This is not as crazy as it sounds. When you are about to watch a man die, it doesn't matter that he's a killer. Your mind still nose-dives into the somber. You think of whatever God you were told to believe in as a child. I am not that religious, yet I had packed my copy of the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer for the trip to Starke.
Some people talk of executions with a relish that approaches lust.
The talk among the reporters who were taken in vans to a blank door on the far side of the prison was about our unease. We filed out of the vans, through the door and into a room holding the only comfortable chairs I had seen in the prison. We then did as ordered. We went silent. What I relay now are impressions formed during the following hour, that I couldn't find words for in the subsequent rush.