nterview: Richard Dale Foster, condemned to die by lethal injection at McAlester State Penitentiary, McAlester, Oklahoma, June 12 sometime after midnight, for the murder of a convenience store clerk during a robbery. I follow two guards—one white with a pot gut and bushy mustache stained by snuff, the other black, cool, chewing gum--into the interview room. The white guard keeps sniffing the air, and releasing a low belch that smells of grease and onions. The black guard, who looks a little like Samuel Jackson, wields a clipboard and pen. It is part of the execution ritual to keep detailed notes of everything the condemned says and does in his last hours. Unlike Death Row, where there is a constant clamor, this building is quiet. The hallways echo footsteps. A sense of imposed bureaucratic solemnity pervades the senses. If this were death row, there would be a reverberating serenade, a primal symphony of condemned men using the instruments at hand: rattling the doors to their cells, clanking hard objects against the bars, stomping their feet, clapping their hands, keeping a rhythm going, chanting, vocalizing fiery raps, gang slogans, Indian war cries. The inmates do this every time a convict is set to die. "Sometimes," a grizzled guard told me on one occasion, "it sounds like some primitive kind of music."

"It’s the sound of rage against death," I had replied, thinking of Dylan Thomas’ poem. "That’s as primitive as it gets." The dying of the light. Once you’ve heard it, you hear it for a life sentence—inside your head. The music usually continues unabated until the man is executed.

Richard Dale Foster stands up to greet me. His hands have been unshackled, but he doesn’t offer a handshake. He is about five ten, wiry build, leathery skin pale from his incarceration, with tattoos up and down both arms above the indentations from the shackles. He is dressed in a white sleeveless Tee shirt and black slacks. My eyes are drawn to one of the tattoos on his upper arm, a large heart with "Mother" lettered in the center of it. Crudely stitched underneath the point of the heart is the word fucker--an afterthought, apparently. When I look Richard Foster in the eye he gives me a piercing look that I take as a challenge. I return the stare full-bore but without any provocation in it, and he smiles and winks. He has a nervous twitch at the corner of his right eye. His dark, deep-set eyes are bloodshot with dark circles underneath. They seem to absorb light rather than reflect it. His thin, sandy hair is combed back on the sides, mussed on top, as if he has been tousling it with his hand. His bushy Elvis-style sideburns reach the bottom of his ear lobes. He is clean-shaven otherwise, sallow-faced, with acne pockmarks along both jaw lines. His jaw muscles keep tensing like heartbeats. I sit down in the gray metal chair, and open my briefcase. I place my tiny recorder on the gray metal table, and introduce myself as I extract my notes, pen, and legal pad.

Since I have only been allowed fifteen minutes, I quickly dispense with formalities and proceed with the first and most obvious question.

Me: Richard, why did you shoot Tyler Reavis, the convenience store clerk?

Him: Boy, you don’t beat around the bush, do you? (sighs) Mama said you didn’t—that’s why she liked you. The five hundred dollars probbly didn’t hurt none either. (He snickers) I’ll tell you what I told everybody else including myself. I don’t know why I done it. It was like I was watchin’ myself do it, know what I mean? Like from a long ways away down inside myself. Hell, I don’t even remember pullin’ the trigger. I blacked out for a second and when I saw that boy layin’ there and the blood streamin’ from his head, I started screamin’ for help—that’s no joke, you can see me screamin’ on the tape from the surveillance camera. Man, I was so fucked up on crank and beer that night I could have done pretty near anything. I could have assassinated the president if he’d been in Broken Bow, Oklahoma that night, workin’ in that Stop’N’Go. Hell, Jesus could have been behind that cash register and I wouldn’t have recognized him. I’d a thought he was the Devil, sure enough. I really don’t believe in killin’. That’s the gospel truth. I know it sounds funny comin’ out of a convicted killer’s mouth, but there it is. There it is.

Me: So you blame the drugs?

Him: Naw, man, I blame myself. I’m explainin’ it to ya, how it was. If I hadn’t been doin’ the drugs, it wouldn’t have happened, that’s a fact—but no one put a gun to my head and made me shoot up that crystal methamphetamine and drink a case of beer. Everybody is always wantin’ to know why bad things happen—like there’s an explanation for everything. Well, shit, I don’t believe that. Sometimes bad things just happen."

Me: Come on, Richard. Do you really believe that?

Him: You bet your ass I believe that. Sometimes things just happen like they were meant to happen. You ask any of the cons in here and they’ll tell you the same thing.

Me: Maybe that’s because it’s a convenient cop-out.

