All Over But The Singing

All Over But The Singing

Today is my 37th birthday. It’s the last birthday I’ll celebrate I have been told by those who know these things.

Exactly HOW they know this is not clear, but so far they have been freaking right on the money. Last week they said the sun would rise the next day. They were right, it did.

A couple of weeks ago at dinner they said it would rain that night. In the morning I thought they were wrong; it was perfectly dry outside in the exercise yard, not a drop had fallen overnight. They pointed out it HAD rained overnight, but in Seattle, 500 miles north of us. OK give them that one.

They ALWAYS had been right about “lights out”. When I first got here they said the lights go out at 10 pm every night. They do. Right on the button, and you better be in your bunk before 10 because it gets REALLY dark; No windows in our rooms, remember?

At any rate, I trust them to know these things, so I’m celebrating my last birthday here on earth tonight.

Vic, the guy who has the cell next to me, asked me what I planned on doing for the rest of my year here.

“What the Hell do you expect?” I asked; “You think I should go party or dancing or what?”

“I dunno,” he said, “I was just asking.”

“Well, crud, I’m in JAIL, what do you expect me to do? I mean, every day is the same as the previous day, we get up, make our bunks, eat breakfast, take a shower and shave, read, eat lunch, use the exercise yard for 45 minutes, work out, eat dinner, then watch TV or read until 10 and go to bed.”

“Ya, I know, it’s pretty dull.”

“We do that EVERY freaking day. It never changes!”

“Not every day.”

“Yes, EVERY day,” I insisted.

“Not Sunday. Sunday the padre comes and we sing and pray.”

“One day doesn’t make much difference.”

“Maybe not but it’s a change.”

“Hell, Vic,” I said, “maybe I can eat dinner and then read instead of watching TV. That’d be different.”

“Well, it’s up to you, dude. Maybe you could volunteer to work in the kitchen or laundry a couple of hours a day?”

“Why? The state put me in here, they can damn well feed me for the next year. I’m not going to HELP them by working.”

“It’d make the time go faster, Ted,” he told me.

“Oh, crud, you are dumb, Vic. Go to sleep. That’ll make the time go by even faster.”

The next couple of days I changed my routine a little. Instead of showering and shaving, I shaved first THEN showered. I watched TV instead of reading before lunch. It didn’t really help much, I still had 360 days to go before my birthday.

Two days later I heard the doors to my cell click open as the magnetic lock unlatched and I looked up to see two guards come in.

“Up, Ted,” one said as the other stood back just outside the open door.

“What the heck?” I responded.

“Up, he said, don’t make me yank you up.”

I’ve seen guys get pulled outta bed before. I got up. The guard put bracelets on my hands and feet and I shuffled down the hall, into the elevator and went to the bottom floor, into the chamber with the board bed. They strapped me down. The doc leaned over and said calmly as he inserted two needles in my arm, “Ted, you’ll just fall asleep and won’t feel a thing.”

“But, geeze, doc,” I said, “ya’ll said last week it was my last birthday, I got more than 300 days before my next birthday.”

He said as he turned the valve on the two drip lines, “Ted, we said you wouldn’t see your next birthday, we didn’t say the execution would wait until then. Sweet dreams.”



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