The Death of America

1 

One for the Lions

When you make a deal like this, how can you be sure it will come off? Ha! Who has ever made a deal like this?

Still, Wesly Miller was a man of his word as a major in Korea; would he now be any different as president? But how can you count on what a man, any man, said when he was half dead and his guts are spilling out over your hands?

Well, damn it! If it is going to happen, it had better be soon; how could this have happened anyway? For fifteen years, he had been working the streets, been a PI for eleven of those years.

Knew every game, hustle, and trick bag out there; so how could he, how could he, Miles Carter, have been suckered into taking the big fall? And why this off-the-wall deal?

He is brought out of his thoughts by the clanging of the cell door as the priest enters with two guards at his side. It is time, my son. Miles rises and faces where the voice is coming from. The script is playing out like a scene in a bad B movie.

His head is screaming: What happened to the deal? The dumb stupid deal, what happened to it?

The priest stepped forward and put his arm around Miles’s shoulder, one guard moved to the outside of the cell door, the other circled around behind him, put one hand on his weapon, motioning Miles through the cell door with the other hand.

He walked past the priest through the open door. As he exited the cell, the guard on the outside of the cell smiled an ice sickle, then turned and walked about one step to the right of Miles.

The priest and the second guard fell in behind and to the left of him, creating a pocket to ensure that he continued in the right direction.

He could feel it start, first in his throat where the powder he was now breathing for air became white-hot and refused to go down when he tried to swallow, and because it stuck to the sandpaper that the once-smooth walls of his throat had now become, it made each inhalation a scorching flame that entered his lungs only long enough to deliver more powder where he so desperately needed air, his heart begin to beat harder and faster.

The fire, the sandpaper, the powder—they must be what were causing his heart to beat so fiercely, fear had nothing to do with it.

How many people do you know who can breathe what was nothing more than gravel passed off as air and still walk? Let alone not have their hearts beat a little faster?

They walked for what seemed like no time at all down death row. As he passed the homes of the living dead, he stole last glances at the hollow faces that stared back through the bars.

The emptiness in their eyes told the story of the lives they had led, reflected the broken dreams, the lost hopes, the one too many long shots that had failed, bringing each one of them here to this outhouse of inhumanity waiting to be flushed away like so much waste.

Wait here, the lead guard commands, as he pushes a button on the wall by the green door of a room, which if you are on death row, you know it is the death chamber.

A third guard appears from inside of the darkened space, opens the door, and turns on the lights.

He is allowed—directed into the chamber—which is dominated at its center by a single long table adorned in stark white—maybe the circumstances dictated its sharpness—sheets and outfitted on either side by large brown leather straps.

The table was cold. Impersonal. He knew he could not escape it. He could not change its mind. It would not allow a final argument to challenge its right to kill him. It was the undeniable, unavoidable instrument of death.

Nothing! Not even the fear felt in the throes of the war in Korea where he saw young boys with a leg blown off, left with just a bloody stump, trying to replace the limb with government-issued medic’s tape; or grown men blinded by a misfiring weapon—the arms dealers sold them; they didn’t guarantee they would work—in subzero weather; or a grenade exploding in their foxhole; men now wandering through the fields crying for their mothers; or the first time you came face to face with "The Enemy, both of you programmed to fear the other, victims of The Big Picture," you fire your weapons at what seems like pointblank range at each other, his bullet whistles past your head as you dove for cover returning fire in mid-air at the same time.

You see parts of his face blown away . . . causing you to return everything that was a bad breakfast to the front of your field jacket . . .

But not even that could prepare him for the feeling of fear that he felt when that door opened, and he saw that cold white table and realized that this time there was no wiggle room; he was going to die on it, and there was nothing he could do about it!

Get out of here you fool! Save yourself! Forget Wesly Miller! curse, scream, shout, fall on your knees and beg; but for God’s sake, don’t just stand here and let these people kill you for something you didn’t even do.

With all the racket that was going on in his head, you would have thought the guards would have been ready for his telegraphed move, but they weren’t. They were caught completely off guard when he grabbed the priest and pushed him into the steel gray chamber of death. Quickly, he reached for the lead guard’s gun, but the trail guard recovered, slamming him against the near wall. The third guard from inside the room forced his way between Miles and the trail guard—he was huge—grabbed Miles by the arm twisting it behind him forcing him to bend over, as he pushed him through death’s door.

