“Nor the Good Book!” Pete added, and all three men laughed at his quick and clever wit.
“I can see they’re about to begin things down on the field,” Pete said, switching gears from jovial sports anchor to serious newsman. “Walking out onto the field now is Penal Commissioner Benjamin Philips flanked by a security escort of at least a dozen strapping young men.”
“An even dozen, to be exact,” Bart said.
A wave of silence washed over the spectators.
Commissioner Philips walked with his goon squad to the center of the field where a four-foot-deep hole had been dug. A plastic white tarp had been tucked inside the hole, its edges spreading out onto the field in a circle fifteen feet in diameter. This was to be Stephen Messinjure’s burial shroud. A white chalk line thirty feet in diameter encircled the shroud, giving each of the dozen executioners—each wearing bright white jumpsuits and matching white sneakers—standing behind the line fifteen feet to lob rocks—each man had his own waist-high pile—at the condemned. Each rock was the size of a (very large) man’s fist, in accordance with Church-State law.
A microphone had been set up midway between the center hole and the chalk circle. The commissioner stepped up to it and discovered he was far too short to reach the mic. The image on the gigantic video screen made him look like a dwarf and sent waves of laughter rippling through the crowd. One of the security thugs rushed over to lower the microphone and the crowd rewarded him with cheers. The diminutive commissioner then stepped up to the mic and held up a hand for silence.
“Gentlemen!” he said, his voice echoing throughout the stadium. “We are gathered here today for a most solemn and sad occasion! As Federal Penal Commissioner it is my sworn duty to carry out the courts’ punishments in accordance with God’s law!”
A deafening roar as the spectators leapt to their feet and cheered.
“Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind,” the commissioner yelled, his spittle audibly hitting the mic. Thousands of voices joined in as he proclaimed, “It is an abomination!”
The multitude roared its approval.
“If a man...” the commissioner continued, pausing for a few seconds until the crowd to settled down a bit. “If a man also lie with mankind as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination...” Again, the stadium joined him on cue in saying, “They shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them!”
Their cheers rattled the glass in the box seat windows.
Just as the roar began to subside it suddenly swelled again as the monitors showed a gaunt Stephen Messinjure—barefoot in his pink prison jumpsuit, hands cuffed behind his back, his pale face freshly bruised—being escorted onto the field by a ring of guards clad all in black.
Phoebus’ breath caught in his throat; Stephen looked so small standing near the middle of the giant white tarp surrounded by angry-looking brutes. Tessa’s hand flew to her mouth to stifle a gasp.
“Heh-heh-heh!” old George chuckled.
Stephen seemed to have a permanent slouch in his back now, prompting the crowd to mock him as a hunchback. The goons marched him to the center where two of them grabbed him under the arms and picked him up. The teen began to kick as they tried to lower him into the hole. He struggled and spread his legs wide so his feet landed on the sides of the three-foot-wide hole.
At that moment the spectators in the stadium and viewers at home discovered that the network had added a new treat for them—a small microphone had been placed somewhere on the prisoner’s body and his cries were echoed throughout the Family Values Center and broadcast live coast to coast.
“No! No! No!” Stephen cried out pitifully. “Please stop!”
“Oh my good Lord,” Tessa said.
Everyone in the stadium seemed stunned by the sound.
“Hee-hee!” George was gleeful. “Listen to that little piggy squeal!”
Phoebus felt sick to his stomach.
No doubt the network executives and advertisers were sweating as they waited to see what the crowd’s ultimate reaction would be. Executions were always a ratings bonanza but viewership had slipped a bit for three quarters in a row, and they needed to boost the numbers back up to keep brining in the advertising dollars. Although Stephen Messinjure’s execution was a ratings slam dunk, the network needed a new hook to bring viewers back for the next run-of-the-mill execution in two months, and this was the perfect occasion to generate buzz.
“No-no-no-no!” Stephen cried out in quick succession, his voice quickly becoming high pitched and hoarse as he struggled.
