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  “Often people think that in a capital murder case, the police and prosecutor’s jobs are done once they get the guilty verdict, but it’s not until the scum is put to death that we know that it’s a job well done.” When she didn’t respond, he continued. “That’s the real pat on the back: when we see the bad guys go down.”

  And they said that Dave is a monster, she thought. Regardless of what he did, he’s still a human being—someone’s son…someone’s boyfriend. But to them he’s just another statistic. Another notch on their belt to let them know they accomplished something in the world. Inside, Isis was shaking, but she maintained a calm demeanor as the bus pulled up to the prison.

  Isis and the others were led into a room where they sat for about two hours. Everybody except for Isis ate Krispy Kreme doughnuts and drank orange juice and coffee while a corrections officer gave them a brief rundown on what to expect: the basic rules and regulations of a state-sanctioned murder.

  It was in this room where they found out what Dave had had for his last meal: lobster, shrimp, and crab cake, which was odd to Isis because Dave had never cared for seafood. He said it gave him gas.

  “Who were his final visitors?” an officer asked.

  “His grandmother and his girlfriend,” the corrections officer answered.

  “That broad of his was one faithful bitch, I tell you that much,” another officer chimed in. “She sat in that courtroom every single day. Didn’t miss a beat.”

  Expressionless, she sat there, wondering if they were toying with her. Did they know who she was behind the designer sunglasses and the best wig that the Korean beauty supply store had to offer? Although she was terrified on the inside—and was a nanosecond from losing it—she wasn’t about to let them see her sweat and blow this opportunity to see Dave alive for the very last minutes of his life.

  “Well, Phoebe. It is Phoebe, isn’t it?” Detective Lassiter asked.

  She nodded.

  “I’m not sure that seeing this slimeball die will inspire you to appreciate life,” Lassiter told her.

  “Why would you say that?” she asked, trying not to sound defensive.

  “Did you follow the story?” Lassiter asked.

  She didn’t know how she should answer, because she wasn’t sure if the question was a trap or not. She paused.

  Are these cunning motherfuckers trying to set me up? She knew she couldn’t trust these pigs any farther than she could smell them. She didn’t used to feel that way about officers of the law, but seeing things from another perspective made it different.

  “Umm, no. But I did read a little briefing on it,” she finally answered.

  “Well, since we have a few minutes before his balls will be on the commonwealth’s platter, fellas, maybe we should bring the lady up to speed,” Lassiter suggested.

  “Let’s,” one of the police officers agreed, and another added, “Why not?”

  “Well, Ms. Cross,” one of the detectives began, “let me give you the abbreviated version of this monster’s murderous caper.”

  As the detective droned on about his version of events, Isis let her mind drift back to what she had actually witnessed firsthand to cause her childhood boyfriend to have to lose his life to the state on this fateful day. Her memory was as clear as if it had happened yesterday, although it had been more than five years earlier.

  Isis and Dave’s date night was every Tuesday. This was their special night to go out and do whatever Isis wanted to do: movies, dinner, bowling—the sky was always the limit. Although they saw each other almost every day, Tuesday night was their night, and no matter what, Dave always kept the commitment. It didn’t matter how much money was coming through the hood or if it was the first of the month—none of that mattered to Dave at all.

  That particular Tuesday night, Isis and Dave were at the Virginia Center Commons mall enjoying steak subs in the food court after watching one of those movies that Dave liked where everything and everybody got blown up by the ending credits. That was the first time that Dave had bought Isis to that mall since he’d gotten jumped there a month earlier. Three older cats from the North Side had put a lightweight beat-down on him and in the process had taken his gold chain, which had a diamond medallion of Jesus on a cross.

  The necklace had been a Christmas present from Isis. She had used all of her savings from the Social Security checks she had been receiving every month since her father had passed away two years earlier. Isis had bought it for Dave as a symbol that even after life on Earth, she would love him eternally and that they’d meet again in heaven. That even though they might not be living how Jesus had lived, they still had accepted him into their hearts, knowing that if they were saved, they could enjoy eternal life together. The gold-and-diamond medallion was beautiful and contained a diamond from her deceased father’s ring. Dave reminded her of her father because of how devoted he was to her. He filled a hole in her heart.

