“How are you holding up Patty?” The warden of SQ asked the woman sitting on the cot in the death watch cell.
She rolled her head to her right and looked up at him, “I’m a little nervous but I’m calm. Twenty-three years of waiting for this day and some how I feel relieved. I was a dumb 20-year-old hooker when they locked me up. Look at me now, waiting for a life that was never worth anything to be over with. Yes warden, I’m ready to get out of here.”
“Do you want to see a Chaplin?”
She looked down and shook her head for no. “I’m good, I’ve already made my peace with God. I have to walk this last path on my own.”
“Is there anything you need?”
“Nothing left for me in this world. I just want to sit here and think for my last hour,” Patty said as she stood from the cot and shuffled over to the cell bars in her cloth scuffs.
“Let us know if you need anything. Are you sure you don’t want a last meal?”
Patty shook her head, “No, don’t need it.”
“All right, we’ll leave you alone for this last hour.”
“Thanks, I have some reminiscing to do.” Patty walked over and leaned in against the wall in the corner of the cell. She looked up as she was silently praying. She had been a bone thin, bleach blonde when she entered the prison now she was 43 and she had filled out to where she was normal size. Her hair was now halfway down her back and back to its original dark brown. Even in the prison issued blue and white pull over shirt and dark blue denim pants Patty now looked like and average woman one would see shopping at a grocery store. Her time locked up had allowed her to look like a normal 43-year-old and not the drug crazed hooked who had killed the John’s she serviced for their money. She turned her eyes a little higher toward the ceiling and said, “We’re almost there.”
Patty’s last hour soon elapsed into 45 minutes and then thirty. With only 20 minutes left she was now pacing back and forth in the cell. She would grasp the cell bars and then release them. She would walk over to the cot, sit down for a few minutes and then stand up and shuffle across the floor again. “Why is this taking so long?” She asked herself.
She was standing only a few feet from the cot when the cell door opened, and two female guards and the prison doctor entered her cell. “Take off your cloths,” one of the guards said.
Patty stepped out of the white scuffs, exposing her bare feet. She then removed her shirt, then her pants, followed by her underwear.
The doctor stepped forward and placed a stethoscope on Patty’s chest, listening carefully to locate her heart. “Right there,” he said as he removed the diaphragm end of a stethoscope from his pocket and looked at one of the guards. “I need that harness now.”
The guard handed the doctor the harness which he used to secure the stethoscope to Patty’s heart. One of the guards then handed Patty a white button up shirt and a dark blue pair of work pants, but without pockets. “Put these on.” Once dressed another guard gave her a band to secure her hair into a ponytail.
As Patty put on the clothing she had just been given two other guards placed carpeted runner rugs on the floor that led from the cell in which Patty was being kept to the gas chamber. Once dressed Patty sat down on the edge of the cot as the clock ticked down her last ten minutes.
The guards stayed close to Patty’s cell as the clocked ticked down. Soon it was one minute till 10 AM. The warden accompanied by two guards appeared at the now open cell door. The warden entered the cell and looked at Patty who was now standing. He nodded his head, “It’s time.”
Patty took a few steps and then stepped onto the runner rug. Quietly she followed the path of the rug through a huge steel door and into the ante room which contained the gas chamber. The tall woman stopped just as she reached the door to the gas chamber as a guard opened the chamber’s door, exposing the two metal chairs. She looked at the two cheesecloth sacks containing cyanide pellets that were suspended beneath the chair. She then took one more step, allowing her bare feet to contact the metal floor of the gas chamber.
The guards guided her to the chair on the left, turned her around and seated her in the chair. They began to strap her down as Patty sat silently as she was restrained. The stethoscope was connected, and the guards executed the chamber. As the door was closed it made a low, dull sound followed by the sound of the wheel being turned to seal the chamber.
Patty sat quietly with her size ten feet resting flat on the chamber’s floor as she waited. Suddenly she heard a gurgling sound followed by a metallic clunk. She could see faint whisp of smoke rising from below the chair. Patty closed her eyes and slightly elevated her head as she slowly counted to ten. She then took one deep breath and then another followed by a third and a fourth.
With her eyes still closed Patty’s head fell forward. Suddenly, her eyes opened, and her head jerked backward. Her neck seemed to jerk her head back and forth in slight, rapid motions as her toes curled as she bared her feet tightly against the floor. Her chest heaved against the chest strap as if she was trying to get out of the chair. Abruptly, her head fell forward, and her body relaxed. The minutes ticked by as everyone waited for the doctor to make his announcement which came seven and a half minutes later.
The witnesses were ushered out and the chamber was vented. For Patty, her 23 years on death row ended in under 10 minutes.

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