The smoke, the prayer, the dream, the clock.
At eleven-thirty, they rolled the gurney in.
Luther, of course, understood the importance of the gurney. It was the single most important thing. At the protocol meetings, it was he who had first suggested that prisoners be strapped down in the cage and rolled to the death chamber, rather than walking to the chamber to be strapped down there. When the prisoners first saw the long table with its thick leather straps: that was the most difficult moment for them. That was when they were most likely to shy and panic. Up to that point, a man did not consider himself completely helpless. It was just something he couldn’t imagine. He would have fantasies that he might break away, or resist and “take someone with him.” The sight of the gurney with its straps and its metal frame, its thick wheels, brought the full reality of the situation home. After he lay down there, a condemned man knew there would be no further choices. No one would ask him to please get dressed or please go here or there. He would just be wheeled from place to place-pushed down the hall, into the final chamber-all as easily as moving a shopping cart. He would not even be able to move his arm away from the needle when they pushed it in.
Luther knew you had to get the man through that first moment of realization as quickly as possible. It had to happen in a contained space, with a strong presence of guards.
Then, once you had them strapped down, the worst of the process was over.
So this happened very fast, and silently.
The moment the gurney entered the cell, the bars of the cage slid back. Beachum hardly had time to jump to his feet, to glance in panic at the clock-and then the thing was in the cage beside him, pushing between him and Flowers, crowding him back. And the guards were surrounding him, edging him forward onto the table.
And still, in the condensed time of dreams, there was that interminable instant, before the closing circle of guards touched him, before the first heavy hand lightly brushed his arm, in which Frank still imagined that all manner of outcomes were possible: the dash for freedom, the murder of the guard, the long-planned escape delayed till this unexpected moment or simply waking in his own bed with the smell of the last cool dew wafting in through his window from the summer leaves.
And, again, even before he decided which choice to make, even before he determined that he would go along, he went along, turning his body to make it easier to lift himself onto the table, lifting himself with only the gentlest support from one guard’s hand, lying back upon the coarse blanket, staring up into the fluorescents, and even thinking: It’s just this, it’s just the gurney, it’s not the thing, it’s not the thing itself-while the leather belts were pulled across him swiftly, expertly, and then buckled tight, strapping him down.
2
"C’mon, ya motherfucking hunk of tin!” I was screaming, meanwhile. “Ya shuddering pile of roasted shit, come on!”
But it was not the poor Tempo’s fault. With its carburetor gagging on years of filth and its sluggish oil as black as remorse and its spark plugs kicking with all the timing of a fourth-rate cabaret chorus line, the car still managed to rocket through the still heart of the night, its tires squealing. But the goddamned road. The goddamned road kept wavering in front of me, melting, spreading, blurring behind undulating wisps of whisky fog. Sometimes, it vanished altogether as my head fell forward, as my eyelids slowly closed. And when I jacked my eyes open, when I jerked back against the seat, the Tempo would be angling off toward the curb, squeaking against it as the tires were squeezed or even hopping the hump to skim the grass along the pathways until I wrestled the machine back onto the asphalt, screaming as I say, cursing sloppily, righting the speeding hunk for long moments before I started to sink under again.
So drunk. I was so drunk. It was nearly eleven now and I was so bloody drunk I could hardly stay awake. A sodden anvil in my skull seemed to bear me mercilessly toward the earth. Nearly eleven: the helpless panic seemed to be tearing its way out of me. And I was so goddamned drunk.
I was cutting across Forest Park. Thundering through pools of streetlamp light with the rolling hills of darkness spreading out all around me. Feeling the time pass, feeling the hopelessness of it. At moments, in the depths and edges of the whisky haze, there were groups of black kids and I saw their faces, saw their eyes going wide as the Tempo swerved toward them, heard their hoots of laughter as it arced away again and swerved along the road. And the laughter seemed to follow me, envelop me as my head sank forward. Why did it have to be so late? Why did I have to get so goddamned drunk. Hopeless, hopeless.
Now came the bridge over the park’s winding lake. Nearly the finish for me, nearly a bad end. Confused by the sparkle-capped ripples in the water beneath the lamps, I turned the car too sharply and almost rammed the bridge’s railing. I straightened in the grim nick of time, guided the creature between the bridge walls-and at that speed, in that state, it felt like threading a needle with a jet plane.
But then I was nosing down the hill on the other side, the water sweeping back from me like wings and the night road whipcording in front of me again as I pitched forward sickly against the wheel. Screaming drunkenly: “Come on, come on, come on, you piece of crap!” and the drool running over my lips and down my jaw.
While, from a spotlit pool of grass atop a hill, the noble Roman columns of the art museum haughtily watched me zipping past.
Then-or sometime-I saw the expressway traffic-up ahead-red taillights going in and out of focus, going past. It hurt my eyes and made the cut on my forehead-where the tavern door had struck me-throb and ache. Squinting, my teeth gritted, I edged through the stoplight at the overpass, turning my neck this way and that, my heavy head swinging after it moments later. Horns honked somewhere, someone screamed, but then I was through, shrieking across the intersection and bounding again into the deeper darkness of Dogtown.
“God, drunk, late, Fairmount,” I mumbled.
Fairmount. Because the woman at Pocum’s had told me that. That afternoon when I had gone there and seen the potato chips. The family used to live on Fairmount, she said; they still do. And I had to see them. The Robertsons. I had to see Amy Wilson’s father. I did not know if I could get the locket; I did not know if I could bring it to Lowenstein in time. But if I did, I knew I had to prove it was Amy’s. Only then would it be enough. Maybe. Maybe just enough.
I had to slow the Tempo now. Just a little. The parked cars on the narrower Dogtown streets seemed to be closing in on either side of me. Even so, as I took the corner, I felt the old car lifting on its right side. I was tilted over with that anvil in my skull listing too, making my cut forehead swell. Man, the pain. The dizziness. I couldn’t do it. I knew I wouldn’t be able to do it and I wanted to weep and cry aloud in frustration and rage.
And I thought: Fairmount. Oh God, drunk, sick, drunk. No time. Eleven. Past eleven now. Minutes past …
I saw the house. A neat, white two-story clapboard. A little hill of lawn. A Chevy in the drive. And a large policeman standing at the door.
And others too, out there, in the night: cameramen, reporters, photographers; a small clutch of them on the sidewalk just beyond the grass. The squeal of my tires as I came into view made them all turn toward me. The two reporters gossiping in the street leapt back onto the grass border. The rest huddled together, watching me warily, as I careened toward them.
Pressing against the steering wheel to keep myself upright, I stomped down on the brake. The tires locked. The Tempo slid toward the parked cars. I was thrown forward against the wheel. And then the Tempo stopped.