Mercy Seat

My sneakers clanked against the cold metal floor, the smell of blood and sweat in the air. My eyes were adjusted towards the gray, crumbling ceiling, water leaking through from wherever water would come from in the death row ward of a state prison. After ten years living in the flesh-munching depths of hell, I’d started to admire the ceiling in a strange sort of way. Decaying, crumbling at the seams, but always somehow managing to just barely hold it all together.

Reminded me a lot of us people.

One smelly guard shoved me brazenly from behind and the other two stomped down the dark and narrow hallway at a thundering pace. The guard behind me would grab the back of my jumpsuit, call me some not-so-nice names and touch the cold nuzzle of his large gun to the tip of my ear, threatening to blow my brains out. He’d been a death row guard for longer than I was there, although I didn’t actually know his name. But my mentality was that if he was going to kill me, he’d have done it already.

My cellmate was an old guy by the name of Jerry Mathers, and no, not the kid who played on Leave it to Beaver in the late 1950s. Though I sort of wish it was that Jerry Mathers, because this Jerry Mathers was something else.

The smelly guard finished undoing my handcuffs, still pressing me against the ground with his eyes to the open cell.

“You move a muscle before this cage is shut and I’ll blow your brains out,” he threatened before making a dart out of the cell along with a second guard. His partner slammed it shut and locked it, and the smelly guard looked at me like he’d just schooled me in a game of cards.

“Back so soon, Paul?” Jerry asked, scratching his bald scalp, raising his abnormally large eyebrows. Red marks persisted on his arms where the guard held him down while the cell was being opened. “How you feeling?”

There was an old trick in that if you banged your head against the wall enough until it bled or had your cellmate punch your nose in a few times, the guards would be forced to escort you to the special hospital they had for the criminally insane. The conditions were nicer there, it smelled better and there were actual nurses to talk to. So I went there a lot.

“Pretty good considering,” I responded. “You?”
Jerry laughed. “I feel awful,” he said. “But I wouldn’t like it any other way.”

Seventy-six years old, Jerry Mathers had been on death row for twenty-five years over the murders of two little girls. Their deaths were quite gruesome to the point where even I have trouble explaining the sad circumstances of their demise.

“Nobody else here cares if I feel good or not,” Jerry added. “So why should I?”
“I care. That’s why I asked.”
“No you don’t.”
“Sure I do.”
“Shut up.”
I winced, not having meant to make the old guy upset. This Jerry Mathers is not the kind of old guy you want to make irritated. And I don’t even know if he really killed those two little girls or not, I was always too afraid to ask him. But considering we were destined to spend the rest of our lives together in a small and cramped room for twenty-four hours a day, I figured it’d be best if I stayed on his good side.

“Wish I could just die already and get it over with,” Jerry sighed. “Nothing better than a quick heart attack to put me out of my misery. Then they can do whatever they want with my body from there. Don’t care.”

“…”

Jerry snickered. “Wish I knew things would end up like this,” he said. “Would’ve added a few more slices of bacon next to my eggs when I still had the chance.”

“Out of curiosity, how would you have wanted things to end up? Say you had a choice in the matter,” I said. “How would you change things?”
Jerry laughed again. “I wouldn’t be in here for starters.”

Thank you captain obvious.

“But I don’t know,” he added. “You know, I taught at the same elementary school for fifty years. I kept all the yearbooks on the shelf in my bedroom, used it to keep count of all the students I got to teach. You know how much it ended up being?”
“Five-hundred?” I guessed.
“Try fifteen-hundred,” Jerry responded. “Fifteen-hundred kids, and not a single one of them came to my defense when I was arrested. Not a single one of them came to the courtroom when they were all looking at me like I was a monster and said I wasn’t.”

The old man scowled and ducked his head, and I could tell he was fighting back what the prison was missing from the proverbial trio of humanity – tears. He sniffled and wiped his eyes, but nothing came out.

“If I could change something, I just wish someone would’ve shown up at the trial,” Jerry sobbed. “Just one person. I just want to know that at least one person remembered me.”

We both stood in silence for several minutes. I looked at the smelly guard, who for some reason hadn’t left yet. He rose his fist and without warning, proceeded to flip me off.

