The Execution
By Neverlander
(c) September 2011

The man’s eyelids fluttered as a stream of sodium thiopental flowed 
into his veins, a mocking smile still on his lips.  None of the four 
technicians on the other side of the wall through which the intravenous 
tubing passed knew which of the plungers each of them pressed was 
delivering the drug to the prisoner, and they were never told.  Each 
had an identical set of the injection devices used to send the lethal 
trio of compounds to the condemned man: the sodium thiopental that was 
now rendering him unconscious; pancuronium bromide, which would stop 
his breathing; and potassium chloride, to induce the cardiac arrest 
that would finally cause his death.

Tom and Laura Gold watched in silence from the witness room adjoining 
the execution chamber.  As soon as Briggs had been rolled in strapped 
to the gurney he would die on, he had seen them watching him through 
the plate glass observation window.  He grinned at them, yellow teeth 
in a sparse beard, and silently but distinctly mouthed a word: “Whore!”

Laura would have fallen back had Tom not been supporting her with a 
firm grip across her back and shoulders.  She recovered, and the two of 
them watched stonily as the execution team checked the restraints that 
held Briggs to the gurney and inserted intravenous tubes into his arms.  
The team then retreated to the anteroom to join the warden and await 
his orders.  Briggs’ head was not restrained, and he turned to look at 
the Golds with a leering grin.

Now, as the warden directed the successive steps of execution in the 
anteroom, Lester Briggs lay still, his eyes closed, his grin collapsed 
and gone from his slack mouth.  After fifteen minutes Scanlon, the 
grim-faced medical technician, declared the prisoner dead, and a 
curtain was drawn across the observation window as the gurney was 
wheeled away; the wall clock read 1:17 AM.  Tom and Laura made their 
way to the visitors’ parking lot, their lawyer intercepting the news 
media who had been waiting outside the prison for a statement.

“It doesn’t help, you know,” Laura said, holding back her tears.  “The 
death of that animal won’t bring her back.”

“I know,” said Tom.  “It’s the law, though.  It’s justice.”

“It’s just more killing,” said Laura.  “And it won’t stop other psychos 
like him from doing the same thing.”  She stopped and looked away.  The 
tears came.  “I miss her,” she sobbed, “I miss our baby so much!”

He took her in his arms and held her.  “I know, I know,” he said, “I do 
too.”  He stroked her hair gently.  He was weeping quietly.

Laura’s sister Amy was waiting for them inside her car, which was 
parked next to Tom’s.  Tom opened the door for Laura to get in.  “Won’t 
you come back with us?”  Amy said.  “Just for a while, anyway?  This is 
a hard day for everybody.”

“No,” said Tom.  “I’ll come by in a day or so.  I think I really need 
to be alone now.”

“You sure?” said Amy.  “Sure you don’t want to be with us and talk 
things out?”

“Thanks, Amy,” Tom said.  “But not tonight.  I’ll be in touch soon, I 
promise.”

She reached out of the window to give his hand a squeeze, then pulled 
out of the parking lot.  Tom watched them go and then left in his own 
car.  Tom and Laura were no longer together.  Often even the strongest 
marriages are unable to withstand the loss of a child.

* * * * *

A dirt track not far from home led into the woods and then to meadows 
on both sides, textured by late summer asters and goldenrod.  Milkweed 
pods were releasing their feathery seeds, and Becky reached for them as 
they floated on the afternoon breeze.

“See those red berries over there, mixed in with the yellow?” asked 
Tom.  “Mom likes those.  Shall we pick some so she can make an 
arrangement?”

“Yeah!” said Becky, and bounced eagerly in her backpack carrier as Tom 
cut several branches of the bittersweet and handed them back to her.  
“Pretty!” she exclaimed.

“Don’t eat them,” Tom warned.  “Remember, some pretty things are yucky 
to eat!”

“I won’t Daddy.  I remember.”

They took a path that led down to a stream that flowed into the lake 
behind their house, a quarter of a mile away.  Tom pointed to the 
wetlands on the other side of the stream.  “That’s where the froggies 
live,” he said.  “In the spring there will be lots of baby frogs, and 
they like to sing, really loud!”

They started back up the path the way they had come.

“Daddy?”

“Yes, sweetie?”

“Daddy, do you think the baby froggies will sing to me?”

Memories die last.

