By Father Gerry Kleba – gerry@stcronan.org
Father Gerry Kleba is a member of the AUSCP. In the following account of a prison execution, Kleba describes his own medical death sentence.
PREFACE – Father Gerry Kleba
On November 22, 2010, Thanksgiving week, my life of gratitude was turned upside down. That was the day a Washington University – Siteman Cancer Center doctor told me that I had fourth stage lung cancer. I had never smoked and had no previous serious medical issues, so my family, friends, and the St. Cronan Church community reeled in shock. I began a rigorous round of chemotherapy which required twenty, six-hour treatments over a period of twelve months. When that protocol ended, I was again told what I had been told many times before “You are incurable.” This time another sentence was added: “Soon you will be in a hospice program.” I declined any further clinical trials, but instead I went to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center for a lung biopsy and second opinion which determined that I had been misdiagnosed and that I had never had cancer. That was fourteen years ago. While I am still grateful and amazed I also live under the cloud of a death threat which caused many sleepless nights. I didn’t fear the end as much as I questioned the worth of my life and whether it had been wasted and worthless. My “near death experience without a set final date” was the blessing that allowed me to accept the invitation to become the spiritual advisor for Catholic Johnny Johnson on Missouri’s death row. My walking with Johnny for twelve visits and holding him when he was poisoned was only possible because of my graced “near death experience” which still haunts me. This experience made me who I am and guided my twelve visits behind prison walls. In some ways, I had already walked the walk.
Pastor Lauren Bennett
Lauren Bennett, the pastor of Metropolitan Community Church of Greater St. Louis, MCCGSL, was the spiritual advisor for Amber McLaughlin, a trans-woman, who was executed by the State of Missouri on January 3, 2023. I approached her to ask her to prayerfully accompany me during my death row ministry to Johnny Johnson. There was nothing about us that would indicate a possible friendship, in fact, the exact opposite should have been predicted. I was 81 and Lauren was 34. She is a queer Christian and I am a Catholic priest in a church that belittled queer folks as intrinsically disordered. She is a dancer and I hobble with a cane or walker. Larry Komp, the federal public defender, suggested I contact her. “She is a holy young woman who is wise well beyond her years.” Besides those intrinsic values, Lauren stood out because her church is near mine and very close to I 55, the highway that I would drive to the prison. Additionally, we do both have sunny smiles, gleaming pearl teeth, and electric eyes that twinkle a spark of hope in the face of prison despair. Her personality exudes a flair for ministry. In a miraculous way we are fraternal twins born on two different days and in different decades. The Catholic God of love and the queer God of love, the one same God, seduced us both with LOVE at first sight.
Johnny Johnson on Death Row
The bare facts about Johnny Johnson’s life are these. Johnny’s mother had a troubled pregnancy so Johnny was born with deficiencies. Johnny flunked and repeated both kindergarten and first grade and at fourteen was diagnosed as a schizophrenic who heard voices. These maladies and a violent upbringing scarred him from birth. During our visits, I never knew about Johnny’s awareness of reality. He might stare blankly into space, or mumble, or speak nonsense, and sometimes he would totally blank out or sleep. Half the time he was somewhat conversant and was usually attentive during rosary and Communion time. He was always grateful for my visits and valued the brotherhood we shared. He was not afraid! The media reported his last words:
“God bless. Sorry to the family and people I hurt.”
On July 4, 2023 Larry Komp, a federal public defender, invited me to become the spiritual advisor to Johnny Johnson, a Catholic on death row. It would take me weeks to be approved by the State of MO and during that entire time my fears and self-doubt intensified. This impromptu mysterious ministry about which I knew nothing terrified me. I disdained the prospect of touching a child molester/murderer. I was freaked out about going behind prison walls and hearing the clanking of multiple steel doors near smoked glass guard stations. As a priest, I also knew the challenge of my last judgment exam, Matthew 25, “I was in prison and you did not come to visit me.”