“I can’t believe I feel bad for you,” I lamented. “Me. Of all people.”

Jerry tightened his lips shut, shriveled his nose. “What do you mean by that?” he asked.

I shut my eyes before pulling them open with my own fingers, examining wrinkles on my arm skin that I didn’t quite remember being there before. “I mean look. I’m an asshole,” I admitted. “Me? God, man. I’m scum of the earth. But I feel bad for you. I feel bad for those kids, too. And Jolene. Damn it, Jolene.”

Her picture shifted around in my head like clouds drifting in the sky above the long and winded forest. Only this forest is on fire, and the smoke keeps arising, and it’s in my lungs and I feel like I just can’t breathe anymore. It’s an awful feeling loving someone who you know doesn’t love you back.

“Who’s Jolene?” Jerry asked. I forgot I never told him before. “Who the hell are you talking about, Paul?”

I snickered. Looked at Jerry, then turned towards the silver bars. Wrapped my wrinkly hands around the bars. Death row has a way of aging you, but you’re not likely to notice it. The jury steals your life. Death row steals your sanity.

The smelly guard was still standing there. Like an old and smelly lump. “Hey. Instead of standing there like a finger-happy melon, tell Jerry what I did,” I demanded.

“Well?” Jerry asked. “The hell did Paul do?”

The smelly guard paused and rolled his eyes. “Paul killed his son,” he responded. “Real charmer, ain’t you, Paul?”

II.

A good few years passed and my sanity was just about completely gone. And Jerry’s sanity had long since checked out of the hotel. I’ll never forget the time I woke up in the morning to the strangest of sights.

I rubbed my eyes to unblur my vision and Jerry was standing there with his hands wrapped around the bar, completely naked.

“Mr. Mathers. For the last time, put your clothes on,” the smelly guard snapped. “Last chance before I get in there and beat the piss out of you.”

“Does threatening people here ever really work?” I scoffed. “Would it kill you to at least once, try to be a little nicer?”

“Shut it,” Smelly Guard responded. “Don’t tell me how to do my job, Mr. Nicholson.”

My head barely turned from Smelly Guard to Jerry, when I caught the latter rushing towards me. I extended my arms to stop him but it was no good. He rammed through me like an old and saggy pickup truck. I tumbled to the cold floor.

All I could see next was him standing over me in all his nudeness. A glazed look in his eyes that told me he wasn’t all there. His fists raining up and down over my head. The blunt pain as he pounded my face in over and over again. The sound of the bars opening and the heavy smell of the guard as he tackled Jerry to the ground.

“He did this to me!” Jerry roared. “It’s his fault! Damn it, Paul. You were like a son to me.”

A couple guards escorted me to the hospital to check out my Jerry wounds. “It’s always a pleasure having you here,” Wanda, one of the nurses, smiled.

“Why is that? You like seeing me hurt?” I asked.

Wanda giggled. “Course not. A lot of people from the death row ward. I mean, my gosh.” She rolled her eyes. “They’re not easy to deal with. Let me tell you. But you…? What got you onto death row? You’re like a normal guy.”

I shook my head. “Far from it.”

“I mean, sure you are.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Do you have a gun?”

“…?”

“I mean, at home,” I clarified. “Do you own a gun, that you have at your house.”

The nurse slowly shook her head. “No, I mean—”

“Can you imagine what it feels like to aim a gun towards another person’s skull?” I asked, raising my voice. “Can you imagine what that feels like? To pull the trigger and watch as their life ends all because of you. I mean, I did that to my son. The kid I gave up everything to raise.”

“Well, you know—”

“The kid I was supposed to take care of for the rest of my life, I made sure that he has no life. That’s what I did.”

“Paul, you’re scaring me,” Wanda said. “You need to calm down.”

I spun around and kicked the wall of the doctor’s office, clutching my temples, foaming at the mouth in anger as the last of my sanity ran out my lips. “Then don’t call me normal! God! Normal people don’t shoot their kids in the heart!”

I lost it. I stomped towards Wanda and swung back my fist.

“Security! Security!”

Thankfully, a guard tackled me before my fist could even come close to her skin. They dragged me out of the office like the animal that I was.

