by David R. Dow
In Thursday’s mail I got a handwritten statement from Green, largely repeating what he had told me in person. His execution was a week away. I called Mark again. Green was a goner. There was no chance whatsoever that he would be alive the following Friday, so I made what I believed to be a costless offer. I wanted to get Green to tell his story while hooked up to a polygraph. Polygraph evidence is inadmissible in court, but I wasn’t thinking about that. I was thinking that if his confession held up, the parole board or the governor would feel safer granting Quaker relief. I said to Roberts, Here’s what I’d like to do. I’ll have Green polygraphed tomorrow, but I won’t use the results until after he’s executed.
Roberts said, You mean if he’s executed.
I said, Yeah, that’s what I mean. If he’s executed.
Roberts said, If it’s okay with Green, it’s okay with me.
THAT AFTERNOON I rode the Metro train from my office to the medical center to have Charlie look at my eye. I was reading some papers we planned to file the next day in the O’Neill case. I did not have my new glasses yet. I was holding the pages so close to my face that they were touching my nose. A thick Hispanic woman was breast-feeding an infant. Sitting next to her was a boy who looked to be about eight. He was beautiful, part Latino and part black. I looked down at what I was reading and heard him say, Mire, Mama. His mother said, Shh. The boy said, Mama, ese hombre es ciego. I looked up. The boy was pointing at me. I gave him a smile, waved surreptitiously with two fingers, then covered my eyes with my hands and peeked over them at him. He could tell his friends that he played peek-a-boo with a blind man. He smiled back, and his mother looked at me warmly.
Charlie had told me that I would be able to go back to work forty-eight hours after the surgery, but that I would get headaches for a while. He asked how I was doing. I told him I had a splitting headache. He said, Yes. I told you that would happen. It’s perfectly normal. He had been using an instrument to look at the back of my eye, where he had reattached the retina. He pushed back from the machine he had been looking through. He said, Well, the front of the eye still looks like hamburger, but the back looks beautiful. Your retina is better now than when you were born. I told him the headaches made it hard to concentrate, and I asked him how long they would last. He said, Buy a month’s worth of aspirin.
I said, A month? Are you serious?
He said, You’ve always been an impatient SOB.
I said, Yeah, but a grateful one. I shook his hand and left.
I TOOK THE TRAIN back to my office but decided not to go back upstairs. I got in my car intending to go home. Kassie had gotten special permission from the warden to polygraph Green the next morning. I needed to spend some time thinking about what questions to ask him.
I called Jerome to talk about O’Neill. O’Neill’s execution was four days away. We had asked the state court to halt the execution on the grounds that O’Neill had descended so deeply into the darkness of madness that he was immune from execution. The court denied our motion, saying we had waited too long to raise the issue of O’Neill’s sanity. We immediately filed a petition in federal court, but it was just sitting there. Jerome asked when I thought we’d hear something. I said, I’m guessing at about five forty-five on Monday. That means we can call him when we get denied and he’ll get a whole quarter hour to get ready to die. Jerome asked me if I would have time to visit with him when I was at the prison the next day.
I said, If he’s really convinced he isn’t going to be executed, what’s the point of my telling him good-bye?
Jerome said, I promise you, the guy is crazy. I think he really is Ford incompetent. But just humor me, okay?
Jerome was referring to a case called Ford versus Wainwright. In that case, the U.S. Supreme Court said that a state cannot execute someone if the person does not know why he is in prison nor that the state is planning on killing him. The decision is an example of a lofty principle that has almost no practical application. Someone can be the most disturbed person you have ever known, yet not be Ford incompetent. Everyone has heard the story about Ricky Rector. He was a death-row inmate in Arkansas who always saved his dinner’s dessert to eat for breakfast the next day. During the 1992 presidential campaign, when Bill Clinton was still trying to secure the Democratic nomination, he flew back to Arkansas to preside over the Rector execution. After the lethal injection, the guards went to clean out Rector’s cell. They found the piece of pecan pie that Rector had requested with his final meal. Rector had put it on the table next to his cot, to save it for the breakfast he was apparently expecting to have the morning following his execution.
Convincing a judge that someone is Ford incompetent is a daunting proposition. I said, Don’t worry, Jerome. I’m kidding. I’ll let him know what to expect.
I knew a girl who used to live two blocks from me. I would see her getting the paper in the morning when I was out with the dog. She would always seem a little embarrassed to be seen in her bathrobe, but she would always pet Winona. She and her husband had triplets. An instant family, she once said to me. One evening he took the kids to watch the Astros play in their new stadium. He was driving over the Pierce elevated highway when an 18-wheeler driven by a driver who had been on the road for nineteen straight hours nudged his SUV off the road. The car fell onto the street below and burst into flames. The man and the three children burned to death. She moved out of the house, and I had not seen her since. I glanced down to break the connection on my call with Jerome. I looked up just as a woman carrying two bags of groceries was stepping off the curb. My light was green. I leaned on the horn and called her a name I’d rather not repeat. When I looked at her in the rearview mirror, I could have sworn that she was my friend, and that the look on her face was not fear, but regret.