* * * * *

The extent of Briggs’ insanity wasn’t fully evident at the trial.  That 
came later, after his conviction, with the leaking of his barely 
legible “manifesto” to the press.  He maintained that God had 
commissioned him to wage holy war against the “new harlots of Babylon”, 
in which he was to seek out and destroy “all them young sluts and 
Jezebels” that made the world unclean.  This had to be done before “are 
Loard” would come again and bring the Rapture.  And how would he know 
who were the new harlots?  “That’s easy,” he told one reporter who had 
managed to secure an interview with him.  “Like God told me, they’re 
the ones who get you all hard and stuff when you look at them!  They 
give you unclean thoughts, like, and that means the Devil’s behind it, 
and he’s the enemy of our Lord.  That’s how I know what I gotta do, 
God’s work.”  He had taken Rebecca as she walked home alone after 
visiting with a friend.  “Just askin’ for it,” he said, “just askin’ 
for it.”

Briggs did not testify at his trial.  His public defender weighed the 
merits of justifying an insanity plea with a demonstration of his 
client’s clear derangement against the more probable outcome of 
disgusting and outraging the jury with his obscene and, to some, 
blasphemous rants.  So Briggs contented himself with sitting quietly 
next to his lawyer during the proceedings, and occasionally looking 
around at the spectators in the courtroom.  When he first caught sight 
of the Golds he grinned and flicked his tongue at them.  After that Tom 
came alone.

The only other disturbance Briggs caused during the trial came when 
crime scene photographs were circulated among members of the jury.  
Briggs stood up and said that he wanted to see them, too.  “The 
defendant will take his seat and remain quiet!” the judge had ordered.  
When Briggs repeated that he wanted to see the pictures, two police 
officers hurried to the defense table and forced him back down into his 
seat.  For a few seconds he glowered at the judge.  Then he watched the 
jury, studying their faces as the photographs were passed from one to 
another.

The pictures were taken in Briggs’ basement apartment, where eleven-
year-old Rebecca Gold’s nude body had been found tied to a metal bed 
frame.  Her knees were bent, held in place with duct tape around her 
shins and thighs, her wrists bound to her ankles.  A wooden rod had 
been taped between her knees to hold them apart, and a rope kept them 
pressed to her chest.  She had been gagged with a single strip of duct 
tape across her mouth.  The medical examiner gave the cause of death as 
exsanguination, the result of vaginal bleeding caused by multiple 
sexual assaults over a period of six days, the time that had elapsed 
between her disappearance and Briggs’ arrest for indecent exposure in a 
public park, which led to a search of his premises.

Briggs sulked for the rest of the afternoon.  He had so wanted to see 
those pictures.

The jury returned a guilty verdict after two hours’ deliberation.  
After the verdict was read, Briggs turned to the jury box and made an 
obscene gesture.  At his sentencing, when asked if he wished to make a 
statement, he said, “I was doin’ God’s work.  Teach them parents a 
lesson, too, lettin’ the little slut walk around like that.”

“It is never easy to pass judgment on another human being,” the judge 
said.  “But in this case, Mr. Briggs, you’ve made it easy.”  The 
sentence was for death by lethal injection.

* * * * *

“Welcome, a warm and wide welcome to all of you, my brothers and 
sisters in Christ!  I am pastor Eustace Grimes, and I thank you all 
most humbly for your attendance here at our weekly ‘Sin and Salvation’ 
program, where we give voice to the glory of our faith in God and to 
our pride in our great nation.  For verily I say unto you, my friends, 
God has smiled down upon this land, and upon his faithful servants, and 
because of all of us in congregations like this across the land he has 
made America his holy bastion, his Capital of Christianity in this 
world!

“But, oh, my friends, it is a sad and woeful world we live in, with 
evil and sin abroad in this land that we love!  You have only to open a 
newspaper, or turn on the television you are watching at this very 
moment, to realize that the Devil is busy at his work – yes, my 
friends, the Devil! – the very enemy of God! – busy right now, busy 
endeavoring to pervert the souls of those he fears most, the Christian 
Soldiers of America!  Wars and blasphemy are everywhere, but not only 
that: what are we to make of this lost soul who was condemned last 
week, condemned to die the death for his sins and his shocking actions 
against a child of God?  For surely, he must die and he shall die at 
the strong hands of our just guardians of public order – do we not read 
in Matthew 22:21 that we must render unto Caesar that which is 
Caesar’s?  And what is of Caesar, if not the law of our great land, the 
law whose righteous power is itself descended from the very laws of 
God?  Yes, although he began as a devout member of our congregation, 
his weakness allowed him to be won over to the side of the Dark One, 
and it is the will of God that he be executed for this transgression, 
and so shall it be done.  It is only charitable that we ask God to have 
mercy on his soul – but in truth, I shudder to think of what is waiting 
for him!

