit the premises to use a lavatory not once but two times though a few shots of whiskey usually slowed urine production, so Dr. E—— was humbled, humiliated and infuriated and totally disgusted, returning then to a further vigil trying not to hear the dying man’s screams of agony through the purportedly soundproof wall and the inane accusations of the asshole COs responsible for the lethal injection blaming one another for the fiasco arguably worse, more heinous and outrageous than the previous execution fiasco several years before; now grimly charging forward into the reeking room to examine the deceased man’s livid body stinking of bowels, blood, chemicals, horror with rubber-gloved hands checking the pulse of the deceased, heartbeat, no pulse and no heartbeat, shining a pencil-flashlight into the unresponsive eye of the deceased to declare time of death 9:18 P.M. and date March 4, 2006, and sign the death certificate in his scornful illegible hand.

  If they’d said thank you doctor he would say sure. And fuck you but no one thanked him. He exited.

  Shortly then the body that had ceased writhing and was now very still was covered in a white bloodstained cloth of the size of a tablecloth. The red-mottled contorted face with opened eyes and mouth agape as in childlike terror and wonder was mercifully covered.

  The gurney bearing the body was wheeled to the prison morgue by the COs who’d administered the drugs. Shame-faced and sullen and swaying on their feet with exhaustion. And their uniforms covered in blood from their myriad mishandlings of the needle. And in the morgue the fevered body began at once to cool. In this plac
e of sudden calm, quiet. A drop in body temperature from 102°F to 99°F and then in inexorable and irreversible decline to 90°F, within an hour 82°F, eventually 60°F, and at last 36°F. which was the temperature of the aluminum gurney beneath the corpse and the temperature of the very still air of the morgue.

  Total darkness in this place and not a single reflection of even muted light. Even the faintest eclipse of light, there was none. The darkness on the face of the deep before the creation of light before the first day of creation and total silence, not a breath neither inhalation nor exhalation.

  THE EMBRACE

  MARCH 2006–MARCH 2010

  AUTOIMMUNE

  Not yet.”

  Waiting for the news. Waiting to learn that Luther Dunphy had at last been put to death.

  In this borrowed room in Ann Arbor she’d forgotten where she was. And Darren two thousand miles away in Newhalem, Washington.

  Hours they’d been waiting together. Since 5:55 P.M. and now it was 9:18 P.M. and no news had come from Chillicothe and the strain of the vigil was exhausting.

  On an arm of the vinyl sofa where Naomi sat stiffly was a mobile receiver set to speakerphone. At the other end of the line was her brother Darren two thousand miles away in a place she could not imagine (for she had never seen it) with a similar phone similarly positioned.

  It was Darren who had two phones primed for use. One of them, a landline, was connected to Naomi in Ann Arbor and the other was a cell phone poised to receive a call from Chillicothe, Ohio.

  In Chillicothe a journalist named Elliot Roberts who’d known the Voorhees family when they’d lived in Detroit was witnessing the execution of Luther Dunphy in order to write about it for the Associated Press. Roberts had contacted Darren, to arrange for a private call to notify Darren when the execution was completed; but Roberts had to leave his cell phone in his vehicle parked outside the prison facility, for electronic equipment was not allowed inside the facility. Not until Roberts was released from the facility, presumably with other civilian witnesses after the execution, could he call Darren with the news.