I don't fear death most of the time, but what I do fear all the time is how I'm going to die. It has been decreed that I be put in a chamber that will gas the breath out of me, while people watch, write, and sketch me strapped in a chair, fighting for my life. It will be society's statement that something inhuman has been executed. When I think about the fact that society, a nation, has sentenced me to death, all I can do is turn inside myself, to the place in my heart that wants so desperately to fell human, still connected to this world, as if I have a purpose. But then the next day, a prisoner will ask me to write a letter for him because he doesn't know how to write, and I'll say sure, grateful to him for giving me another reason to be at peace.
Sometimes I feel so confused, worried, and troubled, I just want to hate things. For most of my life, I pretended to know how to hate -- I used the word a lot. But I never felt the hate that could be justified by all the bullshit I've suffered.
My stepfather tried to teach me how to hate as a child. He said it was for my own protection. He used to lock me between his legs and slap me on the head and face until rage filled my body. He'd say, "Get mad . . . fight, sone . . . fight," and I would. Afterward, I'd be in pain, though more saddened for him. Once I contemplated stabbing him with a kitchen knife as he slept, but I could do it.
In the same way, I can't hate the people who sentenced me to death or the judge who said I should never have been born.
Sometimes I can't escape the pressure tightening around m brain. I get so that I don't want or can't keep the nasty prison food in my stomach. I have to run to my TV or radio not to hear myself think, to divert my attention from everything around me: this prison, death row, the cold feeling of being trapped in total isolation.
O.J.
"Hey, check out the news on Channel Seven!" Satchmo shouted through his cell bars, his voice echoing down the tier. "Man, this is the craziest stuff I've ever seen," he said with disgust.
I could hear people from one end of the tier to the next moving to turn their television on, flipping through their channels. We were curious about what brought Satchmo out of his usual regimented silence.
I quickly turned on my television, but failed to see anything that seemed important enough to have excited Satchmo, who we all knew was only into international issues and political stuff. As he was quick to remind anyone, he was a revolutionary, pro-IRA, pro-Kadafi, pro-Hussein, pro-Castro, pro anything in opposition to the United States.
"Hey, Jarvis," my neighbor Percy called over to me. "Man, what's up? It's just a bunch of kids with their parents buyin' Halloween costumes on Seven."
"Yeah, I know," I said, thinking that maybe Satchmo had made a mistake.
"That's it!" hollered Satchmo. "check it out. Man, these fools are selling O.J. Simpson Halloween costumes, bloody knife and all. See that kid in the background, you see what he got on?"
"Wow! Look at this shit, Jarvis!" Percy exclaimed.
I spotted a small boy, who looked about eight or nine, wearing and O.J. Simpson mask, a bloody number thirty-two football jersey, a black glove, and holding a rubber knife.
"Damm!" I half whispered. The news reported was interviewing the store manager, who beamed a giant smile as he spoke proudly of the profits his store was making from the sale of the costumes. As he talked, the boy -- knife held high -- began chasing a little girl up and down the aisle. My stomach did a couple of flips.
"Run, O.J., run!" someone down the tier blurted out, then burst into laughter.
"Man! You's a sick bastard," said Satchmo.
"Yeah, fuck O.J. and you," another voice shouted at Satchmo. These were the two crazies at the very end of the tier. They usually seized upon any opportunity to get people's attention by acting foolishly.
I reached over and turned off my television. The news segment had left me feeling sick. For an instant, I felt truly fortunate to be on dealth row, soon to be dead and gone from this troubled society.
"Man, Jarvis, what do you think about all that stupid sick shit?" Percy asked.
"It's bad," I muttered. My thoughts had given me a headache. "What kind of person could imagine such a costume, let alone buy one for their own kid?"
"Shit! Hell if I know," answered Percy. "It's no wonder so many ougsters at only twelve or thirteen are committing murders these days. It's some really crazy shit voing on out there."
"It's a disease," said Cochise, whose low voice could barely be heard from a few cells down. "Man, it's something that goes beyond black or white, something that thrives on the impurities of the human condition. Man, had it not been the O.J. thing, it would have simply found something else to feed on."
"What kind of disease, Cochise?" asked Little Chuck, who was in the cell next to his. At the age of nineteen, he had earned the distinction of being one of the Youngest people on death row -- a notoriety he didn't relish.