  Isis had never been to that particular restaurant before. “This sandwich is greasy, but it’s delicious,” Isis said to Dave, licking her fingers.

  “I told you, Ice.” Dave smiled. “You gotta start trusting me more.” He winked at her.

  “I do trust you, except for your taste in movies. Now that’s another issue altogether.”

  “Jokes, huh?”

  Then Dave saw him.

  The guy was by himself. That would be his second mistake concerning Dave. The first had been when he and his friends thought it was cool to put their hands on him and take something that didn’t belong to them.

  “Boo, wait right here,” he whispered to Isis. “That’s that nigga that took my chain that you gave me.” Dave stood up. “I gotta go take care of something.”

  “No,” Isis begged. “Let it go. It’s not worth it.” Isis wasn’t one to let people walk all over her, but she knew that some battles weren’t worth fighting. She could replace the necklace when she got enough cash. But she knew Dave was nothing like her. He always brought the fire, while she kept her stuff on simmer. And she could tell by the look in her man’s eyes that the flames were about to get out of control.

  The dude was wearing the chain and ordering a hamburger when Dave approached him. Sometimes people were just stupid like that—go around doing dirt to people, then walking the same streets the next day as if everything was sweet. Even cats knew to cover their own piss with litter.

  “That’s a nice piece you got on your neck there, chief,” Dave said from behind the dude. The guy turned around, and recognition slowly crept across his face. “I’m willin’ to forget about the lil’ scuffle,” Dave said, “but I’m gonna have to get my chain up off you. By the way, where’re your other two friends?”

  Unfazed, the dude sized up Dave, who was five feet five inches and a buck thirty-five soaking wet. “Fuck you, lil’ nigga,” he spat at Dave, once he decided that he would be an easy match. “If you know what’s best, you’ll keep it moving before you fuck ’round and lose something else, faggot.”

  That was the dude’s third and final mistake, and in Dave’s book, three strikes and a motherfucker was out. By the time the guy saw the .22-shot Glock come out from under Dave’s shirt, it was too late. In front of 129 witnesses, all hell broke out in the food court. When the ringing from the pistol subsided, Dave had placed thirteen holes in the thief’s body and politely taken his chain from around the dead man’s neck.

  Just after Dave slipped the chain around his neck, an off-duty police officer shot him, and he fell to the ground.

  Isis ran over to Dave, who was on the floor in a puddle of blood. “Help! Help! Somebody help me, please!” Isis begged as Dave lay in her arms bleeding. “Please don’t die, baby. Please don’t die,” she cried as she saw images of her father flash in front of her.

  “Promise me you won’t leave my side,” was Dave’s reply. “I love you.”

  Seeing flashes of her dad and remembering his last words, she told Dave, “I won’t. I promise.”

  In addition to killing
the guy, one of Dave’s bullets hit a police officer’s wife. She didn’t die, but still her shooting added fuel to the fire: White folk were tired of young, black, dangerous hoodlums—as the media liked to portray them—terrorizing their city.

  “We have about twenty more minutes before we move over to the death chamber,” the corrections officer said, interrupting Isis’s thoughts. “So at this point feel free to use the restroom if you need to, because this will be your last chance until the execution is over.”

  Isis was glad to be brought back to the present. She used that as her cue to go to the restroom and pull herself together. What had she done? What was she doing there? I can’t believe that I am even doing this shit, Isis thought as she looked at herself in the mirror. Her emotions were all over the place. The love of her life was about to take his last breath. She had loved him strong and hard for five years. But another part of her was angry at Dave. If Dave wouldn’t have been so damn hotheaded about a chain, then he would still be with me. He would still be right here with me. Just then Isis realized it was Tuesday. Date night. She began to cry but then heard a knock on the door.

