The Tetherballs of Bougainville: A Novel (Vintage Contemporaries) by Mark Leyner Read Free Book Online

commercial, Felipe, Gretel, and I do an instant postmortem.
    “I’m into Barbara’s rancid schadenfreude,” says Felipe.
    “I hear you, dude,” I say. “It had wings. But Downs killed it with that perfunctory ‘Fascinating.’ ”
    “Hugh’s hot!” objects Gretel.
    “Yuuuk!” Felipe and I make the international sign for hemorrhagic vomiting.
    “You’ll appreciate Hugh Downs when you’re more mature,” she says, haughtily readjusting her brassiere.
    “I don’t think I’ll ever be
that
mature,” I say, huffing glue from a brown paper bag and passing it back to Felipe.
    All of this—the warden escorting me into the witness room, the momentary glimpse of the slope of her breast, possibly her areola, and the flesh of her armpit as she sits down, and then the frenzied search through my memory for just the right
20/20
segment to temporarily neuter myself so that a healthy, perfectly normal, and involuntary heterosexual reflex won’t be misinterpreted in such a way that I’m seen as an execrable son—all of this takes place in a span of no more than ten seconds. I wonder if, like, Bill Gates when
he
was 13, had the ability that I have at the age of 13 to anatomize minute fluctuations of consciousness that are occurring literally in femtoseconds. Anyway … 
        It’s 5:25 P.M . Appeals exhausted, reprieves forsaken, last words ardently orated, the execution of Joel Leyner C.P. #39 6E-18 commences.
    Inside the control module room, the executioner activates the delivery sequence by pushing a button on the control panel. A series of lights on the panel indicates the three stages of each injection: Armed (red), Start (yellow), and Complete (green).
    As the lights for the initial injection sequence switch on anda piston is loosed from its cradle and falls onto the plunger of the first syringe, the delivery module introduces 15 cc of 2-percent sodium thiopental over ten seconds, which should cause unconsciousness.
    I nudge the superintendent with my elbow.
    “Thanks,” I whisper, returning his pen.
    “Keep it,” he says.
    “Are you kidding?”
    “No. It’s yours.”
    “Cool!” I gush.
    After a minute, the red light pulses again, then the yellow, and the machine injects 15 cc of pancuronium bromide, a synthetic curare that should produce muscle paralysis and stop his breathing.
    Following another one-minute interval, the lights flash and the final syringe, containing 15 cc of potassium chloride, is injected, which should induce cardiac arrest, with death following within two minutes.
    Thirty seconds pass.
    A minute.
    In the dark witness room, we are mute and absolutely still. And in this riveted silence, the physiologic obbligato of human bodies—the sibilant nostrils, the tense clicking of temporomandibular joints, the bruits of carotid arteries, and the peristaltic rumblings of nervous bowels—becomes almost a din.
    Ninety seconds elapse.
    Two minutes.
    The muscles in my father’s neck appear to become rigid, actually lifting his head slightly off the gurney.
    His eyes open wide.
    “I feel shitty,” he says.
        The doctor, who’s been monitoring the EKG, frowns at the operations officer, who turns to the warden and shakes his head grimly. Scrutinizing an EKG printout incredulously, he emerges from behind the screen and approaches my dad. He checks his pupillary reflexes with a penlight and then listens to his respiration and heart with a stethoscope.
    “Physically, he appears to be absolutely fine,” he says, grimacing with bewilderment.
    The operations officer in turn gives a thumbs-down to the warden, who’s now risen from her seat in the witness room.
    “Mr. Leyner,” says the doctor to my father, “I’m going to give you several statements and I want you to respond as best you can, all right?”
    My father nods.
    “Bacillus subtilis grown on dry, nutrient-poor agar plates tends to fan out into patterns that strongly resemble this fractal pattern seen in nonliving