Talking talking no one there.
Marcus Lord at the podium of the damned.
Some of the talking out loud, some of it inside.
You shot Janelle and that other girl in the head. Two days ago maybe a few days. Time is fucked up. Blew out the eye of the dude but he lived. All real shit that you did.
Part of him brags, part of him shrivels, Janelle’s eyes not knowing him and wild like he was a monster. Part of him must have liked being a monster.
I ain’t Gaskin.
He sits on the concrete floor of his cell, leaning against the metal bed, empty and full at the same time like a cleansing, the word his uncle Pastor John used trying to get Marcus to pray when he was a kid. This ain’t praying, Pastor John, but cleansing might be right. Nowhere Land. Marcus kind of digs it without feeling anything but still able to think. The bottom floats like the top. It might be morning or it could be night. Don’t know don’t fucking care. Been here a while been here my whole life.
Pastor John’s sermon voice: When you speak in your daily life, are you at the podium of the saved or the podium of the damned? Your actions will give you the answer. The next thing you do, and the thing after that and everything you do for as long as you live and breathe on God’s bountiful cruel Earth will give you the answer. Strive to make God’s world more bountiful and less cruel in your every deed. Stand always at the podium of the saved.”
A bunch of people inside but everything is cool like a decision. He is more handsome like this, what Gram always called him even though he knew he really fucking wasn’t. His Mama even called him ugly once, I had me one ugly child, laughing a little shaking her head looking down at him in the kitchen like he was a thing, then changing her face and saying she was sorry. Mama did that a fucking lot.
Falling falling with a kind of grace. It feels close to the real thing, smarter than him, and he feels a little smile underneath the surface that disappears fast like backing away. Eyes half-closed looking straight ahead at nothing or maybe at you.
The cell’s gray walls comfort him like when he was behind that pool’s waterfall that time in Orlando or like a flashlight under a blanket. No one anywhere but you. The metal bed smells like the old steel beams in the vacant lot down the street he used to play on and became The Climber, a superhero who could climb anything.
Everything is far away and close.
He is a fucked-up boy and a fucked-up man and that is a deep end-game, a deep fucking result. That’s what it feels like more than praying, Pastor John, a result. Nothing against you, man, you were cool in a church way but praying is weakness, always asking Jesus for something instead of getting it yourself. This is the result, what I’m doing, deciding something and being the one who decides. I ain’t Gaskin. Gaskin kept living and probably praying too and that’s weakness.
The guard shouts Shut the fuck up from the desk and Marcus hears him close and far away.
***
Yesterday when they brought him here:
Marcus Lord is not Louis Gaskin or is he. Killing old people looking at him terrified with their old faces not believing this is happening was just a thing to Gaskin. He wanted their stuff and he needed them dead so no one could send him back to prison. Transactional shit but he got off on it, too, bragged about killing old white people and taking their stuff. Marcus didn’t want any stuff, did that make him worse. The ones he killed were black and young and smart but they disrespected him, a different thing. Gaskin could say the same thing, when you get to it, that old white people disrespect him just by being alive in their fucking house with their fucking pool. Marcus didn’t go that deep with overall society and Gaskin probably didn’t either but there’s still this shit: Marcus got off on it, too, like flying, like power, like you’re numb but fucking alive. It’s still a thing, killing people is still a thing, after it’s over and even when it’s happening. Rage in your hand and result. Transactional shit too, if you get to it. Ended the disrespecting shit. Marcus is not Gaskin or is he.
Louis Gaskin, then 22, killed Robert and Georgette Sturmfels inside their home five days before Christmas in 1989 and has lived in a Death Row cell for thirty-four years. Both Mr. Sturmfels and Mrs. Sturmfels were shot multiple times as they continued to stay alive. Gaskin’s execution is scheduled for tomorrow. Marcus Lord, 27, killed college students Janelle Bowen, 19, and Kenya Brown, 21, and critically injured Julian Oates, also 21, in their apartment two days ago after they kicked him out. All three were music majors. Lord pretended to be a student and dated Bowen for a few weeks before he killed her. He has been in a Miami jail cell for about one hour.
Here is Gaskin talking to investigators shortly after the murders. A guard read it to Marcus a few minutes ago from a newspaper article previewing the execution. “Is this you, Marcus? Don’t give a shit about anyone or anything?” and Marcus did not answer.
“Listen to this animal shit, Marcus, listen to every fucking word,” the guard said and began reading in an angry white man’s voice.
“Aimed, aimed at him, pulled the trigger and he was shot. To his wife it appeared that he was having a heart attack and then he said, ‘Oh, my God, what’s happening’ and I shot him again and his wife realized what was going on.
“She proceeded to run. I shot her.
“He was still standing and he tried to run and I shot him again. He fell down. Didn’t move anymore.
“It was like his wife got a little burst of energy from somewhere; proceeded to crawl out and shot her again.”
Stop, Marcus whispered.
“Hell no, Marcus,” the guard shot back. “You’re going where he’s going and you’re gonna listen. Gaskin will be put down tomorrow and you’re not far behind him, Marcus. We got a governor now who doesn’t fuck around. Here’s the rest of what this animal did.”
