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Ramon awoke early on Wednesday, before the TVs went on. The unit had a series of large television sets bolted near the ceiling out in the hallway, positioned so the inmates could watch from inside their cells. The guards always turned the TVs on at seven A.M. and they stayed on for the rest of the day. The noise blared into the cellblock. Whenever new prisoners moved into the wing, they always found it overwhelming. It was never quiet. After a while, though, they got used to it. Just part of the background.
Because he’d been placed on death-watch, the guards came by every half-hour to record what he was doing in their notebooks. They wanted to make sure he was in a good frame of mind. Some inmates got depressed when their time came due. Some got suicidal. But the authorities couldn’t allow that. It was important to keep the prisoners safe until the state was able to kill them.
Keeping them safe wasn’t always easy. Ramon remembered one man who’d had an appendicitis attack two days before he was to be put down. They rushed him to the infirmary, performed the appendectomy, and he recovered fully. Once he was healthy again, the death decree was reinstated and they put him to death a week later.
Ramon had been on death watch twice before. Both times, his date was set, and both times, he was granted a stay of execution. The first time, his stay didn’t come through until the day before he was to be executed. The anxiety of waiting and hoping for a reprieve and not knowing if it would come felt close to unbearable. When it finally come through, it felt like he was in a dream. It took several days before he could comfortably breathe again, knowing that he had put off death, at least for a time. And then the waiting game began again.
This time, he didn’t feel confident at all. His appeals had all run their course and he had few avenues left to turn to. Executions were being carried out regularly, and the governor wasn’t granting any pardons or stays. The whole system was carrying out its mission with brutal efficiency. Ramon was sure this time was the real deal, and mentally, prepared for his death.
They’d changed his routine since his latest death date had been announced. For a time, he’d worked in the prison laundry. Eight hours of work a day gave him two hours recreation time. The work gave structure to his life and helped the time pass more easily. He was around other people then. Having someone to talk with, or listen to, felt good in a way that he’d never have thought before. He missed that.
Now in segregation, he was locked down twenty-three hours a day. They let him out one hour each day, for a shower and a trip to the indoor recreation room, by himself. Then it was back to his cell until the next day.
This week was different, though. Because it was his last week, he was allowed more time to meet with visitors. Today, he had two people coming to see him. His attorney, Barry Resnick, was coming by later that morning. Barry had been with him for the last eight years, taking the case for the appeal. It was his efforts that kept Ramon alive up until now. Later in the day, he expected another visitor. A reporter from the Austin Star writing a series on death row inmates.
At five forty-five, they came by with his breakfast. He tried to ignore the TV and everything else while he ate his grits and bacon.
Barry Resnick pulled his BMW through the prison gate and into an open parking space near the visitors’ entrance. The trip from Houston took just over an hour and the ride up always felt good. The highway was free of traffic and his car was built for the open road. He made it a point to turn off his cell phone and use the time to relax and unwind. This morning, he’d turned on the radar detector and pushed the car harder than usual. He wound through the gears, hitting a top speed of 120 miles per hour in a vacant stretch of straight road. As the sun came up, the scenery blurred past in a haze of orange. Driving fast gave him a feeling of freedom, though it never lasted long enough.
As he crossed the parking lot, he looked up at the dull gray walls of the prison. A tall concrete block wall surrounded it, razor wire at the top and guard towers at the corners. The prison was four stories of precast concrete, no windows.
Barry walked to the visitors’ entrance and presented himself to the guard at the gate, showed his identification and signed in. The guard made a quick check of his briefcase and walked him through a metal detector. After passing the inspection, another guard escorted him into the main building.
As the doors closed behind him, his gut clenched. He had to force himself to keep walking forward instead of fleeing back to the sunlight. The fluorescent lights gave everything a surrealistic green tint. The sounds of his footsteps, even the smells of the building curled down and settled over him, making it difficult to breathe. He always felt claustrophobic when he entered this building. He couldn’t imagine having to live there.