Him: Maybe. (He draws back a corner of his mouth and makes a clicking sound). I know a man should enter his house justified—that’s what the Bible says. A man can convince himself to believe any damn thing. But I wish I could know the damn truth before I die. Hell, I’d face it. I may be a lot of things, but I ain’t no chickenshit. I know a little bit about that predestination crap and so on, and now scientists are sayin’ there might be some kind of genetic flaw in perpetual offenders like me, but what it all seems to boil down to is bad timing and carelessness. You know, some people just can’t dance.

(Pauses. Watches me intently as I make notes.)

Him: Tell’em I’m better lookin’ in person. Those newspaper photos make me look like the south end of a northbound mule.

(I glance up and he grins. I notice the broken incisor that has turned brown. While I’m writing he lights a Camel unfiltered cigarette and takes a deep drag. After only a few puffs the smoke fills up the small room.)

Him: Helps my nerves. I know these things are bad for your health but I been smokin’ since I was nine. (chuckles). Hell, I probbly got lung cancer. This lethal injection might be a blessin’ in disguise.

Me: So you couldn’t dance, Richard?

Him: Oh, I could do the twist, but I couldn’t do the Macarena (guffaws). Naw, I tell ya, I was born with two left feet and a white boy’s rhythm when it came to walkin’ on the right side of the law. Come by it naturally, too. (His face is angled downward, but he peers up at me for emphasis. It reminds me of a look I’ve seen from James Dean in his movies).

Me: You’re talking about your family history?

Him: You know it, man. Sprung from the bad luck seed. When I was eight years old, my grandpa shot my daddy and killed him. He was dead drunk at the time and when he sobered up and realized what he done, he hung himself in the county jail with his overall strap. My ole grandpa was a good old man, I’m tellin’ ya, as good an old man as there was. He had no intention of killin’ my daddy. It wasn’t no ordinary accident. It just happened.

And when I was twelve some friends of mine took me along with’em down to the river one night. We had built this raft out of boards and tires and shit and we were going to float down the river a ways in the dark. Kind of like ole Huckleberry motherfuckin’ Finn—Hey, don’t quote that last comment, okay? I been around the bruthas too much. On death row the bruthas are the majority, know what I’m sayin’?

Me: I know what you’re saying.

Him: Well, ole Red Carmichael had some kind of pills his Mama took to keep her from offin’ herself, and he spread’em around. Fore ya know it, we’s all laughin’ and wizzin’ in the water, just actin’ generally goofy. Well, wouldn’t ya know it, ole Red was takin’ a wiz and he fell backwards into the water and just disappeared. Nobody could do nothin’. Couldn’t even see him it was so dark out that night. We shined a flashlight around and one of the boys jumped in with a rope tied around him. Hell, I couldn’t swim worth a flip or I would have. Never heard a peep outa him. They didn’t find his body for a week. Good ole Red. That wasn’t no ordinary accident, neither. It just happened.

Mama had a wreck one time when I was fourteen and liked to killed herself. She ran into a bulldozer parked alongside the road. Said she didn’t see it cause the reflectors were splattered with mud. Ole gal that was with her got thrown clear through the windshield. Decapitated her on the bulldozer blade, they said. They said Mama was drunk but she said she’d been sipping cough syrup and I know for a fact she had a bad cold. Now who could have predicted that? It’s just another freak happenin’. They kept Mama in jail for a while on that one. She said the jailer raped her, but I don’t know if it’s true or not. My Mama is about two hundred pounds of pure hellfire.

Me: What about the time you shot your best friend in the head? Did that just happen?

Him: I’m glad you asked me that, cause that was the freakest happenin’ of all. It was tragic, man. Leroy was my best friend of all time. I loved that sucker. The only guy I ever knew who didn’t have one bit of meanness in him. I’d have killed for him, I really would have.

Me: Would you have died for him? That sounds a bit more Christ-like.

Him: Sure. Sure. I would have hauled a cross up to Calvary and driven in the first nail myself if it would have saved Leroy… (pauses)

Me: Go ahead, please. We don’t have much time.

Him: It’s kind of hard to talk about. We were having a grand ole time, I guarantee you with no trouble in mind. Sittin’ on the hood of Leroy’s car, smokin’ cigarettes and shootin’ at bats that come flyin’ out of that big limestone cave there in the Cookson Hills where the outlaws used ta hang out. We were sippin’ a little I.W. Harper, too, but neither one of us was drunk. Anyway, I shot at a bat and I guess I got a little close to Leroy’s head.

Me: It went in the base of his skull and severed his spinal cord.

Him: I never was very good with guns. That’s no joke.

Me: (giving him a hard look) It paralyzed him. He lost his ability to speak.

Him: (gets a stricken look) Yep, I know it. I visited him. He blinked at me like he forgive me. Now let’s change the subject, if you don’t mind. (eyes tearing up).