“She still proceeded. She got into the hallway out of sight, so I went around to the other doors that faced the hallway. She was sitting there holding her head looking at the blood. I shot her again. She fell over.
“I went back around to the front and shot him again in the head at point-blank range.
“Went around to the lady. She was still groggily dying; shot her again in the head at point-blank range and then closed the blinds in the rest of the house.”
I ain’t Gaskin, Marcus whispered.
“The hell you aren’t. Sick bastards, both of you.”
The guard spit and turned away and threw the newspaper back toward the cell and it floated to the floor against the bars. Marcus stayed sitting on the concrete floor staring at the gray wall looking at nothing or possibly at you.
***
Now it’s today again. Time moved somehow. Talking talking. No one there.
Mama, you never really gave a shit but I’ll tell you anyway. I think it boils down to you want to be bigger than your own shit family and your own little shit street. You want to be special, you want to be the real thing, like a Chris Rock or a Dre or even Randall who lived down the street and became an accountant or some shit with a wife and kids. Don’t have to be famous, just smart and doing something beyond your little shit nothing life. You never told me how to do that. Gram tried but she was old and thought always being around your cousins and family and your church was the answer and it wasn’t. You got to be smart, fucking smart, and you got to blend in with smart people and beat ’em at their own game of smartness. That’s it, Mama, and that’s all there is. And when it doesn’t happen, and you know it’s never gonna happen, that you’re never gonna be the real thing, it triggers all kinds of sometimes violent shit. Feels like power and respect and fucking energy while you’re doing it, like you’re beating the shit out of your nothing life. I think that’s one of the reasons maybe the main reason I did what I did. I don’t know really. I saw James do it once and get like weird and high and scared and fucking wild about it, and other guys too, pretty much the same, so maybe that’s why, that I wanted some of that. A result. Like a victory. The guy didn’t give James no shit after that. I’m talking it through but I think I already know, Mama, just like you knew. But you just kept on. You wanted to leave but didn’t. Or that’s what I always saw. I’ve never seen nobody as tired as you. The older you got, hell, in your twenties, the more tired you got. So fucking worn out there ain’t no rest or love inside. I know you worked a lot when you could but a little kid ain’t gonna know that. I guess that’s why you never really gave a shit and yelled so much and hit my butt or the top of my head for the littlest shit things. Was that it, Mama, that you was so damn tired?
A otherworldly sadness.
Vague shit deep inside. Another word he learned from them. A smart person’s word. Ain’t no one else otherworldly but smart people. An otherworldly sadness, Marcus, An, Janelle would fucking correct him if she was here. Fucking Janelle and her fucked-up music. Classical shit. White man music. I know it’s fucking an, Janelle, but that’s not how I fucking say it. Don’t make me feel like a shriveled dick.
Do not disrespect me still runs under everything, but it’s flat now, realized, true without any power like the gun’s click pow click pow click pow aim click pow aim – click – pow. Flat now, a different power maybe, more like wind, wind pushing trash and leaves trying to escape against the fence. Another one of their words he never used before. To be fucking realized. Who you are, who your core is. Fuck them but now somehow he loves them, just Janelle maybe, somewhere floating without moving, not lying on the floor, Janelle lying all bent on the floor with dark red under her blond brown head. Didn’t feel nothing then but the quick numb rage and maybe some horror but now the rage and the horror move through him like disappearing behind a waterfall with Janelle floating there.
He wanted money as a kid, him that ain’t got always wants, Pastor John said, but smarter is what he always sort of wanted more, and now this feels like he maybe found it. Knowing things, seeing things, understanding, like a wisdom. His rage is smoothed over and everything feels loved and Janelle and Kenya and even fucking Julian are part of the everything. He is on suicide watch, but that just means the white guard shouts Shut the fuck up now and then when he’s not fucking reading about Gaskin to him. This place he’s at right now feels almost like kindness, what church must have felt like to Gram.
Here’s one time that kind of set the tone maybe. First day I met them, when I went there to answer the ad for a roommate and everything was pretty cool, they thought I was friendly, not like them but different cool. Then I didn’t know who Marcus Aurelius was and everything seemed to fucking drop, shifted down on top of me because of them. Real sudden. That’s just one little thing and I was a shriveled dick at first but then it started to piss me off, for me not knowing and for them acting high and fucking mighty. First time we met, after I told him my name was Marcus, Julian said as a joke, “Marcus Aurelius! We are joined by one of Rome’s ruling class” or some shit like that. Hell, my cousin’s name was Marcus and I was named after him. It’s a fucking common name. You wouldn’t bring up some fucking Roman emperor unless you fucking wanted to lord your smartness over someone. I tried to laugh but they knew, first fucking time we met they knew. A lot of little things like that just added up until they wanted more money for my part of the rent and really just kicked me the fuck out when you get to it, asking for more money they knew I didn’t have, and I just reached that place where I went back with the gun.
When Marcus says fuck now it’s smooth instead of a fist and when he calls himself a motherfucker it’s calm.