“We weep for the poor child who was taken from her family – we mourn 
greatly, although we are comforted by our certainty that she resides 
now in Heaven, glorying in the bliss of the Lord, surely happier as 
handmaiden to God than she could ever be in our sorry world.  But we 
are troubled still: how do such things come to pass, what causes such 
corruption of the soul?  It is the Devil’s work, surely, but the Devil 
needs help to do such things, he can’t do it alone.  The reason, my 
friends, is that the Devil is a destroyer, not a creator – there must 
be something, some weakness or hint of corruption, something that he 
can get his teeth into in order to work his evil.  It’s like he’s a 
sculptor, and he needs some foul, stinking clay he can shape into 
abominable graven images.

“So where might the Devil find this foul clay to work his evil with?  
Well, my friends, we need look no farther than the first page of the 
First Book, the Holy Bible itself!  In Genesis 3:1 we read of the 
Serpent who taught Eve how to tempt Adam.  But to tempt him with what, 
you ask?  Why, with sin, of course, with the very first sin.  And what 
was that first, that original sin?  It was the sin of lust, my friends, 
the temptation of the flesh!  In our Lord’s prayer itself, in Matthew 
6:13, Jesus begs God to protect us from such temptation.  But if Adam, 
the first man, the great-granddaddy of us all, could be tempted like 
that, what chance did this weak-minded criminal have in his struggles 
with a lust-soaked world?

“For our world is indeed soaked and steeped in lust!  You need only 
visit any of our great American shopping malls to see why the Devil has 
been so busy.  As you make your way among the shops you can’t fail to 
notice the legions of young girls who congregate there, traipsing about 
in clothing that vilely mocks all standards of Christian decency!  In 
First Timothy 2:9, we read that women are to adorn themselves in 
‘modest apparel', in ‘flowing’ garments that do not reveal the contours 
of the body.  Is that what we see on these girls at the mall?  No, my 
friends, it is not; instead, we are shocked to see them playing the 
harlot without shame in short skirts and tight dungarees, hurling 
modesty aside and into the face of God!  Is it any wonder, my friends, 
that God has given the Devil free reign to corrupt Christian men 
against their will, and to incite them to lustful deeds?  Is it any 
wonder that the permissiveness and immorality encouraged by the 
atheists and secular humanists in the liberal media have caused our 
young girls to behave in ways that invite attack and bring God’s wrath 
down upon them?  Look to your daughters, Christians, and teach them the 
ways of the Lord: for I say unto you, Christian values, Christian 
decency, is the only defense against the evil loosed upon our world by 
the fallen Eve!

“Thank you for your attention, my brothers and sisters in Christ.  Ours 
is indeed a wicked world, beset with sorrow.  But with your prayers and 
your generous donations to our ministry we shall not fail to make 
America over into the shining Christian Nation on the Hill – one nation 
under God! – that she is destined to be!

“Amen.”
   
* * * * *

Tom awoke groggily in the morning, aware of something pressing into his 
back.  He rolled over and looked towards Laura.  Then he saw that Becky 
was lying between them, sound asleep, curled up in her pink Dr Dentons, 
her thumb in her mouth.  Laura was already awake, resting her cheek in 
her hand as she looked down at their child.

“Bad dream, I guess,” she said.  “Enough to drive a five-year-old to a 
safer harbor.”

Looking down, Tom thought that the way his and Laura’s bodies were 
curved around the little girl did in fact suggest a protective harbor, 
warm, impregnable walls against all harm that might threaten her.  They 
watched her until it was finally time to get up and face the day.

* * * * *

The man’s eyelids fluttered as consciousness slowly returned.  He 
stared upwards for several seconds, then tried to sit up.  He couldn’t, 
because he was strapped to the gurney.  Remembering, he looked towards 
the witness observation window.  It wasn’t there; instead, he saw a 
brick wall, grimy in the dim light of a single overhead light bulb.  He 
looked around.  His eyes fell upon the figure of a man in shadows, 
watching him.