He followed the guard to a small waiting room and sat down in a chair by a table placed against a wire mesh fence that cut the room in half horizontally. The seat on the other side of the barrier was caged in on the remaining three sides by chain link fencing, reminding him of a dog kennel.
It was still early. The only other person in the room was a guard on the other side of the cage who sat in a chair, leaning against the yellow wall, yawning. Barry opened his briefcase and pulled out a file.
Though he’d been making this trip for years, he never gotten used to it. At forty-four, Barry Resnick was at the top of his career trajectory. To look at him, you wouldn’t know it. He was short, balding, and soft, with the kind of face that you could see every day and still not notice. But he’d made partner in one of the top law firms in Houston – the head of their tort division. He was well respected, had a loving wife and daughter, and made more money in a year than most people could spend in a lifetime. He held the world by the tail and he had everything he could possibly want. Except one thing. He wanted to make a difference.
Most of his clients were corporations or wealthy businessmen he defended from lawsuits. Some were nuisance suits, but others were richly deserved. Barry was good at what he did and saved his clients a good deal of money. In turn, he made a fortune for the firm. But the work was routine and some of the cases made him uneasy. Moral ambiguity was par for the course in law, though, and he knew it would be worse if he’d chosen criminal law.
He hadn’t planned to get involved in Ramon’s case. It wasn't his field and he wasn’t getting paid. In fact, this case had cost him a small fortune. A friend in the anti-capital punishment movement had asked him to take the job as a favor when no one else would. Barry wasn't a criminal lawyer, but he could see that Ramon had gotten a raw deal. The case against him was weak at best. There were inconsistencies in the evidence and the only witness was a paid police informant. The court-appointed lawyer at Ramon’s original trial was overworked and didn’t help his cause. A white man had been killed, a Hispanic with a record was accused of the crime. It wasn’t hard to get a conviction.
Barry tried to involve some of the criminal attorneys at his firm, but there were no takers. They said the case was a loser. It didn’t matter whether Ramon was guilty or not, there was no way he was going to be granted another trial. Barry’s colleagues pointed out that the original prosecutor had been J. Douglas Aarons, a legendary state’s attorney who’d become a judge shortly after Ramon’s conviction. Now he headed the appeals court and was ready and able to bury his mistakes. No way in hell would Judge J. Douglas Aarons grant a new trial.
Maybe it was guilt, but as a last resort, Barry took on the case himself. He’d had to teach himself the ins and outs of defending a capital case, and had some success. And he found this more fulfilling than all his other work. It felt good to think that he’d made a difference in at least one person’s life. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that he hadn’t done enough. His lack of experience was too big a handicap. Still, he’d been able to delay the execution and keep Ramon alive. Until now anyway. After eight years, they’d run out of options.
Barry snapped to attention as the door on the other side of the room creaked open. Two guards led Ramon into the cage. He was dr
essed in his prison whites, short-sleeve coveralls. His hair was shorter than the last time Barry had seen him, but he still looked as strong and hard as ever. He moved in a staccato rhythm forced by the chains that bound his ankles to his wrists. He smiled at Barry. The smile softened his face and made him look almost boyish, his startlingly blue eyes flashing with life. The guards herded him over to the seat in the cage across from Barry. The two guards padlocked the cage and then retreated to the far corner, where they quietly talked.
“You’ll never make the Cowboys moving like that,” Barry said.
“Give me a chance and I’ll show ‘em how to run,” Ramon replied.
“How they treating you, Ray?”
“I’m okay. No worse than you’d expect anyways.”
Barry nodded. “I wish I had some good news to give you.”
“I know. It’s not like this is a surprise.” Ramon spoke with a slight Spanish accent. “I thank you for the help you’ve given me. You’ve been a true friend.”