Larry offered to inform me about Johnny’s case and the details of the prison system, but the most important thing I needed to know I could only learn from one of the prayerful protestant ministers who had preceded me in ministering to a death row felon. He told me, “They are all wise and holy even though some of them are surprisingly young.” Since I was over eighty, I thought, “Isn’t everyone surprisingly young?” Since I am the most ecumenical Catholic priest in St. Louis, I knew I would enjoy befriending any of these wise and holy protestant ministers. Since I was the pastor of the Catholic parish with the most ‘out’ gays and lesbians, some married; I knew that would be no problem either.
Lauren Bennett, pastor at MCCGSL, warmly accepted my call, charmed me by her sweetness, and welcomed me to her office. She pointed out the elevator, but I chose to display my manliness by struggling up the stairs using both my cane and the banister. She was indeed young, under 35, and breathtakingly beautiful with shoulder length, gently curly auburn hair, and a warm, welcoming smile. Oh, did I mention her skinny jeans? This celibate octogenarian’s fear factor was off the charts as I sat in her office with my heart throbbing. We sat holding hands with our knees inches apart and I sniffled as I shared my fear and my deep need for her prayer and direction. We gripped hands and moved even closer. Her heartfelt prayer revealed all the poetic wisdom and profound holiness Larry had promised. This first of many encounters ignited a lasting soul-friendship. This was the beginning of a continuing graced relationship that supported me constantly as I convinced myself to undertake that dreaded drive to visit Johnny. We embraced our farewell on the parking lot as Lauren claimed, “You are a living saint.” My response, “You are an embodied angel.” I headed south to prison dreaming about angel Lauren.
At the seventy mile mark I almost froze at the wheel with the temptation to turn around a mile north of the prison. My heart pounded as I screeched to a halt on a dirt lot by a boarded up warehouse. I thought I would wet my pants and as I fidgeted and wiggled this song floated in, “Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, don’t turn around, you’ve come this far by faith.” The divine Voice on the clammy summer air, “Don’t turn around” was what I dreaded hearing. I re-started my car and aimed toward my appointment with destiny the hard, cold, steel unknown called death row.
I parked in a handicapped slot on the lot and reviewed my list of contraband items to leave behind and the items required for entry. I wondered where to hide my wallet and doubted whether the tower guards ever looked away from the prison yard to check parking lot security. I reminded myself to breath deeply and emerged from the car with renewed anxiety about the proximity of the restroom. I unfolded my walker and began the trek across the blistering blacktop toward the foreboding lock-up. The elevator was hidden behind a stairwell, but a guard leaving work saw me searching like a deer in headlights and pointed me in the right direction. Maybe he heard my stomach rumbling. I was attired in clergy black so each stride caused me to slump and wilt at the very moment when I needed to stand tall and confident.
I was nervous when I passed through the metal detector and then surprisingly put at ease by the appearance of the kindly warden whose muscular arms tattooed to her shoulders pained my arms like reaching into a bee hive. Since she was expecting me, she met me at the door, introduced herself and then with the wave of her magic wand hand escorted me past the guard station. My courteous reply to her greeting was immediately followed up with my blurted question, “Where’s the men’s room?” With that major concern addressed we proceeded down the long gray hall and through the four steel gates to death row. There, the Baptist prison chaplain met us. “Welcome to Potosi,” he bellowed placing his hand on my shoulder, “I’m happy you’re here. I doubt that you had much trouble getting approved as a visitor.” I lied telling him it was simple as pie rather than telling him about the four letter words I used when I was timed out by the MO corrections technology and how I was tempted to toss my computer out the window. Instead of the truth I responded, “Everything went well, but I was afraid that a Roman Catholic Priest might be rejected as a Mafioso.” We all laughed as I had hoped. Chaplain introduced me, “Johnny, this is a good day for you. Meet Father Gerry who will be your good friend and a real blessing.” He opened the visiting room door and Johnny and I were alone together, our first visit was underway and my nerves were on edge. I wanted it to end before we even began.
Johnny Johnson, a kid with closely cropped red hair and a well-trimmed beard reminded me of some bloke I’d met in a pub on the Emerald Isle. He looked surprisingly young for sixty-two and far removed of my notion of a brutal child molesting murderer.
