Chapter 13

十三

I’d been friendly with Jim, the teacher who’d told me of the school’s history. He’d only mentioned it in passing, as we played basketball. I figured I should talk more with him. See what I could find out.

Jim was a teacher who’d lived in America for a number of years, played college basketball there, then played pro ball in Australia.

He spoke perfect English, with only the slightest trace of an accent. A soft-spoken, abnormally tall guy, he towered above most everyone, at 6’6, and had a strangely-sloped Christina Ricci sized forehead, cropped hair and thin black eyes; one of the eyes was sleeping, didn’t line up correctly with the other.

Jim, a local, was originally from nearby the school. He was a nice fellow too. I’d played basketball with him several times. You could see him out balling every day on the basketball courts near the teachers’ cafeteria.

I decided to approach him after a game of hoops, ask him about the school’s past.

But I found he was reticent to talk, go into much detail, as it certainly isn’t the best-selling point for the school.

After a bit of prodding, on the walk back to our building, he agreed to talk, speak to me over dinner...

We met on a chilly evening, in the far corner of the cafeteria, over a plate of steaming hot pork dumplings and ice-cold bottles of Sprite.

He looked around nervously as he talked and spoke in a quiet voice, only mouthing certain words.

He said the school paid to have most of the history of the area wiped off the internet, though a few things would inevitably pop up in a deep dive, like they usually do with the Great Firewall, which made me think of Bill Clinton having once said something to the effect of China’s internet censorship efforts being like trying to pin a glob of Jell-O to a wall using a hammer and nails...

Jim said he’d seen the prison from afar, as a child, riding on his bicycle, and more personally, he’d heard firsthand stories about it, from his uncle, a retired prison guard, who’d worked there for a time.

Jim sighed, stared at his dumplings as he talked and told me, “My uncle was there. He saw tons of executions. He said that at first the executions didn’t bother him, because they involved criminals. He saw the criminals as cockroaches, my uncle said, like, big human insects, parasites, stains on humanity. He never pulled the trigger, but he helped walk them to the grounds, tied up a few of them, their arms behind their backs, in special knots that prohibited movement.

“The only execution that bothered him was that of a guy he knew. A former classmate in middle school. They weren’t close; they were more acquaintances than friends. The guy was a poor farmer, and a decent man. He was never in trouble. The farmer was on death row because he was convicted of killing a businesswoman, a woman he didn’t even know...

“It was widely believed the real killer was the woman’s husband, who was a terrible deadbeat, a wifebeater and violent drunk; there was scant evidence against this poor farmer. And my uncle heard firsthand whispers that the drunk used his wife’s cash to bribe the cops.

“There was talk too, the farmer might have been paid to take the fall for the wifebeater, but then got cold feet, and it was too late.

Pausing, Jim drew a deep breath, looked up towards the ceiling, grew pale, like he’d just seen the farmer’s corpse.

“That one, the day of the execution, that haunted my uncle...

“My uncle said he has flashbacks to that morning, that the morning sky had this color of milk, and he’d see the farmer’s bloodshot, tortured eyes, the expression of horror on his red face, his classmate’s crying, flailing, and pleading as they had to, literally, drag him out of the jail, like an animal, and pull him, kicking and screaming, to the grounds, two guards holding up his twisting body, for the ... Ah, the poor guy, he was so upset, so afraid to die.