Both Phoebus and Tessa began to cry.
“L-looks like the prisoner has decided he’s not quite ready to meet his maker yet!” Pete McIntosh announced nervously.
Somewhere in the middle of the crowd a man cried out, “Kill him already!”
That was the cue the rest of the spectators seemed to need to break the miasmic spell and bring them back to their reverie. Suffering, after all, was for sinners, upon whom pity is wasted. The men and boys in the crowd were brave and noble (or so they’d always been told) fighting for the greater glory of their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The sinners were the vermin down on that field. Scum like Stephen Messinjure who deserved all the pain and suffering that befell them, for it was the will of God.
“KILL HIM! KILL HIM! KILL HIM!” the entire stadium cried out in unison, their command vibrating the stadium’s steel beams and quaking the earth underneath it. Network execs, advertisers, everyone in the broadcast booth, and more than a few government officials stopped sweating. Their nervous tension quickly gave was to a warm and cozy feeling associated with the prospect of increased profits.
As for the thugs down on the field, every time they tried to lower Stephen Messinjure into the hole he’d thrash and kick like a wild animal desperately trying to escape a steel trap. Fed up, they threw the boy to the ground and based him. In an instant the he was writhing on the ground in agony.
“Whoa!” Bart exclaimed. “Don’t tase me, bro!
“Haha!” Paul laughed. “You just so dated yourself, Bart!”
“Looks like an epileptic pitching a fit!”
The crowd cheered its approval. Everyone laughed when they looked up at the giant screens and saw dozens of boys mocking the condemned by writhing at the edge of the field.
It only took a few seconds for Stephen to go limp. Now that he was incapable of resisting, the men effortlessly picked him up and lowered him into the hole. They held him up upright as two shovel-bearing slaves appeared from the sidelines to fill the hole with dirt. By the time they’d finished the heretic was buried up to his ribcage so he couldn’t bend over to avoid any stones. His arms were also buried up to his elbows so he couldn’t block any blows.
The slaves patted down the dirt and then scurried away, their heads obediently bowed. The guard who had tased Stephen now waved some smelling salts under his nose to revive him. When the teenager’s head jerked back in sudden consciousness the goon nodded at the penal commissioner who stepped back up to the microphone.
“Stephen Alexander Messinjure!” the little man said loudly to shush the stadium. “You have been justly tried and found guilty by a jury of your God-fearing peers of the heretical crime of homosexuality. You have thus been duly sentenced to lapidation and shall be stoned until you are dead. Have you any last words?”
Thousands in the arena and millions across the country held their breath. Stephen’s eyes were half closed and drool seeped out the corner of his mouth.
He said nothing.
He barely seemed to be aware of what was going on, a huge disappointment for everyone, especially the VIPs. (“Fucking dumbass meathead shoulda known better than to tase the little fucker!” one infuriated fat executive yelled behind the safety of his box seat’s soundproof glass as he pounded down his drink and marched over to the bartender for a refill.)
Even Phoebus, who was now sobbing, had hoped Stephen would say something just so he could
hear his voice one last time. Something defiant and brave. Something heroic.
But it was not to be.
The guard looked at Penal Commissioner Philips and shook his head as if to say, Ain’t nothin’ comin’ outta this boy. The commissioner, in turn, stepped back up to the microphone.
“By the power vested in me,” he announced, “let the stoning begin!”
The crowd exploded and thousands of voices began to chant, “KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL!”
In unison, the brawny executioners selected by a national lottery, slowly bent over and picked up a stone with each hand.
The crowd went crazy.
The men let the energy build and built until after about half a minute a tall man directly in front of Stephen swung his arm back like he was pitching in the final game of the World Series and threw his stone, hitting its target square in the right shoulder. The teen’s painful cry filled the stadium and flooded living room sound systems and bars across America as his body lurched to the side.
“And there’s the first volley!” Pete McIntosh shouted into his microphone.
