Gracie, by Toe Tag
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© Toe Tag
Shall I tell you about my sins, Reverend? That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it? I still have time to recapitulate everything once again. I have not much else to do either...
Gracie. The name of the woman who put me here, in Santa Mariana's death row.
It was about 6 years ago that Margaret and I came to Santa Mariana. You see, Margaret was my wife, and though I loved her, I must admit she had a quite comfortable economic situation, comfortable enough to sustain our busy, busy lifestyle. I didn't knew much about her kin, except that she was from a family of means, so I wasn't very surprised when we were informed of her uncle's death and the subsequent inheritance she was in title to receive. The late uncle happened to have a small mansion in the Caribbean island of Santa Mariana and had lived there since 1945. He seamed like a bit eccentric: he had come to live there during the war as a government representative and, not having a pleasant relation with the rest of the family, he kept on living there for the rest of his life.
I encouraged Margaret to go and live in the Santa Mariana's estate. And of course I was more than willing to go along. I was fed up with London: the gambling, the betting and the debts were building me an unhealthy reputation. Santa Mariana meant a new beginning for me. Wouldn't you do the same?
Margaret had no job to look back to. Her earnings and family money were more than enough to keep us rolling for years. A sunny island in the Caribbean was just the thing for her shallow personality. Before the end of the year, we were moving to Santa Mariana.
The house was marvellous. We spent our first years there remodelling it to fit our needs. We divided the mansion in two wings, one for me and another for Margaret. We didn't sleep together anymore back then, and we both had conveniently hidden affairs. Jealousy was not in the way, of course, but social establishment was highly regarded by both of us, especially by Margaret. That is why troubles began when we hired Gracie.
Santa Mariana had been discovered by Spaniards, conquered by the French and finally occupied by the British. The vast majority of its population is made up by freed slaves from the french plantations and natives brought from the mainland. A curious exchange of blood happened there. Gracie was a fine example of that Creole mixture: elegant though petite, caramel skinned, with a pair of seemingly innocent but provocative eyes, beautiful round forms hidden only by the scant garments made mandatory by the tropical weather, she was everything a man could wish. Both Margaret and me were in our late thirties by then, we needed a regular housemaid and Gracie was fit for the job, so we hired her.
I was bored of my life in Santa Mariana: it was all too easy. We had a very stable social status. Gamble was permitted and one of the main reasons the tourists went there, so there were plenty of them to swindle. There was also much female company available. Margaret didn't care much as long as it wasn't made 'too' public, so I had casual affairs every now and then. So, it is no surprise that all this tranquillity turned into splinters when Gracie seduced me.
I still can picture it: her silhouette parading all over the house, with a shy smile and inquisitive glances. Her funny accent as she announced something to me. It was only natural that I got hooked onto her. I was a couple of years of being forty and eager to do some damage. Gracie was almost twenty years younger than me and had a gorgeous body and predisposition for romance. She made me feel like a youth again. Margaret would never tolerate it, of course, so we chose to keep a low profile even from her. At first, our encounters were mere nightly pleasure escapades. Nevertheless, it soon became too hot to hide... and to handle.
Margaret found out, of course. I was silently informed of her displeasance with the situation when she stopped attending our meals together. She avoided my presence in the house and left me with no pocket money for days. A week later she hired a second housemaid, much older than Gracie, and kept herself in her wing of the house. That was no problem for me at first, but eventually I got worried. I depended entirely on Margaret's money and good will. What if she ceased giving me means to live? Or, perhaps, divorce me? I could not allow that!
I immediately finished my affair with Gracie. I agreed with Margaret when she said it was better to let her go. The day Gracie was fired she had a last conversation with me, in which she displayed a hot childish temper. She shouted at me constantly and called me looser, playboy and mistress pet. I felt humiliated, but I knew she was right and heard it without a word. I tried to tell her that it would never have gone right between us. Still, Gracie didn't listened: she just got her suitcase and rushed out of the house without turning around.
