Fridays on death row are good for one thing – visits from family and friends. Today when I arrived at visitation, I found my mother waiting beyond the fortified glass. She smiled earnestly, unfazed by the officer who secured me in an isolated booth. After greeting each other, we talked momentarily before I noticed that she was squirming in her seat. Her effort to contain herself was evident, though I still hadn’t guessed why.
Then, out from beneath the steel counter crawled an adorable, yet furtive, tot. She wore a teddy bear t-shirt, fluffed trousers, and her plaits were fastened with assorted hair bows. She whirled around to study me with cinnamon eyes that held me in their gaze. A subtle smile crept along her face before I watched her struggle to climb onto the seat, defiant of her pintsized stature. There was a fearlessness, a result of her naïveté, which left me feeling intimidated. I searched my thoughts for an explanation, but they only gave way to guilt. Her confusion was marked by an arched brow as the discomforting silence increased. She then rocked on her haunches, squared her shoulders and declared, “Hi. I’m Caleiyah, and you’re my granddaddy.”
My tears betrayed me as I feigned a cough and risked wiping my eyes. “That’s right, baby…,” I affirmed with a joyous smile, then added, “… I’m your granddaddy.” Gosh – there was so much I wanted to say, yet I didn’t know where to begin. I wanted Caleiyah to know how much I needed to hold her and the agony I felt was because I couldn’t. I wanted to say how sorry I was for not being there and that I promised to make it up, though I knew I may never get that chance. I wanted to say, “Look, Caleiyah – I’ve made mistakes, but people can change.” So many things I wanted to say, yet they all felt like excuses. With a heavy sigh, the words rolled off my tongue, “So, how’re you doing, baby?” It was all the encouragement the two year old needed to take charge of the situation.
Caleiyah chatted up the silence, providing the lowdown on everyone she knew. Her steadiness for storytelling left little room for opinions; still I admired her outspoken personality. There she was making things easier for me as I tussled with past decisions that kept me away. I’d often pose a question at random, then listen as she rambled on. We played games, sang, and did other activities that dismissed the divider between us. They were the first moments I’d spent with my granddaughter, while my death sentence meant it could be the last.
A knock from outside the door announced the time when visitors prepared to leave. Caleiyah seemed distracted by the sudden departure of others as she glanced back and forth. With tremendous effort, I buried my sadness, though my voice yielded to the pain. Caleiyah stood up on the stool, pressed her forehead to the glass, and said, “It’s ok, granddaddy. I’ll be back.”
What a remarkable child to have taken my woefulness and molded it into comfort. Her interaction excused my failures with no apologies required. They gathered their jackets and headed for the exit while Caleiyah blew kisses goodbye. Soon, the elevator arrived and took them away, and finally, I cried alone.
©Chanton
As I began to reflect, the silence became revealing. I noticed things I would’ve missed under other circumstances. My senses adapted with a sense of urgency. I knew the van’s muffler had to be busted because it made a hissing and popping noise every 45 seconds or whenever we slowed down and sped up again. I noticed when the driver loudly belched twice and gave a hearty laugh. Then he gave a doughy chuckle while he lifted his butt off the seat and released a silent fart that was ferociously smelly. Whatever he ate must’ve had a lot of onions in it. His partner gave him a displeased sideways look before he cracked his window, allowing the funk to exit.
They took my chains and handcuffs off without a care of me attacking them. The guards seemed comfortable around the convicted, as if they’d accepted the idea that they were simply ‘inmates’ too, except they were getting paid to be there. Or their ease could’ve been due to the guard towers that held gunmen inside with their rifles aimed at me, ready to shoot with any sign of a snafu that I might cause.
He would go on to ask me a bunch of questions that he fed into his computer. Questions like, “With a name like Mamou, what, you Muslim?” pronouncing the ‘s’ like a swarm of ‘z’s, in an effort to insult the religion.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR. Charles “Chucky” Mamou is living on Death Row in Texas and currently working on his next novel. He can be contacted at:
As a kid my father’s father used to pick me up every Saturday morning to go get a haircut from the ‘brutal barber’, Mr. Plumbar. He had a reputation of using a straight razor on little boys’ heads, then slapping alcohol across the cuts he had made when he was done. Young boys feared getting a haircut from him, and older fathers and grandfathers brought their young boys to him to prove that their sons were brave.
My neighbors and I have one very large thing in common. In the name of security, prison officials have stripped us of every ounce of our dignity. In spite of that bond – we all know better than to get too close to one another. Each one of is here to be executed. We may not have execution dates – yet – but the possibility looms large with every court ruling, every denied appeal and every date set for one of our neighbors.
ABOUT THE WRITER. Travis Runnels, is a published author, and is currently working on his second novel. He lives on Death Row.
Last night I dreamed I was dying. Not from illness or old age – I was going to be executed by lethal injection. It all happened so fast. One moment I was living my miserable, yet consistent seventeen years of incarceration. The next thing I knew, my number was up.
While watching Charlotte play with her web in search for Wilbur
Once she returns, I step in the yard and the door is closed behind me. I stoop once again to place my hands through the slot so the handcuffs can be removed. My clothes are then passed to me through the slot. I quickly begin putting them on and trying to get warm.
Angry for all the years I’ve lost,