Despite my self-pity and self-deprecation, I don’t actually consider myself to be that bad of a guy. At least not compared to some of the monsters walking the world. Hitting a woman was a line I would usually never cross, but the fact is that death row takes away your sanity to the point where those lines don’t even exist anymore. Regardless, trying to put my hands on that nurse was one of the biggest regrets I’ll ever have.

Needless to say the next time I went to the clinic it was in cuffs and a straightjacket, with Smelly Guard hovering above me.

Speak of the devil, I’ll never forget the next time I returned to my cell that afternoon. “Don’t know what your problem is,” the smelly guard snickered. “But I’m going to beat it out of you.”

“I think we both know by now that you’ll never put a finger on me,” I responded.
The smelly guard rolled his eyes. We turned down a dark alleyway, ignoring the sounds of cursing prisoners and flushing toilets and walked towards the cell. The guard outside the cell had his back turned towards us. The guard on the inside of the cell – who was supposed to be holding Jerry down so he couldn’t escape while the cell opened – was instead standing atop of Jerry.

The smelly guard stood with his mouth hung open, seemingly at a loss for words. “Partner?” he called to the guard inside the cell. “Partner, what happened?”

The guard inside the cell looked dumbfounded. “Rick. Jerry just died right in front of me,” he responded.

The old man had gotten his wish.

III.

It was a scenario all too common. Most death row inmates don’t actually live to see the mercy seat in all its glory, but rot inside the cell before they even get a date of execution. The smelly guard, who I now knew as Rick, was there for too long, he’d seen it a thousand times and was used to it already. The guard who was inside the cell that day was only there for a few months and had never seen anything like it before.

“Why didn’t you want me to know your name before, Rick?”
He rolled his eyes. “Because I’m not your friend or pal or buddy or whatever the hell you want me to be,” he said. “I just work here. You call a pastor or teacher what they want to be called, you call me what I want to be called. And that’s sir.”

I shrugged. “Fair enough. Sir it is, sir.”

I had the cell to myself for only a couple weeks before they hauled someone else in there to live with me. A young woman by the name of Lauren. A rare breed in the cold aisles of death row.

“I don’t belong here, I don’t belong here, I don’t belong here,” she repeatedly muttered to herself, shivering and clutching her shoulders. “It’s not fair. It’s not fair at all. Those men. Those filthy, disgusting pigs. Those men.”

I asked Rick a couple times what her deal was, but he never told me. One day though, he finally caved while Lauren was out in the showers.

“Look you asshole,” he scoffed. “Lauren is a serial killer. She killed seven men in a row in the span of a year. You happy now?”
He started to storm off. “Wait, sir,” I said.

He stopped and turned around, faced towards my cell. “What the hell do you want now?”

I sighed. I didn’t get it. Years of abuse from this guy, and I still didn’t get it. “Why are you so mean to me, sir?” was all I could think to ask.

Right then and there. He looked like he was about to yell, but coughed and held it in. He instead threw his hands on his hips and tilted his head. “You killed your son,” Rick said.

My mouth hung open, and I could feel my face reddening at the sharp sting of his words. “You don’t even—”

“I don’t care how you want to spin it, I don’t care what you think you did right or wrong,” Rick said, shaking his head. “I’ve been here long enough. I’ve heard it all, man. The fact is, you’re a criminal. You’ve been found guilty, and I’m just here to do my job. I’m not here to be your friend. You want to be treated with respect? You shouldn’t have done the crime. If you don’t want to deal with my ornery ass? File an appeal. Get taken off of death row and spend the rest of your life in the other part of the prison.”

I shook my head. Watched as Rick took deep and heavy breaths. “I can’t file an appeal,” I responded with a gulp. “I did it. I killed my son.”

“Then we don’t have anything to talk about,” Rick said.

Six months passed, and Lauren was starting to get insufferable. I couldn’t even talk to her like I could with Jerry, or she’d scream about how I was attacking her and Rick would threaten to shove his fist down my throat or something along those lines.

I was staring blankly towards the steel floor when I felt her shove me from behind.

“What was that for?” I asked, collecting my balance.

Lauren scoffed, moving her dirty hair out of her eyes. “I don’t need a reason to fight back against you,” she said. “Scumbag.”

