*Previously published, in slightly different form, in Struggle, Winter-Spring 1999-20000. Vol. 15, No.2-Vol. 16, No.1.

*IN THE GREAT STATE OF
BY
KEITH LAUFENBERG

-1-
THE BREEZE


A mind forever
Voyaging through strange seas of thought alone.
Wordsworth, The Prelude. Bk. Iii, 1. 62.



Johnny 'The Breeze' Wadkins was born in the Great State of, but The Breeze had grown up in New York City. The Breeze's parents had moved with The Breeze and his five brothers and sisters to Harlem in 1961, when The Breeze was but one year old. The Breeze was the sixth child of James and Crystal Wadkins, both itinerant farm workers until the move to Harlem, where Crystal worked as a waitress and James worked as a dishwasher and short-order cook. The Breeze worked at odd jobs all his life, helping out as much as he could to contribute to the feeding and clothing of himself and his siblings. Somehow, The Breeze had graduated from high school even though his I.Q. hovered somewhere in the neighborhood of 65, a neighborhood generally only occupied by first and second graders. The Breeze loved to go out to Coney Island and Rockaway Beach, where he would be seen standing on the beachfront, for hours on end, staring out into the ocean. When asked what it was he liked the most about the beach he always answered 'the breeze,' and, hence, from age 5 onward, he became known as The Breeze. The Wadkins family, in 1980, when The Breeze was 19, traveled to the Great State of where James Wadkins' brother still lived. James' brother, William, had worked his way up to owning a share of a farm and, for the first time in his life, The Breeze ate all he could. After a week, when the Wadkins' were packing to go back to New York, The Breeze asked if he could stay. Now, James Wadkins had left the Great State of in 1961 , when the racial prejudice was much worse than almost two decades later, and so he decided, that if his brother would let his son stay on, why that would be fine with him. He loved The Breeze but one less mouth to feed was one less mouth to feed and the country would be better for him anyway; in New York City danger lurked around every corner as it was and for someone as slow as The Breeze it was multiplied ten-fold.
And so, on a mild summer day in 1980, The Breeze bid his family goodbye, as they went back to New York City and he stayed on, in the Great State of.

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*********


It happened just before Christmas of 1980; The Breeze had been to the Bay, the closest thing to the beach in the Great State of, and was walking home when he was accosted by several police officers. It seemed a woman had been brutally raped and left for dead, and less than a mile from where The Breeze was walking. The coppers piled on top of The Breeze and stuffed him into the backseat of one of the numerous police cars on the scene, as not much in the way of criminal activity happened in this small town in the Great State of. Within minutes, The Breeze was standing in front of a battered and bruised rape victim, 61-year old Mabel Miller. Now, Mabel was extremely near-sighted, in fact she could barely see out of her left eye and always closed it when trying to decipher anything farther away than a foot from her face. But Mabel Miller had been born and raised in the Great State of and she could easily see, even from a dozen feet away, that the man being held up, in a sea of white policemen, was not of the Caucasian race. In fact he stood out like a piece of charcoal in a bag of marshmallows, and Mabel Miller easily pointed her finger at The Breeze and croaked:
'Tha's him, tha's the niggah what done abused me'�

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THE PATSY


Innocence itself hath need of a mask.---Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia. No. 3101.

What can innocence hope for,
When such as sit her judges are corrupted!---Massenger, The Maid of Honour. Act v., sc. 2.




The policemen took The Breeze back to headquarters and told him what they expected him to say and The Breeze, being the agreeable moron that he was, easily exceeded their expectations of him; he admitted to every unsolved crime on their books.
Now, the small town in which The Breeze had been apprehended had only a few unsolved crimes on their books and so the police in this small town in the Great State of did what the police in almost any small town in the Great State of would have, they transported The Breeze to a much larger jurisdiction; maybe they could use him to clear some of a sister county's unsolved crimes. The Breeze admitted to all of their crimes also and they put him in a holding cell, where they treated him to all the candy and ice cream he wanted; after all, it wasn't every day that you got to clear some old crimes off your ledgers.

