It's Good To Touch the Green, Green Grass of Home

Everything was loud and quiet at the same time. The air was deathly still as everyone waited for the jury to finish deliberating. The ticking clock on the courtroom’s wall sounded like miners’ pickaxes against solid rock and I could hear the rush of my own blood in my ears like the waters of the mighty roaring Niagara Falls. My heart beat as deafeningly as a battering ram against an ancient castle’s wooden gates. My pulse raced like a thousand charging cavalries in battle. Despite the cold airconditioned room, I felt sweat form under my hairline. A drop of perspiration slid down my forehead and I blinked as it fell on my eyelashes and into my eyes. I removed my eyeglasses, wiped my fevered brow with a handkerchief from my pocket, looked in the direction of the door leading to the jury room, drew in a breath, and let it out of my mouth. Then I reached for my client’s shoulder and gave it a firm reassuring squeeze. I wasn’t sure if the gesture was more for him or for me.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of waiting, the seven men and five women who held my client’s life in their hands emerged from the jury room and quietly filed back to their seats.

“Will all parties please rise?” Judge Charles Gonzales asked. My client and I stood, along with the DA and deputy DA. “Has the jury reached a unanimous verdict?”

There it was, the moment of truth.

“We have, Your Honor,” the foreman answered, handing their verdict over to the clerk. Judge Gonzales wore his reading glasses and scanned the paper, reading silently and nodding. Then he handed it back to clerk for him to read.

“On the first count, sexual assault, we find the defendant guilty,” the clerk read and gasps and whispers spread throughout the courtroom. “On the second count, murder in the first degree, we find the defendant guilty.”

I was certain it was going to be the death penalty for my client.

“Nooooooooo!” my client’s mother screamed before fainting.

“This is a farce!” another of his staunch supporters yelled. “Mario is innocent and y’all know it!”

“Order!” Judge Gonzales shouted. “Order in the court! Sit down and shut up before I’m forced to have you thrown out of my courtroom, Mr. Solis! Now, where were we?”

“On the third count, rape, we find the defendant…guilty!” the clerk read.

The victim’s family cheered at the proclamation of the verdict while my client’s family mourned the decision. On my way out, I told my client that I would fight hard for him—tooth and nail. We may have lost a battle but the war was far from over.

Back at Hawkins, Harker & Piznarski, I went straight to work on the appeals. No rest for the wicked, as they say. I believe in my client’s innocence. It was a case, first and foremost, of mistaken identity. Second, Mario Solis was just unlucky—in the wrong place at the wrong time. My work was rudely interrupted with a knock at the door. It was my secretary, Bella.

“Hey, boss?” she asked. “I’m heading home for the night. Is that okay?”

“You may go, Bella,” I said dismissively. “I’ll be alright. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Alright,” Bella said with a shrug and a wave. “Goodnight, Mr. Piznarski!”

I waved back and resumed my work. No sooner had I returned to my work when my phone dinged with a message. It was my friends from middle school. They included me in a group chat. It was Daryl, Nikki, Jesse, Katrina, Jesse’s twin brother Joel, Michael Dallas, Nadine Snyder, and Sid Galloway. They were all in town this week and decided to have an impromptu reunion—not the whole class but just us close friends. Kat picked the place. It was a pub called The Old Fenian. I weighed my options in my head. Should I go on working into the night until I tire myself out? Or should I hang out with the old gang and drown my sorrows? Besides, I haven’t seen them in years. Except maybe Daryl, occasionally, when I had to have my Saab repaired or checked up. Daryl never left Fraser. I left and then came back to start a law firm with two other law school buddies. Finally, I decided on the latter. With a sigh, I saved my work and shut down my computer, packed my stuff, and headed for the elevator. I called for an Uber and headed to The Old Fenian.

We all embraced, talked, asked each other how life had been treating us, joked, laughed, cried, then laughed some more. I unloaded my frustrations of the week and the day and my fear that I may never be able to save my client. Toward the end of the night, Nadine suddenly turned to Nikki, bombarding her with questions about her boyfriend.

“Wait! You forgot to update me on your boyfriend,” Nadine said. “What happened? Has he proposed to you yet? Be a damn shame if he hasn’t.”

“I was thinking of dumping him,” Nikki said with a mischievous smile on her lips. “Fortunately, he got down on one knee and…”

With that, she wiggled her left fingers, showing us her ring. One by one, we all congratulated her on her engagement.

“He’s a lucky man,” I said with as false a smile as I could muster, all the muscles in my face aching in protest. “I’m so happy for you, Nik.”

“Thank you,” Nikki said, not sensing my raging jealousy.

“You’re welcome,” I said, excusing myself. “Excuse me. I’ll be right back.”

But I never went back. I left the booth and sat at the end of the bar drinking myself silly. Not only had I lost a case but my childhood sweetheart was about to get married. I had known Nadine and Nikki—Nicole—even before middle school. We’d been friends since the first grade and she was my childhood sweetheart. I drank so much that everything—sights and sounds—blurred around me. Everyone in the pub had deeply distorted voices like I’d been roofied. It felt like trying to hear underwater. It was all garbled and the world spun in slow motion. I have a vague recollection of me vomiting on the bar and people jumping out of the way to avoid my projectile. The last thing I remember was being dragged out of the bar by two men, one arm under each armpit, my legs and feet limply dragging behind. I was told later that I was drunkenly singing The False Bride. And then the darkness took over and I fainted. Either that or I fell asleep.

I woke up to the sound of an electric buzzing like a gate at a gated community being unlocked and then a grating and a clanging sound like the gate being opened. I groaned and covered my eyes with my pillow but it was snatched from me and thrown across the room. I swore and opened my eyes, squinting. Then I sat up in shock and fright. I was in a cell. A prison cell. How in Dante’s nine Hells did I get here? What was my crime? Last night, I was just at a pub drinking myself silly and licking my wounds. Why was I here? Did something happen? Had I killed someone at the pub or ran someone over? No, I distinctly remember ordering an Uber. I didn’t drive at all that night.

