No Pickle in Polunsky

If you really must get yourself on death row, I’d strongly suggest doing it somewhere other than Texas. The Allan B. Polunsky Unit has been described as looking like a community college. Now I never went to college, community or otherwise, but I’d be looking for a refund if it was anything like this place. It’s a concrete box named after a real estate attorney who’d managed to wangle his way into the chairmanship of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. A man who’d proven himself far less squeamish about capital punishment than Charles Terrell – for whom the unit had previously been named.

I can sympathise with Terrell. The facilities here are rudimentary to put it kindly. Six by twelve foot cell (lucky I’m not tall!) with a steel toilet, steel bed, steel sink and a steel door which the guards open with a steel bar. There were pleasant, well-kempt lawns outside. If you rolled up your mattress and stood on your toes you could see them through the six inch slit in the wall. This was home for twenty-two or more hours per day. More was sometimes preferable to the strip searches enforced every time you left your cell. The irony of having a use-by date on your head is that you find yourself with a lot of time on your hands. A lot of time in some cases. Conviction of a capital offence leads to an automatic appeals process with a minimum time frame of three years. If you dig your heels in you can drag a case out for decades. Cases bounce from court to court often as not winding up back in front of the judge who’d sent you away in the first place. Stories abounded of what lengthy periods of solitary confinement can do to the human mind. Tales of self mutilation and suicide. Prisoners smearing excrement on themselves. One story of a man plucking out his own eyeball and swallowing it. You could leave me out of all that. I waived my rights to appeal; the likelihood a successful appeal was poor, even for the prisoners that weren’t guilty. I’d done what I’d done and an extended stay here wasn’t what I wanted. What I wanted was a pickle.

Now in most jurisdictions a condemned felon could at least make a reasonable request for a final meal. You might say it’s what separates us from the barbarians. In Louisiana the Warden will come down and have dinner with you. The cheapskates in Oklahoma might only give you a fifteen dollar budget but at least you get to choose how that fifteen dollars gets spent. This was once the case in Texas, until a white supremacist with eyes bigger than his belly brought it to an end. Lawrence Russell Brewer (don’t court reporters love using middle names!) was convicted of a particularly brutal lynching. Now in a dormitory of this variety “brutal” is a word used advisedly. No resident, myself included, is here for having hit the wrong note at choir practice. All are murderers; all with some form of aggravating factor. It makes it rather difficult to sit in judgement of others. Racism may no longer be de rigueur in the broader community but in the nation’s penitentiaries it’s still a way of life, although I’d question whether the greatest proponents of white supremacy were really the greatest exponents of the Aryan race. More pressing to me though was Brewer’s final meal request and its repercussions.

Brewer requested two chicken fried steaks, an omelette, a bowl of okra, three fajitas, a pizza, a pound of barbecue, a triple cheeseburger and multiple desserts all to be washed down with three root beers - enough food to feed the entirety of death row. He then promptly refused to eat it saying he wasn’t hungry. Now I’d be willing to say that knowing you’re to be executed in a few hours may put a dampener on one’s appetite however Senator John Whitmire saw it as an intentional “screw you” and demanded the Texas Department of Justice end the tradition of last meals, lest he introduce legislation to force their hand. Rather than make a politician do his job, the department immediately acquiesced. So much for bleeding heart liberals. So much for southern hospitality.

When placed in straitened circumstances small victories take on great importance. My execution would take place thirty-five miles down the road at Huntsville – in what I’m assured is a very pleasant drive when not in the back of a transport van being led to your death. There I’d be offered what was on that day’s prison menu. No exceptions. No good to me. As much as I didn’t want to be lethally injected on an empty stomach, if I was going to to get what I wanted I was going to have to waive that meal and try to organise something for my final meal here. My first port of call was with the prison guard that I affectionately called ‘Sir’. While he was cuffing me to take me to the showers I thought I’d broach the subject. ‘Sir. I’d like a pickle and a slice of chocolate cake for my final meal sir.’

‘You can have a slice of shit for all I care’ he replied, twisting my cuffs.

The pain in my shoulders convinced me to abandon that plan of action while conjuring another. Sir left me alone while I showered and as the water washed off two days worth of congealed sweat, a plan flowered in my mind. When Sir returned I clutched my shoulder. ‘Sir. I think I’ve torn something Sir.’

