Narrative REMIX Asssignment:

I sit alone in my 5' by 8' cell at the San Quentin State Prison. I'm old, tired and scheduled to die. "Big Joe" Jenkins is on death row for the murder of a four year boy, Jacob Lear, shot to death at the home of his Hollywood socialite parents. Who was watching the child? Not his doped up mama or drunk ass father. They've been keeping me locked up ever since they arrested me because my gun was found in sewer down the street from the victim's house three days after the kid’s death. Besides the gun there was nothing tying me to the murder; no hair, no DNA, nothing. They wouldn't have even known it was my gun if I hadn't bought it on credit. Despite the lack of evidence, the prosecution managed to convince the jury that I was guilty of murdering the boy. The story was in the news for months and so was "Big Joe" Jenkins. Someone dug up my High School football nickname, and I guess someone on TV decided to start using it to write about my trial. They took away my rights and freedom by making a demon out of my childhood dreams. I didn't even get bail to see my family again due to the "heinous" nature of the crime.

Prior to arriving at San Quentin, I was a model citizen, married, with 3 children and a good job; for the first time in my life, I was happy because I had to answer to people beside myself. I had never been in any trouble before and I bought a gun to protect my family from these L.A. hoodlums. They broke into my car and stole it two days before the boy was murdered. They probably sold my things for some crack. My fingerprints were the only ones on the gun and forensics found some of the boy's tissue on the end of the barrel, which the prosecution said was because I had pressed the gun into the boy’s head with tremendous force.

They striped me of my humanity and my family and 23 years later I'm still awaiting death, but not for much longer. The time is 2:26 P.M. and the execution is scheduled for midnight. "They say lethal injection is painless, but what is painless about never seeing your family again," I think aloud. She remarried within a year of my conviction and never brought my children to visit. I don't blame her, but I don't think I ever loved her, anymore. "Oh, how can I die without seeing my children and knowing how they are and what they have been doing? They are 27, 29 and 30, probably with children of their own." When you’re on the row, the only thing that can save you is a call from the governor. There was little chance of that, despite my attorney’s best efforts. Ironically, the closest person I have to family is Jacob's mother. She writes and cusses me out each week as part of her coping process. This week's letter is weak and I notice that her handwriting is shaky and disturbed as I read it again:

I sympathize with her. Jacob's murderer took away my family as well. I almost feel bad for not having written her back all of these years, but she needs me in her life like she needed her son taken away from her. My last cell mate, Carlos Santos, a half-Mexican, half-God-knows-what, wannabe revolutionary once told me that he thought the boy's father did it because of the way he did himself in. But how did he get my gun?

The time is 6:22 and my life is still replaying. Heavy footsteps echo down the corridor and stop at my cell door. A robust figure stands on the other side of the bars. He pulls out a set of keys, opens the door, steps in the cell, closes the door and stares down at me on my bed. I had heard rumors of the warden coming into prisoners' cells and pistol whipping them prior to their execution, but I didn't believe it at he time. Rumor has it, he calls it a “going away party.” The old fatty reaches into his corduroy blazer’s left pocket and says, "you're lucky boy. Most inmates don't get to live as long as you."

I'm not about to let some obese, nicely dressed warden beat me with anything and I'm going to die soon, anyway. I jump to my feet, grab the warden and repeatedly slam his head into the steel sink. Each successive clang sounds more and more like justice. Not until he hits the floor do I realize that he had a family too. I sit back down on the bed and look at the warden’s dead body. In his hand was a letter from the Governor of California. By the time the guard had opened the door and drawn his gun the warden was all over the floor. I attacked the man with the gun, believing that it would be preferable to having another trial.