Cross posted at DailyKos and My Left Wing
I watched `Dead Man Walking’ last night. Whenever I see a movie or read an article about someone being executed my mind goes back to a time when something happened, something that no one ever imagines could possibly be true for them, I go back to the year 1972. I lived in a small university town in Northern California. My friends were college students mostly, my friend Marcie and I were the only ones with small children, we were the only ones that worked instead of attending college full time. At night we shrugged off our daytime guise, we weren’t students or mothers or employed, we were all just friends who spent every evening together. We were friends packed around a barbeque grilling our dinner, laughing, talking, drinking beer. There were fifteen of us, young men and young women, obsessed with the war, feminism, the politics of the nation, speaking out against our government and holding the opinion that anyone older than 30 could not be trusted. Who we did trust was each other.
There was a week at the end of the school year that was dedicated to a festival that celebrated the seniors. There was live music, there was river rafting but most of all there was drinking, lots and lots of drinking. It was a week that guaranteed 7 days later we would all wonder how on earth we were still alive or not in jail. Until 1972 when we stopped wondering because the cold hand of reality slapped us in the face.
There’s more
One of our group of friends was an amazing man with a sad history. He was brilliant, he was funny, he was a mixture of outgoing and introverted, he was the clown face of happy and sad, he never talked about his past, never shared stories of his childhood or of his family. He was loved though by this rowdy bunch.
Senior Days started out as usual that year. It was hot, the stifling heat that sends waves up from the asphalt, the kind of heat you run for shade from. The kind of heat that, when you’re young and firm, you wear as little as possible. It was the fifth night of partying. We had been to so many parties that week they all ran into each other. If we weren’t drunk we were on our way to being, sober is what we weren’t. We went from house to house, we went from fraternity to fraternity. We danced to live music in the streets. We stumbled and fell. We all held each other up, we always had each others backs. Then it all started to unravel, it all began to fall apart.
We woke up the next morning hung over, the world was spinning, we couldn’t talk our mouths were so dry. Everything was fuzzy, our heads pounded. Warren then walked into the house, he was the sanest of us all, he was the straightest of us all, Warren was the one who kept us all together. He was somber, his face was white, he was trembling, he told us all to listen.
He started talking so slowly and so softly we had to ask him to speak up. His voice cracked, tears welled up in his eyes as he told us that Paul had been arrested early in the morning for rape and murder. The young man without a history, without a family had confessed to the crimes, he told the police he was guilty. It was a stunning moment, there was a collective gasp from us all, the agony and terror were palpable, the shock was tangible. We fired question after question at Warren. He didn’t know anymore than what he had told us. We all hurriedly got dressed to go to the jail to see Paul, to let him know he did have a family, that we were there for him.
The twins called their father, who was a successful criminal attorney in Chicago, to find out what we should do. He told the girls he would find the best lawyer he could for Paul and he would pay for his defense. He said it was important for Paul to know he was not alone. He said he would try to rearrange his schedule so he could fly out to see Paul. Then he said to get to the jail as quickly as possible to give our support to Paul.
In the days to come we all walked around in a daze. We knew the girl Paul had raped and killed. We knew Paul’s side of the story. He had taken several hits of acid, he had had way too much to drink. He took the girl into the park. They had started kissing and then she changed her mind and said no, she wanted him off of her. Paul didn’t stop, he said he couldn’t, he said it was like he was possessed, he said it was like someone else was inside his head screaming. When he finished he looked down and her clothes were ripped off, her face was contorted into an horrific, frightened scream. Her fingernails were bloody from scratching him trying to make him stop, trying to tell him he must stop because she couldn’t breathe, he was strangling the life out of her. We learned later she was a virgin.
Paul was arrested early the next morning. He confessed without an attorney, he didn’t try to say he wasn’t guilty, he knew he had committed the greatest sin against another human being, he had raped and murdered a young girl who had every right to live a full life. He was overcome with remorse. When I saw him a few days later he wouldn’t look at me, he wouldn’t make eye contact, he looked at his hands the entire time I was there. It was as if he couldn’t believe his hands had killed her, he looked at them like they belonged to someone else. He was deep in despair, he was a rapist and murderer, that’s what he had turned into, everything he was before that night had been obliterated, now the only thing he was in his eyes was a rapist and murderer. There would be no redemption for him, he wouldn’t make it past the guilt.
The next morning the phone rang. Warren answered but didn’t say another word besides hello. He quietly and slowly put the receiver in the cradle and turned looking at the floor. He said simply, “Paul hung himself sometime in the middle of the night. He was pronounced dead a couple hours ago.” He said our number and names were the only ones he had given. He said he had no one else.