“Oh dear God,” Tessa muttered.
“He’s a lousy shot!” George said.
Phoebus said nothing.
Just as the first stone landed on the tarp a second one flew in from behind Stephen’s head and scraped a fair amount of skin off the bone behind his ear. He let out a pitiful squeal and the spectators roared. FIRST BLOOD! flashed in red on the giant stadium monitors. Before the second stone had even hit the ground a third one smashed into the teen’s lower back near the ground. Stephen arched in agony and let out a mournful wail. A second later fourth hit the left side of his face and the sickening sound of his jaw breaking was amplified in astounding 7.1 digital surround sound. Long ropes of spit and blood flew from his mouth.
The stoning stopped for a brief few moments as the crowd watched with great intensity. The prisoner let out a low moan as he squeezed his eyes shut. He couldn’t close his mouth now, though, and his left jaw hung lower than is usually humanly possible. Then, not fifteen seconds later, the stadium went wild as a large molar slowly slid out from between the prisoner’s lips and rode a stream of red drool down to the white tarp.
Then the stones came steadily, one after the other. The executioners had been instructed to hit the condemned’s torso with the larger ones and his head with smaller ones in order to avoid killing him too quickly. Fortunately, when one of the larger rocks inadvertently smashed against the back of Stephen’s head it didn’t kill him, but it did rip his scalp clean from his skull, flipping the skin up and over the top of his head like a windblown toupee. The boy let out a gut-wrenching cry of agony that sounded more like a wounded animal than a human being. Another large stone smashed his nose and a torrent of blood came gushing out.
The most vicious impact, however, came from a stone that smashed the eggshell-thin bone of his temple. His eyeball erupted from its socket still tethered to a cord of veins and nerves. It snapped back a few inches from his face and then dangled against his check. Everyone in the stadium jumped to his feet, screaming and yelling and mad with bloodlust.
Tessa wailed and ran from the room. Phoebus, who had begun crying uncontrollably, threw up as George howled with delight.
“Did you see that?!” exclaimed Paul Walton. “Knocked the sinner’s eyeball clean out of its socket!”
Everyone saw it again and again as the crushing blow was broadcast a second time in slow motion in the stadium jumbotron and across America.
“God certainly is making his wrath felt here today,” old Bart Merryweather added.
“Amen to that, Bart!” Pete McIntosh concurred.
Another rock hit the other side of Stephen’s face with the broken jaw, ripping the flesh clean away from his cheek. He reared back as his jaw, now completely unhinged, dropped horrifyingly low, exposing the inside of his mouth—teeth, tongue and all.
The teen was a piteous, broken, battered and completely unrecognizable creature. Both arms and most ribs were broken in several places by this point and the pink jumpsuit had turned a deep, glistening red. Although he’d passed out with the last blow, he was still visibly breathing.
The head executioner blew his whistle and gingerly navigated through a moonscape of rocks. The crowd grew silent, fearful that their joyous spectacle had already come to an end.
The man paused when he reached the boy, a not altogether subtle combination of fascination and shock on his face, captured on the giant screen from multiple angles. There wasn’t a square inch of skin on Stephen’s body or head that wasn’t scratched or split open and leaking blood. The man winced at the gaping red eye socket (the eyeball itself having been cut loose sometime during the assault) half covered by a loose and shapeless lid. Stephen’s other eye was swollen shut. Smelling salts were once again waved under the mass of pounded flesh that was once a nose. The prisoner barely jerked back to consciousness and the crowd erupted in cheers and applause.
The executioners had to bend over low to grab some rocks from their depleted piles.
The stadium went ballistic.
After Stephen Messinjure was certifiably dead, preselected men and boys—about a hundred of them—marched past him, kicked and spat on his slumped over corpse. Afterward, the stadium slaves dug him out of the hole and rolled him up in the white tarp, in essence a leakproof body bag. All this was under the ever watchful eyes of the television cameras still broadcasting as Pete McIntosh observed what a successful and exciting execution it had been. Jimmy Valentine, who had joined his senior colleagues behind the anchor desk and was eager to get as much airtime as possible, noted how “God’s will has been done with aplomb.”
