Polly waits in the execution room with the five other witnesses for Captain Seward to return. The room is small, hot, uncomfortable; Polly has removed his jacket and loosened his tie, yet his shirt clings to the small of his back, and he can feel perspiration seeping through his every pore.
The chair sits against the room’s south wall. Looms there, making the space feel even smaller than it is. The seat waits as if with an open lap, the leather straps and buckles that will hold Willie down dangling off to either side. At the top of the chair there is a crown of metal and gauze, and draped over the back, a leather gag. Gruesome Gertie indeed. Twenty-two men have died in its arms. A woman, too, who had wept when she learned that her head would have to be shaved.
The witnesses stand in silence, none able to hold another’s gaze. Through the open window, they can hear the crowd. Finally, there is a rumbling outside that erupts into a deafening roar. The generator. Polly checks his watch; it is four minutes until midnight.
Seward comes back into the room, breathing heavily. His face is red, and he emanates a rank scent made worse by the closeness of the room: filth, tobacco, whiskey, sweat, as if the man has not showered in weeks. Willie Jones comes in behind him, followed by Sheriff Grazer and Sheriff Roselle, of St. Martinville. Polly nods at Grazer, but Grazer does not notice. His face is hard, expressionless, though his mouth seems to twitch as he gestures Willie over toward the chair.
Willie obeys, his face as bewildered as it has always seemed to be to Polly. He sits down on the hard seat of the chair, watching as Sheriff Grazer removes his cuffs and shackles. Then the sheriff stands, nods at the prisoner, and steps back to allow the deputies to begin the work of strapping Willie in.
Seward mutters orders that Polly cannot make out over the din of the generator. He finds himself therefore watching with clinical detachment. A necessary detachment. The deputies strap Willie’s biceps to his sides, and then to the back of the chair. They strap his wrists tightly to the chair’s arms. Another thick strap goes around his waist, and several others around his thighs and calves. One of the deputies rips open Willie’s pants leg and attaches an electrode to his calf. Through all of this, Willie sits very still, passive and unresisting, though his eyes rove in what must be fear.
When the deputies have finished, Sheriff Roselle steps forward to read the state of Louisiana’s death decree. “Now, therefore, I, James Davis, Governor of the State of Louisiana, do hereby direct and require you, the Sheriff of the Parish of St. Martin, to cause the execution to be done on the body of said Willie Jones so convicted and condemned, in all things according to the judgment and sentence of said Court and the law in all such cases made and provided, by electrocution, that is, causing to pass through the body of said Willie Jones a current of electricity of sufficient intensity to cause death, and the application and continuance of such current through the body of the said Willie Jones, until said Willie Jones is dead.” Polly knows these words by heart, so often has he looked at them since Willie’s sentence was pronounced.
Sheriff Roselle steps back, and the priest in the room steps forward. He kneels down and puts both of his hands atop Willie’s, and then he lowers his head so that his forehead rests against Willie’s knee. After a moment, the priest stands. He touches Willie’s head, then retreats to the far wall, his face stricken. Polly wonders if this is the same priest who took his wife to see the boy the other day. The boy. He breathes deeply, swallows hard as if to swallow the panic he feels rising from within.
He looks from the priest to Willie just at the moment Seward pulls a thick black hood over Willie’s face; Polly sees him flinch as the hood comes down. Then one deputy tightens the metal crown around Willie’s head while another gags his mouth, strapping the gag to the back of the chair so roughly that Willie’s head bangs audibly against the wood.