Everything got back to normal. Margaret allowed me into her circle again. Money started flowing too. Weeks passed and the daily routine seemed to erase the recent case. It was like everything had been forgotten. Except I felt sorrow for my lost passion. Until one night, a shadow came into my room and awoke me. As I woke up, surprised and outraged by this intrusion, I was hushed back to calmness by a familiar hand in my lips: Gracie! She had kept an extra key!
We were both hungry for each other. We hugged and kissed and made love all night. It was beautiful! Anyway, by morning Gracie told me what had brought her back to me. She had a plan that could help us both, either to stay together or to get away with our love. I told her I could never leave my wife. She was the source of my apparent wealth, my world would crumble without her support. Gracie smiled: that was the point she wanted to get to.
Am I tiring you, Reverend? Oh, good! The best part is yet to come.
I was astonished by the simplicity of Gracie’s plans, but much more by the diabolicalness she display by plotting the whole thing. This is what she proposed to me: we would get Margaret unconscious by administering her a sedative. Then, after she had pass out, we would throw her to the sea from the top of a nearby cliff and report her disappearance. She would drown, no doubt, and the reason of death would clearly appear at the eyes of the authorities. Therefore, no autopsy would be requested and we would be out of danger. As Gracie was speaking, my interest grew: I knew Margaret had a will and also that she hadn’t forgot me in it. Her lawyer had confided it to me, though he did not mention any specific amount. That was my chance of freeing myself from her economic dominance. But… commit murder? That was a hanging offence in Santa Mariana! Wouldn’t we be pushing our luck too far?
Gracie got sombre as she noticed my hesitation. She paused and marked her words well as she said:
- That is what you will have to do, if you still want me to be yours.
I can’t say I argued much more after that remark.
We waited one week before we made our move. Margaret suspected nothing. Her housemaid slept in her own house, so she left by 7 p.m. and left the coast clear for us to act. Margaret was in the library finishing some letters. She didn’t saw me entering the kitchen and pouring ice tea into two glasses, one of them containing enough sedation to put her to sleep in a few minutes. I unlocked the kitchen’s back door for Gracie to enter and went upstairs carrying the ice tea. I entered the library and sat near the desk, chatting as casually as I could. Margaret hardly gave me any attention at first, as I offered her the glass. She kept on writing without even looking at it. But the night was warm and the body chemistry speaks silently but forcefully: as soon as she felt thirst, she took a sip… then two… then she drank all of it. I stood there watching as she did it. After a minute or two she became somnolent. Her head tilted and her eyes closed constantly. She looked at me, babbled something and tried to get up, falling sideways. I got up and checked her pulse: she was alive.
Gracie appeared a few minutes afterwards. She saw Margaret lying on the floor and couldn’t resist spitting on her. Then she turned to me and said something had gone wrong, we would have to do it in the house. I asked what had gone wrong and she said she had passed by the cliff and there were three or four cars parked there. Teen couples making out, for sure. Damn! I became disorientated. What could we do?
Gracie ordered me to get hold of Margaret’s ankles and grabbed her by the shoulders. We carried my unconscious wife to her bathroom and placed her in the bathtub. I understood what Gracie meant to do. The cold water could reanimate an unconscious person. We needed to make sure she wouldn’t move, so I tied her ankles and wrists with nylon rope. Gracie went to the gardening shed and brought six bricks the construction men had left there since the remodelling of the house. We placed the bricks over Margaret’s chest, arms and legs and turn the water on. I felt sick as I looked upon Margaret, lying in the bottom of the tub, defenceless to the rising water. I excused myself and got out of there. I puked in the garden’s bushes.
When I returned, the deed was done. Gracie said Margaret had regained conscience as she started to drown, but she had promptly stepped on her chest to keep her down. We drained the tub, freed Margaret’s wrists, wrapped her in plastic bags and waited for the morning. Just before dawn, when all the teen lovers had gone home, we threw her dead body from the top of the cliff.
