John Swinburn

“On the cusp of my departure, my words are hollow and weak, as I struggle to describe the man I wished I’d been, a speck of the decent man I failed to be. I tried but I failed. I could not overcome whatever it was that took hold of my decency and held it deep under a thick slurry of ugliness until it drowned. On this day of my demise, I attempt to express regret too deep and too profound for words, far too late to be believed by people who I wished could hear and believe my contrition. The depth of the anguish I feel towers above me alongside the guides of the guillotine’s blade, the blade I so richly deserve.”

Thus were the last words written by Theodore Crawford, who was put to death by guillotine in Struggles, Arkansas. His words of penitence truly were hollow. He wrote them in an effort to change the future into a time when, if he was remembered at all, he would  be remembered as a man with a heart. He was not. Crawford was as bad a man as ever lived. He did, indeed, deserve to die, but not necessarily in such a quick and humane manner as afforded by the guillotine. But that’s for another time.

Crawford’s ‘trial’ was by kangaroo court. Six self-appointed members of a jury allowed Crawford no defense. Truth be told, though, even a legitimate jury trial would certainly have found the man guilty of capital murder. He had walked into a bank in the town in broad daylight and, without provocation, shot and killed two tellers. He left the bank without even asking for money. His motive was revenge. The bank president had rejected his request for a loan a week earlier.

By the time Theodore Crawford committed his last hideous act, Struggles, Arkansas no longer had a police force, a prosecutor, or a justice system. Even the bank in which he murdered two tellers no longer dealt in real U.S. dollars. Instead, traded in Strugglers, a pseudo currency created by the bank when its customers had no more legitimate U.S. currency in their accounts.

The guillotine used for Crawford’s beheading was built by Jason Boxwelter, a welder,  blacksmith, and occasional executioner. Boxwelter, though, did not drop the blade that killed Crawford. The man who did that was Moses Perkins, the foreman of the jury that convicted Crawford.

As you might have guessed by now, this story is going nowhere. I’m simply typing for finger exercise. I think my fingers are strong enough for this morning, so I’ll stop here for now.

Gwynn Slottman was deathly afraid of snakes. The mere sight of an elongated, limbless reptile sent her into a panic-stricken delirium of the highest order. She screamed, swore, and jumped on chairs and tables. Sweat poured from her brow. Perspiration drenched her clothes. Her cheeks turned beet red. Her eyes blazed with a mixture of rage and abject terror. Snake sightings brought out the worst in an otherwise rational, intelligent, and composed woman. Gwynn turned into a raving, reptile-loathing maniac at even the mention of a snake. She lost her ability to think rationally and to control her bladder. Whenever she saw even a photograph of a snake, Gwynn—an openly agnostic-and-leaning-toward-atheist woman—prayed to God that Jesus would swoop down from heaven and smite the serpent.

On the morning of June 17, 2017, Gwynn led her dog, Hermione, out the door  into the garage of the frame home Gwynn shared with her husband, Scotia Slottman. Scotia had left for his job as a bank examiner in the city an hour earlier. Normally, he would have closed the roll-up garage door after backing his Honda Element out of the garage, but not so this day. On June 17, 2017, Scotia forgot to close the garage door. Between the time he drove away and the time Gwynn started out the door with Hermione, something bad happened. A snake found its way in the open door and curled up in an indentation in the concrete at the base of the stairs leading from the house into the garage.

Gwynn did not see the snake until the last second. The reptile, sensing warmth encroaching on its new-found nest, moved ever so slightly just as Gwynn’s foot almost touched the snake. That almost imperceptible movement was enough, though, to alert Gwynn to the monster’s presence at the same time a freakish combination of a howl  and a bark escaped Hermione’s throat. Gwynn lept over the snake, pulling her dog into the air with her, and crashed into some shelving six feet from the viper’s resting place. Hermione, choking from being dragged several feet in the air by her neck, coughed and sputtered as a loud “CRACK” and Gwynn’s ear-splitting scream filled the air. Hermione could barely keep up with Gwynn as she limped at high speed down the driveway and across the street to the front door of the neighbor’s house.

Bill Wilson, long retired and almost deaf, apparently did not hear Gwynn’s scream, nor did he hear her banging on his front door. But he saw her, dragging her dog behind, burst into his bedroom.

“Where’s the gun?! Give me your damn gun!” Gwynn did not wait for Wilson to respond. She saw his pump-action shotgun, hanging from a rack on his bedroom wall, and grabbed it.

“Is it loaded? Come on! Is it loaded?” In her fear and rage, she aimed the barrel at Wilson as she asked again, “Is the damn gun loaded, old man?!”

Wilson, who must have been utterly flabbergasted by his neighbor’s behavior, replied, “One shell in the chamber and six in the magazine, but there are more shells in the top dresser drawer.”

Gwynn lunged at the dresser, scooped up a box of shells, and dragged Hermione out of the bedroom, through the living room, and out the front door.

She stopped on the front steps and said to Hermione, “Sit, stay.”

Hermione was doubtless confused and afraid, as she had never seen Gwynn behave in quite this manner.  She sat and she stayed, as commanded.

Gwyyn opened the box of shells and emptied it into the pockets of her light jacket. She took a step off the porch, raised the barrel of the gun, and fired it at her garage. She took a step, pumped the stock, and fired again. She continued, taking one or two steps and then firing until all the shells in the gun had been used. Gwynn paused long enough to reload and then began again.

