TRUTH BE TOLD, AMERICA IS NOT AGAINST THE DEATH PENALTY. And to be honest, I’m not entirely certain I am, either.
Historically, people have never held their morals high enough above their brows to follow through on their firm, yet pliable, beliefs. Rather, we are a species of voyeurs, eager to witness the demise and destruction of one of our own. To claim that groups like MAD are part of a new movement is insulting to our progress. I’ve done my research. Half are admittedly in favor of the death penalty, while that other so-called noble half says with an air of superiority that they are against it. Then, through their yellowing brittle teeth, they close in on you to whisper that it might be okay, you know, if the person was truly evil. Evil-evil, like Hitler or Miloševic or bin Laden. Yes, then, they confess, it would be okay.
I think it’s better to admit our weakness (or strength as you might see it) and just accept who we are: animals whose pulses race and eyes devour the spilled blood of another. (As long as it’s not actual spilled blood anymore and, of course, so long as we did not do the cutting ourselves.) Let’s take a quick look back.
Ancient Rome: gladiators draped in metal garments, arms swollen with bulbous flesh, hands grasping a lampoon, a lance, or a shield. Surrounding them: thousands of cheering fans, screaming as their veins pulse through their temples and their necks, eager to watch one body fall prey to another. Two human beings fighting before fans until one of them drops dead.
The Crusades: medieval fundamentalist Christians making pilgrimage in chain mail and swords, exterminating those who got in their way to the Holy City, roaring crowds on the side, cheering them on.
The French Revolution: guillotines, aristocracy, a teeming crowd of peasants ready to drop the slice of metal that beheads one Marie Antoinette or Louis XVI. Humans screaming with all their might that it must be done, she deserves it, get rid of that, off with her head.
The noble English, our sovereign forefathers, Oliver’s beloved home: the Tower of London, King Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn. Murdering the enemy and chopping off its head to place as the tip of a life-sized effigy for all to see and loathe. An example so that no other soul would repeat such errors.
Indigenous tribes. Shrinking heads. Thai prisons. Fuck it, modern-day boxing, wrestling matches, cockfighting.
So then, how about this? Pay-per-view.
The United States of America. Present day: Americans are glued to their handheld computers, digital television systems that hang on walls like great portraits, satellite radios and cell phones, and any other technological advancements that evolved during my incarceration. People are living solitary lives, their brains controlled by what they see on TV. So why not just stick my gurney in the center of a boxing ring with multiple video cameras, a trained movie producer and sports commentator, and let everyone watch me die? Nobody has to watch, just as nobody had to attend the public quartering of William Wallace. All the proceeds can go (a) to those who want to raise money for some lost child or aging parent or grandparent, (b) to pay back all those legal fees, or (c) for whatever reason they choose: better prison food, cancer research, a new public school. This way, people who take pleasure in this sort of extermination can pay a mere ten bucks, all proceeds going to the little child or even (and I’m trying to write this without laughing) MAD. Clearly, it wouldn’t come on too often. It would probably only air during political campaigns or summer recesses from situation comedies and prime-time soap operas. American capitalism at its height. It’s not that crazy a thought.
Look, I’m not about to use this little idea to protest that I can’t be executed on November 7 because I can’t understand what I did or why I’m going to die. I know what I did. I know what I didn’t do. I said that from the beginning of this manuscript. But my death—my public death—would give some people pleasure, and it would bring others quite a well-deserved windfall. If you ask me, it’s unadulterated altruism that has yet to be exploited.
I first met Marlene Dixon approximately one month after the Bar Dive incident. She called my cell just as I was walking across the Market Street Bridge on my way home from an eighth-grade science fair.
“Is this Noa Singleton?” she asked.
Instantly I could tell she was a lawyer. That confident tone bordered on aggression, and it didn’t take long for me to realize that the tone veered closer to the arrogant slant of the scale than mere confidence.
I cleared my throat.
“This is she.”
“I think you and I have something in common that I’d like to discuss with you.”
I bit the nail of my index finger and tore it from its bed.
“Who is this really? Did Bobby put you up to this?”
“This is not a joke,” she insisted. “Do you have a father who owns a bar called Dive Bar off of Girard Avenue?”
I cleared my throat again.
“Bar Dive?”
“Dive Bar,” she corrected without pause. “It is called Dive Bar according to city records.”
I walked to the edge of the bridge and looked down over the filthy water of the Schuylkill. Wind crescents carved themselves into the flow. I spit out the papery nail and watched as it floated downward like a feather.
“Ms. Singleton?”
“Who is this really?” I asked.
Nobody knew about my relationship with my father, save for Bobby, and only he knew about it loosely as far as the fact that he was an anonymous telephone caller. I never told anyone, including Bobby, that I actually met him. But Marlene didn’t answer me. Instead, she began to do what she did best. Delegate. Order. Manipulate.
“Meet me at the diner on Fitzwater and Seventh tomorrow at noon. Can you do that?”
I cleared my throat again.
“I … uh …”
“Is that a yes or a no?” she demanded. “I don’t have all day.”
“No ma’am.” I stumbled, looking around the bridge. There were only teenagers walking by in flip-flops and sunglasses. “I mean yes ma’am. That’s a yes. I’ll meet you.”