Me: Was that the first time you were sent to jail?

Him: Uh huh. Sent me to Juvie. That’s where I got my trainin’.

Me: Training?

Him: Yeah, I learned to use a shank (he goes ‘whish, whish, whish’ as he traces a Z in the air with his hand as if it contains a blade), hide drugs in my poop chute, shim a winda, hot wire a car, scrub a lock—

Me: Scrub a lock?

Him: Yeah, it’s a pickin’ technique usin’ torque and pressure. Man, it’s an art. I was okay at it, not great. I ain’t real scientific and my hands were too nervous to be a master.

Me: What’s the secret to hiding drugs in your—

Him: Poop chute? Oh, that’s easy. Just stick’em in a good latex condom, pucker up, greaser up, and shover up. Don’t swallow any sharp objects at suppertime.

Me: And let’s see, your first arrest as an adult was for stealing a fifty thousand dollar tractor?

Him: From a rich ass farmer that lived like Elvis. Hell, the sheriff was on his way out to his place to play cards! You believe that shit? Talk about bad timing! That tractor had a tinted cab, tape deck, squawk box, air conditioning, a fancy seat. Bout the only thing it didn’t have was a shitter. That’s how the sonofabitch caught me. I was takin’ a dump by the side of the road when he drove by. Had to wipe my bottom with Johnson grass while he held a shotgun on me. I should've just went on down the road with shit in my britches.

Me: And they gave you two years in the El Reno Reformatory, correct?

Him: Yeah, those were the bad ole days. I never had no good ole days.

Me: Richard, I only have a few minutes left for my interview. In oh, about five hours from now, you’re going to draw your last breath on this earth. What are your feelings about it? Are you afraid?

Him: (He looks down suddenly. His breathing becomes more rapid. He shakes his head and clears his throat. His voice comes out in a slurring mumble.) Well, Jesus, man, what do you think?

Me: Are you religious?

Him: In my own way I am. I believe in a lot of the Bible, not all of it. I don’t believe in any of that church bullshit, bunch of hypocrites sinnin’ six days a week and all holy roly on Sunday.

Me: Do you believe you will go to heaven?

Him: No, I’m goin’ down to the Rock Creek Cemetery and lie down for a spell (chuckles). I think heaven and hell is in your mind. That’s what this fag on death row told me one time. He was a college professor or somethin’. Shot his boyfriend for wagglin’ his tail at somebody. I ain’t got nothin’ against fags. Nothin’ against jigs or spiks, either. Nothin’ against nobody. Be sure and put that down.

Me: I will.

Him: And I sure don’t have nothin’ against that store clerk’s family even though they’ve said they’d like to torture me in front of my mother. One of’em said he’d like to rub honey all over me and stake me to an ant bed.

Me: Do you blame them for hating you?

Him: (shrugs, shakes his head no) But it ain’t gonna bring their boy back. All hate does is make you hate more. It feeds on itself. I’m an expert on hate. I don’t hate nobody no more. One thing about knowin’ you’re goin’ to die, you drop the shit from your mind and heart that don’t matter real quick. I’m as pure a soul right now as there is on this planet. I ain’t sayin’ it’s of my own doin’, but it’s true. I ain’t got any lies in me, ain’t got any hate, ain’t got any bad feeling’s at all. All I really feel is sadness. For me, partly, I’ll admit, but a lot for that boy’s family who never got to see him finish college, get married, and have kids. I sometimes catch myself imagining what his life would have been like (suddenly his eyes light up and he grows animated). You know what would be tremendously wonderful? If my dying would bring that boy back to life! I’d go for that in a second! In a second, boy! Now if there was a god with a capital G like a lot of these holier than thou types believe in, why wouldn’t he have sense enough to do something like that?

Me: I don’t know.

Him: (A look of disgust crosses his face and he slumps in his chair.) You know there’s a big difference between fuck-up murderers like me and sociopaths. I’ve never met a fuck-up killer that wasn’t sorry for what he did. It ain’t for me to say but I don’t think fuck-ups should be executed. I ain’t sayin’ I should ever get out, but I oughta be able to do somethin’ inside the system. Be a guinea pig or something. Try out some AIDS drugs and shit like that. Be of some use to society. And they oughta make the living conditions fit for humans. Twenty-four hours a day in a five by nine cell with no natural light or fresh air—man, that would be cruel and unusual even for Hannibal what’s-his-name. That guy that wanted to eat Jodie Foster. Hey, that sounded kind of dirty, didn’t it?

(The black guard finishes a flurry of writing, slaps the clipboard against his leg and jangles his keys. Time's up, he says.)

Me: One last question, Richard.