When she reached the open door of her garage, Gwynn had used nineteen shells and was preparing to reload again when a police car screeched to a stop behind her.  The driver’s door swung open. The officer raised his pistol and aimed it at Gwynn.

“Drop the gun! Drop it now or I’ll shoot!”

Gwynn hadn’t even heard the car’s siren. She was so deeply engrossed in her reptile-induced psychosis that the only thing she heard was her own rapid heartbeat. But as she was about to reload, she heard the officer’s command.

“What? Yeah, alright.” Gwynn set the gun down as the officer shouted another command.

“Walk backwards toward me. Don’t turn around, just walk backwards.”

The sounds of approaching sirens filled the morning air as Gwynn’s maniacal frenzy dissipated and she became aware of what she had just done.

“Officer, there is a snake in my garage. I was just trying to kill the snake.”

Still facing the garage, Gwynn noticed the shattered back window of her Toyota Camry and saw the hundreds of tiny holes in the truck.

“Did I kill it? Is the snake dead?”

As the officer pulled Gwynn’s arms behind and put her in handcuffs, he said, “I have no idea.”

“If it’s not dead, you’ve got to kill it. I can’t go back in there if that snake’s still alive.”

“You’re not going back in there for quite awhile, m’aam.”

Gwynn’s broken ankle took six weeks to heal. The irrational fear took a bit longer. The psychiatric evaluation revealed what Scotia Slottman had known all along. His wife was certifiably crazy with fear of snakes. Ophidiophobia, the psychiatrist called it. That diagnosis, along with Scotia’s agreement that he’d buy Bill Wilson a new gun and replace all the shells Gwynn had used, got Gwynn released. By September, Scotia and Gwynn decided it would be best to start over in a new neighborhood, so they moved a little closer to Scotia’s job.

Over the next several months, Gwynn was treated for her phobia. The treatment seemed to work. But after the incident with the snake and the shotgun, Hermione seemed to develop an abnormal fear. During Gwynn’s treatment, whenever Gwynn was shown images of snakes, Hermione turned and growled menacingly at Gwynn. Six months of veterinary psychotherapy took care of that problem.

I’m not sure which of the two of us were more guilty. I suspect it was me, though she could have made the first move. That’s always been the case though, hasn’t it?

I was the one who felt unloved and unworthy of love. Patty McClung and I met in geology class. We spent very little time together. One geology field trip that I remember and one long afternoon in my studio apartment, listening to B.W. Stevenson albums on my cheap turntable. We sprawled across my bed, both feeling deeply awkward I think, and talked about the music. And then, at some point, I learned she was on a woman’s baseball team and that she would play in Houston. I went to Houston. But I opted, at the last minute, not to go to the game in which she played. I think I was embarrassed. I didn’t know what we meant to each other. Or, more importantly, I didn’t know whether I meant anything to her. And so I told my buddy, Ray Woodman, that we ought to skip the game. And we did. And I’ve never had any contact with Patty McClung since. It’s not like I lost a lover, but I lost quite a lot of respect for myself for simply walking away from that game. I’ve never regained it, either. I never kissed Patty McClung. I never touched her, save any incidental brushes of hand against hand that might have occurred as we listened to B.W. Stevenson. Damn it. Was I as void of decency and conscience and empathy and caring as I think I must have been?

I wish I could apologize to her for simply disappearing from her life. Though, in reality, she also disappeared from mine. We were both “guilty” for failing to pursue possibilities that, realistically, might have turned into nothing but anger and pettiness. But, maybe…maybe.

Patty McClung might have taught me lessons in humanity that, if I learned, I learned late. But I allowed  a twenty-something’s coldness to crush that lesson beneath my feet. Tonight, I feel sad that I let my youth be guided by things that never mattered, but I thought they did. Tonight, I feel sad that the world isn’t more assertive when it witnesses young people being stupid and unfeeling.  I think there’s a permanent sadness inside me now, an unrestrained weeping, that lives within me simply because I can’t erase the mistakes of my youth. I guess what makes it worse is that I realize, now, I could have erased those mistakes but chose the easy way out and just didn’t do it. And I suffer now because of that ugly, inexcusable choice.

It seems fitting that, in the background, I listen to Danko, Fjeld, and Andersen perform “When Morning Comes to America.” Except ‘morning’ is, in fact, ‘mourning.” Truly.

This may be too close to reality to be pure fiction. But it will fit into a story one day, regardless. I feel it will.

I remember that night when you fell through the ice. You were so sure of yourself. You were such a fool.

“No way I’m gonna fall through,” you shouted back at me as I pleaded with you to come back. “This ice is at least six inches thick, you chicken!”

The instant you called me “chicken,” cracking ice split the night like a rifle shot.  The terror in your eyes at that moment will forever be etched in my memory. But my inaction at the moment you needed me most runs deeper in me even than your fear. I couldn’t bring myself to even reach for the rope you’d carried with you at my insistence. If I had, maybe I could have pulled you back out of the frozen river. But I just stood there, paralyzed with fear, as you slipped off the shattered ice into the water.

I’ve never told anyone what happened. Your disappearance has remained a mystery for all these years.  By the time they noticed you were gone, the cracks in the river had healed over with new ice. They never found you. I suppose you floated away and ended up in the Atlantic. Food for sharks and the like. But today, I’m going to solve that mystery. I’m going to walk into the Vaudeville, New York police station and explain what happened to you on Christmas Eve, 1932. I’m going to take responsibility for my silence.