Two days after I reported her missing, her body was found. And Gracie and I were arrested for her murder.
What went wrong, Reverend? At first we didn’t realise too. But we had done an amateur’s work. As soon as the body was fished out, the rope marks on her wrists got the police’s attention. Later, during the autopsy, fresh water was found in her lungs, not salt water as it should be. The public defendant appointed to my case even made fun of it, asking if I hadn’t seen “Chinatown”.
We were quickly taken to trial. It took two weeks to find us guilty. To make our ruin even worst, Gracie and I never thought we would be caught, so we hadn’t cooked up a story. And after our arrest, we only saw each other during the trial, and we were never alone. We were even jailed in different prisons. During the second week of our trial, as we were in the waiting room outside the courtroom, I managed to speak to her for some moments. The guards let us: by then it was too late, what harm could it do? I remember I told her I expected the worse and said I was sorry to lead her to this situation. She answered pitilessly:
- Feel sorry for yourself, white man! I am a woman. I am young. There is no way I’m going to swing with you. You’ll see!
And the fact is that Gracie did everything to point the finger on the ‘foreign white man’. She cried as she made her statement in which she said ‘the boss forced me to it’. But she got no luck, for the jury didn’t buy it. And at the end of the trial we both got the same sentence:
- It is the sentence of this court that you – Colin Blackwell and Grace Sebastienne Boisclerc - are to be kept under custody until a date in which you will be taken to a place of lawful execution and there to be hanged by your necks until you are dead. And may God have mercy on your souls.
I remember feeling dizzy and my legs going limp. I remember the guards had to help me to a chair. And I remember Gracie’s hysterical cries encircling me as she was taken away by two matrons. They quickly took her out of the courtroom and her muffled cries were the last thing I heard before she disappeared. It was eight months ago, Reverend…
This is the only prison in Santa Mariana where they still carry out executions. I know she is in this same prison, but I haven’t seen her or heard of her, although she might even be in the next cell. I will see her soon enough though. We have a date together, you see? Not with each other, but with a pair of strong ropes, a long drop and a couple of snapped necks.
*
As soon as the Reverend exits my cell, two guards enter and make me stand. I shiver and stay silent as they firmly grab my arms and turn me towards the door.
- Come on, man. We have to go now.
They lead me forward to the narrow hallway and once outside my cell I take a look around and see there are other people there: the warden, a doctor and a tall black man in suit and tie. The guards stand me facing the wall and pull my arms back, as the tall man positions himself behind me, quickly strapping my wrists together with a leather strap. With a quick nod of the head, the tall man signals both guards to walk me down the hallway. One of them whispers:
- Steady now, man. It’s better if we go smoothly.
- I… I understand…
The tall man and the warden lead the way, followed by the two guards and myself. The Reverend is the last of the group. He is not reading the psalms, as I had expected. I wonder if Gracie is still having her last rites read to her in her cell. My chest is pounding from the anxiety. The walk is silent. Nobody speaks. The only sound that echoes through these walls is the flapping of my flip-flop slides on my bare feet.
We reach the end of the hallway and a metal door. The tall man knocks on it twice and another guard promptly opens it wide. I am urged to walk in and I stumble before I do so. It is a small room with bare walls, except for another metal door on the other side of it. Its only furniture is two folding chairs in the middle of it. I am pushed on and made to sit in one of them, hardly noticing that the tall man and the warden leave for another destination. To get Gracie ready, no doubt.
I am starting to come to terms with the reality of it all: Gracie, Margaret, the murder, the trial, my seven months on death row… I feel dizzy and shame for what I am here for. The guards stand by my sides, silently. One of them offers me a smoke of a cigarette he lights for himself. I refuse. I stare at the other door. That must be the door to the death chamber.
