Mwasi was expecting a visit from his legal team working on his appeal. His pro bono lawyer was a Chicana named Susanna Dominguez. She was brilliant, a firebrand child of the 1960’s revolutionary generation. Despite being a little older with streaks of silver in her hair, she had an angelic face and for both of them it was love at first sight. Their romance had been instant, from the day they met in 1984 she had filled his thoughts. Being condemned was a hard pill to swallow, but having someone work tirelessly interviewing witnesses, trying to find legal recourse gave him his only hope. They had to send coded letters to not be found out. He wrote her exquisite poems, endless little notes. She would send him books magazines and love letters under her alias Gwen Stacy, a reference to Spiderman comics.

At mail call the Watch Commander Holiday came to present some heavy news. Coming on the condemned tier always got a cacophony from the look out in cell one. “Man Walking” was their parody of the death row escort announcement when they were pulled from their cells for execution, “Dead Man Walking.” Holiday was stern but fair and kept a decent rapport with Mwasi. Despite suspecting the romance he never reported it or interfered in the politics of Death Row where rivals had to be segregated on yard.

Watch Commander Holiday turned a blind eye to prune and gambling but draws the line at weapons manufacturing or hits. Their friendly banter was not the tone of the day. With a heavy heart Holiday delivered the fateful news. Mwasi knew something was terribly wrong by his demeanor. Holiday passed a note with the info of her death. Holiday said he was sorry and he was going to be on shift if Mwasi wanted an ear for support.

Mwasi’s mind was racing. Thinking his current appeal was denied and execution date moved up with the new Republican governor. He might have even preferred that to hearing the love of his life was gone. The first woman he met who wasn’t a toxic head case or paranoid drug addict. He tried to say something but his words caught in his throat. He almost broke down but maintained a stoic demeanor. Unable to control tears he turned towards the window and gave a thumbs up.

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Holiday exited the condemned section. Hearing the gates slam shut, mechanical gears of the mechanism sliding closed sounded so violent. His ears rang and the cheers of sports, jeers of momma jokes and j-cats mumbling madness was disturbing to him. Every sound like a bullet hitting his soul. Mwasi thought about the writing term, “dark night of the soul.” He had lost many of his closest homies, both his parents but this was heavy. He remembers the first time he really felt sick from a death, the day they announced Jimi Hendrix death. It was like reality became unreal. Suddenly he felt like his life was a movie and the screen writer kept trying to rip out his soul.

Mwasi realizes he is still holding a drawing he had made for Susanna. It was a beautifully rendered drawing of her and her mother standing bellow Half Dome at Yosemite, from a picture she had sent him years before. His tears distorted the shading on the drawing. He involuntarily crunched the artwork. They had talked about moving to the Sierras if he got out. They had talked endlessly about his case, his son’s case and the corrupt Sheriffs of the South West division who would block any evidence to his innocence. All for nothing, there was no way that he could build a compelling difference with a brand new legal team.

None of that mattered, at that moment all his will to live flowed out of him like tears in the rain. He began crafting a letter that outlined how he planned to withdraw his plea and asks for the execution date to be moved up as soon as possible. He felt a relief in the situation he was in. He knew he didn’t have the will to kill himself and knew damn well none of his enemies in here were capable of besting him in a knife fight. When Holiday did his final count, Mwasi gave him the letter to pass on to the Warden and California Supreme Court. Holiday read it and looked at him with a sympathetic eye before leaving the Condemned Unit.