"Human nature . . . death . . . what else? Man, I really believe that on some primal level people find death fascinating. It's human nature to want to get as close as possible to the things we fear. Like those parents putting their kids in a bloody costume. It's pretty cannibalistic when you think about it -- society feeding off itself."
"You're right, Cochise," said Percy. "It's in the culture. Hell, these kids nowadays will put a bullet in your head just to hear the sound it makes. Man, h'all remember when that lady got raped and killed and all her neighbors just watched and didn't do nothing?"
"Man, I think it runs deeper than that," said Cochise. "It makes you wonder what will be the next feeding ground."
"Hey, do y'all really want to know what kinds of vampires think of stuff like that?" Satchmo asked. His insights were always worth listening to. He'd been locked up for over twenty-five years, not all of them on death row, and was one of the few really political prisoners left in the prison system. I enjoyed hearing Satchmo. He spoke as if standing in front of thousands, his strong voice resonating throughout the tier. He had an easy, captivating manner that held your attention, even if, like me, you didn't agree with everything he said.
"It's capitalist parasites," Satchmo said. "Bloodthirsty opportunists. People who would hock their own grandmother's burial plot. This is what society is about -- making that almighty dollar, even if you got to step on others to do it. A contaminated society produces contaminated children. Why, it shouldn't be no big suprise that kids are turning into miniature killing machines. Kids are born into a system that teaches that exploitation equals survival.
"Remember when y'all were growing up and had to go to church every Sunday, and you watched your mother put money into the collection basket? She was told it was for the image on the cross, a dead man. But no one who ever put money in the basket benefited from it, and they all knew how that preacher could afford to buy a shiny new car. The preacher fucked them, but they didn't want to admit it and they kept going back every Sunday. It fuckin' conditions you to keep bending over."
Satchmo stopped abruptly, leaving us dangling. He had gotten the attention of everyone on the tier, all seventeen of us, the crazies included. We all wanted him to go on, but nobody said a word. He parried our silence like a skilled swordsman, waiting for the right moment to lunge.
"But what about --" started Chuck, but Satchmo cut him off.
"Man! That store manager is just like the preacher. The only difference is what's inside the packages they're sellin'. And the urge to peep inside brings out the worst in people; when they look, they lose pieces of themselves. Shit, I have no quarrel with people like the store manager and the preacher -- you teach a dog to fight and it will be prone to biting. Parasites are what they are, nothing else! On the other hand, those parents should know better."
This time Satchmo was finished. I doubt whether everyone understood him. But it wasn't his style to explain himself -- he would speak uninterrupted, then draw his deep, penetrating voice back into his cell, leaving a vacuum.
No one spoke for a while. The silence finally broke when some music came floating out on the tier, as if a movie had just ended -- it was a Marvin Gaye song from someone's radio, "What's Going On?"
"Hey, do y'all think O.J. is guilty?' Chuck asked.
"Man! Who cares?" responded Percy. "Shit! I don't know if that dude is guilty or not. I don't want to know either, because that's none of my business. Hell, for all I care he can be as guilty as Ted Bundy or as innocent as the guys in that documentary -- you know, The Thin Blue Line. Either way there's no damn excuse for society to exploit the tragedy."
"It was almost like witnessing child abuse on TV," I interjected. "The psychology is the same. It gets to me. It hurts. I wish I knew where these parents mean to take their kids with this madness, you know?"
"Hey! To San Quentin's death row!" one of the crazies hollered out. "They're bringing them right here, to take our places. It won't be long before all those toy knives turn into something mighty fine, y'all just watch . . . Chop! Chop!" He laughed uncontrollably until he started coughing.
The tier fell silent.
"What's going on, tell me, what's going on?" Marvin Gaye sang.
IN MY RECURRENT DREAM I can see people gathering aroud to witness my execution -- about a hundred of them. I'm able to identify only one person -- me. I'm watching my own execution. This other "I" watches the leather belt strips tighten on my wrists and feet as I sit in a green capsule-like gas chamber. There is silent communication between us. I know I am going to be executed so that the "I" who is not will live in peace. He and I recall the years we shared, inhabiting this human body. Then when I begin to choke from the gas, the other "I" experiences his body lifting inches off the ground and floating there. He notices with amazement that he can see through his hands and through the flesh of everyone there. The only person he cannot see is me sitting in the chamber, chocking and dying. Then I wake up.
-- Masters, Jarvis Jay, Finding Freedom, Writings from Death Row. Padma Publishing, Junction City CA, 1997.