  “You okay in there?” one of the detectives asked.

  Startled, she responded that she was fine. She took a deep breath and wiped her eyes with a cool paper towel.

  After coming out of the restroom, Isis entered another van, which took the witnesses over to Greensville Correctional Center, where the death-row inmates were brought a week before the actual execution and placed into solitary confinement so that a corrections officer could watch them around the clock to make sure they didn’t check out before the state-mandated checkout time.

  The viewing room was set up theater style. All of the witnesses sat on one side of a glass wall and the condemned prisoner on the other. There were about thirty chairs set up in six rows, five chairs on each row. The officers started play-jostling with one another, trying to be one of the first five to sit on the front. One would think that because they were all seasoned vets, the customary thing to do would be to let the virgin, or the lady, get a front-row seat. This didn’t seem to cross their minds.

  Maybe it was because Isis hadn’t filled herself up on doughnuts and orange juice, or maybe it was because she was just naturally quicker on her feet than the middle-aged men. Whatever it was, before anyone knew what had happened, Isis had swiftly slid around to the other side of the room and was seated on the left corner of the front row.

  Isis faced the table onto which they would strap Dave and administer the lethal injection.

  The walls were a depressing pale yellow. There was a stainless-steel gurney with a one-inch-thick white pad laying on it. A blue curtain hung around the gurney, hiding the medical technician and doctor who would be administering the injections. The prison guards wore blank expressions on their faces. There were three other prison officials in the death chamber who were dressed in blue dress suits. A corrections officer informed her that they were the “execution team.”

  The director of corrections, deputy of corrections, the warden, and two assistant wardens stood while the execution team did all the work. One of the members of the team was holding the phone that was supposed to be a direct line to the governor’s office in case he changed his mind at the last minute, but someone must’ve forgotten to pay the phone bill, because 8:50 PM came and left and that phone never rang.

  The seconds seemed like hours; the minutes seemed like days. Isis watched the clock over the door, the same clock that the doctor would use to record Dave’s death. She watched it as if she were the time keeper.

  Then finally, with the help of twenty guards, Dave was brought into the execution chamber. There were so many guards at first that everyone in the viewing room could barely see the prisoner, but she did. His skin was pale from a lack of sunlight, and he had lost a few pounds. Isis’s heart skipped and she felt short of breath. Just when she thought she going to pass out, she took a deep breath, filling her lungs with much-needed oxygen. She watched the guards move with the well-rehearsed choreography of a Janet Jackson video. In no time at all, they had David up on the gurney, strapped in. Once he was bound, another checked the straps to make sure they were all tight.

  “It doesn’t matter what you muthafuckas do,” Dave screamed. “Y’all can’t kill me!”

  Isis’s heart was pounding. She could feel a big lump in her throat. She thought she was going to lose all control when tears began to form in her eyes. But with all her might, she kept her cool. She kept silent. She kept still. No way could she get found out and be forced to break her promise to Dave. She had promised to be there with him to the end. Although it was torture, she would die first before breaking that promise.

  “Well, the governor hasn’t given you a stay,” the warden said, “so it looks like you’re leaving this world tonight. May God have mercy on your soul, young man.”

  “Suck my dick, faggot!” Dave hissed.

  A black corrections officer told Dave, “Don’t go out like that, young blood.”

  Isis looked at the clock. It read 8:59. One of the detectives looked at the time also. Just then Dave looked right at Isis.

  Why is he staring in this direction? She was freaked out. A one-way mirror separated them, so she could see Dave but he couldn’t see her. Isis couldn’t help thinking that maybe, just maybe, Dave could feel her presence. At that point she knew: Even if David couldn’t see through the glass, he knew somehow that she was there. He knew that she hadn’t broken her promise.

  “David Shawn Davis.” The warden stood and spoke clearly and firmly as he read the death warrant. “The state of Virginia has sentenced you to the death, and this order shall hereby be carried out on this day. Do you have any last words?”