“Wh- where am I?” he whispered.  “Am I in … am I dead?”

The man spoke.  Briggs recognized Scanlon, the man from the execution 
chamber.  “No, you’re not dead,” he said.  He was leaning against a 
closed door, his arms crossed in front of his chest.

Briggs looked around the room, a sort of utility or work area.  On one 
side of the gurney was a high workbench that ran the length of a wall; 
on the other side a long wooden box with a loose cover was pushed up 
against the opposite wall.

“What’s going on?” Briggs said.  “Why ain’t I dead?”  Scanlon said 
nothing.  “What the fuck is going on?” Briggs shouted.  He struggled 
and the gurney rattled, but the restraints held fast.  “They pumped 
those poisons into me, didn’t they?  To put me to sleep, and … and the 
rest?”  He looked wildly around the dim room.  “I’m supposed to be 
dead!” he whined.  “I’m supposed to be in heaven!”

Scanlon straightened and slowly walked to the gurney.  He looked down 
at Briggs, and held up his thumb.  “One, he said, “sodium thiopental.”  
He lifted two more fingers.  “Two, three – saline.”

Briggs blinked.  “What the fuck’s that?” he said.

“Water,” said Scanlon.  He smiled.  “All you got pumped into you was a 
sleeping pill, friend; you’ve had a nice nap.”  He returned to the door 
and leaned against it, waiting.

“But … but why?” said Briggs.  “Was I … was I pardoned?”  Scanlon 
snorted sarcastically, but said nothing.  Briggs struggled in his 
constraints again.  “I want to see the warden,” he said, his chin 
thrust defiantly forward.  “Now!”

“Oh, I don’t think the warden wants to be disturbed any more tonight,” 
Scanlon said quietly, studying his fingernails.  “He’s had a busy day.  
And besides, he thinks you’re dead.”

“Call the fucking warden!” Briggs hissed.  “Call him right now, you son 
of a bitch!”

Scanlon started to speak, but he was interrupted by a soft knocking at 
the door.  He turned and opened it, and Tom Gold stepped into the room.  
He looked around the interior, his eyes resting momentarily on Briggs, 
and then placed the gym bag he was carrying on the workbench.  Opening 
it, he removed a thick envelope and handed it to Scanlon.  Scanlon 
briefly examined the contents, counting, and stuffed it into a pocket 
of his jacket.  “You’ve got the weekend,” he said to Tom.  “I’ll be 
back early Monday to take care of that.”  He pointed to the box against 
the wall.  Tom nodded, and Scanlon left the room, closing the door 
behind him.

Briggs had gone very pale.  He stared at Tom.  “What are you doin’ 
here?” he croaked.  Tom didn’t answer.  He was busy transferring the 
contents of the gym bag out onto the workbench.  “This is fuckin’ 
crazy, man,” Briggs said, “this whole scene is fuckin’ crazy.”  He 
looked wildly around the room.  “This is a dream, right?  It’s just a 
fuckin’ nightmare!  I’m gonna wake up soon … or maybe I really am dead.  
Do you have dreams when you’re dead?”

Tom said nothing as he rummaged in the bag.  He took out a tool box, 
the kind one might keep in a garage or a utility closet.  He opened it 
and studied its contents.  He took out a hammer, a pair of pliers, a 
chisel and a heavy pair of wire cutters, then shut the box and put it 
back in the gym bag.  Next, he pulled out a plastic Wal-Mart shopping 
bag, and removed from it a pair of scissors, a roll of duct tape, a 
small tank of propane and a brass torch fitting.  He studied the 
fitting for a moment, then screwed it onto the threads at the neck of 
the tank – it made a small hiss as a puff of the gas escaped.  After 
returning the emptied shopping bag to the gym bag, he took out a padded 
FedEx envelope and opened it, removing two boxes.  One contained 
ammonium carbonate smelling salt ampoules; the other was labeled 
“Disposable # 10 scalpels”.  He took out one of these, and put the 
boxes and the envelope back into the gym bag.