‘So?’ he replied gruffly.

‘Sir. So’ I answered ‘I need to go to the infirmary Sir.’

You could see the cogs turning in his head. In some prisons a guard would see a threat of litigation but with no avenue for release this wasn’t a concern on death row. The guards here may not have been overflowing with the fruit of human kindness but at the same time they did generally played by the rules. It was hard to justify refusing a trip to the infirmary even if you suspected the reason was spurious.

‘Come on then’. Sir led me down the hallway to the infirmary. It led past the door of the kitchen, although we marched through too quickly to relay a message.

We arrived at the infirmary to be greeted by the registered nurse on duty. She gave me a cursory examination. ‘Nothing obvious’ she said. ‘I’m afraid the doctor won’t be in again until the morning but we can admit him here until then’. Sir may not have been convinced of the validity of my injury but was pretty sure he’d had enough of me for the day so acceded and left. There were few patients this day so I had a chance to make some small talk with the nurse.

Nurse Miller was new here from the University of Texas. She asked me the usual questions about what it’s like on death row (‘It’s shit. Don’t do it’ I replied). I asked her if she dealt with general population prisoners. She answered in the affirmative. Having built as much rapport as one can in a short period I threw the Hail Mary. ‘How would you like to do me a favour?’ The look on her face told me that she wouldn’t like to at all but I pressed on regardless. ‘It’s just something small.’ She seemed reluctant but heard me out. I explained my design. ‘Nowadays prisoners don’t get provided a special last meal. However, what I want is simple and I think you can help me get it.’

She gave me a slightly acerbic look but I had clearly piqued her interest. ‘How simple?’

‘Just a pickle and some chocolate cake.’

‘Can’t you just get them for yourself from the commissary?’

‘I don’t have anyone on the outside and we can’t work here on death row’. I could see the look on her face shifting from acerbic to sardonic. ‘Don’t worry’ I added quickly. ‘I’m not looking for money. I want my final meal delivered to me as I feel is my god given right.’

She shrugged. ‘If there’s no separate final meals then I don’t really see how I can help you.’

‘”Separate” is the key’ I explained. ‘Now if I can get those items made part of that day’s meal I not only get my request but I also get to share it with the whole prison.’

There was something about this communal action that seemed to hit a nerve with the nurse. ‘OK’ she said. ‘But who should I talk to?’

‘That’s simple’ I responded. ‘Everyone you can. Prison is a dull place and gossip spreads quickly. Word will reach the right ears.’

I could see a conspiratorial spark light in her eyes. ‘Do you have a date?’

‘As yet no’ I replied. ‘But I’ll get word to the kitchen in advance.’

‘I’ll see what I can do’ she said. I took her at her word.

The next morning I told the doctor that the pain in my shoulder had been a burner and that there seemed nothing seriously wrong. She seemed to accept it as a case of short term malingering and referred me back to my cell. Weeks passed before I received my execution date, too many I feared. The prison grapevine may be effective but memories could be short. My second last day at the unit arrived and I needed to get word to the kitchen if my plan was to bear fruit. I filled out a sick call request form and called out to Sir. He looked at it with incredulity, especially given my extremely limited life expectancy. He however opened the door, performed the usual strip search and escorted me to the infirmary. Perhaps even he had a little compassion for a condemned man. As we passed the doorway of the kitchen I called out at the top of my lungs ‘Tomorrow!’

Sir seemed unfazed. Presumably after years of working here he’d become accustomed to mentally unstable prisoners yelling bizarre things. I arrived at the infirmary hoping to see Nurse Miller but she’d been replaced by another nurse from the university. The medical staff never stayed very long in this place. I couldn’t blame them. I complained of an upset stomach and was sent back to my cell with some antacid. All that was left to do now was wait, something to which I’d grown accustomed.

The next day came. The excitement of finding whether or not my plan had worked served as an excellent distraction from my upcoming demise. The familiar sound of the food trolley rang its way down the hall. I was excited as I sat on my bed, waiting for the staff to deliver my meal. The slot opened and the tray came through. Once the slot closed I dived on it. There in the corner was a slice of chocolate cake. Success! I thought but then realised there was no pickle – just a burger and fries, fairly standard prison fare. Maybe the cake had just been coincidence. Dejectedly I bit into my burger when I tasted that familiar tang. One slice of cake. One slice of pickle.