Once in the room, he allowed Miles to straighten up, as he brought his forearm across the back of his neck, pushing his face up against the double pane of the cold glass window that allowed the witnesses to view the executions.

The third guard leaned his face against the left side of Miles’s face hidden from the other two guards’ point of view, faking hurting him more than he really was. Feigning anger, the guard loudly questioned, "You gonna act like a man if I let you go, or we going to have to handcuff you?

While still in the control position, he whispered into his ear Cool it, Carter, or you’re going to blow your ticket out of here. Miles couldn’t believe his ears, was he going crazy? Did he hear this fool right?

He was two steps from seeing Venus up close, and this fool is telling him to cool it or he could blow his chance of getting out of here. Boy, something was really wrong here. Really wrong!

The priest rose from the floor, brushed off his frock as though he had merely tripped while walking in the park on a Sunday afternoon stroll, gave Miles that disappointing holier-than thou-look that only religious entities can give, and left the room to occupy the seat reserved for him in the outer chamber.

Once outside, he stopped, made the sign of the cross through the glass to Miles, and took his pre-assigned seat near the window where he could console, comfort the condemned through the final minutes of his life’s journey.

Following protocol, the guards took his vitals and strapped him to the table; placing restraining bands around his forehead, arms, waist, and legs; double-checked each for any shortcomings; checked the telephones to the governor’s office to verify that there were no last-minute appeals; and placed a pan under the table, and left the room,

He saw the people shuffle in and take their assigned—by number—places on the bleacher-like seats.

The victim’s family sat in the first row, presumably to give them the satisfaction of seeing their daughter’s killer brought to justice up close.

Then, came the usual mixture of press, law enforcement, and politicos.

The lights dimmed, the door closed on what he knew was to be his final day on this earth. He wanted to shout to her family that he did not kill their daughter, that he was being framed, but he begin to feel the gas as it entered his nostrils, dimming his senses, clogging his lungs; impending death does different things to different people; with Miles, it made him recall how he came to be here in the first place.

He was awakened from a sound sleep and a damn good dream—he had just about convinced Lola Falana to live with him—when he heard the banging on his door and a plaintive voice he recognized as that of Stella, a high-end call girl he had helped over some rough spots in return for some inside info from time to time.

By the time he separated Stella’s voice from that of Lola’s in his dream, he heard the gunshots, Stella’s scream, the screeching of tires racing away.

Stella fell into his arms, as he opened the door. She looked anything but a high-end call now. Her full breast were there, the legs that seemed to start at her neck were still as full as a glass of chocolate milk and just as brown. But the face was bruised and beaten, blood trickled from the right corner of her full lips; there were cigarette burns up and down one arm. Three fingernails were gone from the left hand.

Maybe, just maybe, the people who shot this girl, pulled most of her fingernails out and tortured her were just kidding? If so, they were probably sitting at a bar somewhere having a beer and laughing it up at how much fun they had tonight with Stella’s body.

But what if they were dead serious about doing her in? It almost seems logical that they would turn around at the corner and come back to make sure they finished the job.

So get out of the doorway with the light behind you before you get your head blown off! Following his own advice, in one quick move, Miles threw himself back into the room, pulling Stella’s complaining body with him.

They landed near the center of the room in an ironic intimacy, Stella’s body on top. Her long legs around his middle, one breast breaking through the too-tight barriers of her halter bra, spilling out, touching the naked skin of his chest exposed by his robe falling open, as they tumbled to the floor.

Being a true man, he could not help but think, another time and place, and wow! But this was neither.

Rolling over, he kicked the door shut, crawled on his belly military style to the bed he so peacefully rested in scant moments ago, savoring the possibilities of Lola’s companionship, reached under the pillow to retrieve the Army issued-black market purchased 45 automatic always kept there. Yeah, there were better guns, but he had a history with this one.

Silently, internally he voiced, "Well, you have come this far, baby, just hold on a little longer, we ain’t dead yet.