I hear noises coming from the hallway. A female voice. Crying and wailing. The guards hold me down by my shoulders, preventing any sudden and dangerous movement I could make. The sounds become clearer when the metal door behind me is open widely and the second party of guards enters, pushing the panicking woman into the room. At first I don’t recognise her, but as she is forced to sit by my side I can see it is Gracie. Dressed in the same sad attires I’m wearing: loose grey overall and black flip-flops. The guards try to hold her down on the chair as she kicks their legs and cries:
- No! I did nothing. Please! Gi’me another chance!
- Gracie.
She turns her tear stained face to me and stops her fight. She gasps and swallows hard and looks at me attentively as if she fails to remember my face. She takes a deep breath and with a trembling voice she says:
- You… You look thinner…
- Yes… Prison diet isn’t the best… - I smile lightly.
- Honey, they’re going to kill me! – her panic rising again – please, you know I did nothing… Tell them I did nothing! They will believe you!
I hear footsteps again. Entering the room. I feel someone standing behind me. I know our time is up. I take a deep breath:
- Gracie, dear, listen to me. It’s over now, you understand? They won’t take you to that cell anymore. It’s is going to finish real soon. It won’t take long and I’ll be all the way by your side.
Gracie stares at me with those big, dark, defenceless eyes of hers and understands how right I am. She closes her eyes shut and tears fall down her cheeks as she takes in the meaning of my words. The door behind us is shut and two guards kneel in front of us and take our flip-flops off our feet. I feel something being placed over the top of my head and I realise it is the hood. Gracie looks at me in fear as she feels the hood being placed on her own head, but I manage to calm her down:
- It’s nothing, dear. It will help you not to have fear. I’ll be with you, I promise.
I silently ask the tall man to lower it all the way over her face and he agrees. Gracie keeps looking at me with teary eyes until the hood covers her face completely. She whispers with a broken voice:
- I’m scared, honey!
- I know, dear…
We are ready now. The tall man reaches for the door in the other end of the room and opens it wide. The guards make us stand on our feet and I’m glad now Gracie doesn’t have to see what’s beyond the door: two dangling nooses over a large trapdoor on the wooden floor. We are forced to walk on, Gracie first and I second. I hear her sobbing lightly. It seems like I’m in a dream as the guards urge me to walk. I feel the cold cement under my soles. Gracie’s escort takes her across the door. She must sense it because I hear her sobbing a bit louder. As I’m taken in, the guards make me dodge to avoid a stream of urine that Gracie’s frightened bladder has let go.
We are placed on the trap. Gracie is placed over a chalk mark by my right side and held there by two guards standing on boards laid across the trapdoor. I can hardly get a glimpse of her before the tall man lowers the hood over my face for good. I am sightless now. I can only feel as my legs are pushed together and strapped with a second leather strap. Then, something goes over my head and is neatly fastened around my neck: the noose. I sense its eyelet placed under my left ear. Now I hear footsteps moving away.
I’m alone. I’m the loneliest man in the world. I see nothing. My skin moistens under the hood. My breath quickens and causes me to inhale and exhale, dragging the hood’s fabric against my mouth. I sense movement, but I don’t see it. My bladder is getting understandably nervous. I hear Gracie’s sobs echoing in the chamber.
And all of a sudden everything happens in a flash. I hear the subtle click of a device being activated. I tense up in anticipation. Metallic sounds. I feel the floor slipping from underneath my soles and sudden rush of air. I’m dropping! Oh, my God! Gracie shrieks aloud once more before the noose stretches her neck, strangling her scream!
GGHHHLLLLLLGGHHH…
*
The guards stand on the scaffold, looking down through the trapdoor as the echo subsides. They watch silently as the condemned sway and spin around, having their spastic convulsions, which soon became weaker. No sound is heard except for the creaking of the ropes, until the tall man speaks without irony in his voice:
- We must respect the regulation hour, gentlemen. Let's give them some time alone.
And he led everyone out and locked the door behind him.