We studied each other at a cautious distance as we shared a wet fish, kindergarten handshake. It was a 10’ x 10’ room with glass windows and doors on the opposite sides where each of us entered. Larry had told me that Johnny would be happy with my visits. I had no great expectations realizing that he often lived in his own world and at that moment I lived in the world of fear and antsy dread. In my lesson plan, I had embraced one major goal. I wanted to convince Johnny that I was Simon of Cyrene and he was Jesus whom I was privileged to befriend and accompany to the end of his life. The gospels say Simon of Cyrene was a foreign bystander forced out of the crowd to help Jesus carry his cross. In my head, but not in my heart, I knew it was my privilege to walk that path with Johnny. I needed to be authentic, because imprisoned guys recognize frauds. After small talk where Johnny mumbled and stared past my gaze, I read Mark’s passion story while holding my hand gently over his wrist laying on the table and peering deeply into his eyes. “Johnny, look at me. Look right at me, get closer and look into my eyes,” I urged him, moving my face into his line of sight. “I am Simon of Cyrene and you are Jesus and I am here to help you. I will be with you until the end and I will never leave you.” I pointed out that Simon was so important that Mark even mentions his two sons, Alexander and Rufus. No other disciple’s children were ever mentioned in the Bible. “Simon was important because he helped Jesus the same way I will help you. You are Jesus!” When I left that afternoon, Johnny was grateful just as Larry had predicted. Now, with a firmer handshake Johnny said, “Father, be careful driving home.” I assured him, “I’ll come again tomorrow at the same time.”
The following day was problem fraught, a visiting day with heavier highway traffic and a crush of visitors waiting in the lobby at the metal detector. With no hospitable warden to give me the VIP hand wave pass treatment, I was thirty minutes late. While I feared he might be angry, Johnny waited patiently as I clumsily apologized, “Johnny, I’m sorry I’m late. Did you think I wasn’t coming?” His blue eyes peered into my blue eyes, “I always knew you would come.” When had he ever been this confident that any adult would be there for him? I was flattered that he found me so reliable after only one visit. He knew I was Simon of Cyrene.
Another aspect of God’s Message that I wanted to share with Johnny was the most repeated sentence in the Bible, “Do Not Be Afraid.” God is Love and Love casts out all fear, so don’t be afraid. While Johnny’s life lacked much positive support he did cherish his grandpa as one person who was important to him. Johnny acknowledged that his whacks and butt kicking, though harsh, were deserved. “Grandpa was tough, but he was fair.” Johnny grew up being bullied and ridiculed having flunked both kindergarten and first grade so grandpa’s love was memorable. Love is not a commodity a boy can store up is his pocket like a smooth stone or a jack knife. Rather, God’s love is a relationship communicated through grandpa and through me. Later, Johnny did mention his brother’s wedding as a happy occasion he recalled in great detail. He married Sarah and they had two daughters. Johnny never had a birthday party. He had to know that God sent me, Simon of Cyrene, onto death row. God’s love, which casts out fear, would be real if it was visible in me.
Driving to my second visit, I wondered how Johnny would respond if I asked about giving him a hug. He was so touch deprived that he was quick to open his arms. I was shocked. While that ice-breaker hug was cautious and quick, we did go through the motions and he announced, “You’re a good hugger.” I thanked him and wondered, good hugger, compared to whom? When was his last hug? This shocking hug was a major stepping stone for my being less afraid.
Johnny’s sacramental Confession was built around the story of Dismas, the Good Thief on a cross near Jesus. Dismas told his sneering companion that they both deserved their punishments and defended Jesus as innocent and then pleaded, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus responded, “This day you will be with me in paradise.” In confession, Johnny rattled off his sins like an auctioneer and then slouched back in exhaustion. He listened to absolution and prayed his Lord’s Prayer penance with me. He was wide-eyed that God’s mercy was so easy. Finished, he exhaled and slumped his head into his folded arms on the table like a preschooler at nap time. He was a spent volcano belching out the fiery horror of his sins and collapsing back into his smoldering caldera. Johnny slept for fifteen minutes and I sang and hummed the Taize chant that Dismas had spoken, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” As Johnny breathed heavily, almost snoring, I sat patiently. Since Johnny said, “I always knew you would come” he needed to be just as certain I would always be there and never sneak off.