The hairs on the back of his neck were on full alert as if he had eyes back there too. You could get it from either side, front, or back, and carrying this guy around with his guts only being held in with the contents of army-issued Johnson & Johnson medical kit, wasn’t helping his chances any.

This same guy back in the states probably wouldn’t give him the time of day, but here he was, like a fool lugging his near dead body over half of Korea.

No matter what was wrong or right back home, you could not leave a guy wounded this seriously for these bastards to come across. They might play games with him for God knows how long before they became humane enough to kill him or let him die.

Now living in the ghetto of south central Los Angeles taught some hard lessons about the facts of life and to survive, you had to learn them and use them; so in his lifetime, he has done some things, as the flawed are fond of saying, "that he was not proud of." But walking up to some poor bastard who’s wound is oozing life’s last fluids and putting out his lights with a government issued-black market purchased 45 to save him from a worst death was not going to be one of them.

So he ended up doing his best Sam Magee impression for three days and nights, in weather that not only stabbed like a driven nail but made you afraid to ask questions about God and country for fear of what the truthful answers would be.

The eye in the back of his head told him to turn around! and not a moment too soon. He just had time to get off the round that saved his life. The.45 tore a death path through the Korean before he had time to bring the wire down around his neck.

The sadistic son-of-a-bitch; had he been satisfied to use his Russian-supplied rifle, he would still be alive.

His partner was no sadist. The bullet from his rifle plowed into Miles’s left arm, spinning him around, causing the front of his field jacket to look like it had been splashed by a modern art painter, as the blood ran like salmon upstream.

"When you lose your head, your ass is soon to follow," the only fatherly advice he had ever remembered receiving from a miscreant of a parent, but it now seemed a good a time as any to apply it.

He hadn’t lived in La La land all of his life for nothing; so, ignoring the searing pain in his arm, he overacted, dropped Major Miller to the ground in a heap, clutching his chest, gave his best Boris Karloft bad take, and pitched forward facedown.

Man’s ego is universal. Because although he, like every infantry man in any army anywhere in the world was drummed at by his training sergeant: "Make sure he is dead before you approach him. Remember, you don’t buy the bullets, we do!" this guy just had to turn the body over to see the great shot he had put into this imperialist Yankee dog who had killed his partner.

Hooray for Hollywood! The.45 coughed twice as he was rolled over by a dead man who didn’t die until he stumbled and then fell to his knees with disbelief in his eyes, blood spurting from the holes in his throat. Miles knew that as he entered that after-life promised all of us, he heard the voice of his training sergeant saying "Make sure he is dead before you approach him."

Still, two lifecycles passed before he trusted himself to release the hammer on his.45 and crawl back to Stella’s barely breathing, mutilated body. Hearing the rise and fall of her labored uneven breathing, seeing her lips move, forming words that did not come out, he put his ear to where it almost touched her lips; her words were mostly warm air . . .

He was here in the room somewhere, Miles, more so Stella, could feel his presence. The Reaper was like a spider weaving a web, as the numbness begin to claim more and more of her body, and the cold, boy, even he could he feel the cold! As the Reaper became bolder and more demanding of his right to claim his prize, Stella’s eyelids flickered once, then again, he knew she would be dead soon.

Hart, they are going to kill . . ., she whispered in a cracked voice, determined to get the words out before the Reaper silenced them forever.

Her eyes, which had first reflected fear of the Reaper’s claim for her soul, now mirrored the spirit of her ancestors who fled the south via the underground railroad as a simple peace reflected in them, came over her. It was a realization that although she was beaten, bleeding, and dying, she, like them, knew when she had reached a safe place or at least a better place to die in.

Sensing with each laboring breath, that she was near an end of time, She took a last courageous breath and finished, God, Miles, they are going to kill them all. Dr. Hart . . . my doctor. Then before crossing over, she smiled—that smile that all of us from the best to the worst have, that smile we had when all things that hurt could be kissed away by Mama’s hug and a "You didn’t give up, that’s what was important," When dad, or in his case an older brother, would step in and stop anyone from taking that smile away from you.

