Publicly

This is Fiction

There was no election; it was a referendum. The state legislature called for a consensus on the manner and form of how an execution was to be performed. The courts had done their job, the jury too. The man who assassinated that YouTuber was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death under our state’s law.

Them’s the law… As my daddy used to say.

But Neil McCuigan went door to door with a petition not twenty four hours after the verdict was carried out and tried to get everyone’s signature on the list to present to the governor. He wanted the kid hung, or at least removed from society in a public capacity. Currently, and I had to find this out due to the general discourse around town, most executions took place in a special ‘executioner’s room’. It used to be a chamber. Before any of that, I think it was a barn off the east wing of any correctional facility.

But the act itself had been coded and recoded and now it was state law that the sentence be carried out on correctional facility property. Well, Neil was outraged at that. You see to him, it wasn’t enough that the boy got what was coming to him, according to Neil’s estimation of things… nah, Neil wanted the kid publicly hanged, and if that couldn’t be achieved, he at least wanted the sentence to be carried out publicly, no matter what the manner of removal was.

“Bring ya kids, bring ya loved ones…. They have to see what happens to terrorists and leftists in this country. They have to know that this is what we think of lefty commie bastards!” he’d say when he knocked on your door.

There was a town hall some two weeks before the vote. The mayor spoke, the governor spoke, Neil spoke… the longest. He got the loudest reaction from those in attendance. I remember talking with Nancy later that night, wondering if he would use his newfound local fame to make a bid to run for mayor. Wouldn’t surprise us if he did.

They all spoke, they all put forward a case as to why this kid should be publicly killed. Everyone was in agreement, no one spoke against. The vote was to go ahead anyway, because the governor was not convinced that the signatures Neil had amassed was evidence of a widespread majority in favour. He received a loud jeer when he told the crowds this at the town hall. The boos echoed off the walls of the high school basketball court. Neil booed the loudest.

“He shot that boy in cold blood on our famous university campus! He made our kids scared to go out and be young. He gave our young people a bad name! Now no one wants to socialise! No one wants to hang out in our bars and coffee shops and restaurants and our malls. These kids are all traumatised! He’s given them all PTSD! Well since we all got PTSD from the sight of this brutal killing! I say we continue with our bad dreams just a little bit longer and make one more to add to the mix. What’s the harm? Am I right folks?! You’re already scarred from what we seen when he killed that boy, let’s close the book on this kid and have him off’d in the same way,. Death by firing squad I say!”

A cheer erupted.

“If that’s too heinous for you! Bring out the gallows like our forefathers used to. They must’ve done something right! I don’t remember there ever being any public assassinations when the gallows were on full display!”

Another cheer. The windows were rattling.

“If you’re with me! You gotta VOTE with me!” he implored.

People stood and cheered and yelled and swung their fists in the air.

A lone small hand stood up after the official speakers had completed their rabble rousers. She had to be thirteen, maybe fourteen. Slight, tender little thing. No one could hear her speak into the microphone at first.

“Speak up!” they’d yelled from the back, making her task a more intimidating one. “You gotta stand closer,”

A condescending shuffle from an unknown hand guiding her closer to the microphone and her voice was suddenly booking off the bleachers and the nets.

“Don’t you think since your children have all been exposed to the terrible violence that happened a year ago, when that man was shot in broad daylight, maybe we have seen enough death?”

She didn’t wait for a reply. She gathered her small backpack and turned and headed for the exit.

“Where you think you’re going little girl? Don’t you want to hear what we have to say?” Neil smirked with a mic in his hand. She yelled back to him but he was either unable or unwilling to listen.

“It was more of a statement than a question!” she yelled from the back of the court, then she pressed the fire doors forwards and we all watched them close behind her.

“Well you can take our majority word for it that a message has to be sent to other would-be assassins, or you can take little miss goody two-shoes over there and just hope and pray that this violence ends with good intentions… I for one know how I’m going to be voting in two weeks. I hope I can count on every single one of you!” he yelled.

I went home with Nancy and said nothing. Our dinner was cold on the table and we both forgot to heat it up.

I saw the death of that kid on the TV the night it happened. They had blurred it out, the violent stuff… but still it was enough to disturb me.

Nancy walked with me to the polling booth and we saw Neil greeting voters at the door.

“Do the right thing now, you hear?” he said to each of us, his voice a hint of intimidation. Most nodded.

We entered the same basketball gymnasium we were in a fortnight earlier and I turned to Nancy for the first time and said.

“I’m voting ‘no’. I don’t want to see someone killed publicly. It’s disgusting,”

“Are you kidding me Davis? No one wants to see it. We’re all voting no,” she said. She was surprised I was expecting it to even be debated.

I looked around the lines that had formed and was internally satisfied that there was some consensus. Even though I didn’t know the outcome yet, I was hopeful that everyone was as disgusted by the idea as I was. No one wanted a public execution and we were all just too afraid to be shouted down in the town hall to voice our disapproval.

That was my hope, anyway.

The ballot paper was presented to me and I took it to the privacy capsule. With my pencil, I circled the word very carefully, over and over and over again.

No.