On the day Billy Cain was moved to the death watch cell, a rite for every death row inmate who is within thiry-six hours of execution, a storm was raging. Thunder boomed, lightning struck, and rain fell with such intensity that even the cockroaches burrowed into crannies and cracks. In the sky the strobe-lit clouds huffed and puffed, their grey and black chests heaving with the confidence of untamed power, declaring supremacy over the planet below and its creatures.

"Pack yer shit, Cain," officer Boles, who had worked death row for five years and really loved this part of the job, said. "Gotta put you in that 'watch' today." With a sneer Boles walked away, but Cain knew he would soon return. One could never find an officer when someone needed medical attention, but come time to kill a body they were Johnny-on-the-spot.

Given the state of affairs with regard to capital jurisprudence these days, it did not surprise Cain when the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed his conviction, but, as stoic as he tried to be, the news attacked his insides like piranha. For no good reason he had harbored a smidgen of hope, but, because his state funded appeal attorney, like his trial attorney, did not raise the right issues nor correctly brief the ones he did raise, Cain was grasping at straws. It did not take a savant to see that the wealthy never come to death row.

Cain recalled being taken back to his convicting court to be assigned a date. He stood alone in front of the bench (his attorney did not show up); as the judge uttered the death edict, Cain felt everyone looking at him -- policemen, court officials, and people there for other cases. But he stood straight and tall, eyes never wavering from the judges. He would deny them the satisfaction of thinking him afraid, and was glad they could not hear his heart's troubled beat.

Before officer Boles returned, Cain distributed most of his property to friends, with the understanding that should he receive a stay it would be given back. His radio went to old Clyde three cells down, his fan to Josey, and his typewriter to Geno, an uneducated country boy who fancied himself a writer. For himself, because even under death watch they allow one to shower, he kept soap, deodorant, and shampoo, plus some stamped envelopes, a pen, and tablet so he could write his pen-pals and family. He felt compelled to thank them for their love and support and ask that they continue the struggle. To end capital punishment would require the efforts of everyone.

In the death watch cell, after Boles had removed the handcuffs and left, Cain felt the despair and fear of past inhabitants take hold. Written in black above the door where one could not see it from outside the cell were the words "Dead Meat." The atmosphere was surreal and Cain wondered if America suffered from a mass epidemic of somnambulism. The people did not understand the nature of the beast called capital punishment which thay had created. He questioned whether, if the citizenry could experience for ten minutes what he felt at that moment, their support for the death penalty would be so ardent.

For the frist twelve hours one is in death watch, he is checked every thirty minutes, then every fifteen minutes for the last twenty-four, with meticulous notations made in a log. Nothing is overlooked. Officers who were once friendly and talkative are now cold and clinical. They document if the condemned ate, detailing every morsel. They note if he uses the toilet (whether he peed or shat), slept, read (if so, they named the publication), prayed, stared off into space, was calm or fidgety, received a visit, or made a call to his lawyer. The nearer one gets to execution, the more intrusive the guards become.

One learns interesting things while under death watch. For instance, while speaking to an officer, Cain learned that if one has no friends or family to claim his body, the State may donate it to science. He had no inclinations toward having his body sliced, diced, frozen, and ogled under microscopes, so he was thankful that arrangements for his body had already been made.

A couple of times he tried to read, but could not focus and kept losing the thread of the story; the same with the TV. His thoughts, however, were not so vague. With clarity he recalled the wife and son he had not seen since coming to the row. She had divorced him and apparently that had justified her keeping the boy away. How could she do that with his only child? It was not as if he didn't love his son; he did, and she knew it, which made her actions harder to stomach. Not that Cain had himself been an angel, he just missed his son and had a strong sense that the boy missed him, too. But then, Cain thought, I'm probably kidding myself. The boy may have forgotten everything he ever knew about me.