We were all so deep in grief, we were confused, we didn’t know what feelings were going to pop up from minute to minute. We looked at each other with inquiring eyes as if there were some hidden secret trapped inside. We didn’t know if what we were feeling was right or wrong. Is it okay to love a rapist and murderer? Was it a betrayal of the victim to support the rapist? Should we feel shame for understanding and having compassion for the murderer?
We walked through the next few days as if we were sleep walking. Paul would be given a pauper’s funeral. He would be put into a pine box and buried in a field with other unclaimed bodies. He wouldn’t have a gravestone or a marker of any kind. He would be under 6 feet of dirt as if he had never existed. The person he was before that night would be gone, lost in our memories, with no way to return and remember who he was before that night.
Paul was my son’s best friend. He was handsome and sweet. He was full of life and love. He was the quintessential hippie who reveled in the summer of love. He took Derek and I to our first concert as mother and son, Derek was just 5. He spread our sleeping bags out on the grass, he waded through hundreds of bodies to get us soda and cookies. He explained the music of the sixties and early seventies to Derek. He painted his little face and turned him into a happy clown. When Country Joe McDonald and the Fish came onstage Derek got sad. Paul asked him what was wrong and Derek said he didn’t have a daddy to take him fishing. Paul promised him he would, that they would go fishing very soon. Derek said he wanted to go just with him, his mom didn’t get to go. Paul laughed and said, `I’m with you Sport (his nickname for Derek), no girls allowed.’ They both smiled and winked at each other. I pretended indignation at the very mention of the word, girl.
Three days later there was a knock on the door. It was Paul with two fishing poles and a can of worms. He had been learning how to bait and fish, he was ready to go to the `Show’ with his buddy. I can’t remember if they caught any fish, all I remember is that he never disappointed my son, he was loving and attentive and kind. He was Derek’s father through those days and years. He was the first man to show Derek what being a man truly is. He was a perfect role model. That’s who he was, that’s still who he is, that’s who I see when I think of him. I hope and pray he has found peace and serenity because in the note he left he didn’t think he would.
The twins parents wired the money for the funeral we arranged for Paul. It was difficult, we were called names, we felt so badly for the family of the girl, we were torn but ultimately we couldn’t stand to see him buried in a pine box without a marker. He was more than who he was that night. We knew the man that the media didn’t know, we knew who else he was, we knew he was far, far more.
So Dead Man Walking took me back to those days. It also took me to a time when I knew I would never stop advocating against the death penalty. I already was against it, what happened the day of the funeral sealed it for me. We had the memorial at the gravesite, we felt it was the most honorable thing to do not to gather first at a place like a church or the park. We wanted it to be at a single destination. All fifteen of us attended, I let Derek come, again I was torn but he knew what had happened and he was as grief stricken as we are were. He said he wanted to say goodbye to his friend.
After several of us had spoken a woman none of us knew walked up to the casket. She wasn’t crying, she didn’t say a word, she simply laid a yellow rose on top. She left as quietly as she had come. It wasn’t until a few days later that we learned who she was and why she had come. We knew Warren’s mom had a friend who was an acquaintance of the girl’s mother. Warren came to dinner one night and told us what he had learned. The girl’s mother had come to the funeral because she hadn’t made it to the jail in time to speak with Paul. She said she had tried but it was the policy not to let the victims families in to see the prisoners. She said all she had wanted was to tell Paul she forgave him. She wanted him to know that she was against the death penalty, that if it was ever on the table she would speak against it. That when she thought about it it had become obvious to her what would save them both, that forgiveness was the only thing that would bring her closure. She didn’t want to harbor anger and bitterness, that she wanted to be able to remember her daughter for the life she had, for who she was before her death. If she saw Paul as a monster, if she stayed wrapped up in rage, she would never have the peace of mind needed to remember her daughter in a way that brought her joy. She said she could only accomplish that with forgiveness. She said there must be an end to violent deaths.
I learned so much about life in those few days. I learned forgiveness is indeed the key to life. I learned that we are capable of extreme acts of kindness not just for others but for ourselves as well. I learned that nothing is too difficult, nothing is beyond our reach. I learned that it’s possible to have a friend that commits the most gruesome, despicable crime against a woman and we can still love and cherish that friend. I learned that every life is sacred, every life. I learned that we judge not just one act of another but the entire life of that person. I learned from my son, who told me the night of Paul’s funeral that he will miss him and love him because he took him fishing, that worms can be messy but we can love them just the same.
