Life After Death: The Shocking True Story of a Innocent Man on Death Row

The mice and rats were bred for the purpose of serving as pets. A guy would manage to catch two wild ones, and every time a litter was born he’d give the babies out to whoever wanted one. They grow up with you and won’t bite or scratch. The snakes would wander into the yard and suddenly find themselves stuffed into someone’s pants and smuggled indoors.
    The biggest rat I’ve ever seen in my life was raised by a guy here. It was as big as a Chihuahua, and he even fashioned a collar for it. It was as tame as any household pet and slept in the same bed as the guy who had trained it.
    His pet rat was not the only thing that made the prisoner seem out of the ordinary. He was nicknamed “Butterfly,” even though calling him that made him angry enough to strangle someone. This name spread like wildfire, along with the rumor that had started it. It was said that this gentleman had a giant tattoo of a butterfly on his rear end—one wing tattooed on each cheek—and that by doing a certain dance he could make it appear as if the butterfly were flapping its wings. As revolting as the thought was, it was still fodder for a great deal of humor. The only one not laughing was Butterfly.
    The bird belonged to a prisoner I knew named Earl. Earl had gotten his pet bird from the yard. Every year when the weather begins to turn warm the birds build nests and lay eggs in the razor wire surrounding the yard. Inevitably, baby birds will tumble out. Earl smuggled one in and kept it in his cell. You would hear it every morning before sunrise, chirp-chirp-chirping like mad. This would be met with a volley of curses from the prisoners it had awakened.
    Earl was an interesting character. He was about five feet eight inches tall and weighed about 160 pounds. His hair had turned prematurely gray. Earl never cracked a joke and spoke only if he had something important to say or a question to ask. He never raised his voice or argued with anyone. Earl was on Death Row but had never actually killed anyone. He had escaped from prison with another guy, and the other guy had shot and killed someone. Since Earl had been with him, they were both given the death penalty. I believe he was one of the few people here with enough intelligence to comprehend the full horror of his predicament. When they set an execution date for him he became violently ill and couldn’t keep anything in his stomach until they killed him. For some reason Earl haunts me more than anyone else they’ve killed. Perhaps it’s because I knew that, like me, he hadn’t taken anyone’s life.
    They led Earl out to the Death House with the guy who had actually done the shooting. They were both executed at the same time. As they took them out I was standing at my cell door to say good-bye. It was four o’clock in the morning. The other guy passed me first, and he was chewing a piece of gum as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He nodded in my direction and uttered a nonchalant “Catch you later.” I nodded back to him. When Earl came down next there were tears in his eyes. He struggled to keep his voice under control. “Damien,” he said, and nodded once. “Earl,” I said, and returned the nod.
    The guards later said he couldn’t even finish his last meal, because he was continuously vomiting. Now, years later, I still feel something in my stomach turn over every time I think of him. He left me nearly everything he owned before he was executed—his books, a leather belt, all his drawing pens, and some origami paper. I couldn’t keep them, because it bothered me too much. I gave everything away.
    Where was I? Ah, yes. All alone on the third floor. It was just me and seventeen other dark, empty cells. One night, from the corner of my eye, I thought I saw movement in one of the vacant domiciles. My head snapped in that direction and the hair on my neck and arms stood on end. I stood staring, body taut, like a gunslinger at high noon. There was no repeat performance that night. Over time you grow accustomed to such things and no longer pay them any mind. Sometimes you’ll wake up in the middle of the night and feel like you were awakened by someone speaking, but there’s no one around and it’s as quiet as a crypt.
    The silence on Death Row is something that seems to unnerve guards when they first get assigned here. That’s because every other barracks sounds like a madhouse. There are people screaming at the top of their lungs twenty-four hours a day. It never