Lane stands outside the truck, staring up at the window of the room where a man has just been killed—killed in the brief time between when Lane turned the generator on and then, six designated minutes later, off again. The din of it echoes in his ears. He sits down on the fender and brings his hands to his eyes, despising his own complicity. “Git in the goddamn trailer, trusty!” he hears. He lifts his head; Seward is striding toward him from the jail, his path veering drunkenly despite his apparent determination. “Get in!” The man points as he draws near. Lane stands and climbs into the trailer. “Gimme a hand up,” the captain orders, when he’s reached the open door.
Lane reaches down and pulls the captain up; Seward’s hand is sticky, sweaty, fat. The man pauses to catch his breath in the doorway; each breath sounds nearly like a growl. Outside, the crowd, which had been silent in the execution’s aftermath, has begun to mutter. “Git back here with me!” Seward orders. He stalks toward the generator; Lane follows.
“Son of a bitch nigger bastard …” Seward shines a flashlight on the side of the generator where the cables are connected.
“What happened?” Lane asks, finally.
“What happened is that son of a bitch didn’t die.”
Lane gapes.
“Goddamn it,” the captain spits. “Hold this.” He thrusts the flashlight in Lane’s direction. “Shine it here,” he commands. Lane obeys, watching as the captain disconnects a wire from one terminal and attaches it to another, his hands trembling. Then Seward stands and turns around. He looks at Lane hard. “Oh, boy,” he says, hatred on his face. “You got it coming to you now.”
Lane frowns. “What?”
The captain’s nostrils flare. “You know what I’m talking about, you insubordinate piece of redneck trash!” The captain leans forward to say this, his face just inches from Lane’s. Lane can smell the whiskey on his breath.
“No, I don’t, sir.”
Seward shakes his head. “You fool,” he says. “Puttin’ it all on the line for a damn nigger’s life.”
“I didn’t do a thing but what you told me to.”
“I didn’t tell you to mess with them wires.”
“I didn’t touch the wires.”
Seward gives an incredulous snort. “You saying after all these years I got the wiring wrong? That what you sayin’, boy?”
“No,” Lane says. “I’m saying I think you couldn’t see through the whiskey to get it right.” Lane feels a rushing in his limbs, the adrenaline of reckless truth.
Seward’s face darkens. “You’re in over your head now, trusty,” he says. He shakes his head. “Just you wait till the warden gets wind of what you done.”
The two lock eyes. Outside, the crowd is now roaring. “Only wish I had,” Lane says, at last.
The captain nods, smirks a little. Then he turns, walks to the trailer door, and lowers himself down, stumbling a little as he hits the ground. He gives Lane a final look, then starts back toward the jail, giving a salute of success to the shouting mob beyond.
Lane, stunned, stands inside the trailer where the captain left him. He looks out through the square of the trailer door, window to the world, where Seward is disappearing through the jailhouse door and the people are clamoring for death. It’s no world he wants to be a part of. Lane turns to the generator. He tucks the flashlight under his chin, and in that narrow beam of light he does the thing he should have done the first time, the thing he will be blamed for.