Him: Yes sir, I hope I’ve been some help to ya. I sure ain’t been no help to myself.

Me: You have. Your words may provoke a lot of discussion. Do you have a final statement prepared?

Him: Sure do. I’ve had it prepared for a couple of years (eyes tearing up again). That fag helped me (stands up). Well, see ya. Tell’em I ain’t no monster. If you’re a good enough writer, you ought to be able to convince ’em of that. Don’t ya think?

Me: (with a nod) I'll try.

Him: I’m payin’ the price and tryin’ to keep my dignity. Richard Dale Foster will no longer be a menace. Richard Dale Foster will no longer be. Hell, I’m so sick of piddlin’ I’ll be glad to get it over with (groans, chest begins to heave.) No, I won’t. (He turns away and jerks his head at the guard, a signal to get me out of there.)

They sequester me in the law library. Richard Foster’s mother has decided not to witness the execution. Even though I am almost a complete stranger, she has pleaded with me (over the phone in the warden’s office where I had been interviewing him) to be there in her stead. She is obviously drunk. I have gone to the men’s room and swallowed a Valium that my wife slipped in my pocket in case I got stressed out.

Fifteen minutes after midnight, I am summoned to a narrow rectangular room where I will view the execution. There are three tiers of chairs, 12 in each row. The first row, nearest the four thick windows that look onto the death chamber, is reserved for the inmate's witnesses. The second row is reserved for reporters. The top row, which is partitioned off by a wall and darkened glass, is for the family of the victim. Blinds cover the windows into the execution room. On my left, as I enter, is a phone to the governor's office. To the right is a second phone, which goes inside the death chamber.

Besides me, there are eight other witnesses, including Tyler Reavis’s parents and brother, who were introduced to me earlier by the warden. Behind the tinted glass I see the mother and father standing, holding hands. The mother is crying. The father has his head bowed in prayer. The brother is sitting, reading a newspaper. On the second row, there are two other reporters; one from Tulsa, one from Oklahoma City. There are three men in the front row, officials appointed by the warden.

I sit down next to a distinguished looking man reading a copy of "People" magazine. He gives me a nod and goes back to his article on Julia Roberts.

I review my notes on the process. Two intravenous lines are inserted in each arm before he reaches the execution chamber. When the signal is given, the drugs are injected sequentially by hand held syringe into the intravenous lines, alternating between the two lines. Sodium Thiopental causes unconsciousness. Pancuronium Bromide stops respiration. Potassium Chloride stops the heart. Saline is also injected after each drug is injected. Three executioners are utilized, with each one injecting one of the drugs. This is a very efficient killing of a living, breathing human being. A man convicted of a capital offense. A man whose death the victim’s family will celebrate. A man who should have learned to dance.

A woman who is the associate director of the state corrections department enters the room and speaks into the governor's phone to check for any last-minute stay. Then she puts the other receiver to her ear. "Proceed with the execution," she tells the Warden, who is standing behind the glass. The blinds rise. The execution room is still empty. At twelve-thirty they bring him in, already lying on the gurney. The microphone that extends from the wall over his head picks up his words-- "Where is he?" (over the wall-mounted speakers his voice sounds like an order taker at a drive-through)--and then he sees me. He waves off the chaplain and gives me a thumb up and then quickly turns it down. He smirks. It’s the first time I’ve seen that look on his face and I regret it for him. After the executioners hook him up, the warden asks him if he has any last words. He clears his throat and begins a long, rambling apology to Reavis’ family, a lot of it similar to what he said to me. He’s had four years on death row to rehearse. Then he raises his head up slightly and turns sideways to meet my gaze. "Tell Mama I understand. Don’t blame her a bit. And tell her I love her even if she is crazy." He clears his throat again. He quotes a mishmash of Bible passages, ending with three lines from Corinthian’s, I think. "Love is patient. Love is kind. Love never fails." Then he says, "Let’s rock and roll, Warden."

"Let the execution begin," the Warden says.

As the drugs are injected, Richard Dale Foster begins to sing, his voice hoarse and faltering. I recognize it as an old Hank Williams song: "Hear that lonesome whippoorwill, he sounds too blue to fly, the moon just went behind the clouds, and I’m so lonesome I could cry. The silence of a falling star, lights up a purple…" Before he can sing "sky," he gasps as if in surprise and then shudders; his eyes roll and then close halfway. His lips vibrate and his head falls to the side. The doctor comes over and puts his stethoscope to Richard Dale Foster’s chest. He looks at the warden and whispers the word "dead." Then he looks at the clock and announces the time: 12:46.

Even through the glass of the partition above me, I can hear Tyler Reavis’s mother say, "amen." I turn around and I can see her lips move as she repeats it silently, again and again.