A Book of American Martyrs(139)

Finally after eight stabs it looked like the line was in, at the crook of his arm, that soft skin at the elbow, and we could start the first drug—the barbiturate.

This is the sleep drug—the anesthesia.

The containers are clearly labeled. There is number one and there is number two and there is number three.

The instructions are printed clear in steps. From this point onward there would be an estimated ten-eleven minutes at the longest before the man is dead.

But then, the fucking line came out! The needle sunk into the skin at the crook of the elbow just popped out and started bleeding.

(At this point the assistant warden entered the room with a curse yanking the black curtains shut so the witnesses could not see anything further. On his face a special look of disgust for me.)

Had to start again and this time my hands were not too steady. And Luther Dunphy white-faced and trying not to gag. And I tried to keep my hand from shaking, holding my right hand with the needle with the left hand though I had not had a drink in many hours—not since driving to the prison.

In the glove compartment of my car there’s a quart bottle of scotch. All I can think of is getting back to my car, opening that glove compartment and drinking from the bottle which I will do as soon as this is over.

I will feel the warm liquor in my mouth, going down my throat and into my chest like the warmth of the sun. I will want to cry, I will be so grateful.

How many stabs it took, I don’t want to remember.

Gave up on the right arm and tried the left arm again and both arms bleeding from the damn needle. (Which was maybe blunt and dull now from so much use.) And so, we cut open Luther’s trousers, to try for a vein in the inner thigh, there’s a vein there (I knew from past experience)—a kind of a big fat vein. But by this time I’m shaking pretty bad. So I’m fucking that up too.

But just keep trying. That’s all you can do. How many stabs of the needle until finally I got in a line—must’ve been an hour, or more. My fingers are numb and my neck is stiff from the tension. And Luther Dunphy squirming on the gurney trying not to groan, or scream. Finally now the anesthetic is dripping into the vein, or should be—(unless we screwed up the order of the drugs)—Luther is praying aloud Our Father who art in Heaven and suddenly he is crying I’m on fire, I’m on fire—like it’s the wrong drug, it’s the poison drug not the anesthetic—but we are certain that it is the right drug—but still Luther is crying and groaning and then he is screaming and writhing and vomit leaks from his mouth and his eyes roll back in his head but he doesn’t lose consciousness—he is not being put “to sleep”—the line has to be removed because some mistake has been made and a fresh vein will have to be found.

Sick to death. So sick! Telling myself God damn you knew you should have told the warden to find somebody else and fuck that three hundred dollars.


TWO HOURS, EIGHTEEN MINUTES were required for Luther Dunphy to die from the time he was strapped to the gurney to the time he was declared dead by the attending physician Dr. E——.

His brain was extinguished by degrees. His soul was extinguished by degrees like a panicked bird fluttering in a small space being struck by a broom again, again, again.

Into a vein in his left ankle the hot poison entered and once it began to stream inside it could not be stopped.

It was astonishing to him—he could feel the hot poison entering. Yet still he could not believe that it was his death that was entering him.

As the poison flooded his bloodstream his organs shut down one by one. Liver, kidneys, heart. His blood turned to liquid scalding lava. He was resolved not to scream but—he heard himself scream. A young raw boy’s voice. Oh God oh God help me. Oh God. He had been sweating and shivering and his teeth chattering wildly and now his temperature spiked. His heart was racing to keep ahead of the poison. He began to die in quicker degrees. His clenched fingers had turned white and were becoming cold, and his toes and feet were becoming cold. As his fingers became cold and numb they ceased clenching yet spread stiffly like claws. An icy mist crept up his body like a devil’s embrace. He had not given sufficient thought to devils and demons in God’s creation—that had been a failure of his. He had not truly believed in Hell. He had believed in Heaven but not so much in Hell. He was astonished at himself, to think—Am I still alive? And then, he was not alive.

Neurons in his brain were extinguished like lights going out one by one—a string of Christmas tree lights. His most painful memories were extinguished. His birthmark was extinguished as if it had never clung to his cheek like a rabid bat. His happiest memories were extinguished. A very young child laughed into his face and closed its arms around his neck and was gone in that instant. Another cried—Da-DA!—and was gone in that instant. He was being lifted, with care—a woman’s hand gentle at the small of his back, and a woman’s gentle hand at the nape of his neck. A sweet smell of milk overwhelmed him. He was bathed in liquid heat and in blinding light opening his eyes wide, wider to take in such a wonder. Dr. E—— who’d been waiting outside the execution chamber in a private place as was his wont as a thirty-year veteran of Chillicothe not witnessing the horrific execution thus obliged to wait an unconscionable two hours eighteen minutes having to exit the premises to use a lavatory not once but two times though a few shots of whiskey usually slowed urine production, so Dr. E—— was humbled, humiliated and infuriated and totally disgusted, returning then to a further vigil trying not to hear the dying man’s screams of agony through the purportedly soundproof wall and the inane accusations of the asshole COs responsible for the lethal injection blaming one another for the fiasco arguably worse, more heinous and outrageous than the previous execution fiasco several years before; now grimly charging forward into the reeking room to examine the deceased man’s livid body stinking of bowels, blood, chemicals, horror with rubber-gloved hands checking the pulse of the deceased, heartbeat, no pulse and no heartbeat, shining a pencil-flashlight into the unresponsive eye of the deceased to declare time of death 9:18 P.M. and date March 4, 2006, and sign the death certificate in his scornful illegible hand.