One thing good out of it. The way Janelle talked and her blond hair like Beyonce was almost like fucking a white woman. Call it making love, Marcus. Please call it making love. For me. And you did, motherfucker. You called it making love from then on for Janelle. It felt sort of like love when you called it love.
All this shit started a long time before, didn’t it. You got a scholarship to go to their college. Based on need and potential, they said, but a fucking pretty good thing anyway. Some good shit finally came this motherfucker’s way. Ended up losing it and they knew, pretty fucking sure they knew.
That counselor at high school, Miss Evelyn. She warned you, didn’t she, motherfucker. Try to remember what she said or something close. She was on it, wasn’t she. Now I’m going to tell you something, Marcus, that’s going to sound mean but isn’t meant that way. Most of the college kids you meet are going to be very different from you. They might seem smarter and a little bit more sophisticated, like they’ve seen and know more than you. That’s something you’ll have to deal with, and by that I don’t mean trying to be like them to fit in but instead by just being yourself, your truest self. You’re a bright kid who grew up poor with some tough times, and I know your mother and father weren’t always there for you, and didn’t always treat you right, but your grandma loved you when you went to live with her, so you’ve got some love in you. All that’s a part of you but it’s not all you are. You’re funny and pretty good looking and smart enough to get this scholarship. So when you get with those college kids just be your best you. The best version of you and nobody else. If they don’t like it, tough. Work through it. Pretending to be someone you’re not is leading a fake life, everything about you becomes fake, and except maybe for politicians, a fake life is a burden hidden up inside your head that slowly eats you alive. You start to hate the people you are trying to be. Just find other friends if you need to. Maybe other ones who grew up like you did. Will you do that for me, Marcus?
“Shut the fuck up!” shouts the guard and Marcus lowers his voice to a whisper without really knowing he’s doing it, obeying the guard and that moves Gaskin into him again without knowing he was in there the whole time.
At least you have the courage to do it on your own fucking terms. Gaskin just sat in that fucking cell for thirty-something years never trying to better himself, or maybe he did in some way but even with that he didn’t have the courage to leave. Those dudes who become lawyers and writers and shit in prison are the real thing. Don’t know where it comes from. Where the hell does it come from. Comes from somewhere, maybe a little of it’s in this thing you’re doing too. Maybe you have a little of it, motherfucker. You called it courage and maybe it’s like part fucking courage and part leaving is the easiest and best way. Are you a hero or a shit, Marcus? Saved or damned? Which is it, motherfucker?
The guard walks back to the cell and said, “Since you won’t shut the fuck up I’m going to read to you again. It’s story time again, Marcus. Gaskin’s lawyers are trying to save his ass a few hours before they kill him with the same old shit, all weepy time about his fucked up childhood. You gonna do this, too, Marcus? Blame everyone else?”
Then the guard pulls the newspaper from under his arm and says, “Here’s your charter course in bullshit, Marcus. How to get away with murder but it ain’t gonna work. Here’s what they said in their appeal, that no one listened to his fucking ‘mitigating circumstances’ because his lawyers never mentioned it. Poor little Louis. Shoot two old people over and over with them begging for their lives because mommy didn’t love me.”
Then the guard reads what the lawyers wrote in Gaskin’s appeal.
“Those four jurors knew next to nothing about Mr. Gaskin. They knew nothing about the abuse and abandonment he suffered as a child; nothing about him being raised in squalor by his illiterate great-grandparents who forced him to eat off the floor and beat him mercilessly; nothing about his teenage mother who disappeared from his life for years at a time; nothing about the father he never knew.”
The guard drops the paper in disgust. “Everybody’s dealing with something, motherfucker. I’ll bet your mommy didn’t love you, either, right? Sleep tight, Marcus.” Then the guard folds the paper and walks away, his footsteps loud then faint. Won’t be back. It’s night. Marcus knows it’s night.
Won’t be back. Mama was tired, that was why.
Death flows into Gaskin’s vein in a distant room with witnesses. Janelle floats with Bach or some shit like that playing all around her in a place no one has ever seen before.
I ain’t Gaskin.
Marcus weeps a sudden gasp voiceless tears, then dries up, fallen, free, wipes the snot from his face with the bed sheet and twists it and ties it to the top of the bed frame and feels strength like holding a gun looping the twisted bed sheet around his neck and tightening its softness knowing in a room filled with love what the best version of himself will be.
It takes a long time but he doesn’t give in. His eyes stay open.
Marcus stares straight ahead, tilted. You see sweetness and kindness in his eyes. A sweet, kind Gaskin occupies his eyes. Janelle must have given him that and maybe Pastor John and maybe Gram.
The Climber appears to be sitting down but his butt in the baggy orange jumpsuit is three inches off the floor and he is not noticed until the next meal.
|***
“Saved the state the expense.”
— Daytona Beach Police Chief Mike Chitwood
*
Cal Massey is a retired newspaper editor who is not an enemy of the people. His first novel, ‘Own Little Worlds,’ won the 2020 Kenneth Patchen Award for the Innovative Novel from the Journal of Experimental Fiction. He and his wife Lynn live in Florida.
New Critique 