Instead of driving home to my empty house, I drove to McElroy’s pub, bought a strong Honduran cigar, and ordered a double of Woodford Reserve, neat. I finished it and ordered another. The woman sitting two stools down from me had a plate of olives and cheese in front of her. She was drinking scotch out of a highball glass and chewing on a piece of ice. When the bartender looked at her, she pointed to her glass. I moved over next to her and said, Judge Truesdale?
She swiveled in her chair and looked at me. She was fifteen years younger than the judge. She said, Afraid not. I think you confused me with someone. She looked at the wedding band on my left hand and swiveled back around.
I said, Sorry about that. I paid my check and left.
I picked up some tacos from a taco stand but felt sick to my stomach when I got home and left them on the counter. I stood in the hot shower until the hot water ran out then got in bed to watch the nine o’clock news. Instead I fell immediately asleep and had a dream. Katya and I were in Las Vegas. I was playing terrible poker, but I couldn’t lose. From middle position I would raise with an unsuited eight-five, and three eights would come on the flop. Spectators were gathering around the table to watch, like I was a magician. I felt gleeful, and also embarrassed. I looked at my watch. Katya and I were meeting at seven to go to dinner, and it was almost eight. I cashed in my chips and rushed upstairs. Everything was okay. Katya was still in the shower. I lay down on the bed and poured myself a drink. I dozed off, and when I woke up, the shower was off and Katya was kissing my chest. I put my hands on either side of her head. Her lips felt unfamiliar. I opened my eyes and she was gone. A strange woman with her back to me was sitting naked on the edge of the bed. She turned around. Judge Truesdale said, What time will your wife be back?
The ringing phone woke me.
Lincoln said, Hi, Dada. When are you going to call to tell me good night? I looked at the clock. It was nine thirty.
I said, I thought you would already be asleep, amigo. Why are you still up?
He said, Mama and I went to a restaurant and ordered pizza and it took a really long time.
I said, Okay, amigo. I’m glad you called, but you have to go to sleep now, okay? Can I talk to Mama?
He sa
id, Sure. Good night. I love you.
Katya got on the phone. She said, How’s everything going?
I told her I didn’t have a clue but that there was nothing I could do that weekend and that I was planning to drive down to the beach when I left the prison the next day and stay until Monday morning. She asked whether she should tell Lincoln or whether it was going to be a surprise. I said, Go ahead and tell him.
I think I was already planning to go to Galveston before the dream. But I can’t be sure. Half the things I do in life are for reasons I can’t fathom.
I STAYED UP the rest of the night thinking about how to approach Green. Claiming partial responsibility for three murders he was not suspected of would be a ridiculous long-term strategy, even if it got his life extended past Thursday. Normally, that would count in favor of his credibility. But death-row inmates live their lives in thirty-day increments. There isn’t any long-term strategy, at least for the vast majority who are not actually innocent. The focus is on avoiding the looming execution date. Everything else can wait. You solve the immediate problem, and don’t think about the next one. Or, as we say in my office, we’ll burn the distant bridges when we get to them.
Maybe I could understand Green’s motivation and assess his veracity if I could crawl inside his life, but I could not get inside his life even if I wanted to, and on top of that, I didn’t want to. He killed his son’s mother and grandmother with his bare hands. Who can relate to that? Who wants to? When I leave the prison, I can hardly wait to get in the shower and wash the death and deprivation off of me. I hire experts to tell judges what it is like to be one of my clients, and while they are talking, I try hard not to listen. My job is to keep them from being executed, not to save them, or to heal them. My job is hard enough, but at least it is possible. I’m not Don Quixote.
Understanding a broken human being in a visceral way means that you are broken, too, at least for a while. I do not want to imagine abusing my son, or imagine being abused by my father. I don’t want to think about what kind of person would commit that abuse, or what kind of person could, or what would happen to the person who received it. But you don’t get to control the thoughts that enter your mind, and I couldn’t stop myself from picturing Green as a kid Lincoln’s age. Green’s sister was a sociology professor at the University of Miami. What did someone do to him to make him a monster?
The guard at the entrance to the visitor’s lot asked me to open my hood and my trunk. There was a leash and water bowl for the dog, and the board game Candyland. This vehicle search was a new part of the routine. I got out of the car while the guard looked at the engine block. I asked him what was the purpose. He said, Looking for people who don’t belong. I chuckled at that. I said that it seemed to me that it would make more sense to search cars when they were leaving the prison, rather than when they were arriving. He didn’t laugh. No one gets my jokes.
KASSIE WAS ALREADY THERE, sitting next to Destiny, explaining to Green how everything would work once the polygraph examiner arrived. I said hello and walked over to talk to O’Neill. He was visiting with his parents. They had not seen him in six years. Thinking it was going to be their last chance to see him alive, they had driven down from Michigan and were living at a rest stop in their RV. I introduced myself. His mother hugged me. His father took my right hand in both of his and shook it. His mom said, Thank you for everything you are doing for Ronnie. I didn’t tell her that my vote at the office had been to do nothing. Instead I told her we would do what we could. I sat down to talk to O’Neill. His parents stood behind me so they could listen, too. I told them just to ask if they had any questions. O’Neill’s mom said, Thank you, sir.