© Toe Tag
Shall I tell you about my sins, Reverend? That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it? I still have time to recapitulate everything once again. I have not much else to do either...
Gracie. The name of the woman who put me here, in Santa Mariana's death row.
It was about 6 years ago that Margaret and I came to Santa Mariana. You see, Margaret was my wife, and though I loved her, I must admit she had a quite comfortable economic situation, comfortable enough to sustain our busy, busy lifestyle. I didn't knew much about her kin, except that she was from a family of means, so I wasn't very surprised when we were informed of her uncle's death and the subsequent inheritance she was in title to receive. The late uncle happened to have a small mansion in the Caribbean island of Santa Mariana and had lived there since 1945. He seamed like a bit eccentric: he had come to live there during the war as a government representative and, not having a pleasant relation with the rest of the family, he kept on living there for the rest of his life.
I encouraged Margaret to go and live in the Santa Mariana's estate. And of course I was more than willing to go along. I was fed up with London: the gambling, the betting and the debts were building me an unhealthy reputation. Santa Mariana meant a new beginning for me. Wouldn't you do the same?
Margaret had no job to look back to. Her earnings and family money were more than enough to keep us rolling for years. A sunny island in the Caribbean was just the thing for her shallow personality. Before the end of the year, we were moving to Santa Mariana.
The house was marvellous. We spent our first years there remodelling it to fit our needs. We divided the mansion in two wings, one for me and another for Margaret. We didn't sleep together anymore back then, and we both had conveniently hidden affairs. Jealousy was not in the way, of course, but social establishment was highly regarded by both of us, especially by Margaret. That is why troubles began when we hired Gracie.
Santa Mariana had been discovered by Spaniards, conquered by the French and finally occupied by the British. The vast majority of its population is made up by freed slaves from the french plantations and natives brought from the mainland. A curious exchange of blood happened there. Gracie was a fine example of that Creole mixture: elegant though petite, caramel skinned, with a pair of seemingly innocent but provocative eyes, beautiful round forms hidden only by the scant garments made mandatory by the tropical weather, she was everything a man could wish. Both Margaret and me were in our late thirties by then, we needed a regular housemaid and Gracie was fit for the job, so we hired her.
I was bored of my life in Santa Mariana: it was all too easy. We had a very stable social status. Gamble was permitted and one of the main reasons the tourists went there, so there were plenty of them to swindle. There was also much female company available. Margaret didn't care much as long as it wasn't made 'too' public, so I had casual affairs every now and then. So, it is no surprise that all this tranquillity turned into splinters when Gracie seduced me.
I still can picture it: her silhouette parading all over the house, with a shy smile and inquisitive glances. Her funny accent as she announced something to me. It was only natural that I got hooked onto her. I was a couple of years of being forty and eager to do some damage. Gracie was almost twenty years younger than me and had a gorgeous body and predisposition for romance. She made me feel like a youth again. Margaret would never tolerate it, of course, so we chose to keep a low profile even from her. At first, our encounters were mere nightly pleasure escapades. Nevertheless, it soon became too hot to hide... and to handle.
Margaret found out, of course. I was silently informed of her displeasance with the situation when she stopped attending our meals together. She avoided my presence in the house and left me with no pocket money for days. A week later she hired a second housemaid, much older than Gracie, and kept herself in her wing of the house. That was no problem for me at first, but eventually I got worried. I depended entirely on Margaret's money and good will. What if she ceased giving me means to live? Or, perhaps, divorce me? I could not allow that!
I immediately finished my affair with Gracie. I agreed with Margaret when she said it was better to let her go. The day Gracie was fired she had a last conversation with me, in which she displayed a hot childish temper. She shouted at me constantly and called me looser, playboy and mistress pet. I felt humiliated, but I knew she was right and heard it without a word. I tried to tell her that it would never have gone right between us. Still, Gracie didn't listened: she just got her suitcase and rushed out of the house without turning around.