“Get up,” a guard said gruffly, pulling me up off my tiny little prison cot. “Time to go! It’s your turn in the Death House tonight.”

The Death House? Was I on death row? What the Hell was going on? Did I murder someone? Brutally beyond recognition? How many people had I murdered? Did I even do it? I couldn’t remember a thing!

A second guard came into the cell and helped the other guard drag me out of Death Row and into the parking lot where a van was idling to take me to what they call the Death House. This is where a death row inmate spends his last 24-48 hours before his final walk. That long green mile. I was searched for any weapons that might harm the prison guards or help me commit suicide. Honestly, that is the dumbest thing I have ever heard. Why would I try to escape death by running towards death? I’m trying to avoid dying. But I guess some of the condemned want to take matters into their own hands and not be murdered by the State.

“Stop!” I cried. “Stop! There’s obviously been a mistake! I’m not supposed to be here! I’m innocent!”

“So says everyone who’s ever been through these gates,” the first guard said.

“Tell that to your god when you meet him,” the second said with a smirk and an insulting grin. “Or to whatever devil you’ll meet in Hell.”

The drive to the Death House was a solemn one. No one spoke a word. Not me, not my two escorts, not the driver, not the extra guard sitting shotgun in the front. I thought about cracking a grim joke to break the tension hanging in the air but then I decided against it. Instead, I tried to think about what went wrong in my life. Where did I go wrong? At what point in my life did I go wrong? What had I done? I tried to think and think and think as we zoomed through freeways and sideroads, but I couldn’t. I was blanking out. I couldn’t recall anything that would have landed me in prison and death row. Maybe I just as unlucky as my client. Wrong place, wrong time, a mistaken identity, and a very flawed justice system that has long been needing an overhaul.

When we reached the Death House, I was marched off from the van to my death cell where I was to spend my last night on Earth before being forced to shuffle off my mortal coil as William Shakespeare put it. I settled into my cell and lay on the bloody uncomfortable cot, staring at the ceiling. I didn’t sleep a wink that night. I tossed and I turned, then I sat up on the edge of my bed and paced back and forth in the tiny death cell. Since I couldn’t sleep, I spent the rest of the night and the early hours of the morning writing my last farewells to friends and family. After writing some letters and poems, I lay down on my cot and hummed that classic little Irish ballad, Jim McCann’s Grace. At 4:30 in the morning, a priest named Father Daniel Quinn came by my cell to comfort me, counsel me, pray with me and for me, and to administer Last Rites. We cracked some jokes and laughed. The first time I’ve laughed since mysteriously finding myself on death row.

I spent the next hours until 8AM calling friends and loved ones and meeting with my attorneys. I told them not to fret and that they’d fought a good fight. There was nothing to forgive. They had done me no wrong. Then I made my last will and testament, leaving all my worldly physical goods to my nephew Oliver. Regarding the money I’ve made for most of my life until this point, I divided that up between my parents, my dear sister Caitlyn, and her husband Cody.

At 10:30 in the morning, I had an early lunch. It was nothing special. After all, that wasn’t my last meal yet. It was a macaroni salad and orange juice. And for dessert, I had a standard prison-issue donut with pink icing and rainbow sprinkles. As soon as I finished lunch and my tray was taken away, the warden came by to see me and slipped me a piece of paper through the bars of my cell. It was a last meal request form. I ordered crispy fried calamari and onion rings with a mayochup dipping sauce.

At 3PM, I was told to shower and change into clean clothes—a fresh, clean white t-shirt and blue jeans—not a prison jumpsuit. I was thankful for the chance to at least shower in private away from the guards’ prying eyes. I grabbed the soap, scrubbed myself clean, then I applied shampoo to my hair, massaging until a gentle foam enveloped my head. I stepped out of the shower, dried myself with the towel that was provided for me, and put on my jeans and t-shirt. At 4PM, on the dot, I was served my very last meal. At least they fulfilled my wishes—fried calamari and onion rings with a mayochup sauce.

At exactly 8PM, five guards came to take me from my cell to the death chamber where I was to lay down and die, along with the chaplain and the warden. I couldn’t help but imagine the heartbreaking sorrow my mother would be going through, watching me sleep for one last time. She watched me sleep for the first time as an infant. Maybe it was only fitting. A poetic way to frame my life. As the Master Playwright wrote in his Tempest, our little life is rounded with a sleep. At the last minute, as we approached the metal door leading to the death chamber, I tried to escape, writhing against my captors, kicking as hard as I can and screaming as loud as I can.

“You won’t take my life from me!” I protested. “I’m innocent, I tell you! Innoceeeeeeeeeeeeeeent!”

“Shut up!” one of the guards bellowed, whacking me with his nightstick and making me cough and gag. I was dragged the rest of the way there and was ordered to sit and lie down on the gurney. Having resigned myself to my fate, I willingly obeyed and lay down as the tie down team secured me to my deathbed. I was wheeled into the chamber and the catheters were inserted into both of my arms. Then the catheters were connected to tubes (which I was sure was connected to hidden IV bags somewhere in the room) that would carry the drugs used to kill me. The curtains were pulled back and I saw the gathered witnesses—reporters, families of my “victim”, their attorneys, and some State-selected witnesses. In the other witness was my family, sobbing heartbreakingly. I could not hear them but I could see them.

“Are there any last words you wish to say, Mr. Piznarski?” the warden asked me.

“Yes, I do, Warden,” I said. “I have something I would like to say. This is my worst nightmare.”