EDGAR SMINT: By Adam Francis Smith
Thursday, September 30th, 2010Edgar Smint sat in a hard wooden chair, eyes forward, hands gripping armrests, listening. Upon a stage stood a gallows made of hewn wooden posts. It seemed ancient beyond measure and loomed before the gathered audience, commanding the attention of everyone in the small chamber.
“Those of you who have volunteered to witness today’s events have our deepest gratitude. You are the eyes of the public and you are here to see justice done.” The warden stood beside the gallows, his neck at the height of the noose that hung motionless in the air beside him. He spoke for several minutes, expounding on the virtue of those who had come to see the sentence of death carried out in a timely and workmanlike manner.
Edgar watched the man as he introduced the special guests who were in attendance: Father George Bleaner, author of “God Forgives,” and Ms. Judith McKenna, head of the Institute for Gifted Children.
“I’d like Mr. James Carpenter brought forward.”
Two uniformed guards stepped from the shadows and moved to a man who sat in the end seat of the front row. One of the guards stood with a cudgel in his hand, the other bent forward, using a large iron key to unfasten the prisoner’s leg shackles, and then the metal bands that secured his wrists.
When it was clear that there would be no resistance, the guards helped the man to his feet and then led him up seven creaking stairs, onto the stage. They stopped him beneath the noose and then stepped back as another man came forward from the rear of the room.
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” announced the warden, “this is Doctor Samuel Matecki. He is the Chief Medical Practitioner here at the penitentiary, as well as being County Coroner and the State Executioner. He will oversee the events of the day.”
The doctor took his time mounting the stairs, and Edgar had the impression that he was enjoying the drama and being the center of attention. In his right hand he held a piece of heavy black cloth, and in his left he carried a pair of leather belts with tarnished buckles.
He approached the prisoner and made a show of binding his hands behind his back with one belt, and then bending to bind his ankles with the other. When he finished, the warden took a step back, slipping silently into the shadows at the rear of the stage.
From the darkness he asked a question, his words a challenge. “Mr. Carpenter, have you any final words to say before your sentence is carried out?”
The prisoner looked upon the gathered witnesses. His lower lip quivered. Edgar could see a sheen of sweat upon his face. The man began to blink uncontrollably and he croaked, “I- I- I’m so so- sorry.” A tear squeezed past each of his flickering eyelids, running down his cheeks to mingle with sweat already pooling on his upper lip.
Edgar had no sympathy for the killer. He thought him weak for crying. “A man takes his medicine,” he thought. “A man doesn’t cry.“
The warden’s final order was a whisper, “Carry on.”
The doctor pulled the black fabric over the killer’s head, covering his fear-filled features and making of him an anonymous nothing. “He could be anyone of us,” thought Edgar, “dressed in that prison jumpsuit.”
The doctor looped the noose over the prisoner’s head and pulled the rope tight. He took a step backward and left the trembling prisoner alone in the center of the stage. The rope around his neck rose upward like a morbid lifeline, it’s end lost in the shadows near the top of the gallows.
The prisoner voiced a muffled, “Please,” and his knees buckled. When the rope stretched tight and pulled at his neck, he straightened his legs again and began to turn his body.
The doctor nodded to someone off-stage and a moment later the floor beneath the prisoner dropped open.
Edgar watched fascinated as the scene seemed to play out in slow motion. The body dropped and the rope snapped taught. Edgar thought he could hear a musical twang in the air. The body bounced once and fell again. The prisoner jerked at the end of the rope, bending his knees and jerking his elbows from side to side.
Edgar wanted to turn away, but his eyes were glued to the scene. He watched the dead man struggle for several seconds until finally, a deep stain spread from his crotch down each of his legs.
The body still moved, but it was not the death throes of a man fighting to stay alive, or the violent pain-filled spasms of a body in torment. It was a peaceful swaying in the darkness, somehow just below the light.
He hung there for several long minutes until the two guards hoisted his body upward and removed the noose. The trap door in the floor was closed and they laid his body down on the stage.
The doctor stepped forward again, looking out over the small gathering, as if making sure every pair of eyes was on him. He leaned over the dead man and touched a pair of fingers to his neck. He pulled a stethoscope from an inside coat pocket and made a show of checking for a heartbeat. He soon raised his left hand, shook down his sleeve, looked at his watch and announced, “Time of death, twelve-seventeen.”
A side door opened and Edgar was blinded for a moment by the rectangular patch of light that filled the doorway. The dead man’s body was carried out by the two guards. When they returned, they handed the doctor a another pair of leather straps and a thick black hood.
The doctor returned to his place at the rear of the room as the guards took up their original positions.
The warden once again stepped into the light and cleared his throat, “Next, I’d like Mr. Edgar Smint brought forward.”
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©2010 Adam Francis Smith
Adam Francis Smith was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. He says of his Chicago Public School education that he learned more in the halls than in the classrooms. He is a watcher of people, and what he sees often ends up in his stories.