But more than anything, you could share that smile with someone you loved or truly trusted like Stella was sharing it now, as the Reaper made his final demand for the body as it went limp in her friend’s arms with that smile still on her face

Rocking her lovingly in his arms as the last breath freed itself from any responsibility to her soul, a slow hot tear made its way down his cheek, as he thought out loud in a taunt, cracked whisper, All right, all right, score One for the Lions.

2 

A Man of His Word

Don’t believe what anyone tells you, death it is cold and damp. But wait a minute! Something was wrong, somehow he still had the knowledge of life. That is, he was aware of things, things he could not make out or feel but nevertheless was aware of and knew they were real.

A voice, a stream of light. Motion. Air! Then cold! Moonbeams, he could feel them pass over him. He was alive!!

He could hear, but he could not speak or form words, but he knew he was alive! He was being moved, no, being carried through the night. He could sense things, but he could not move a finger or arm. He was being lowered into, what from the scent of it, was a pine box; was this his coffin? What a strange bedfellow this death was.

He wanted to scream out to them that he was alive and not to close the lid or he would surely die from suffocation, but whoever they were, released him down into the box onto a soft cloth of some kind which provided padding for the bottom of the box.

A fleeting thought crossed his mind, Why would a dead man need padding in the bottom of his coffin? No matter, dead is dead. He couldn’t make his lips move or make a sound.

They were looking right at him, so he tried to blink his eyelids, hoping that maybe they might notice the movement; applying the top, they completed the task of covering the box by nailing its top shut, raised it from the ground with the help, from what he could discern from the "You’re Welcome and Any Time" sign off voices, were two others, probably employees from the prison.

A quick tap at each end to ensure that the lid was firmly in place then they shoved the—what he now accepted as being a coffin—onto the flatbed of an idling vehicle.

‘I’ll drive decided and informed the voice that moved down the left side of the vehicle. Lak I had a choice," mocked the voice on the right of the vehicle as the crunching feet of both voices walked around the vehicle, opened the respective doors, and got in.

He was in and out of consciousness. But as he came back this time, he knew he was in pitch darkness, being moved through space in some kind of time capsule with wheels? No he remembered now, he was put in a coffin and loaded onto the bed of a vehicle.

He resigned himself to the darkness, trying to make some sense of it. Use it to try to recall the whole matter. Was he dead?

Was this what death was going to be like? Was he going to spend an entirety in a half-waken, cold unfeeling world invisible to those who are still alive?

Like someone in that TV show The Twilight Zone who is being punished for committing some act against "The People in the Real World," a world lost to them because of a wish or an act that he or she has lost control of?

Was he crazy? Yeah, that was it. He had gone crazy. probably cracked under the stress of death row. Hey, it’s happened to a lot of guys.

That’s it! He had never made the execution, Yeah! Now that made more sense! He had dreamed all that stuff about the priest, and his old army major becoming the President of the United States, sending him a message by the big guard that "The president needs you and he will get you out of here."

Now, he could accept that, he was coming out of a state of shock; everything was going to be all right! Being crazy, well, that meant at sometime in his life, he had been sane. But being executed in the state prison receiving death row messages from the President of the United States, hearing sounds in the night while people carried you in a pine box, after you had just died in the gas chamber hours before, Now that was crazy!

The muffled sounds of the automobile humming along snapped him to another level of awareness. The fog was lifting in his mind; bringing more of what he formally had known as life back to him.

The box rocked as the vehicle ran over some small thing in the road. Sometime later he heard a passing horn whiz by, he became aware of another sense becoming functional, his eyes.

Although he could only see darkness, he could now open his eyelids yes, he was alive! That simple action which all of us perform unconsciously millions of times in our lifetimes before death now caused tears to break the confines of his eyelids and flow freely down his cheeks. Oh boy! He was alive! By whatever miracle, whatever twist of fate, whatever wills of whatever gods, he was alive! Out of prison, going to he didn’t know where, except that it was away from death and toward life."

It was beginning to become uncomfortable lying in the same position for so long a time. With every bump in the road, causing a small skin prick here or scratch there.

Adding to the small tortures, was the growing problem of the heat given off by his body multiplied by a factor of three in the sealed almost airtight space of the coffin. Aggravated by the return of one more body function: He defecated.

The combination of his sweat, bowel movement, urine, made him gag as he breathed in the polluted environment causing him to cough uncontrollably.