Holy Communion was a regular part of our visits and once when Johnny dozed for fifteen minutes right after our greeting hug, I suggested that I might just leave so Johnny could go lay down instead of crashing on the plastic table. I said, “Johnny, I brought you Holy Communion, but if I am a bother today I will go home.” While I tried to disguise my displeasure at being blown off after such a long drive, I probably overestimated my acting skills. Johnny’s drooping eyes popped open, flashed with life, and he begged me for Communion. We prayed and then we both received Communion. This humbling incident taught me not to feel sorry for myself and unappreciated after my long drive. It dawned on me that I didn’t come only to see Johnny myself, but rather I came to bring Jesus to see Johnny. Since I was the only person on the planet who could get inside the walls to bring Johnny Holy Communion, I would visit even if he was bored with me but alive to Jesus. I’m sure Jesus loved the drive which freed Him from that stuffy, dark box.
We began Communion time by reading I Corinthians 11:23-26, the first account of the Last Supper written by Paul who was not one of the invited guests at that feast and really had not even heard of Jesus at that time. In four verses Jesus repeats, “Do this in memory of me.” Like all of us Johnny needed to know that even Jesus approached death afraid of being forgotten. Would Jesus be forgotten and did his life make any difference? In our frail self-doubt we all question: does anyone care about me much less value and appreciate me? That was my quandary through chemo treatments after my bleak cancer diagnosis. These worries tormented me through many sleepless nights. I assured Johnny, “Your life is a blessing to me and our friendship is a joy. Johnny, I always talk about you and tell people we are friends. I will never forget you and in fact I will write a book about us.”
Half way through our twelve visits, I received permission and encouragement from Archbishop Rozanski to confirm Johnny. In preparing for this special sacrament of the Holy Spirit, we talked about his Confirmation name. Johnny was clueless about many things, but he totally blanked on this idea of a new name since he only had two weeks to live. “Johnny, people who throw in their lot with Jesus get a new name. Simon became Peter, Saul became Paul, and so you will need a new name because you are equally important.” I suggested some names including his grandpa’s, but he was not excited. Then, an aha moment, “How about this, Johnny? You will be named after the beloved disciple, Johnny ‘John the Beloved’ Johnson.” He grinned and chuckled finding this name memorable magic. The alliteration was a winner. The next day we celebrated Confirmation, I said the prayers, anointed him with the Sacred Chrism speaking his new name and then we sang the Taize chant, Veni Sancte Spiritus. Johnny was John the Beloved. He would not be afraid because his new name spoke BELOVED. Besides getting a new name, Johnny learned one sentence of a new language, Latin.
While Confirmation is a Catholic sacramental highlight, the pinnacle event for Johnny was the day I surprised him with the rosary which he begged for every time I visited. Since rosaries have chains, they are forbidden in prison, but I was elated to discover that the Daughters of St. Paul would give me a twine/cord rosary with every bead, including the medal and cross, made of brown knots. It was perfectly symmetrical and artistically beautiful with large masculine beads. Johnny’s entire life was without art and beauty so he embraced this rosary like his personal Pieta. He was wide-eyed and giddy over his twine treasure. I blessed it as he cupped the string rosary in his fists clenched over his heart. He kept the rosary close, confident that Mary was pulling strings and tugging him to herself in heaven. Since my chain rosary was contraband, we both fingered his with our big hands overlapping each other on different beads. His favorite rosary prayer was one I had frequently overlooked, “Oh my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fire of hell, and lead all souls to heaven especially those who are in most need of your mercy.” Likely, he was lazer focused on being saved from the fires of hell while I was overconfident, even cocky, in my certain salvation. Since praying rosaries with Johnny, I never overlook that prayer.