Everything got back to normal. Margaret allowed me into her circle again. Money started flowing too. Weeks passed and the daily routine seemed to erase the recent case. It was like everything had been forgotten. Except I felt sorrow for my lost passion. Until one night, a shadow came into my room and awoke me. As I woke up, surprised and outraged by this intrusion, I was hushed back to calmness by a familiar hand in my lips: Gracie! She had kept an extra key!
We were both hungry for each other. We hugged and kissed and made love all night. It was beautiful! Anyway, by morning Gracie told me what had brought her back to me. She had a plan that could help us both, either to stay together or to get away with our love. I told her I could never leave my wife. She was the source of my apparent wealth, my world would crumble without her support. Gracie smiled: that was the point she wanted to get to.
Am I tiring you, Reverend? Oh, good! The best part is yet to come.
I was astonished by the simplicity of Gracie’s plans, but much more by the diabolicalness she display by plotting the whole thing. This is what she proposed to me: we would get Margaret unconscious by administering her a sedative. Then, after she had pass out, we would throw her to the sea from the top of a nearby cliff and report her disappearance. She would drown, no doubt, and the reason of death would clearly appear at the eyes of the authorities. Therefore, no autopsy would be requested and we would be out of danger. As Gracie was speaking, my interest grew: I knew Margaret had a will and also that she hadn’t forgot me in it. Her lawyer had confided it to me, though he did not mention any specific amount. That was my chance of freeing myself from her economic dominance. But… commit murder? That was a hanging offence in Santa Mariana! Wouldn’t we be pushing our luck too far?
Gracie got sombre as she noticed my hesitation. She paused and marked her words well as she said:
- That is what you will have to do, if you still want me to be yours.
I can’t say I argued much more after that remark.
We waited one week before we made our move. Margaret suspected nothing. Her housemaid slept in her own house, so she left by 7 p.m. and left the coast clear for us to act. Margaret was in the library finishing some letters. She didn’t saw me entering the kitchen and pouring ice tea into two glasses, one of them containing enough sedation to put her to sleep in a few minutes. I unlocked the kitchen’s back door for Gracie to enter and went upstairs carrying the ice tea. I entered the library and sat near the desk, chatting as casually as I could. Margaret hardly gave me any attention at first, as I offered her the glass. She kept on writing without even looking at it. But the night was warm and the body chemistry speaks silently but forcefully: as soon as she felt thirst, she took a sip… then two… then she drank all of it. I stood there watching as she did it. After a minute or two she became somnolent. Her head tilted and her eyes closed constantly. She looked at me, babbled something and tried to get up, falling sideways. I got up and checked her pulse: she was alive.
Gracie appeared a few minutes afterwards. She saw Margaret lying on the floor and couldn’t resist spitting on her. Then she turned to me and said something had gone wrong, we would have to do it in the house. I asked what had gone wrong and she said she had passed by the cliff and there were three or four cars parked there. Teen couples making out, for sure. Damn! I became disorientated. What could we do?
Gracie ordered me to get hold of Margaret’s ankles and grabbed her by the shoulders. We carried my unconscious wife to her bathroom and placed her in the bathtub. I understood what Gracie meant to do. The cold water could reanimate an unconscious person. We needed to make sure she wouldn’t move, so I tied her ankles and wrists with nylon rope. Gracie went to the gardening shed and brought six bricks the construction men had left there since the remodelling of the house. We placed the bricks over Margaret’s chest, arms and legs and turn the water on. I felt sick as I looked upon Margaret, lying in the bottom of the tub, defenceless to the rising water. I excused myself and got out of there. I puked in the garden’s bushes.
When I returned, the deed was done. Gracie said Margaret had regained conscience as she started to drown, but she had promptly stepped on her chest to keep her down. We drained the tub, freed Margaret’s wrists, wrapped her in plastic bags and waited for the morning. Just before dawn, when all the teen lovers had gone home, we threw her dead body from the top of the cliff.
