Murder
“Killer!” “Thug!” “I hope you die for your crimes, asshole!”
These were the pleasant sounds of the numerous advocacy groups coming out of the proverbial woodwork who's only objective was to watch as people like me met the fine feeling of potassium chloride, wielded by the capable and deadly hands of the U.S. government. They would watch, I would convulse, my heart would stop, and as I died laughing, they'd mourn their dead hero. After that, they'd go on with their lives, and mine would come to an abrupt but not necessarily untimely end.
Perhaps I should tell it like it happened, or how I said it happened, or how the District Attorney said it happened; what difference does it make? It seems that the only truth is the one that the most people agree on.
It happened because I was late to work.
You see, three weeks ago, I didn't want to get out of bed, the pillow seemed a better match for me than carrying boxes in a factory, so the date was set. After what seemed like an hour of hitting the snooze button every three minutes, I dragged myself out of bed. As I attempted to gain semblance of a normal morning, I managed to spill almost all of my coffee and cut myself shaving.
The phone rang, if I had just gotten out of bed and gone to work in the first place, I wouldn't have gotten the call. “This is a collect call from the U.S. division of corrections, would you like to accept the charges?” Maybe it was a mistake, I thought, briefly hesitant to accept $5.00 a minute that they would inevitably charge. After a careful ten seconds of deliberation I reluctantly gave up my credit card number. The voice on the other end crackled, the government's investment in phone lines clearly not high on the budget. “Cousin?” “That depends, what are you charged with?” (My extended family occupies the softest part in my heart) “I got framed, man, they say I murdered a judge, I never even talked to the guy!” As I carefully weighed the ten minute drive to the county jail, and the fact that I'd probably have to post bail for him, my compassionate side kicked in, after all, if he happened to get locked up, I would likely be able to take his new TV, and it was a nice TV. “Fine, I'll go bail you out.”
As he told it, my cousin had been arrested the previous day in church; while his girlfriend worried what the neighbors would think as he was carted off in the customary cuffs, he had been charged with shooting a circuit judge. It seemed that they'd gotten his name from a list of people the judge had encountered, having sentenced him to a DUI five years earlier.
Due to pressure from the same advocacy groups tormenting me and a bit of alleged evidence planting, the police had made the charges stick. To hear my cousin tell it, the cops had interrogated him without reading his rights, though their star witness, Officer Rowe, denied this claim and went on to say that my cousin had admitted to the crime upon seeing the police arrive on scene. However, after a long and unnecessary appeal my cousin was released, due to a competent defense and the fact that the official version of the story was full of more holes than most multiple gunshot victims.
It was a cold day when I went to pick him up from the holding cell, and I thought that perhaps now, I could get on with my life and he wouldn't feel compelled to call me when he was arrested ever again. As I saw him walking towards me I could tell that something was not right, and then, in an instant, I lost all faith in the justice system. I saw his body crumple, and blood spilled out from his chest; ironically right above his tattoo of a burning flag draped over an AK-47. It was a shocking moment, it was clear he had been shot, but the assailant's location was unclear. Then I saw the same Officer Rowe standing behind him, holding his service revolver and laughing.
As the EMT's came and went, and fellow cops showed up to arrest Rowe, I couldn't help but think that there was no use to living in a world like this, inevitably Rowe would be acquitted, “justifiable homicide” they would call it, and nothing would change, he would be back on the street in a matter of days.
“You just don't understand,” He told me after he'd been acquitted, “I had to do it, keep those thugs off of the streets.” He was a piece of work allright, self-righteous and convinced that he'd done the system a favor. Then I made a huge mistake, I decided that some things are worth dying for, off the top of my head I could think of donuts, violence in film, and putting this dog in the ground.
I pondered my situation, trying to decide if killing a cop would be a wise move. Not that I felt it would be wrong to do unto others, but more because that now I could have my cousin's nice television, if I went through with this, I'd probably be joining him in Valhalla instead of watching reruns of the Munsters on a television big enough to broadcast emergency signals to the city. Needless to say, it didn't take long for me to be convinced that something must be done, because really, if there is a hell, wouldn't it probably just involve watching reruns of the Munsters all day?
Since my cousin had been arrested in church, I felt it only fair to deal out justice on a sunday, after all, my sunday school teachers had always told me to keep the sabbath day holy, and what's holier than dying on god's day?
I felt a little like an assasin, but more like an untrained average-joe holding a hunting rifle hoping that no one would notice that someone was lying prone behind a steeple. “The prick even wears his uniform to church” I thought, as I saw my foil in the Greek tragedy that I imagined my life had become, walking out with his wife and kids. “Now is it right to murder someone in front of their family?” I bet you're asking, and to that I can only answer that I don't care, he did something that was wrong, and he deserved everything he got, where he got it was rather irrelevant.
From that point on, I don't remember a whole lot, it's really a lot of basic feelings, emotions, and very little thought.
There was the crack of a gunshot, plenty of screaming, the bloodstain that bore a strange resemblence to my cousin's tattoo, the creak of decades old steps as I walked down to the street, blasting sirens that sounded reminiscient, and finally, the cold concrete as I peacefully surrendered, and assumed the position on a pavement. Incidentally, that's exactly how the bastard cop fell, with his ankles tucked and his hands behind his back, we looked a little like twins, and when I really think about it, maybe we were twins.
But in the end, it doesn't really matter, because they're sterilizing a needle and I can see the cop's wife staring at me, like I was some sort of monster. I don't think I'm a monster, just dedicated. To think! I've spent all this time thinking about what got me here, and I didn't even think that I was eating my last meal, or that I was probably fired from my job, my car would probably be reposessed. Perhaps this lethal injection deal is a really humane way to dispose of humans.
I always thought the two IV rule was a little strange, they say it's just in case one of the lines fails. Despite my protests to only use one, (to “increase the intensity and drama”) they still stuck me twice, I always hated needles. As I saw the first drops of lethality slide towards my vein, I couldn't help but laugh, I was famous across America, every police union wanted to skin me alive, and every woman married to a cop wouldn't sleep quite so soundly from now on, and it would be THIS that would kill me? Couldn't they at least throw me into a Roman Colisseum to let me be murdered by angry cops from the city? “Any last words?” The pseudo-nurse who clearly hadn't ever heard of the hippocratic oath droned at me. “I never felt so good as when I JFK'ed a cop.” It really sounded like a line from a rap song, maybe it will be someday. I hope they've got radio in hell.
