Southern Legitimacy Statement: Raised in Maryland, 10 miles from the Mason Dixon. Summered and Wintered (and more often than not Sprung and Fell) in West Virginia, where nouns are verbs and verbs are for the doin’. Drinking Costa Rican coffee, which has to count for something, if anything counts for anything.
He Keeps the Faith
I am sentenced to death on the 21st of August in the year 2017. It is 4:15 PM.
The courtroom is hot. The mechanics order a part to fix the air-conditioning and there is a delay in the shipment. It is fixed on the 27th.
Everyone in the courtroom shucks their jackets and loosens their ties and sweats and sighs and moans except for that two gawkers at the back who are excited to hear the sentence and the judge who is not excited to give it. He goes home for the night and drinks. He talks to his wife about moving to a state where he won’t have to give this sentence again. They do not move.
I am annoyed at how long it takes the judge to say the sentence and at his extemporization, “I hope God will have mercy on your soul.” God does not have mercy on my soul.
*
I die on the 26th of July in the year 1925. It is 3:06 PM. The cause of death is ruled apoplexy. The town of Dayton closes in mourning of me. My wife lives five years more and finishes my memoir.
My corpse rots in the bed of my hotel. My corpse rots in the parlor of my friend’s home. My corpse rots in the courthouse. My corpse rots in the car of a train. My corpse rots in a box in the ground in Arlington beneath a tombstone which reads, “He Kept the Faith.” My corpse rots in the bellies of worms and flies and becomes more than my corpse. My corpse is forgotten and discarded to entropy. My corpse is swallowed by the expanding sun.
*
It is the 21st of August in the year 2017. It is 1:46 PM. I am in Dayton. A cloud moves out of the way of my view of the eclipse.
I am not in a room in a courthouse in Nashville. I am not surrounded by police. I am not the object of stories written in the news. I am not who I am.
*
It is 29th of June in the year 1896. My mother has entered the unseen. The corpse of my mother rots in a coffin in a church. I bury her in a plot beside my father.
It is the 9th of July in the year 1896. I give a speech before a crowd in a colosseum. I am hoisted on their shoulders. I am nominated to be President. I do not win. The colosseum burns to the ground.
*
The jury deliberates on the 21st of August in the year 2017.
It is 12:43 PM. All court business is paused. I am moved outside. My wrists and my ankles are shackled together and I am surrounded by police. The police are surrounded by a gap before a crowd of other people who are too afraid to approach me.
I am provided a cheap pair of shaded glasses for safety that say they were made in Taiwan. I ignore them. No effort is made to stop me from looking up at the partially eclipsed sun.
At 1:27 PM totality is reached. A cloud blocks the sun and the moon and does not pass before the eclipse is over.
The streets of Nashville are plunged into darkness. The sounds of insects replace the sounds of birds. The hum of the city quiets to a murmur as people stop and stare at the sky and hope. A groan rises in the city as people see nothing but the cloud. The groan cascades out from the city’s center and into the suburbs and their suburbs and their suburbs and exurbs where it is met with the cheers of those who have a clear sky.
The moon exits from in front of the sun and at the hint of its light the night recedes. The moment of shared upward staring passes. The crowds return to their own days. The eclipse becomes images and memory.
Deliberations continue within the jury room. Most of the jury are still tired from lunch. Clark Gimel and Julia Host and Perry Cian are struck by the beauty of the moment and think about sparing me. They do not change their minds.
*
It is the 8th of June in the year 1915; The Germans have sunk us, and we have threatened to sink them in turn.
I cannot stomach these deaths. Is this what God would have us do? The cross of gold not enough, will we now be drowned in the Atlantic? I resign, Mr. President. Do it yourself.
*
I am killed on the 25th of October in the year 2029.
I am injected with midazolam. I am injected with vecuronium bromide. I am injected with potassium chloride.
My corpse is pronounced dead at 7:22 PM.
