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

the liquid into a Mason jar and held the cat’s head over it, forcing her patient to inhale the fumes. Other than causing the creature to struggle, it didn’t seem to have any effect.
    She decided pills were the next-best option, and she scoured the medicine cabinet. The cat was promptly forced to swallow both a Valium and a muscle-relaxer that had been prescribed for my mother. The cat had ingested enough painkiller to fell a large adult human. After a few minutes it was no longer even moving. The only sign of life was the loud, nonstop purring that emanated from its small, inert form.
    Her next step was to lay out her surgical instruments, which were limited to a garbage bag, a large pair of shears, and a small sewing kit. The garbage bag was used to cover the kitchen counter and contain the mess. The unlucky bastard was placed on the makeshift surgical table, where my mother stood with shears in hand. She realized she couldn’t bring herself to do the actual cutting “because the cat trusted me too much,” so she recruited her new husband to take part in the operation. The husband took up the shears and severed the tiny leg with one good chop while my mother held the cat’s head and gave it what comfort she could.
    The stump was then washed with cold water under the kitchen faucet (“I figured the cold water would help stop the bleeding”) and the wound was drenched in hydrogen peroxide and rubbing alcohol. After finding it impossible to sew the wound shut, she decided to experiment with a new product on the market called Liquid Skin. This stuff would normally be used in place of a Band-Aid to cement together the edges of a minor cut. My mother used it to seal off the cat’s stump.
    I was doubled over and clutching my head in my hands. When I managed to sit up straight I saw my mom dusting the last of the pork skin crumbs from her hands, and Lorri looking like she was going into shock.
    “So the cat’s okay?” I asked.
    “Oh, yeah, he’s just fine. He falls over sometimes when he loses his balance, and sometimes he forgets he doesn’t have a leg and his stump twitches when he tries to scratch his head with it, but other than that he’s hopping around just fine.” She was clearly proud of herself and beamed with pleasure.
    Mothers are odd things. We’re quick to think of their nurturing aspects, but there is also some sort of strange darkness there. It tends to be much stronger in connection with sons than with daughters. It’s easy for a mother to cross an invisible line and enslave a son with kindness. There’s nothing more revolting than a man incapable of slipping his mother’s apron strings. He will always revert back to a boy in her presence. I see boys with unnatural attachments to their mothers all the time. It’s a sign of the times in which no one ever grows up. We live in soft times.
    My mother’s just not capable of feeling things very deeply. Or at least not as deeply as I do. Not anger, love, hatred, or anything else. You could insult her, tell her you hated her, and she’d play off the drama of the moment, but the very next day she’d act as if nothing ever happened. My grudge is always there, and my moods are not flippant.

Twenty-four
    I am a Sagittarius, a fire sign. Sagittarians are known for their need to keep moving, exploring, learning. Much like fire, Sagittarians must be fed or they will die. What they must be fed is a constant stream of new experiences. There aren’t many journeys to be undertaken when locked in a cage. Outward motion comes to a complete standstill. You have two choices: turn inward and start your journey there, or go insane.
    There is no time in prison, unless you create it for yourself. People on the outside seem to believe time passes slowly in prison, but it doesn’t. The truth is that time doesn’t pass at all. It’s an eternal vacuum, and each moment is meaningless because it has no context. Tomorrow may as well be yesterday. That’s why there’s so much stagnation inherent in prison life—because there is no momentum of any sort.
    There is only one way to avoid being swallowed whole by malaise, despair, and loneliness, and that is to create a routine you stick to no matter what. A physical routine, a mental routine, and even a spiritual routine. You don’t pass time—you create it.
    I began measuring time by doing thirty push-ups a day, and pushing myself until several years later I could do one thousand. I began doing ten minutes of