“I’m a scumbag?” I laughed. “Which one of us is the serial killer again?”

She gasped. “Hey! Every one of those men I killed was because they attacked me. Nobody believed me but it’s true. They all put their hands on me, so I fought back.”

What scared me was that she really believed what she was saying. Not that it was possible that every single one of those men put their hands on her, but she actually thought they did. There was something not right in her head.

“Help! Paul is attacking me!” she started screaming.

She’d do that from time and time.
“Help! Guards! Guards! Paul just hit me again.”

She did that a lot.

“Paul is choking me. I can’t breathe! Help, help!”

Over the months, the guards got tired of her screaming that I was attacking her when they knew good and well I didn’t lay a finger on her. They put her in a whole new cell, leaving me all by my own.

Then I realized something. I had no one left to talk to. Lauren may have been a bit off her rocker, but at least she was somebody. Somebody I could turn to and vent a little bit if I had something on my mind. Now I had no one.

I miss Lauren.

IV.

The years came and went, and there were less and less faces I recognized compared to the ones that were unfamiliar. I had a few cellmates come and go, but they all wound up dead in one way or another. It eventually got to the point where the only person I recognized anymore was Rick, and ironically enough he became my only friend left. And sure enough, by now my sanity was completely gone. Some days it was easier. Some days were nightmares.

“God! Help! Help!” I shouted, jumping to my feet. “Help me! Please. Help. I’m being attacked.

The cell was empty besides from me. Dark. Cold. Confusing. Two unfamiliar guards scrambled in front of the bars. “What’s wrong, Mr. Nicholson?”

I shook my head in a frenzy. “I don’t know who you two are,” I shuddered. “I don’t know who you two are. I don’t…please. Please, where is Rick?”

The guards looked at each other confused. “I need Rick!” I shouted. “I need him now. Get him for me.”

One guard rolled his eyes, heading back through the dank alleyway. Minutes later, Rick approached my cell, still in his uniform. His hair was now thin and gray and his forehead was crinkled. He put his hands on his hips and tilted his head.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Something bothering you? You need to see the doctor?”

I shook my head. “No. No. No. When…when are they going to do it?”

“Do what?”

“Kill me!” I clasped my hands around the bars and gritted my teeth. “The damn mercy seat.”

Rick snickered. “If you swear at me again, my fists will show you a mercy seat on your rear end, that’s what.”

“That doesn’t help,” I whimpered. Sweat was oozing down my forehead and I could hardly breathe. “Please. You have to do something.”

“You’re fine,” Rick said. “There’s nothing I can do for you.”

I shuddered. “No. No. You have to.”

He sighed. A long, deep sigh. “I’m sorry,” he said, before walking away. “I really am.”

It was the first time I’d ever heard him apologize.

At this point I’d go weeks without remembering anything. I’d just black out. Like I was going to sleep for a long, long time, but then I woke up again. The next time I remember seeing Rick was a few weeks later, and my state of my mind was a lot better than our previous encounter.

“How’s it going, buddy?” he asked me.

I flinched. My tired eyes widened. “Buddy? You…you’ve changed.”

Rick shrugged. I might’ve even seen him crack a smile. “No I haven’t.”

I started to hyperventilate. “How are things back at home?” I asked quickly. “Are you married?”

“Married? No.”

“You have any kids?”

Rick giggled like a schoolboy. “Well…actually, yeah. Yeah. I do have a kid,” he admitted. “I adopted a fifteen-year-old boy named Rolan just a couple months ago.”

“Teenager, huh?”

“Yeah.” Rick sighed. “You know. Most people don’t want to adopt a teenager. They want infants, real young kids. But I guess somebody has got to do it right?”

“Yeah. You’re right.”
Rick tilted his head. “Well, my only concern was also that I’m a little too old. I’m turning sixty next week.”

“Happy birthday,” I said.

“Thanks,” Rick responded after a brief pause. “So anyway, I worried that I wouldn’t be well enough to take care of my kid when he’s over.”

“Well, but, Rolan will be an adult in a few years, right?”