Stop da truck he heard ordered by the passenger to the driver stop da goddamned truck! Don’t you know wen som thang is wrong? He shouldn’t be cough’ fn, dam it, he shouldn’t even be alive! he continued.

Adding dey gave him nough gas to kill ’em ten times over, he shoulda been fucking dead! Fucking dead! Lak dey told me he would be!

The driver complied, bringing the vehicle to an abrupt stop on the gravel shoulder of the road. Miles heard the doors open and slam shut. Then he felt the brunt of the night air when the top of the coffin was pried open and removed.

The rushes of moonlight striking his unprepared eyes made him flinch involuntarily bringing his hands up to try to block them.

Shit! exclaimed the one at the tailgate on the driver’s side with the crowbar in his hand jumping back, reacting to Miles’s involuntary movement responding to the coffin being opened and the light spilling in, He’s alive! dis ain’t the deal; you’se told me we’s was contracted ta deliver a dead body ta a designated house collect our money and disappear.

Phew! Smells like he shit hisself came from the passenger side of the truck bed.

Driver’s side: Dey didn’t say any a thang ‘bout ’em being ‘live or shit ‘n on his self. Passenger side: I heard somewhere dat when you die everybody shits dheir pants.

Driver’s side, abruptly: Put his hands down! Do he look dead to you? Put da top back on for a minute, he instructed. "I gotta thank! I mean dis changes evea thang from da de’livery, to the money, specially da money.

"Dis guy ain’t dead, he weren’ never dead.

"Dis was some kind a break-out plan. We’s was never sposed to know ‘bout.

"Somehow dey didn’t get the mix right and dey gave ’em ‘nough juice to knock ’em out, fool da doc at da prison morgue, but not ‘nough to keep him out until we’s deliver da body to deere house stead of da city morgue.

Na you knows wah dat means? Dat means dis guy means a lot ta somebody and had some strong contacts in som very high places ta git him outta da shit he was in?

I ain’t no pan nurse, said passenger side.

Well like it or not, countered driver’s side, we’s gonna ta be pan nurses or any thang else it takes to keep mister big shot here ‘live ’til we’s figure’s out what cards ta play, and if we’s plays ’em right, it could mean that we’s ends up in the Ba-ho-mas sippin tall cool ones fo da rest of our lives.

Driver continuing: Wit a lot more din da measly ten thousand we’s was’ sposed ta git.

Driver, hatching a plan: "Ain’t you’se got some clothes in dat bag a your’n?

Passenger side: Yea, but why don’t you use some of your clothes? I might never get dat stench outta my stuff.

Driver: ‘Stupid fool! I don’t know why I let you’se use my truck ‘n came along wit you’se in da first place, you’se is worried ‘bout a shirt and a old pair of pants when even if da job hadda gone regular, yo share would have bin three thousand, just fo’ know’n the folks who needed dis job done, now dat woulda bought you any new shirt and pants you want."

Driver continuing: "Where’s yo kommon sense? Dis ain’t just no pick-up and drop off job no mo, we done hit da jackpot! It’s a whole new ballgame! So let’s git to one of dem motels up ahead and clean this little tar baby up.

We’s gonna need some place to stay where we’s kin keep an eye on ’em til we’s kan contact dim Wash-en-ton boys of your’n, we’s sur ain’t taking ’em to dere house now where dey can just show up an act lak dey don’t know noth’n, and dey is just as ‘sprised as we is dat he is alive, pay us a measly ten grand and steal ’em away from us. B’sides, addressing the earier question, you mo’ his size den me.

Miles screaming in his head: Washington boys! He said Washington boys! That could only mean one thing: The President had pulled it off! He had somehow arranged to get Miles killed and out of the prison alive! Thus, convincing the authorities that he was dead when obviously he was not.

Argument settled, doors slammed, motor powered up as they squirmed back onto the road again He felt pain as the rough edge of the box sent a splinter into his thigh as the speeding vehicle traversed back onto the road causing blood to trickle down his leg. The burning sensation of the broken skin bringing life’s final confirmation caused him to paraphrase in his head one of the slogans of the sixties, burn baby burn, only in his case it