Survive

Survive

By Matthew Maholchic

She kissed him goodbye, knowing he wouldn’t remember her tomorrow.

Because tomorrow—he would be dead.

Tomorrow came.

The man, tall, clean-shaven in a world of the bearded and bewhiskered, a teetotaler in a world of drinking, was scared. In fact, he was unable to control his bowels.

When the jailer arrived at his door, with breakfast and a priest, the man switched from numb detachment to hot terror.

He was going to die. Within one hour, he would be dead.

He shit his pants. Humiliated, he saw the expression of the priest change as the stench of feces filled the cell air.

“Do you have anything you wish to confess, my son?” asked the priest, a young man, twirled mustache yellowed at the tips, breath stinking of bourbon.

“No. I’m Jewish,” said the man.

The woman stretched languorously, reaching over to the bedside table and retrieving a teacup and saucer for her bedroom playmate.

“Here’s your tea,” she said to her companion, a heavyset man much older than herself.

“Did you put sugar in it?”

“No.”

“Two lumps.”

She rolled her eyes, but dropped the cubes into the tea, stirring briefly with the little spoon provided.

After three minutes, the woman, naked, rose. The man eyed her buttocks as she stepped into a copper-yellow robe.

“Come back to bed,” said the man.

“No. I have to go soon.”

“You’re actually going to watch?” asked the fat man, fingering the edge of his tea mug.

“He’s my husband, Karl,” said the woman contemptuously, beginning to pull on some silken stockings.

Silk. The best stockings money can buy.

“He’s a traitor.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore.” She turned to her mirror, picking up a pewter brush.

The man slid out of the bed. His body, pale and paunchy, was covered with dark fuzzy hair. 

The woman suppressed a surge of nausea as her shorter companion placed his two sweaty, claw-like hands against her shoulders. “I said, come to bed. You don’t need to upset yourself.”

The woman considered her reflection in the mirror. Sad green eyes, high, wide cheekbones, auburn hair. Her looks were all she had left, the only card remaining left to play.

She grew up the spoiled daughter of a cotton planter, the youngest of five children. Her four older brothers—and her father—were dead. All killed in battle.

Gettysburg. The Wilderness. Petersburg.

Her mother died giving birth to her, twenty-five years ago.

“I’m going. He’s my husband.”

The man’s bowels, now void, had nothing left to offer. Hands behind his back, roped tightly, the man was led to the courtyard.

The gallows were freshly built. He could tell by the hue of the wood in the early burgeoning sunshine.

“I heard you shit yourself.”

This from one of the other two men destined to die alongside him. Embarrassed, the man blushed. “Yes. Who told you?”

“The priest.”

The woman took one final look at her reflection. Fully rouged, lavender hat perfectly askew, auburn curls tamed by whalebone combs, green eyes regretful—she stood up.

“I’m going. Are you taking me or am I getting a cab?”

“I’m taking you.” The fat man rang a tinkling bell.

There was a light knock. A bean-thin servant, venerable and dead-eyed, opened the side door. “Yes, Senator?” said the servant.

“Bring the carriage around.”

It was time.

The hangman appeared. He was carrying three leather masks. The man scanned the small crowd of onlookers, praying fervently his wife would not come. 

Somehow, his fear acted as a sort of supercharger to his memories. Unbidden and uncontrolled, vast swaths of recollection now flashed. His parents—the drunk German father, a failure as a farmer; the tough mother with a spirit of iron; the day South Carolina seceded that sent the man, brimming with pride, down to the recruiter to join up and fight for his country.

Virginia.

Then, thoughts of the girl he met while waiting for the train. She was sobbing, bidding her brothers farewell. He had comforted her. They had exchanged addresses, and he promised to write.

And write he did—long letters. She answered them all.

One by one—the people she loved were killed.

He was a spy, and was captured by Phil Sheridan’s cavalry on April 8, 1865.

Lee surrendered the next day. One more day and the man would have made it through the war.

The woman and the fat Senator arrived at the Federal prison and made their way to the yard. There were a few people gathered.

They were mostly crying, sniffling into pink hankies, or wiping snot from their noses.

“There he is,” said the woman, her hands going to her lips.

The man saw her enter the courtyard. He opened his mouth to speak, but at that very moment, the hangman’s noose was placed over his head.

He smelled the stale, vile stench of ancient sweat. The ripe odor of final fear.

My God. They use these hoods over and over and over.

“Karl!” the woman screamed.

The man heard his wife’s voice. He remembered the first time they ever made love. It was not on her wedding night, as her father and brothers might have wished. 

They did not care anymore. They were all dead. Taken by The War.

The first time the man and woman made love was yesterday. The woman was granted permission to visit the man, in his cell, by the fat Senator—who carried the necessary political clout to make that happen. 

A Rabbi had married them.

Their coupling was everything little girls hope, when they are young, that their first time will not be like. 

They had to do it on the stone floor of his cell.

Rats squeaked in the corner.

It smelled of shit and piss.

Her husband, the Confederate spy, planted seed in her womb yesterday.

All of this went through the man’s mind.

The woman screamed out: “I love you!” 

The Senator, bald, fat and old, felt no sorrow nor pity. Only lust.

The woman felt three things.

Love for her husband.

Disgust for her companion.

Resignation.

Women in 1865—from the south, with no parents or family left, and a husband seconds from swinging on the end of a rope—beautiful women—had only one option.

Survive.

The man felt the bristles of the rope around his throat. Tears sprang to his eyes. He tried to pray.

He urinated the remaining liquid in his bladder. 

Three thoughts flashed.

I hope Mary Ellen did not see me piss myself.

I hope I will see Mary Ellen again.

I hope that my seed survives.

The man heard the creak of the hinges. He knew that meant the trapdoor had swung open. 

So this is what it’s like to die.