chamber he grabbed my hands and asked if we could pray, and we did. When we were done,
his face took on a distant look and then he turned to me.
“Hey, man, thank you. I know this ain’t easy for you either, but I’m grateful to you for
standing with me.”
I smiled and gave him a hug. His face sagged with an unbearable sadness.
“It’s been a very strange day, Bryan, really strange. Most people who feel fine don’t get to
think all day about this being their last day alive with certainty that they will be killed. It’s
different than being in Vietnam ... much stranger.”
He nodded at all the officers who were milling about nervously. “It’s been strange for them,
too.
“All day long people have been asking me, ‘What can I do to help you?’ When I woke up
this morning, they kept coming to me, ‘Can we get you some breakfast?’ At midday they came
to me, ‘Can we get you some lunch?’ All day long, ‘What can we do to help you?’ This
evening, ‘What do you want for your meal, how can we help you?’ ‘Do you need stamps for
your letters?’ ‘Do you want water?’ ‘Do you want coffee?’ ‘Can we get you the phone?’ ‘How
can we help you?’ ”
Herbert sighed and looked away.
“It’s been so strange, Bryan. More people have asked me what they can do to help me in
the last fourteen hours of my life than ever asked me in the years when I was coming up.” He
looked at me, and his face twisted in confusion.
I gave Herbert one last long hug, but I was thinking about what he’d said. I thought of all
the evidence that the court had never reviewed about his childhood. I was thinking about all
of the trauma and difficulty that had followed him home from Vietnam. I couldn’t help but
ask myself, Where were these people when he really needed them? Where were all of these
helpful people when Herbert was three and his mother died? Where were they when he was
seven and trying to recover from physical abuse? Where were they when he was a young teen
struggling with drugs and alcohol? Where were they when he returned from Vietnam
traumatized and disabled?
I saw the cassette tape recorder that had been set up in the hallway and watched an officer
bring over a tape. The sad strains of “The Old Rugged Cross” began to play as they pulled
Herbert away from me.
There was a shamefulness about the experience of Herbert’s execution I couldn’t shake.
Everyone I saw at the prison seemed surrounded by a cloud of regret and remorse. The prison
officials had pumped themselves up to carry out the execution with determination and
resolve, but even they revealed extreme discomfort and some measure of shame. Maybe I was
imagining it but it seemed that everyone recognized what was taking place was wrong.
Abstractions about capital punishment were one thing, but the details of systematically killing
someone who is not a threat are completely different.
I couldn’t stop thinking about it on the trip home. I thought about Herbert, about how
desperately he wanted the American flag he earned through his military service in Vietnam. I
thought about his family and about the victim’s family and the tragedy the crime created for
them. I thought about the visitation officer, the Department of Corrections officials, the men
who were paid to shave Herbert’s body so that he could be killed more efficiently. I thought