Time was winding down and I questioned what God required in Johnny’s final days. My third lesson for Johnny, “Jesus laid down his life, they did not take it away from him. Jn 10:18” I did not want Johnny to die kicking and screaming. While I knew the state would over-medicate him to keep him still, I didn’t want him to struggle in his mind and heart. While admittedly rather heady, I tried to help Johnny realize what I myself sometimes doubted. While the world doesn’t know the love and holiness that we share behind locked doors in this ‘no where’ place prison in Mineral Point, MO, our lives are still important and we are laying down our lives to transform people, even a world whom we didn’t know. Staff and guards, not to mention family, friends, and even the archbishop were taken aback by my frequent trips from St. Louis to Potosi to share with my friend, Johnny, a death row no count. Why would I and why should I do that? Did they see our smiles or hear us singing? Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” While we can’t correct the injustice and insanity of capital punishment, our shared respect for each other and towards prison staff, many of whom themselves are captives of a repressive system, is touching hearts and is slowly bending that cold steel arc toward justice.
While we seldom spoke about this, I hoped that the prison staff who witnessed my faithful visits from seventy-five miles away from my home realized that I thought Johnny was worthwhile. Consequently, they might be softened by our humanity. We were bending the arc of the moral universe. Change takes a long time, but without our efforts nothing happens. What little time we had together was valuable time. These were the three lessons Simon of Cyrene taught: Do Not Be Afraid, Do This is Memory of Me, and Lay Down Your Life, Don’t Let Them Take It Away From You.
Johnny hadn’t seen his son in over twenty years and D.J. was coming to visit. It seemed likely that this visit would be behind glass and not in person. Johnny and I had become exceptional huggers by this time, but this would be our Oscar moment. We would role play to teach Johnny how to hug D.J. by hugging me. Johnny was not enamored with role playing and he gave me side eye looks questioning my sanity. First, he had to look at me and believe that I was D.J. and hug me as tightly as he would hug D.J. if he might actually touch him. I would hug Johnny, my play dad, whom I hadn’t seen since I was a tyke. We practiced several times, first tentatively, next haltingly, next enthusiastically, and finally giving a bear hug while wiggling our hips and prancing around. Next, we repeated that while hugging ourselves. When it was over, we laughed at ourselves and at each other having completed hug class 101which was never a prison elective. D.J. visited the next day, the warden shocked them both by giving him a contact visit and Johnny tingled with delight realizing how that despised practice session had paid big dividends. Their phenomenal hello hugs and their unforgetable farewell hugs were all on the same day.
Three days before his execution Johnny was moved to a closer prison in Bonne Terre, MO. I got a motel room there since I would have additional visits requiring more trips and I didn’t want to face the danger of exhausted, distracted driving. My last days with Johnny in a new place would be even more intense. For me, there was a calming homeyness about Bonne Terre (Good Earth) because my uncle, Father George Brinkmann, had served as pastor of St. Joseph Church there for twenty-nine years. Our family had gathered there often. As a sixth grader, I had held a candle by George’s casket at his funeral. George was buried by the flagpole in the entrance circle of the parish cemetery. When I was not visiting Johnny in prison, I spent time there visiting, remembering, and praying at George’s grave. I questioned God about whether my presence in the prison system indicated my consent and whether I might even be complicit in his killing. Conversely, I hoped my presence shouted the Biblical command, “Thou shalt not kill.” I pleaded for a continuing Spirit of strength and courage because until this point I had not cried while visiting. I wanted to keep my bold face to the end.
Prior to visiting Johnny, I had a mandatory visit with the warden who explained the protocol for my final visits and had me sign documents swearing I would never divulge the names of any staff whom I saw or who assisted me during these visits. These were no contact visits and Johnny was behind a bulletproof window with a telephone. These two visits were on the perimeter of a noisy visiting hall while Johnny ate dinner. They were very distracted, much less personal, and without Holy Communion.