Two days after I reported her missing, her body was found. And Gracie and I were arrested for her murder.
What went wrong, Reverend? At first we didn’t realise too. But we had done an amateur’s work. As soon as the body was fished out, the rope marks on her wrists got the police’s attention. Later, during the autopsy, fresh water was found in her lungs, not salt water as it should be. The public defendant appointed to my case even made fun of it, asking if I hadn’t seen “Chinatown”.
We were quickly taken to trial. It took two weeks to find us guilty. To make our ruin even worst, Gracie and I never thought we would be caught, so we hadn’t cooked up a story. And after our arrest, we only saw each other during the trial, and we were never alone. We were even jailed in different prisons. During the second week of our trial, as we were in the waiting room outside the courtroom, I managed to speak to her for some moments. The guards let us: by then it was too late, what harm could it do? I remember I told her I expected the worse and said I was sorry to lead her to this situation. She answered pitilessly:
- Feel sorry for yourself, white man! I am a woman. I am young. There is no way I’m going to swing with you. You’ll see!
And the fact is that Gracie did everything to point the finger on the ‘foreign white man’. She cried as she made her statement in which she said ‘the boss forced me to it’. But she got no luck, for the jury didn’t buy it. And at the end of the trial we both got the same sentence:
- It is the sentence of this court that you – Colin Blackwell and Grace Sebastienne Boisclerc - are to be kept under custody until a date in which you will be taken to a place of lawful execution and there to be hanged by your necks until you are dead. And may God have mercy on your souls.
I remember feeling dizzy and my legs going limp. I remember the guards had to help me to a chair. And I remember Gracie’s hysterical cries encircling me as she was taken away by two matrons. They quickly took her out of the courtroom and her muffled cries were the last thing I heard before she disappeared. It was eight months ago, Reverend…
This is the only prison in Santa Mariana where they still carry out executions. I know she is in this same prison, but I haven’t seen her or heard of her, although she might even be in the next cell. I will see her soon enough though. We have a date together, you see? Not with each other, but with a pair of strong ropes, a long drop and a couple of snapped necks.
*
As soon as the Reverend exits my cell, two guards enter and make me stand. I shiver and stay silent as they firmly grab my arms and turn me towards the door.
- Come on, man. We have to go now.
They lead me forward to the narrow hallway and once outside my cell I take a look around and see there are other people there: the warden, a doctor and a tall black man in suit and tie. The guards stand me facing the wall and pull my arms back, as the tall man positions himself behind me, quickly strapping my wrists together with a leather strap. With a quick nod of the head, the tall man signals both guards to walk me down the hallway. One of them whispers:
- Steady now, man. It’s better if we go smoothly.
- I… I understand…
The tall man and the warden lead the way, followed by the two guards and myself. The Reverend is the last of the group. He is not reading the psalms, as I had expected. I wonder if Gracie is still having her last rites read to her in her cell. My chest is pounding from the anxiety. The walk is silent. Nobody speaks. The only sound that echoes through these walls is the flapping of my flip-flop slides on my bare feet.
We reach the end of the hallway and a metal door. The tall man knocks on it twice and another guard promptly opens it wide. I am urged to walk in and I stumble before I do so. It is a small room with bare walls, except for another metal door on the other side of it. Its only furniture is two folding chairs in the middle of it. I am pushed on and made to sit in one of them, hardly noticing that the tall man and the warden leave for another destination. To get Gracie ready, no doubt.
I am starting to come to terms with the reality of it all: Gracie, Margaret, the murder, the trial, my seven months on death row… I feel dizzy and shame for what I am here for. The guards stand by my sides, silently. One of them offers me a smoke of a cigarette he lights for himself. I refuse. I stare at the other door. That must be the door to the death chamber.
