"I don't remember killing any guard in Jersey or anywhere. "
"Say it again for luck," Popcorn said. "Amnesia get me through most nights too."
Before Remo could say another word, Popcorn sauntered off. Remo let him go. He was staring into the guard towers. He felt eyes on him. For all he knew, the guards were sighting on him down their telescopic rifle sights. They used to do that back at the other prison. Just for practice. Only there you could see them. Remo didn't like the smoked glass. He preferred to look his tormentors in the eye.
He shrugged and dropped to his hands and toes. He started with push-ups, then went into a flurry of leg lifts, with the right and then the left leg, reversing and doing equal numbers of reps. On death row he'd have no access to the weight room-assuming Florida State Prison even had a weight room-so he had to make the best of his opportunitites to maintain his physique.
While he exercised, Remo checked out the yard. It was set in what seemed to be the northeast corner of the prison. Remo could see the front gate from his vantage point. The tall Cyclone fence was broken by a section of chain-link gate that moved on rollers. The gate section was taller than the main fence by a good three feet. Beyond it was a lime-green gatehouse that looked like one of the watchtowers had given birth to an infant correctional outhouse. The razor wire atop the fencing was strung in wide loops. It wasn't electrified. That meant that the best way out was over the wall and past the guard towers. It was hardly an option, not with the guards invisible behind smoked glass; there was no way to tell when they were looking in an escapee's direction and when they were not.
The buzzer announced an end to yard time, and Remo, not in a hurry, leisurely drifted back toward the main building.
At the entrance, a guard stopped him with a white nightstick against his chest. It was the squat C.O. who had manacled him the day before.
"You," he said gruffly. "Dead Man. Step out of line."
Woodenly Remo stepped out and took his place against the wall.
"Strip and spread 'em, boy."
"I didn't do anything," Remo protested.
"Not yet. Not here. But where you come from, you shanked a guard. I'm gonna see that you don't shank me while you're in sunny Florida. Now, strip and spread your cheeks."
Remo hesitated. To refuse would mean to go on report. Probably go to solitary. No more yard time. Remo was considering if it was worth it, when the captain of the guards strolled out and pointed to the guard who had Remo.
"You!" he barked. "Pepone. Find Mohammed Diladay and bring him to interrogation."
"Once I'm done with this one," Pepone shot back.
"No. Now." The captain of the guards stormed off: The guard's face fell. He placed his hand on Remo's shoulder and walked him back into the marching line.
"Next time," he whispered in Remo's ear. "Boy." Remo said nothing. He kept walking. He was a marked man now, and he knew it. The guards were out to get him-if McGurk didn't get him first. Solitary started to look good.
Remo watched the guard named Pepone move along the line until he found Popcorn and pulled him out. Mohammed went along with more of the usual bounce to his step. Remo wondered where he was going and if it had anything to do with the altercation in the yard.
An hour later, another C.O. brought Popcorn back to his cell. He walked with his head down and his eyes on the yellow line. If he was aware of Remo, he gave no sign as he passed Remo's cell. Taking the hint, Remo left him in peace. He would open up in time.
It was after the dinner trays had been collected that Popcorn finally made a sound. He didn't speak. Instead he broke down into an inarticulate sob and went on for ten racking minutes before his animallike grunting broke into a long wail of despair.
Remo waited until he fell silent and asked quietly, "Want to talk about it?"
"I talked to my mouthpiece, man," Popcorn sniffled. "They turned down my last appeal. I go Tuesday. Tuesday! You'd think they'd give a poor black man a month to get his shit together. Or a week. I'd settle for a week. But I cook on Tuesday."
"Tough," Remo said. The hardness in his voice belied his sympathy. Popcorn had reverted from the cellwise con he pretended to be to what he truly was-a poor dumb teenager who had screwed up on his birthday and was about to pay for it with his life.