August 1, 2023, barring a miracle from the Supreme Court or from Governor Mike Parson, who had never pardoned anyone, was Johnny’s last day of life. I met with Johnny who was now in a cell which had one glass wall. He was like a chimpanzee at the zoo. In the rear was a toilet and shower partially hidden with a half wall. In front was a bed, a chair, and a cardboard packing box holding Johnny’s worldly possessions. I sat facing the glass wall and two round-the-clock, armed guards sat at desks behind me. Their prison radio squawk boxes blared announcements and/or droned uninterrupted scratchy static. This was the sanctuary where we prayed and visited for two hours. At our final visiting time, Johnny would be strapped on a gurney in the death house.
It seems an exaggeration to call this small space with only four people present a chaotic, traumatic even tumultuous scene, but that’s what it was. There were two armed guards, two helpless men striving for sanity, even sanctity, blinding lights, nerve jangling, screechy radio noises, a last meal of cheeseburgers, fries, and a strawberry malt to be followed by the climatic last meal, the Lord’s Supper. The scene was indescribably conflicted and mind bending, like rounding a square circle. It was the struggle between the Power of Light and the Power of Darkness. My biggest priestly challenge was making this a place of wonder, mystery, and awe to help caged Johnny John the Beloved Johnson end his life peacefully.
I sat on a metal folding chair with my knees pressed to the glass near the microphone that broadcast my voice into Johnny’s cell. I tried to use my inside-voice whisper while the guards six feet away sat staring over my back watching Johnny’s every move while he had nowhere to go. Johnny sat on his bed with his ear buds in listening to his music and wolfing down double cheeseburgers and fries. He mumbled through his mouthfuls that he wanted to visit with me but this eleventh hour time limit demanded that he multi-task. We prayed his treasured rosary and offered each decade for a special intention. One was for the artistic sister who knotted the beads and the last one was for his victim, Cassie, and her family and loved ones.
At a time I deemed appropriate, I signaled the guard to bring me the Mass kit which was two vacuum sealed clear plastic boxes about 3 inches square each holding a small plastic cup of grape juice and a ½ inch cube of bread for Holy Communion. As I balanced the boxes on my knees, I made up the best prayers I could in this carnival atmosphere and consciously included the sacramental words “This is my Body, This is my Blood, Do This In Memory of Me.” We prayed the Lord’s Prayer and shared a Sign of Peace with our open palms pressed flat opposite each others on the thick glass pane and smiled. Given my neuropathy, I feared my feeble fingers ability to pry open the hermetically sealed plastic boxes. I motioned the guard to come over and handed him Johnny’s Communion box. I watched him slide it to Johnny through a hole in his cage. I was not allowed to do that, so by a twisted contradiction the gun toting guard became Johnny’s extraordinary minister of the Lord’s Supper. Can a man who administers Communion to a brother be on the execution team later? It was the ultimate charade seeing the sacramental Jesus in the transparent plastic box and seeing Johnny behind glass. We are the Christ we eat, under glass. The scene was surreal and sacrilegious and simultaneously it was the perfect sacramental remembrance of the Lord’s Supper on the night before Jesus died. Jesus gave himself fully to the very people who would betray, deny, and desert him. As we celebrated Jesus blessed, broken, bruised, and bleeding; it was all right there in this hell-hole of a sanctuary. Sinful people being lorded over by the power of Rome/Missouri where Pilate/Governor Parson washes his hands and the blood of the condemned is on all the citizens who pay taxes to carry out executions. Along with the sterile plastic box lunch Jesus, the fractured Body of Christ was in that room. The used plastic boxes and cups were collected by the guard to be returned to the warden for recycling to save Mother Earth in Missouri.
As the young valet ushered me out of that mind boggling glass cell setting, we passed some guards dressed in the combat gear of execution day. Roads around the prison were blocked. I could only wonder about the jangled nerves and neck pain I would develop in these last five hours before Johnny’s execution. I had regularly given myself a neck massage on my drive to Potosi, and those were minor league tensions. Today is major. While I wasn’t hungry, I forced myself to have lunch at the Waffle House. I was revolted at the thought of going to the nearby Burger King. If Johnny got a last minute stay, then the State of Missouri still had 24 hours to kill him and I would have to be on call. My lunch was as stressed as our Lord’s Supper in plastic. I certainly couldn’t eat where they used any plastic.
