One Second After

John followed him as he went into his office and Charlie did not object as John closed the door. He pulled out the last cigarette in his pocket and lit it. Charlie looked at it longingly for a few seconds and John was ready to offer it over, but Charlie then shook his head.

“Did I do the right thing, John? Frankly, I’m so damn mad at those two animals, especially that Larry, that I’d do it myself without hesitation. But still, did I do the right thing?”

John sat down and didn’t speak for a moment. He was torn as well. Again memory of his own temptation with Liz at the pharmacy, to snatch the medicine he needed for Jennifer.

“John, it’s like we’re back a hundred and fifty years. The Wild West. I kept thinking of that movie, Oxbow Incident. Remember they hang three guys in that movie but then find out they’re innocent.”

“Yeah, same thought here. It was just on TV last week. One of Henry Fonda’s best.”

“A week ago,” Charlie sighed. “Just that short a time?”

“They are not innocent, though,” John said.

“But still. A week ago we didn’t kill screwed-up punks for stealing drugs. That Bruce kid, right guidance, he might have straightened out.” John shook his head.

“Look, Charlie, might have beens are finished. Charlie, we got six thousand, maybe seven thousand people in this town now. How much food? How much medicine? Water still works for downtown, as long as the pipe to the reservoir holds, but up on the sides of the hills we’re out. Charlie, we don’t keep order, in a month people will be killing each other for a bag of chips.”

John felt the heat of the cigarette burning his fingers and he looked around, then dropped it into an empty coffee cup. “Or a pack of smokes. I’m sorry for that one, boy, but you did the right thing.

“Just keep in mind what I said on their behalf back in there.”

Charlie nodded.

There was a knock on the door; it was Tom and Kate. Charlie motioned them in.

“Reverend Black is in there with them. Time is just about up,” Tom said. “Tom, you will not do the execution,” John said. Tom looked over at him.

“You are the police authority in this town. If someone must do the execution, it cannot be you or any other officer or official of this town. That terrible task has always been kept separate from the hands of those out in the field who directly enforce the law. If not, well…” He thought of Stalin, of the Gestapo. “It has to be someone else.”

Tom nodded, and John was glad to see that in spite of his angry talk earlier, Tom was relieved.

John looked over at Charlie.

“Not me, John.”

“No, it can’t be you, either, Charlie. You’re the emergency government; and Kate, the traditional government. No, not you.”

“Then who?” Charlie asked. No one spoke.

“You, John,” Kate said quietly.

Startled, he looked at her. He had simply been advising as a historian; he never imagined it would come back on him like this.

“Damn all, I was not volunteering myself.” John said, “I was just trying to keep us in touch with who we once were as a country.”

“I’m not going out there to ask for volunteers,” Charlie said. “I will not let this turn into a circus with some sick bastards mobbing in to take a shot. I want you to do it. You’re the historian, John; you understand it, the meaning of it. You’re a respected professor in the town. Everyone knows you, or knows your kin here.”

“Oh Jesus,” John whispered, knowing he was trapped.

Reluctantly he nodded his head.

“Where?” Tom asked.

John couldn’t think.

“The town park,” Charlie said. “It’s the public gathering place. I don’t want it here.”

“Fine then,” Tom replied. “We take them down to the park now and do it. We load them into Jim’s van. The tennis courts have a concrete practice wall. I’ll go outside and announce it for one half hour from now.”

The mention of the tennis courts chilled John. It made him think of the Taliban and the infamous soccer stadium in Kabul. Is that what we have now, tennis courts?

“Maybe in private,” Kate ventured. “Maybe in private. I don’t like the thought of public execution.”

“I don’t either,” John said slowly, “but we have to do it. There’s fear in this town. I’m hearing people say that the refugees from the highway are ‘outsiders.’ We’re already beginning to divide ourselves off from each other. We do private executions and I guarantee you, within a day there’ll be rumors flying from those who don’t live here that we are doing Stalinist courts and executing people in the basement of the police station. If we are forced to do this, we do it in public.”

“Besides,” Tom interjected, “it’s a statement to anyone else who might be thinking about stealing.”

“Wait a minute, Tom,” John said. “I pray we aren’t down to killing people for stealing a piece of bread.”

Tom shook his head angrily.

“John, don’t misread me. You might not believe this, but I don’t like it any more than you.”

John stared into his eyes and then finally nodded.

“Ok, Tom, sorry.”

“I’ll go make the announcement.”

“Tom,” Kate said. “Adults only. I don’t want kids down there.”