He picked up the scissors and duct tape and went to the foot of the 
gurney.  Briggs was looking at him with wild eyes.  “What are you 
doing, man?”  There was terror in his voice.  “What’s all that stuff 
for?”  Tom said nothing as he examined the straps that held Briggs’ 
arms and legs to the gurney.  He frowned slightly, and cut off strips 
of tape to reinforce the bindings against violent thrashing.  Briggs 
had in fact begun to struggle once again, and hurled curses and threats 
at the other man as he went about his preparations.  Tom went around to 
the head of the gurney and looked down at Briggs as he thrashed and 
spat.  He considered a strap of tape for the neck, but decided against 
it.  There was no danger as long as he kept out of the way of the 
teeth.  Although Briggs was now shouting and yelling curses at him, he 
did not want to tape his mouth.  He wanted to hear everything Mr. 
Briggs had to say; indeed, he wanted to hear every sound he chose to 
make.

He put the duct tape back on the bench, and used the scissors to remove 
the man’s clothing, methodically cutting up the legs and along the arms 
of the prison uniform, taking care not to nick the skin.  Briggs was 
starting to babble now.  “Not right, man, not right.  Not like this not 
like this.”  He began to whimper.  “I’m sorry, you know man, I’m sorry 
what I did.”  Then he changed in an instant: “Fucking son of a bitch,” 
he screamed, “motherfucker cocksucker, you gonna burn in hell for this, 
you know that?  You know that?  God didn’t tell you what to do like he 
told me!  He’ll make you pay, cocksucker!  He gonna give it to you up 
the ass!  I’m gonna make sure he does!”

Tom calmly removed the remaining fabric covering Briggs’ groin.  He 
studied the flaccid penis – it was brownish and surprisingly small.  
This is what had been inside of Becky, rending her during her last 
agonized moments of life.  It would receive appropriate attention, in 
due course.  But for now, he went back to his task of uncovering the 
rest of Briggs’ pale body.

Finally, he withdrew from the gym bag a set of disposable Tyvek 
coveralls and a package of latex gloves.  He removed his suit jacket 
and hung it from the doorknob, then stepped into the coveralls and 
pulled them up, threading his arms into the attached jacket and closing 
the front snaps.  He pulled on a pair of latex gloves and turned to 
look down at Briggs.  For the first time since entering the room he 
looked into his eyes.

* * * * *

Some years the weather was fine for the 4th of July celebration, and 
other years the rain came.  This was one of the latter, a hot, muggy 
day, under a threatening, grumbling sky.  As the clouds finally 
released their torrents, people ran for the sheltering awnings of the 
concession stands that circled the town baseball diamond.  Tom and 
Laura were laughing, half-drenched as they huddled against the popcorn 
stand.  “Where’s Becky?”  Tom asked.  “Check it out,” Laura said, 
pointing.  The field was empty save for a solitary figure standing on 
the pitcher’s mound: eight-year-old Becky, her arms held out, looking 
skyward with her mouth wide open, catching the rain as it fell – 
bedraggled and ecstatic, in love with the moment, in love with now and 
tomorrow.

* * * * *

Laura was right, of course.  Nothing would change, madness would not 
disappear from the world, sick minds would still fester.  This had 
nothing to do with deterrence, with justice, and not even with 
vengeance, really.  Vengeance requires passion, and that was gone.  Ten 
years of formal, mandated appeals had been completed, the way cleared 
to execution of the sentence.  That time should have been enough to 
lead to, if not healing, then at least to a dulling of pain.  It had, 
in a way.  What Tom felt now was simply – nothing.  When the murder had 
occurred he had been consumed by unspeakable loss.  It was the negative 
image of her birth – the surprising feral, amniotic scent, the stunning 
stare of recognition in eyes only seconds old – here again was an 
experience ancient and shared by millions, yet somehow unique and known 
only to him.  Since the beginning of time there could not have been 
such an enormity of desolation and rage that he experienced then.  And 
now, after years of support groups, of comforting friends, of waiting – 
nothing.  Not acceptance, not assuaging of sorrow, just – nothing.  It 
was simply the death of his spirit.

Why am I here? he thought.  Why do this?  I don’t care one way or the 
other, so why bother?  One last thing – just one last thing to do for 
Becky.

* * * * *

A lone rat paused at the door of the room, then scuttled on.  Once a 
temporary storage area for the prison kitchen, food scraps were no 
longer to be found here.  Still, the rat made several circuits of the 
storage area adjoining the utility room, following the faint remnants 
of dying scents.  Giving up, it squeezed under a gate and made its way 
to newer buildings containing garbage of recent memory.  Consequently, 
outside of the little room there was no one to hear as the shrieks 
began.

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tim_cravin@yahoo.com