From my very first visit I knew the importance of my communicating with Johnny by really looking at him. Johnny was often confused and we needed eye contact, up close and personal. My oft repeated mantra was, “Johnny, look at me. I am Simon of Cyrene who carried the cross for Jesus. I am here with you until the end.”
I arrived at 5:30 pm for the 6 pm scheduled execution and I waited in the prison lobby which was a bee hive of nervous chatter. I was told to sit and relax as we awaited the final determination by the court. My anxiety was doubled by the hardness of the wobbly steel folding chair where I sprawled out my 6 foot 4 inch frame. The state still had 24 hours to carry out their grim deed. I closed my eyes and assumed the mindset I practiced years earlier while sitting up during sleepless nights pondering my mortality from my lung cancer death sentence. Time ticked by without checking my watch, my pulse throb was audible. I prayed with the same hopefulness as I had in my darkest hours. The steel folding chair was torturous compared to my living room recliner.
At 6:15pm, the valet tapped my shoulder to motion me into the prison. I detoured for the men’s room. After twists and turns, a walk through an outside yard, and a trip through a vacant visitors’ lounge; we finally arrived at the death house where a guard took charge. He stage managed my execution posture telling me to sit back in my chair on the platform by Johnny so that I wouldn’t be so close as to block the view of the observers. “I will do the best I can, but this is my first time and we didn’t have a rehearsal,” I assured him trying to be calm as I bit my tongue. We passed through another steel door to the brightly lit stage. Johnny lay under a white blanket up to his neck while a stage curtain hid us from the outside viewers who shuffled chairs.
I walked a few steps towards his gurney and announced loudly, “Johnny John the Beloved Johnson, Simon of Cyrene is here now and we’re going to the mountain top together.” Johnny lifted his head twisting his neck to face me. His piercing blue eyes flashed a smile at my glistening blue eyes. These windows to our souls revealed the deep love we shared. Johnny laid back, closed his eyes and never reopened them.
The theater curtain rolled back and it was horror show time. Johnny was still as I spoke. “Johnny, when you next open your eyes, you will hear no more crazy voices but you will hear music and stare into the eyes of God who will say, ‘Johnny John the Beloved Johnson enter the Kingdom prepared for you since the foundation of the world. I always knew you would come.’” After some time of quiet, I cupped my hand tightly over his shoulder and sang Taize, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom, Jesus, remember me when I come into your Kingdom.” I massaged his shoulder and bicep. I breathed while trying to recall the guard’s directions about my body position. Then slowly, very slowly and softly I sang, “Silent Night, Holy Night, all is calm, all is bright, Round Yon Virgin, Mother and Child, Holy Infant, so Tender and Mild.” And when I got to “sleep in heavenly peace”, Johnny did.
Johnny pierced the veil of darkness from death into the fullness of life, burst into the new luminous realm, graduated into glory, and stared into the loving face of God. No more of the schizophrenic, cacophonous craziness that had caused him to stuff newspaper into his ears; but rather a warm embrace of a smiling Jesus, his brother, “Johnny, welcome to the Kingdom prepared for you since the foundation of the world. I always knew you would come.”
The guard tapped my shoulder and pointed me to wait outside while someone determined that the state had succeeded in murdering Johnny. I knew that birth is not instantaneous and neither is death. I sat there sniffling and singing as Johnny’s soul left his body. To accompany Johnny’s passing, I sang Amazing Grace, How Great Thou Art, and We Shall Overcome. The death dealing deed was done.
The young valet returned to usher me back to the now somber lobby and out into the heavy August air to my car. As we walked I inquired about his kids whom he had spoken of proudly. He had taken them on vacation and now they were attending bible camp. I told him I was happy for his kids and prayed for his family. “In growing up, Johnny never had a summer vacation or bible school.” We reached my car and he stopped on the path and leaned in whispering, “Since spiritual advisors like you are able to be here at times like this, the prison is more peaceful. All of you have been a blessing. Thank you.”
Johnny and I had succeeded. Our feeble efforts had bent the moral arc of the universe toward justice. With that small consolation I bent over my steering wheel. Now I could cry. So, I sobbed.