O’Neill had three cans of Coke, two bags of nacho-cheese-flavored Doritos, two bags of Funions, and three Snickers bars arranged in front of him. He was making sandwiches by layering a tortilla chip, a piece of chocolate bar, a Funion, another piece of chocolate, and another Dorito. Then he’d pop the whole thing into his mouth. His head would rotate like a figure eight while he chewed. He ate a sandwich, wiped the front of his lower teeth using his tongue, then he said to me, Good day, sir. Those are my parents standing right behind you. I told him I knew, that we had met just moments before. He said, I am not sure you are understanding me, sir. Shall the potter be regarded as the clay? That the thing made should say of its maker, He did not make me? Or the thing formed say of Him who made it, He has not understanding?
I exhaled loudly and shook my head like I was clearing cobwebs. His father leaned close to me and whispered, It’s Isaiah.
I said, a little too harshly, I know that. Chapter twenty-nine. What I’m trying to figure out is the connection.
He said, Oh. I’m sorry. Well, I don’t think there is one.
O’Neill looked at his father like he’d never seen him before, his eyes blank, his pupils the size of a pinhead. I tried to make eye contact, but his gaze was off to my left, like he was examining my ear. He gave no indication that he remembered me. I felt like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. I explained that we had filed something, that we were raising a Ford claim and challenging his competency to be executed, that we probably would not hear from the courts until Monday morning, that by the time we prepared our emergency appeal to the Supreme Court and heard back from them, it would be close to 6:00 p.m. I said it all in one breath. Behind me, I heard his mother gasp.
O’Neill’s head twitched ever so slightly to the right, and he stared at my eyes. Then his gaze dropped to my chest and lingered. He said, I can see you have a good and pure heart, sir, and I thank you. But I shall not require your interventions or entreaties on my behalf. I am watched over and blessed. These men cannot do me harm. He waved his arms like a windmill. He bent over and put his ear next to a sandwich he had built, the way you lean toward someone who’s whispering. I told him I would talk to him the following week.
As I was leaving, I wrote down his dad’s cell phone number and promised him I would call as soon as I heard something from the Supreme Court. His eyes were wet. His wife was holding on to her purse strap so tightly that her knuckles were white. She said, Ask him, dear.
He took a hold of my upper arm. I could smell peanut butter and jelly on his breath. He said, We are not planning to watch it. We’ll be at the prison, but we want to stay outside in the camper. Do you think that’s all right?
Against my better judgment I said, I am not convinced it is going to happen, Mr. O’Neill. If it does, though, you and your wife should not watch.
He nodded his head up and down twice. His wife stifled a sob. I squeezed his shoulder, and I walked away.
THREE GUARDS BROUGHT Green into a room I had never been in. Two walked on either side of him, holding his arms, and one walked two steps behind. Green’s wrists were cuffed and chained to a leather belt around his waist. Because his ankles were also chained, he did not so much walk into the room as shuffle. When he walked through the door, he smiled, revealing a gold canine tooth I had not noticed before. In the center of the room was a small, square bridge table, with two folding chairs, across from one another. Against the wall were two plastic chairs, the kind you can buy for $10 at the grocery store. Kassie was with me, along with Fred Faison, the polygraph examiner. Green looked at Kassie and grinned. He nodded to me and said, This is the first time since I got here that I been in a room with people from the free world who ain’t guards. Then he turned to the guard on his left and said, Y’all gonna unchain me? The guard did not say anything. He turned around and looked at the captain. The captain also said nothing and walked out of the room.
Kassie asked Faison in a whisper whether he needed Green to be uncuffed to do the testing. Faison shrugged and said, Not really. Either way will be fine.
The captain walked back in. He said, Warden wants Green to stay chained.
Green said, That’s bullshit, man. I ain’t doing this in chains.
I asked the captain whether I could talk to Green privately. He stepped back toward the door, and motioned th
e other two guards over to him. Privately apparently meant they’d give me eight or ten feet of space. I stood between Green and the guards, so that my back was to them. I said, I’ve got other shit I can be doing today. To be honest, I don’t think you will pass the polygraph, and if you do, I don’t think it will matter. So I don’t really care what you decide, but will you hurry up and make a decision so I can get on with my day?
He said, You bring any change, counselor?
Kassie was standing next to me. She quickly said, I can buy you a soda.
Green kept his eyes on me and smiled. He said, A Dr. Pepper and a Sprite. He paused a beat, then said, Please.
Kassie walked out to get them. Green looked at the captain and said, I’m ready.
I sat on the edge of one of the plastic chairs, trying to decide whether I believed a word he was saying, trying to figure out whether I could use it, trying to divine his motives. Faison was staring down at his machines as he asked Green a series of questions in a robotic monotone. He had placed sensors on Green’s chest and head. A blood pressure cuff encased his left biceps. After every question, before he gave an answer, Green leaned forward and sipped from one of his drinks, alternating between the two. After half an hour, Faison stood up and walked over to me. Anything else you want me to cover? he asked. I looked at Kassie. She shrugged. I told Faison I thought we had enough. He walked back over to Green and started to remove the wires.