  The black corrections officer positioned the microphone close to Dave’s mouth so that he could be heard.

  “You muthafuckers can’t kill me. You will never fucking kill me. I will never die.” Dave began to spit more expletives, but someone cut the speaker off. Isis couldn’t hear, but she could tell that he wasn’t going down to just give up. Even as he faces death he’s a soldier, Isis thought.

  The blank expressions that were on the faces of a couple of correction officers earlier were now replaced with smirks. And most of the detectives were laughing outright.

  “Give it to him.” The warden gave the order and sealed it with a nod.

  The three drugs that made up the death serum were administered. The first injection was supposed to send Dave into an unconsciousness state. Then they would give him another syringe filled with a saline solution to clear his veins so that the second drug would stop his muscle reflexes.

  “I am like a fucking phoenix,” David continued to scream. “I’m immortal. I rise from my ashes.”

  Dave’s head began to nod, and he appeared to be physically weakening. Isis knew he was leaving her. She wanted nothing more than to run up to the glass and cry out to Dave, “I’m here, baby, I’m here,” but she couldn’t. She had to sit there and hold in her hurt, her pain, her anger, and her disgust. She wanted to lose control and cry out, but she couldn’t. She didn’t. She had to stay strong. She could break down later.

  One detective remarked to another, “It seems like the doctor is moving quicker than normal to get that poison in that boy’s veins. You don’t think he’s a little shook up, do you?”

  The third drug was administered. Its job was to stop the beating of Dave’s heart. A doctor monitored Dave’s heart rate on the ECG machine.

  “Nah. Doc probably just got some pussy waiting on ’im after this is over,” the detective joked.

  “You can’t kill me, muthafuckers!” Dave threatened again, his voice getting weaker, but he still had enough strength to continue ranting. He even made a last-ditch effort to struggle loose.

  After three minutes and forty-two seconds, David was still hurling obscenities at everyone in the room. The warden then ordered the doctor to give him a second dosage of the lethal drug combination.

/>   It looked as if Dave was trying to keep his promise that he couldn’t be killed. It had been five minutes since the second set of injections, and he still wasn’t dead. It was like watching one of those horror movies. Everybody on both sides of the glass was frantic. No one knew what to do; nothing like this had ever happened before. It was unprecedented. It was like double jeopardy. They couldn’t kill him twice for the same murder.

  “What do we do?” the warden asked his deputy.

  Just at that moment, Dave’s words started to slur to the point where they couldn’t be understood. He stopped kicking, and his eyes looked like white marbles as they rolled to the back of his head. Then there was no more movement at all. There were no more sounds.

  The doctor checked his vitals. “He’s dead.”

  “Look at his face,” somebody said. When everyone turned to look, each was caught off guard by what they witnessed: Dave had a smile on his face. An eerie smile like the one Jack Nicholson sported when he played the Joker in that Batman movie.

  That night Isis lay in bed, unable to get the scene she had witnessed earlier out of her mind. She had experienced something that would change her forever. She had sat and watched the man whom she would have traded places with in a heartbeat die before her eyes. She hadn’t so much as shed a tear. She knew she couldn’t cry while at the prison, but she thought for sure she’d break down once alone. But she didn’t. By pretending to be someone other than herself, she had been so far removed from the person she really was that she had no idea if she could ever find her way back again.

  Chapter 2

  Necessary Arrangements

  The next morning the weatherman had predicted the three H’s for the day: hot, humid, and hazy.

  It was 10 AM and Isis was still enveloped in her leopard-print comforter. The air-conditioning was set on sixty degrees, but she hadn’t slept well. She tossed and turned all night; her body and mind subconsciously fighting the sandman tooth and nail. During those rare rounds when the sandman did land a lucky punch to the chin and put Isis to sleep, the images of what the state had done to David—and the look on his face—would cause her to reawaken. Just when she thought she was about to get a few winks just before midmorning to compensate for last night, the phone rang.