The Chamber (Page 53)

"I read somewhere that it took ten minutes for him to die."

"He fought it hard, that’s all I ,know. Of course, the warden and his doctor said death was instant and painless. Typical. They did, however, make one slight change in their procedure after Tole. By the time they got to my buddy Moac, they had designed this cute little head brace made of leather straps and buckles and attached to that damned pole. With Moac, and later with jumbo Parris, they belted their heads down so tight there was no way they could flop around and whip the pole. A nice touch, don’t you think? That makes it easier on Naifeh and the witnesses because now they don’t have to watch as much suffering."

"You see my point, Sam? It’s a horrible way to die. We attack the method. We find witnesses who’ll testify about these executions and we try to convince a judge to rule the gas chamber unconstitutional."

"So what? Do we then ask for lethal injection? What’s the point? Seems kind of silly for me to say I prefer not to die in the chamber, but, what the hell, lethal injection will do just fine. Put me on the gurney and fill me up with drugs. I’ll be dead, right? I don’t get it."

"True. But we buy ourselves some time. We’ll attack the gas chamber, get a temporary stay, then pursue it through the higher courts. We could jam this thing for years."

"It’s already been done."

"What do you mean it’s already been done?" "Texas, 1983. Case called Larson. The same arguments were made with no result. The court said gas chambers have been around for fifty years, and they’ve proven themselves quite efficient at killing humanely."

"Yeah, but there’s one big difference."

"What?"

"This ain’t Texas. Meeks and Tole and Moac and Parris weren’t gassed in Texas. And, by the way, Texas has already gone to lethal injection. They threw away their gas chamber because they found a better way to kill. Most gas chamber states have traded them in for better technology."

Sam stood and walked to the other end of the table. "Well, when it’s my time, I damned sure want to go with the latest technology." He paced along the table, back and forth three or four times, then stopped. "It’s eighteen feet from one end of this room to the other. I can walk eighteen feet without hitting bars. Do you realize what it’s like spending twenty-three hours a day in a cell that’s six feet by nine? This is freedom, man." He paced some more, puffing as he came and went.

Adam watched the frail figure bounce along the edge of he table with a trail of smoke behind him. He had no socks and wore navy-colored rubber shower shoes that squeaked when he paced. He suddenly stopped, yanked a book from a shelf, threw it hard on the table, and began flipping pages with a flourish. After a few minutes of intense searching, he found exactly what he was looking for and spent five minutes reading it.

"Here it is," he mumbled to himself. "I knew I’d read this before."

"What is it?"

"A 1984 case from North Carolina. The man’s name was Jimmy Old, and evidently Jimmy did not want to die. They had to drag him into the chamber, kicking and crying and screaming, and it took a while to strap him in. They slammed the door and dropped the gas, and his chin crashed onto his chest. Then his head rolled back and began twitching. He turned to the witnesses who could see nothing but the whites of his eyeballs, and he began salivating. His head rocked and swung around forever while his body shook and his mouth foamed. It went on and on, and one of the witnesses, a journalist, vomited. The warden got fed up with it and closed the black curtains so the witnesses couldn’t see anymore. They estimate it took fourteen minutes for Jimmy Old to die."

"Sounds cruel to me."

Sam closed the book and placed it carefully onto the shelf. He lit a cigarette and studied the ceiling. "Virtually every gas chamber was built long ago by Eaton Metal Products in Salt Lake City. I read somewhere that Missouri’s was built by inmates. But our little chamber was built by Eaton, and they’re all basically the same -made of steel, octagonal in shape with a series of windows placed here and there so folks can watch the death. There’s not much room inside the actual chamber, just a wooden seat with straps all over it. There’s a metal bowl directly under the chair, and just inches above the bowl is a little bag of cyanide tablets which the executioner controls with a lever. He also controls the sulfuric acid which is introduced into the affair by means of the canister. The canister makes its way through a tube to the bowl, and when the bowl fills with acid, he pulls the lever and drops the cyanide pellets. This causes the gas, which of course causes death, which of course is designed to be painless and quick."

"Wasn’t it designed to replace the electric chair?"

"Yes. Back in the twenties and thirties, everyone had an electric chair, and it was just the most marvelous device ever invented. I remember as a boy they had a portable electric chair which they simply loaded into a trailer and took around to the various counties. They’d pull up at the local jail, bring ’em out in shackles, line ’em up outside the trailer, then run ’em through. It was an efficient way to alleviate overcrowded jails." He shook his head in disbelief. "Anyway, they, of course, had no idea what they were doing, and there were some horrible stories of people suffering. This is capital punishment, right? Not capital torture. And it wasn’t just Mississippi. Many states were using these old, half-ass rigged electric chairs with a bunch of jakelegs pulling the switches, and there were all sorts of problems. They’d strap in sone poor guy, pull the switch, give him a good jolt but not good enough, guy was roasting on the inside but wouldn’t die, so they’d wait a few minutes, and hit him again. This might go on for fifteen minutes. They wouldn’t fasten the electrodes properly, and it was not uncommon for flames and sparks to shoot from the eyes and ears. I read an account of a guy who received an improper voltage. The steam built up in his head and his eyeballs popped out. Blood ran down his face. During an electrocution, the skin gets so hot that they can’t touch the guy for a while, so in the old days they had to let him cool off before they could tell if he was dead. There are lots of stories about men who would sit still after the initial jolt, then start breathing again. So they would of course hit ’em with another current. This might happen four or five times. It was awful, so this Army doctor invented the gas chamber as a more humane way to kill people. It is now, as you say, obsolete because of lethal injection."

Sam had an audience, and Adam was captivated. "How many men have died in Mississippi’s chamber?" he asked.

"It-was first used here in 1954, or thereabouts. Between then and 1970, they killed thirty-five men. No women. After Furman in 1972, it sat idle until Teddy Doyle Meeks in 1982. They’ve used it three times since then, so that’s a total of thirty-nine. I’ll be number forty."

He began pacing again, now much slower. "It’s a terribly inefficient way to kill people," he said, much like a professor in front of a classroom. "And it’s dangerous. Dangerous of course to the poor guy strapped in the chair, but also to those outside the chamber. These damned things are old and they all leak to some degree. The seals and gaskets rot and crumble, and the cost of building a chamber that will not leak is prohibitive. A small leak could be deadly to the executioner or anyone standing nearby. There are always a handful of people – Naifeh, Lucas Mann, maybe a minister, the doctor, a guard or two – standing in the little room just outside the chamber. There are two doors to this little room, and they are always closed during an execution. If any of the gas leaked from the chamber into the room, it would probably hit Naifeh or Lucas Mann and they’d croak right there on the floor. Not a bad idea, come to think of it.