Demands of the Dead: Executions, Storytelling, and Activism in the United States

Capital Punishment

235 Capital Punishment sherman alexie I prepare the last meal for the Indian man to be executed but this killer doesn’t want much: baked potato, salad, tall glass of ice water. (I am not a witness) It’s mostly the dark ones who are forced to sit in the chair especially when white people die. It’s true, you can look it up and this Indian killer pushed his fist all the way down a white man’s throat, just to win a bet about the size of his heart. Those Indians are always gambling. Still, I season this last meal with all I have. I don’t have much but I send it down the line with the handsome guard who has fallen in love with the Indian killer. I don’t care who loves whom. (I am not a witness) When it’s the warden’s stew I don’t care if I add too much salt or pepper. For the boss I just cook. He can eat what I put in front of him 236 sherman alexie but for the Indian man to be executed I cook just right. The temperature is the thing. I once heard a story about a black man who was electrocuted in that chair and lived to tell about it before the court decided to sit him back down an hour later and kill him all over again. I have an extra sandwich hidden away in the back of the refrigerator in case this Indian killer survives that first slow flip of the switch and gets hungry while he waits for the engineers to debate the flaws. (I am not a witness) I prepare the last meal for free just like I signed up for the last war. I learned how to cook by lasting longer than any of the others. Tonight, I’m just the last one left after the handsome guard takes the meal away. I turn off the kitchen lights and sit alone in the dark because the whole damn prison dims when the chair is switched on. You can watch a light bulb flicker on a night like this and remember it too clearly like it was your first kiss or the first hard kick to your groin. It’s all the same capital punishment 237 when I am huddled down here trying not to look at the clock look at the clock, no, don’t look at the clock, when all of it stops making sense: a salad, a potato a drink of water all taste like heat. (I am not a witness) I want you to know I tasted a little of that last meal before I sent it away. It’s the cook’s job, to make sure and I was sure I ate from the same plate and ate with the same fork and spoon that the Indian killer used later in his cell. Maybe a little piece of me lodged in his mouth, wedged between his front teeth, his incisors, his molars when he chewed down on the bit and his body arced like modern art curving organically, smoke rising from his joints, wispy flames decorating the crown of his head, the balls of his feet. (I am not a witness) I sit here in the dark kitchen when they do it, meaning when they kill him, kill and add another definition of the word to the dictionary. America fills its dictionary. We write down kill and everybody in the audience shouts out exactly how they spell it, what it means to them 238 sherman alexie and all of the answers are taken down by the pollsters and secretaries who keep track of the small details: time of death, pulse rate, press release. I heard a story once about some reporters at a hanging who wanted the hood removed from the condemned’s head, so they could look into his eyes and tell their readers what they saw there. What did they expect? All of the stories should be simple. 1 death + 1 death = 2 deaths. But we throw the killers in one grave and victims in another. We form sides and have two separate feasts. (I am not a witness) I prepared the last meal for the Indian man who was executed and have learned this: If any of us stood for days on top of a barren hill...