“Well, I’m not quitting yet, Ray. We’ve still got two options to explore. I mean, don’t get your hopes up, but—”
“Barry, please,” Ramon cut in. “You know, I was thinking. Back when I was a kid, we lived in Brownsville then. Down by the border. My Uncle Gustavo came to live with us. He was my mother’s brother. He’d heard about all the money you could make here in the States and wanted to get his share. He got a job at a small auto parts factory. They rebuilt generators. It was a small shop and the working conditions weren’t too good, but my uncle and all the other workers were illegals. They had no choice.”
Barry settled back in his chair and nodded.
“He worked there for a month, when they had a fire. The place was a firetrap and once it started, it went up like a torch. Burned right down to the ground. Thirteen people worked there and twelve of them died. The only one to escape was Gustavo, and he walked away untouched. Not a burn, not a scratch.”
“It sounds like he was lucky,”
“That’s what he thought too,” Ramon continued. “He looked death in the eye and lived. He felt very lucky. That night, he went to a cantina to celebrate his good fortune. He drank tequila and beer and got very drunk. He left there late at night. Walking home, he must’ve stumbled. He fell into a drainage ditch. There was very little water, only a few inches, but he landed face down, too drunk to move. He drowned in a puddle of water.”
Barry rubbed his jaw with the back of his hand. “Huh, he drowned in a few inches of water?”
“Lo que es, es que es… Destino. You can’t change your fate.”
Barry paused a moment before he spoke. “I’ve… I’ve filed for a stay of execution and we should have a ruling by Friday. And the governor can still step in. There’s still a chance, Ray.”
Ramon gave a sad smile. “No, I don’t see it happening this time. The court’s turned down every stay this year. They want the executions to go through. And we both know the governor is no hope at all. Thank you for everything, Barry, but this is it. I’m ready. I’ll face my fate like a man.”
Barry nodded his head and absent-mindedly played with his watch. Over the years, they’d gotten to know each other well. He was Ramon’s attorney, but it was more than that. He genuinely liked Ramon. As he thought about it now, he knew he’d miss him and the visits up here. A tear welled up in his eye and he looked away. He picked up his files and stuffed them back into the briefcase. “Just tell me what I can do. If there’s anything else I can do to help.” He clicked his case shut. “I’ll be talking with you on Friday once I hear the court ruling. Don’t give up hope, though.”
Ramon smiled. “I’m fine, Barry.”
Barry stood up and made ready to leave. Ramon stood up too. The guards saw that the meeting was over they opened the cage, and escorted Ramon out of the room.
Barry stared at the closed door for a minute before he too left the room.
Midmorning, the prison doctor came by. The guards stood in the hallway and watched as he went into Ramon’s cell for an examination. The doctor, early fifties, stood about five foot eight, but appeared taller with his stiff martial posture. With his potbelly hanging over his belt, he gave the impression of an athlete who’d gone to seed. Ramon found himself staring at the doctor’s right eye. He had a lazy eyelid that drooped down, making him look as though he was half-asleep.
“I’m Dr. Meeks,” he said. “Just relax. I need to do a quick examination.” A smoldering cigarette hung from the side of his mouth as he held Ramon’s wrist and checked his pulse. He took Ramon’s blood pressure and used his stethoscope to listen to the heart and lungs.
“How tall are you, about six foot?”
“Five eleven,”
“And your weight is about two hundred?”
“Yeah, right around there.”
“Good. You seem to be in excellent health. Let me get your temperature now too.” The doctor pulled out a thermometer and handed it to Ramon, who placed it under his tongue.
“Just relax and count to sixty.” Dr. Meeks gripped Ramon’s wrist with one hand and tapped his forearm with the other. “You have nice veins. That’s good.”
Meeks thumped on the veins again, testing them. “Flex your muscle a few times, I need to draw some blood.”