“Exactly!” Rick exclaimed. “And he’s a good kid. Really good kid. Doesn’t smoke, doesn’t do drugs. Just likes the outdoor stuff. Really his big thing is guns.”

“Guns, damn it.” I clutched my temples.

Rick rose an eyebrow. “What’s the matter?”

My heart was pounding. My breath was heavier than the thousand bricks that made up this house of the deserted. My legs were shaking. I think my head was smoking.

“Eye for an eye,” I said. “Eye for an eye.”

“Calm down,” I heard Rick say after I closed my eyes. “Come on, Paul. Relax a little bit.”

“Tooth for a tooth.”

“Paul!”
I felt my legs gave out, and I heard the devil whisper.

It all came back to me in a flash of time.

V.

It all started on a cold and windy Christmas morning. I could hear the light tapping of water splashing outside my window, as well as dogs howling loudly in the distance. I sat up in bed and stretched my arms, and for the final time in my life, I can honestly say that I felt fine. I can honestly say that I felt like I was alive.

My wife was in the living room, slumped on the couch with her eyes folded, staring out blankly towards the empty walls. “Morning,” I said. “Merry Christmas.”

She didn’t respond.

“Is Gunner home?”

She laughed. “How did I know that’d be the third sentence of your morning?”

I winced. “Look, Jolene. You know he’s not right in the head—”

“That’s just it.” She rose to her feet. Stomped towards the door and slipped her shoes on. “That’s it. I’m done.”

I watched as she grabbed her keys from the hangar. “You really think I’m being paranoid?” I shouted as she wrapped her hand around the doorknob. “Gunner is a lunatic. I’m worried about that girlfriend of his.”

My son Gunner had been dating a girl named Taylor for about five years, off-and-on. She was real young, and real nice. Overall, she was real pleasant to be around, and she kind of girl who wouldn’t hurt a fly. She was too scared to. But I knew Gunner beat her up constantly. I could see it in her eyes when they were near each other. Jolene never believed me, but I knew. He was abusive.

“I don’t want to see you again unless you have divorce papers in your hands,” Jolene said before slamming the door shut. She thought I was just being paranoid, but I knew better than that.

And I was proven right when the phone rang. God I wish I didn’t pick it up.

Heavy breathing. Silence on the other line.

Finally, a faint whisper.

Help me, Mr. Nicholson.

At this point, I wasn’t a convicted criminal yet so there was only one person on the face of the earth who called me Mr. Nicholson. It was Taylor. I dropped the phone and scrambled to my car, still in pajamas with the TV remote still in my pocket. I slammed on the gas and grabbed my gun from the glovebox.

Gunner’s car was parked outside Taylor’s house. Just like I figured. She was only twenty-three but she lived alone. And she was always too timid to defend herself. I had to do it.

I ran into the house with my pistol raised. Gunner was standing in the kitchen. Taylor was on the floor.

Gunner pointed his pistol towards her, then switched it towards me.

“Just drop it,” I said, my hands trembling. “Please. Come on, Gunner. Don’t do this to her. She doesn’t deserve it.”

“She deserves everything that happens to her,” Gunner yelled, pointing his gun back towards her head. “The slut is cheating on me. I know she is.”

“Please. Please, make him stop,” Taylor whimpered. “I don’t want to die. Help me…”

Gunner and I locked eyes. I was trembling, but he was standing firm. Like this wasn’t even unusual to him. He’d done this to her a hundred times. He’d threatened her so many times. He’d beaten the snot out of her so many times, like it was second nature to him. It was disgusting. And that’s when I realized, this wasn’t my son. And it’s not even a man or woman thing. Anyone who does this to someone, boy or girl, man or woman, I don’t consider you family.

Everything became razor-focused. I started seeing things in slow motion.

His head bobbed towards her.

His finger gripped the trigger.

His muscles tightened.

He started to squeeze.

I couldn’t let him.

I fired several times. Listened to the loud booms of death, and the gun fell from my hands, and I fell to my knees.

And I started to cry.

Paul refused to plead innocent by third party self-defense, but instead pleaded guilty of first degree murder, convincing himself that his killing of Gunner was wrong no matter how the circumstances. His death row sentence was overturned to life in prison when capital punishment was outlawed nationwide on January 1st, 2027.

The End