Roy and Jimmy Boyle had just reached the landing of the staircase leading to the second floor of the school when the Viper, who was coming down the stairs, stopped them and said, “You hear about the guy went to the gas chamber at midnight last night in San Quentin? They killed him even though he didn’t murder anybody.”
“I thought they couldn’t do that,” said Jimmy. “I thought only killers got executed.”
“Maybe he had a bad lawyer,” said Roy.
He and Jimmy Boyle were twelve years old, the Viper was thirteen. The Viper’s uncle, Charlie Ah Ah, his mother’s brother, was doing seven years at Joliet for armed robbery, so the Viper kept up on prison news. His uncle stuttered badly, so he was called Charlie Ah Ah because he always said “Ah, ah” before he could get a whole word out.
“The Red Light Bandit,” said the Viper. “He raped and robbed people parked on lovers’ lanes. The newspapers named him the Red Light Bandit because he pretended to be a cop by using a revolving red light on his car.”
“When you’re in the gas chamber you’re supposed to take a deep breath right away so you pass out and don’t suffer so much,” Jimmy said to Roy as they continued up the stairs.
“Probably the gas chamber is a better way to go than the electric chair,” said Roy. “I heard on the news once about how a guy’s hair caught on fire when he got a jolt.”
That evening, Roy’s grandfather was reading the newspaper and Roy asked him if there was anything in it about the execution at San Quentin.
“Yes,” said Pops, “the man they killed was actually quite bright. He wrote two books while he was in prison appealing his sentence.”
“Jimmy Boyle said he thought only murderers could be executed. Charlie Ah Ah’s nephew told us this guy just raped and robbed.”
“It depends on the law in the state in which a crime is committed,” said Pops. “This case was in California. The law is different there than it is here in Illinois.”
“Do you think a person should be executed even if he hasn’t killed anybody?”
“Many people believe there should be no capital punishment no matter what crime has been committed, even murder. I believe there are some crimes so unforgivable that the world is undoubtedly better off if the person or persons who committed them will never again be able to repeat them, and there is, of course, only one way to be certain of that. It isn’t just that they should be eliminated for what they’ve already done but what they may do in the future.
“In India, people believe that once a tiger has killed and eaten a human being, he develops a craving for human flesh and will then go after people almost exclusively. Usually it’s older tigers who do this because they’re too slow to chase down other animals.”
“Like in the movie Man-Eater of Kumaon, with Sabu,” said Roy.
“Just like those man-eating tigers,” Pops said, “people can get used to doing things they’ve never done before, previously unimaginable things, even if those things are terrible and cause great suffering. They can get to like doing them.”
It was drizzling the next morning in the schoolyard when Roy told Jimmy Boyle and the Viper what his grandfather had said.
“The Golden Rule is to do to others as they did to you,” said Jimmy.
“Charlie Ah Ah says get the other guy before he gets you,” said the Viper. “And James Cagney said, ‘Get ’em in the eyes, get ’em right in the eyes.’”
“No,” said Roy, “that was John Garfield in Pride of the Marines, after he gets blinded by the Japanese.”
“Maybe Cagney’ll play the Red Light Bandit,” said Jimmy Boyle. “I’d go see that one.”
“I don’t think he will,” said Roy. “Cagney went to the electric chair as Rocky Sullivan in Angels with Dirty Faces. I don’t think he’d want to be executed twice.”
“If I had to go,” said the Viper, “and I could choose how, I’d ask for a firing squad. It’d be over quick and I could wear a blindfold.”
“You get to choose in Utah,” Roy said, “between a firing squad or a hanging.”
The school bell rang. Rain started coming down a little harder but the boys were in no hurry to go inside. They stood and watched the other kids head for the doors. The Viper dug a butt out of one of his coat pockets and lit it.
“Hanging would take forever,” said Jimmy Boyle.
“Probably not,” said Roy.