"What do they think this is?" Popcorn demanded of the walls. "China? What did I do that was so bad? Sure, I killed her. But who's to know she wouldn't have died of cancer by now anyway. Smoked like a chimney, that woman did. I may have done her a favor by doin' her quick. Yeah, that's it, I did her a favor, poor bitch. But jeez, man, I don't wanna fry."
"I heard it's painless," Remo said hollowly.
"You heard shit, man," Popcorn said vehemently. "Five dudes have gone since I come here. The Man say it don't hurt, but how do they know? They ain't sat there themselves. Ain't no one who sat on of Sparky ever came back to say, 'Shit, man, it's a cakewalk. Best way to go.' You know what they do, Jim?"
"Yeah," Remo said, surprised that his earlier craving for a cigarette hadn't returned. "I know."
"They strap you in so tight that if they rammed a red-hot poker up your ass, you couldn't even squirm. They hook you up forehead, leg, and jones. Put a veil over your face to deny a last look at the world. It be cold, man. Cold. Then they zap you. If you be lucky, you cook fast. I hear of suckers who had to drink Florida juice twice before the eyes turn white. The electricity, you know, it cooks the eyeballs white. You die like a blind man. There's nothing lower, not even a dog dies so cruel. Oh, Jesus. Why me?"
"Jesus? What happened to Allah?" Remo blurted out.
"That was for the brothers' benefit. I die Tuesday. Jesus is my savior now. Only I don't think he can save me now. "
Remo shuddered. Neither of them said another word for the rest of the night. After lights-out, the row fell silent, as if out of respect for the condemned man whose cell would be empty in a few days.
That night, Remo dreamed again.
In the dream, they came for him in the middle of the night. A monk came first. He had only one hand and offered his crucifix for Remo to kiss. Remo sank to his knees and obliged.
Then they walked him down the line. Remo was surprised, even in sleep, that the corridor was of cold gay stone. It wasn't Florida. It was Trenton. They strapped him in so tight he could barely breathe. Instead of a veil, they put a leather hood over his head. It was as heavy as a medieval torture device. Then they clamped the copper helmet over his head and screwed the electrode until it touched his sweaty temple. He already felt the coldness of the electrode at his leg, where it was affixed through the split in his trouser leg. He knew that coldness would snap suddenly into a red-hot bite when the switch was pulled by the executioner.
Even though there were no eye holes in the leather, Remo could see the executioner-a short nondescript man with a solemn face. He could see him reach for the switch. The switch came down and Remo's brain exploded into a white burst of light. His body jerked against the straps and in his mouth was an acrid taste as he bit down on something-something that he had been careful to keep under his tongue....
He couldn't remember what it was.
Remo snapped awake in the middle of the night. He could hear Popcorn's irregular breathing. Once the rhythms of his exhalations stopped, and resumed only after he let out a gusty sigh. Remo decided to leave him alone with his thoughts.
He had his own thoughts to think. The dream had seemed so real, just like the one of the previous night. But it was equally preposterous. Remo thought it was interesting that in the dream he had been executed at Trenton State. But then he remembered that at Trenton he used to dream of being in his Newark walk-up. And before that, when he was a free man, his dreams always took him back to the orphanage where he was raised, Saint Theresa's.
It struck Remo that his dreams were always behind the times. And he wondered forlornly if he would ever see a time when he would dream of being in Florida State Prison, and where he would be when that happened.
Eventually he drifted off. This time, he did not dream....
Chapter 6
Remo awoke before the morning buzzer. Groggily he rolled out of his cot. To his surprise, in the next cell, Popcorn was belting out an old fifties doo-wop song, "Desiree," performing the lead vocals, harmony, and "wah-wah" accompaniment not quite simultaneously, but close enough to be music.
"You okay?" Remo asked during the final fading "Oooo Oooo. "
"Sure," Popcorn sang. "I got it all figured out now."
"Yeah?"
"The state taketh and the state giveth away," Popcorn said archly, and burst out laughing.
"Glad you're taking it so well," Remo grunted, joining in the macabre mood.
"Sure, I ain't gonna die cooking on Sparky's frypan."
"No?"