400 Lightbulbs

Charles “Choo Choo” Jus­tice built Ohio’s only elec­tric chair at the turn of the last cen­tu­ry, a bright machine of sea­soned hick­o­ry, stiff leather and the gun­metal smell of fear. Unlucky thir­teen years lat­er he was exe­cut­ed in the same chair. Here lies Chuck Jus­tice, killed by irony. The best way to per­form a humane exe­cu­tion dur­ing the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry was no longer some­thing with such an hon­or­able pedi­gree as being hanged by the neck until dead; tech­nol­o­gy improves every­thing, and some­one had a bright idea. What if, and try to stay with me here… What if you strap a felon into a chair, secure his arms, head and legs with broad straps, place an elec­trode on his tem­ple and anoth­er on his leg and then send 400 light­bulbs in one ear and out the oth­er? We can zap him again and cook him up to one hun­dred and thir­ty eight degrees Fahren­heit, just to make sure. Now that’s progress, and as easy as flip­ping on a lightswitch. So easy, in fact, that a record sev­en men in Ken­tucky rode the light­ning one evening before the stock mar­ket crashed. That sev­enth son, sat in a chair still steam­ing from the sixth and smelled what seemed to be fried chick­en of all things. Some last meal. The effects of elec­tro­cu­tion are neg­li­gi­ble. Some burned, ooz­ing skin, a pud­dle of urine on the floor, shit­filled pants. Just after World War Two, Willie Fran­cis was electrocuted,and sur­vived. Although lawyers argued that Fran­cis had already been exe­cut­ed, he returned to the hot seat a year lat­er and did his job right this time. Con­trary to pop­u­lar belief, the elec­tric chair was not invent­ed by Thomas Alva Edi­son, but by one of his assis­tants. Louie the Light­ning Bug says: “Remem­ber gang, you’ve got to play it safe around elec­tric­i­ty.

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