But this story is not all about what Jesse did.
Jesse had just turned 18 on October the 19th. It was then that a demonic force inflicted a sonic water-colored assault onto Jesse's world. On that tragic birthday his life changed forever when he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
A Circle K convenience store worker and an undercover policeman were shot to death in a botched robbery and Jesse had been viewed by the store's cameras only minutes before the murder. In fact, Jesse admitted he was there but denied the crime. His fingerprints were there. A woman who passed Jesse on her way out of the store later identified him in a lineup as being at the scene of the grisly unmentionable.
A neighbor who had had a past run in with Jesse over him playing his music too loud saw the TV report and the ripped-off store's video on a "NEWS AT 10" broadcast and called it in. The police swarmed Jesse's hood shortly after receiving word. They found Jesse in a squalid one room brownstone hovel. Tattered clothes littered the floor. Lacy spiderwebs adorned the silverware bins. A plotch of unrestrained mildew grew frenetically in the urine residue of his toilet bowl.
The law took one look around and came to their own quick conclusions about Bolivia and this seedy part of town.
The police's home invasion search had turned up several important items. The same style sunglasses as in the pictures. A ski cap there with the same insignia... A flannel shirt that appeared to be very similar to the clothes worn by the killer in the store's poor quality color film footage. Jesse even had the same telltale purple afro-pick seen poking out of the killer's shirt pocket before. Bond was set at 1 million dollars and Jesse was sure he would never see the light of a free day again.
The trial was a farce. From the beginning Jesse was declared indigent. Too poor not to pay. He was assigned a public defender named Noel Justin who had tried only one murder case before in his young and fruitless life. Justin did little in the way of preparation for the case despite Jesse's increasingly depurate claims of innocence.
The lawyer quietly despised Bolivia for this admittedly treacherous crime although outwardly Justin concealed his chagrin well. Everyone said they were innocent. The counselor tried to dissuade Jesse from saying too much. "You leave the talking to me." Justin said confidently as if he had something beneficial in mind. Meanwhile Noel Justin esquire stayed out late at night with the members of the town's good ole boy network and made few legal preparations for Jesse or any of his other clients for that matter. Noel was interested in spending money though.
Noel Justin didn't grasp the value of his client's life. He talked openly about the case in public. He missed key meetings he was to have with Jesse and failed to ask many penetrating questions that might have shed some light on the charged man's innocence. The day of trial clambered closer. Finally-- and tragically, to no one's surprise--Jesse Bolivia was found guilty. Guilty without much fanfare after his jury deliberated for a scant 20 minutes on the evidence they had seen. Surely, they would confess later, no one had ever been so guilty. Jesse's heart pounded jackhammer-like against his chest when sentencing was passed down a week later.
"Mr. Bolivia men like you don't deserve to breathe free air. You are sentenced to be executed in the Florida electric chair "and with that the judge stood and brought the gavel down.
"May God rest your soul. Court adjourned." The man in the black robe said and turned away quickly.
Jesse went back to his cell and prayed. Years went by and Jesse exhausted his appeals. No one visited him. Nappy outcrops of gray hair sprung up all over his head. The day of reckoning loomed closer with every breathe he took and he was a mental train wreck. His body jumped to a start involuntarily in his sleep too many times to count. The system had operated in an evil, forlorn way once again and no one cared.
Only one man could save him now. "Clemency" was a well worn catch-phrase bandied about on death row. Only the governor could spare a row member's life with clemency.
Jesse's governor was a man named "Shorty" Shrubs for his diminutive size and fuse-like disposition. Granting Jesse clemency was the furthest thing from Shorty's mind though and he said so publicly. Governor Shrubs even went as far as to make jokes televised jokes about Jesse's plight.
"We going to have us a barbecue in Starke come down round October." The governor twinkled a smile and doffed his ten gallon hat as he continued.
"You don't kill a lawman in this state and live to tell about it. Ya'all come on now you hear. A man like Jesse Bolivia deserves what he gets."
The governor's good ole boys nudged each other knowingly in the background with ear to ear grins. Their globs of chewing tobacco spit formed pools on the ground in front of them. One deputy picked searchingly in his nose--rooting out crunchy goldmines. Jesse lay in his cell awake that night thinking about his fate.
"God I didn't do this. Some men look just like others, to others. Please show me a way."
A bright light shone down suddenly into his cell. The alarmed tiptoeing cockroaches scrambled quickly for safety into the paint chipped cracks of the baseboard moldings.