It seemed to escaped the notice of the sportscasters that the slaves on the field had lifted Stephen Messinjure’s body up onto their shoulders. They carried it with more than a modicum of dignity even though they could have—and perhaps should have—simply dragged it on the ground.
“Be sure to join us back here in two months for the lapidation of nymphomaniac Scarlet Smyth,” Pete said over the image, “as well as the simultaneous immolation of the high school drop-out who whored her, Ethan Andrews. Both were convicted last week of adultery. When Scarlet Smyth was still Scarlet Ferguson she married Joshua Smyth under the false pretense that she was still a virgin.”
“Tragic story,” Paul said. “Poor Joshua Smyth, who comes from a very good family, by the way, was devastated—simply devastated—to discover that his new bride had, in fact, allowed this whore-monger Ethan Andrews to spoil her.”
The would be pallbearers were approaching the edge of the field.
“Quite the sensational trial,” ol’ Bart added. “You’d think they’d never read Deuteronomy.”
The slaves walked through a door another slave was holding open for them and disappeared into the darkness. The picture switched to an outside metal door with a dumpster next to it.
“Poor Joshua Smyth said at the trial that he’d planned out his whole life—career, children, retirement—before discovering that his bride was a whore.” Pete sounded despondent. “His marriage was a sham, and his life had been ruined by the disgrace.”
“Just proves the destructiveness of selfish whores and heretics. The only thing that matters to them is what’s between their legs.”
The metal door on the TV screen opened and the slaves bearing Stephen Messinjure’s body marched out.
“Joshua Smyth will have the pleasure of lobbing the first stone at his adulterous wife, and personally lighting the fire that will end her whore-monger’s life. Hopefully that will give him some measure of solace—and it should be a real crowd-pleaser to boot!”
The slaves walked over to the dumpster and gently lowered the corpse inside before gingerly closing it.
“I’m sure God has no mercy for Stephen Messinger’s eternal soul,” Paul said.
“Next stop—the city dump!” Bart blurted out.
“You mean the final destination, don’t you, Ba
rt?” Pete said, and all three men were having a good laugh as the screen faded to black.
A week later the Church-State laid the late Josef Messinjure to rest—without ceremony save a lone preacher—in a plain pinewood coffin in a potter’s field hundreds of miles away from his home. His final resting place: an unmarked pauper’s grave. The old man had died of natural causes, according to Dr. McCallister, coincidentally on the same night as his son’s execution.
By the time of his burial all his slaves had been sold at public auction. (His will had stipulated that they all be set free upon his death, but it was invalidated by the state, which claimed funds were needed to pay for Stephen Messinjure’s trial.) All but one, that is. Tessa, who was in her mid-sixties, had been deemed too old to sell, which prohibitively expensive healthcare needs. The government humanely euthanized her by means of lethal injection with bureaucratic efficiency, as the Church-State had determined would be pleasing to God.
Chapter Ten
A Good Slave
“What’s done is done and can’t be undone,” Master said, “but acceptance of one’s lot alone doesn’t make a slave good. So what does, Phoebus?”
The little slave didn’t answer. The only sound was the soft, heavenly chorus of Nearer, My God, to Thee as it echoed off the smooth marble walls of his master’s luxurious marble bathroom.
A good slave’s gaze is always down and earthbound, the boy was repeating over and over in his head, trying not to think of how he was going to answer the question. A good slave’s gaze is always down and earthbound.
Judge O’Malley put a thick forefinger under the little slave’s chin, making sure the edge of his sharp fingernail dug into the smooth skin, and lifted his angelic face upward. Phoebus was trembling worse than ever. Was it fear? Or just the urine evaporating from his skin? He didn’t know. He didn’t care. His eyes were clenched shut.
The Good Slave Page 6