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*********


It took just two days to convict The Breeze of rape and he was sentenced to die, in the electric chair, in the Great State of. Two weeks later, The Breeze was put on trial for murder, in a case he had admitted to, after eating his fill of candy and ice cream, in another jurisdiction, in a town he had never set foot in. He was given a public defender and found guilty in just three days.

-3-
LIFE WITHOUT



To vice, innocence must always seem a superior kind of chicanery.
Ouida, Two Little Wooden Shoes.

Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to T. Coxe, 1799.




The Breeze languished in a cell for 20 years before his lawyers finally got permission from the Great State of, only after getting an injunction and a great deal of publicity, to get the blood evidence that had convicted The Breeze, on the murder conviction, and test it. Using DNA evidence, The Breeze was found to be innocent of the murder and was exonerated but was due to be executed within a year, on the rape conviction.
Now, Mabel Miller had died the year before but they still had the blood evidence that had been used to convict The Breeze but had never been DNA tested. His lawyers finally got an injunction and the DNA proved that The Breeze was innocent. The Breeze was preparing to pack his bags, which consisted of one pair of prison denims and a toothbrush, when the Great State of filed an appeal, stating that The Breeze could have had an accomplice, whose DNA had overwhelmed The Breeze's.
The Breeze's lawyers assured him that it was nothing to worry about but they hadn't figured on the appellate court in the Great state of, which ruled that the DNA evidence failed to, convincingly, prove that The Breeze hadn't raped Mabel Miller, but only that his DNA had failed to appear. His death sentence would go forth, unless an appeal, which The Breeze's lawyers had filed, was upheld.
Now, it just so happened, that in the Great State of, like many other States, the governor had the power to grant a pardon, in certain such cases.

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Now, the governor in the Great State of, was, as most governor's are, a political animal, and so he did what most governor' s are apt to do in such a setting, nothing. When the Breeze's lawyers pushed him to make a decision he ordered one more DNA test done, on a towel that had been on the scene and had been covered in blood. When the results came in the governor' s people refused to divulge them and The Breeze's lawyers began sweating, right up until The Breeze was due to be executed, not coincidentally, on the very day that the governor was being replaced. Now, the incumbent governor was a Republican and very pro-death penalty; he was unlikely to commute The Breeze's sentence; in fact had commented when campaigning that he would not, if he were elected; the only chance The Breeze had was the outgoing governor.
Finally, the governor's office called The Breeze's lawyer's and informed them that if The Breeze would agree, he would commute The Breeze's death sentence to life without the possibility of parole. Now, The Breeze, of course, would agree to anything, but the lawyer's were adamant that the governor let the innocent man out of jail. The governor's office replied that if they failed to agree to the deal within two hour's it would be off and the governor, no longer in office, would be free of all responsibility. The lawyer' s had little choice. If they did not agree The Breeze would be strapped into the Great State of's electric chair in the morning. They agreed and The Breeze's future was sealed.
EPILOGUE
LIFE FOREVER, FOR THE BREEZE


The happy man is he that knows the world and cares not for it.---Joseph Hall.


The Breeze smiled, as he sat his tray on the table and his fellow prisoner's smiled back. It was always nice to have The Breeze around, he was so agreeable and would usually give them anything he had, except his food; he had spent a month in the hole for hitting a fellow inmate over the head with a chair when that inmate had tried to take some of his chow.

*********

The ex-governor of the Great State of smiled, as he read his morning paper and saw that he was ahead in the polls; he was running for Senator, and knew he had done the right thing in the Great State of vs. Johnny Wadkins; after all the boy was violent, he had assaulted another prisoner in the Great State of's penitentiary. Now, the ex-governor, soon to be Senator, of the Great State of, had known what the last DNA test, the one on the towel, had shown, that The Breeze was completely innocent, the DNA was not his. But, the ex-governor, soon to be Senator, of the Great State of, made his decision not on the evidence but what was, politically and, financially, best for him. Anyway, it was better to keep this boy off the street; that way he couldn't be held liable if the boy was let out and killed somebody, then where would his political career be? After all, every politician remembered Willie Horton, especially the ex-governor, soon to be Senator, of the Great State of.
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