"A good deal of injustice goes on down here my son but sometimes only the biggest events come before my attention." The voice boomed into the recesses of the bounce-plex without drawing any attention from the otherwise noisy cell pods.
"I have watched from above how this farce has played out." God supplied.
"What?!" Jesse looked serenely placated as his anticipation grew.
"Retribution comes to those who wait. Vengeance is mine sayeth the lord." The ubiquitous being commanded.
With those intrepid words something truly bizarre took place. Jesse felt something strange as if he had become fuller in his own skin. He was certain that he was now sharing his body with not one but two other people. At once all the selves were seemingly in conflict with one another.
What the hell are you waking me up for at this time of the night? Said one voice that sounded distinctly like that of the governors.
"Hey scoot over. What am I doing in here?" came the clearly wining voice of Noel Justin the attorney. Jesse's mouth flailed agape.
Jesse had a flash of divine wisdom and he knew what had just taken place.
"Ha, ha, ha," Jesse laughed.
'Now you two will know what its like to walk a mile in my shoes.'" The selves felt at their own Jesse body than looked closely at the unfamiliar colored face in the cell's high polish steel mirror.
"This can't be!" Cried the governor self.
"Were ruined! lamented the former attorney.
"This cell is so small. Its cold and everything is hard as a rock." The governor started. Their wasn't a dry eye in the 6 X 6.
"It stinks like old egg farts in here." The lawyer said feeling at Jesse's vocal cords.
"You guys pipe down in there" came a voice from the cell right across from them. A black man that looked like Jesse came out of the shadows of the back of his cell. Out of obscurity. He bore the insignia of a strangely familiar tattoo on his forearm. He stood there glaring. Listening intently. His prescence could not be overlooked.
The selves exchanged unexplainable flashes of intuition at this. Jesse remembered. The Governor went to pieces and Jesse fell to his knees.
"We're scheduled to die tomorrow, The governor spat. 'That's real electricity they're getting ready to pump us with. I think I'm going to be sick.'"
"Maybe we can just tell them what happened," the lawyer quibbled.
"What are you fucking kidding?" The governor was a trembling pile of eunuch jelly.
The three entities went on bickering amongst themselves like young children forced to do fatal chores. Meanwhile, the governor and the attorney's old bodies lay dormant--sleeping. Finally the last night came before the scheduled execution of Jesse Bolivia. He ate a last meal of fried chicken. Three hours left till the end...
"My God I had no idea it was this bad." It dawned on the governor.
"This is medieval. What the hell are we doing to these people? Cringed the attorney.
The hour grew nearer. Genuflecting occurred. Soon Jesse would leave that body taking the governor and the lawyer with him. To many people had conspired to preordain his untimely fate.
Then more surrealism occurred. Jesse awoke in the governor's body. He looked down at his white outstretched arm-- its hue of fine porcelain. A hatrack in the corner with several 10 gallon Stetson's. Jesse looked at the pictures decorating the room. Dust-eating cowboys being cranium stomped by wild-eyed cattle beasts. Action photos of men with thrown lassos hanging in mid air--teeth bared mares so elusive. Jesse noted the discernible blur around some pictures caused by shutter speed to slow to capture the fast fury. Sometimes pictures did lie. On the floor a brass spittoon held floating graveyards of stringy tobacco afterbirth.
The morbidity of the state's execution dance could not be translated into sane words. The now Jesseless Jesse was led kicking and screaming to the electrical moment of atonement. Wired nodes were connected to his ashen chestnut-colored face.
The attorney and the governor trembled in Jesse. Sheer horrifica.
Jesse's body had been strapped to the chair. A wet sponge dripped its morbid dribble down his head in sweat staining rivulets. The water would get the juice flowing to his brain more readily. Unsightly veins pulsed unimpeded.
"And in the name of the father..." The priest muttered something frantic in mutated latin. Gothic echoes stirred in the executioner's atavian hearts--unremoved by time.
The door to the death chamber burst open suddenly. The body of the governor himself, Shorty Shrubs walked in waving a piece of paper dramatically.
"Stop what your doing! I'm ordering clemency for this man. Let him go!"
E-mail: Democrat1967@aol.com
"I live in Naples Florida. My Favorite things are writing, weightlifting and running. I am 33 and was born in Kingsport, Tennessee. I graduated from Barron Collier High School. I received an A.A in Journalism from Hillsborough Community College. I Received my B.A in English from the University of South Florida in 1999."
URL: http://hometown.aol.com/democrat1967/myhomepage/resume.html
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