Ramon flexed his arm. Meeks pulled out a large rubber band and wrapped it around the bicep as a tourniquet. He rubbed an alcohol swab over the forearm and pulled a hypodermic from his bag. Then, without warning, he jabbed the needle into Ramon’s arm, striking directly into the vein. He pushed in on the vein with one hand as he pulled back on the plunger with the other.
Ramon pulled back in pain. “God! What the hell did you do that for?”
Meeks calmly withdrew the hypodermic, now loaded with blood, discharged the needle into a test tube, plugged it up, and set it into his bag. He blew out a long cloud of smoke before he responded.
“It’s okay. Nothing to be alarmed about. Everything seems to be just fine.” He shut the case and left the cage. The guards locked it back up. “Thank you for your help, Mr. Willis.” He looked Ramon straight in the eye. “I’ll be seeing you soon.” He smiled as he walked down the corridor.
Lena tried to control her irritation. It was forty-five minutes past the time she’d scheduled the appointment with the warden and he still hadn’t even acknowledged her presence. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Stay calm, she told herself. He’s doing this to rattle me, stay calm. Charley Porter, one of the newspaper’s staff photographers, was slumped down in the chair next to her. He stared off into space with a half-assed smile on his face as if he didn’t have a care in the world. This irritated her even more.
“So how long is he going to make us wait?” Her voice came out louder than she’d intended in the stillness of the small waiting room.
“What?” Charley flinched as she spoke, interrupting his daydream.
“How much longer do you think he’s going to make us wait?” Lena didn’t try to hide her annoyance.
Charley pondered the question for a long time before he slowly drawled out his response. “I don’t know, maybe another twenty minutes. Maybe more… But it could be less. Why don’t you just try and relax.”
Lena stood up and paced the floor. They were in a small wood-paneled room down the hallway from the warden’s office in the Terrell Unit. The warden’s secretary had led them to the waiting room and told them to expect the warden momentarily. Lena thought about going back to find the secretary and demand she tell the warden they were still waiting. But he already knew they were. She decided to give him five more minutes.
Even after two years with the Austin Star, Texas still struck her as almost a foreign country. She liked the people, she liked the landscape, and most of the time, she could even deal with the heat. But she couldn’t get used to the pace. People moved so slowly here, and Lena hated to wait.
All her life, she’d been on the fast track. She aimed high and always achieved her goals. Before coming to Austin
, she’d graduated with honors from Princeton, interned at the Washington Post, and worked on the city desk in Boston. Each stop a step closer to her objective.
But she wondered if she’d chosen the right path. Not just on the job, but with everything. After going home to attend a friend’s wedding, she’d come back in a true funk. She’d cried herself to sleep each night for over a week. She hadn’t realized how lonely she’d been. Lena had her share of opportunities, but sometimes thought she’d erected a kind of force field around herself just to repel eligible men. Lena knew who she was and where she was going. A lot of men found that intimidating.
Back in Boston, she’d fallen into a relationship that showed real promise. Jack was a great guy and they’d gotten close. Too close. Sometimes she thought that was the reason she’d come to Texas.
When the offer from the Austin Star came, she jumped for it. It wasn’t the biggest or the most influential publication, but it was well respected and had a reputation for treating its reporters like real people. More importantly, they’d promised that she’d get a chance at the big stories, the important news. That was her goal, at least her near-term goal, to become a fixture on the front page.
Along with her normal reporting, she’d gained attention for a series of articles on problems facing the residents of Austin and the surrounding region. But it was her current assignment, the series on the prison system, which really made her reputation. Since the first article ran two weeks before, she’d gained national attention, including a feeler for a more prestigious job back east. Her tour of duty here was almost at an end.
But now she couldn’t even get in to see the warden. Lena checked her watch again, forty-eight minutes now and still waiting. She took another deep breath. Maybe she should leave. She didn’t need this interview; she had plenty of material to finish the story. But even as she thought of that, she knew it wasn’t an option. The reality was that she’d become too interested in Ramon Willis’s case.
Living Proof Page 2