A Block of Broken Houses

Justice (Part Two)

Not twenty-four hours after her death I had visited Elmore in his temporary home in the basement of the town's court and jail house, accompanied, of course, by the mayor and his guard of choice—Andy Waters, that had been. Off the short hall in the basement were two holding cells; Elmore was in the far one, the smaller of the two. He sat looking crumpled and too little on the room's only piece of furniture—a rusty-framed, filthy cot—his hands tangled in his hair, elbows on his knees. Not once in my time there did he look up. After the mayor muttered something I didn't quite catch I informed Elmore that I would be the one pulling the lever when the time came, and although I had not intended to get emotional I caught the bitter tone of my words and noticed the flecks of spittle leaping from my mouth as the moment wrapped its punishing hands around me and squeezed, squeezed. I stepped closer and closed my throbbing hands around the bars of his cell, trying to ignore the arthritis. Tears hit me then and I asked him why, and the only answer his long silence revealed was that there would never be a suitable one.

And so as I watched him standing terrified and white and staring death in its long and unforgiving face I decided not to ask him that question a second time...although I had felt it rising in my throat like some recently eaten meal refusing to settle. Somehow I bit it back—barely—and swallowed, hating the taste of it, sure, and hating the feeling of it rolling back down in irregular clumps even more, but knowing that if it fell from my mouth I would hate the sound of it most of all.

I once again checked and adjusted the rope that ran from his wrists to his ankles, just to be certain nothing I had control over could turn this messy ordeal both filthy and regretful. I then followed the noose from his neck to the thick beam of lumber overhead where the rope was wrapped and knotted more times than I cared to count. The infinite slab of cold blue in the beam's backdrop made me uneasy, nauseous, and I quickly shifted my gaze to the wooden planks under my feet, safe and sturdy and still. I blinked a few times, heaved in deep breaths of open country air, and the feeling of toppling over eventually left me in an extensive tease of dwindling time.

I walked over to the far side of the gallows where the wooden lever penetrated the sky like one great middle finger, and I couldn't help but think that gesture was directed at me more than Elmore; of the two of us I'd live longer, more than enough time to replay this moment until its dissection went beyond reasonable. I stood beside the lever and nodded at Father Harper who stood just far enough outside the thick of the crowd to justify his importance. His clean white hands clasped his bible. A slick glare of sweat ran across his forehead. And although his black robe must have been ablaze under the heat he didn't show it. His eyes were large and calm behind his round glasses, and the solemn shift in his eyebrows and the slow nod he gave me said it was time.

I nodded back.

Father Harper instructed all of us to bow our heads and then did so himself. I lowered my own and heard no more. I managed a small prayer of my own, a clipped and hurried thing my father would have been ashamed of, one I hoped God would later forgive me for. I felt nervous, and not only because I was afraid of Elmore's final ceremony slipping toward wrong. It struck me then that I was to send this man to life's other side, and that also made me nervous. Only nervous really wasn't the right word for it; I was excited—God forgive me—and I couldn't wait to heave that blessed lever down. I felt sick at the thought, thrilled and sick.

Sudden silence—vast and total—caused me to raise my head. Father Harper nodded at me again, and if I thought I'd felt sick before, that nod and the dead knot in my stomach redefined the word. I managed to return the gesture with shaking uncertainty, even though my neck felt as taut as the loose length of noosed rope was about to become. I wrapped one hand around the wooden lever. It felt icy in my hand despite its time spent baking in the heat. Then, slowly, as if swimming through mud, my other hand found it, as well.

My gaze shifted to Elmore and I could see no one else, nothing else. He was looking off into the distance, most likely wishing he could snap his trembling fingers and magically appear far, far from here; on the other side of those far-off mountains to the north, perhaps. Or maybe he was wishing the same as I had earlier: the freedom of the crows. He then turned toward me, as if sensing my eyes upon him. I remembered the promise I'd made to myself earlier and wished I hadn't vowed to watch this man to his death. But suddenly I felt it was the very least I could do; he deserved as much. It was a short but lonely trip to make, and if I could help him along by holding his eyes then in God's name I would. His lips held a steady shake, and his cheeks and the skin under his eyes drooped with a sorrow I couldn't quite appreciate. It was a sorrow I would later define as blind because, to this day, I don't think he ever truly understood the impact of what he had done.

The thought of this—his selfish and stupid ignorance—helped me drop my weight onto the lever. In a flutter of a heartbeat the trap door disappeared beneath him with a creaking whine, and then he was falling. He shut his eyes softly, slowly, and appeared dead already, peaceful. With the lever pulled, and the option of turning back a lost one, I felt terrible; I couldn't help but think it had somehow been a retched mistake and we were wrong to be killing this man. Before he vanished entirely beneath the worn floorboards I stood safely upon, I caught the corners of his lips twitching madly toward a grin. I pray that was only my imagination. That horrid snapshot—him sleeping yet smiling—still comes to me at night, when the lamps have been snubbed cold and my silent tears rip wet trails down my cheeks. The rope tightened, and in that same instant there was a crisp crack that sounded like dry, thick wood finally giving in under too great a pressure.

I still hear that crack in my dreams; it is, in fact, the very thing that wakes me from my restless sleep.

I made my way to the bottom of the high steps on shaky legs that wouldn't hold my weight much longer, the steady creeeeeeek, creeeeeeek of Elmore dancing dead in an absent wind crawling up my arms and back and into my brain. Instead of looking back (I would have collapsed if I had, I'm certain) I simply kept on walking. I could see the church standing at the top of the rise ahead of me—its large wooden cross gleaming in the afternoon sunlight—and thought I would stop there for a while, maybe light a candle for Elmore and his family as I prayed for what little family I had left.

Someone murmured something close to me and I ignored it; I wasn't sure if it had been directed at me but I ignored it all the same. And then the distant sound of hail riddling a wet blanket met my ears and I knew that everyone was ridding their dirty hands of the stones they had so carefully chosen throughout that day, perhaps even in the days leading up to this one. Elmore hadn't been dead twenty seconds and his body was being ruined further. He was dead—that part I was okay with...I think—but breaking an already broken man seemed beyond the limits of justice. He was dead and my Helena was still gone, never to marry. I would never hold her again; we would never share another sunset on the porch, iced teas close at hand.

What makes things worse is that I'm certain his exit from our world paled in comparison to how long my beautiful girl had suffered. Elmore was a monster—Andy Waters had reluctantly told me so. And although Andy had refused to go into detail, God bless him, he had said it had been bad.

Why you? Elmore had asked me, and ten minutes ago I was convinced that my involvement in his passing was important, the reasons behind it thoroughly justified in my head countless times since Helena's death. But as I neared the church, swallowed by its large and cool shadow, I hadn't the slightest idea why I had volunteered; I still don't. Because all that remains is an immeasurable void of endless and trivial explanations...excuses, really.

END