I hear noises coming from the hallway. A female voice. Crying and wailing. The guards hold me down by my shoulders, preventing any sudden and dangerous movement I could make. The sounds become clearer when the metal door behind me is open widely and the second party of guards enters, pushing the panicking woman into the room. At first I don’t recognise her, but as she is forced to sit by my side I can see it is Gracie. Dressed in the same sad attires I’m wearing: loose grey overall and black flip-flops. The guards try to hold her down on the chair as she kicks their legs and cries:
- No! I did nothing. Please! Gi’me another chance!
- Gracie.
She turns her tear stained face to me and stops her fight. She gasps and swallows hard and looks at me attentively as if she fails to remember my face. She takes a deep breath and with a trembling voice she says:
- You… You look thinner…
- Yes… Prison diet isn’t the best… - I smile lightly.
- Honey, they’re going to kill me! – her panic rising again – please, you know I did nothing… Tell them I did nothing! They will believe you!
I hear footsteps again. Entering the room. I feel someone standing behind me. I know our time is up. I take a deep breath:
- Gracie, dear, listen to me. It’s over now, you understand? They won’t take you to that cell anymore. It’s is going to finish real soon. It won’t take long and I’ll be all the way by your side.
Gracie stares at me with those big, dark, defenceless eyes of hers and understands how right I am. She closes her eyes shut and tears fall down her cheeks as she takes in the meaning of my words. The door behind us is shut and two guards kneel in front of us and take our flip-flops off our feet. I feel something being placed over the top of my head and I realise it is the hood. Gracie looks at me in fear as she feels the hood being placed on her own head, but I manage to calm her down:
- It’s nothing, dear. It will help you not to have fear. I’ll be with you, I promise.
I silently ask the tall man to lower it all the way over her face and he agrees. Gracie keeps looking at me with teary eyes until the hood covers her face completely. She whispers with a broken voice:
- I’m scared, honey!
- I know, dear…
We are ready now. The tall man reaches for the door in the other end of the room and opens it wide. The guards make us stand on our feet and I’m glad now Gracie doesn’t have to see what’s beyond the door: two dangling nooses over a large trapdoor on the wooden floor. We are forced to walk on, Gracie first and I second. I hear her sobbing lightly. It seems like I’m in a dream as the guards urge me to walk. I feel the cold cement under my soles. Gracie’s escort takes her across the door. She must sense it because I hear her sobbing a bit louder. As I’m taken in, the guards make me dodge to avoid a stream of urine that Gracie’s frightened bladder has let go.
We are placed on the trap. Gracie is placed over a chalk mark by my right side and held there by two guards standing on boards laid across the trapdoor. I can hardly get a glimpse of her before the tall man lowers the hood over my face for good. I am sightless now. I can only feel as my legs are pushed together and strapped with a second leather strap. Then, something goes over my head and is neatly fastened around my neck: the noose. I sense its eyelet placed under my left ear. Now I hear footsteps moving away.
I’m alone. I’m the loneliest man in the world. I see nothing. My skin moistens under the hood. My breath quickens and causes me to inhale and exhale, dragging the hood’s fabric against my mouth. I sense movement, but I don’t see it. My bladder is getting understandably nervous. I hear Gracie’s sobs echoing in the chamber.
And all of a sudden everything happens in a flash. I hear the subtle click of a device being activated. I tense up in anticipation. Metallic sounds. I feel the floor slipping from underneath my soles and sudden rush of air. I’m dropping! Oh, my God! Gracie shrieks aloud once more before the noose stretches her neck, strangling her scream!
GGHHHLLLLLLGGHHH…
*
The guards stand on the scaffold, looking down through the trapdoor as the echo subsides. They watch silently as the condemned sway and spin around, having their spastic convulsions, which soon became weaker. No sound is heard except for the creaking of the ropes, until the tall man speaks without irony in his voice:
- We must respect the regulation hour, gentlemen. Let's give them some time alone.
And he led everyone out and locked the door behind him.
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