"Man Called Frank" Part 2

Click here for Part 1.

Frank's lawyer Lawrence Wynn sat across from him at a large metal table tapping his fingers and starring at Frank as if he were wearing his shirt backwards but was too afraid to let him know. Frank looked down at his nails and realized that he had not been able to cut them for months. As a matter of fact he could do to have a shave and a haircut.

“They wanna hang ya” Wynn said. Franks eyes shot up. Wynn held his hand up to keep him from speaking. “This judge has a mean hard-on for murderers and ain't been able to execute someone in months. He, uh, Judge Labelle that is, even has the fucking hippies on his side. 'Hangin' will save the state thousands in funds for electricity!' He says its Green. Whatever the fuck that means.”

Frank opened his mouth to speak but only a rasp escaped his throat. He put his large hands to his neck and rubbed his Adam's apple. He imagined having a noose slipped around his neck as he starred out into a galley full of cheering onlookers.

“They don't hang people anymore, right?” Frank asked. Wynn shrugged. “Don't shrug. Fucking tell me something!” Frank screamed as tried to rise from his chair forgetting that there were shackles on his feet.

“Easy, big fella” Wynn said. He looked towards the door where three armed guards stood and waved them off. “From what I know about hanging, it ain't even all that damned bad. It's over in, like, seconds.”

There are four methods of execution by hanging. Suspension, short drop, standard drop, and long drop. In suspension hanging, considered the worst of the four, a prisoner may take close to twenty minutes before dying from strangulation due to the carotid arteries being blocked reducing the flow of blood to the brain. The short drop uses an almost snapping motion that fractures the spinal column. Standard drops are set at heights which makes it useless against someone rank's size. At 4 to 6 feet in length he would land and still have enough inches left considering his height to bend down a bit. The long drop takes into consideration a prisoners height and weight to ensure that decapitation does not occur.

It does though.

In 1901 cowboy turned train robber Thomas E. Ketchum aka Black Jack was hung in New Mexico Territory by inexperienced lawmen. Not taking into account the amount of weight that he had gain during his incarceration he was decapitated during execution. His head was severed immediately then reattached for public display.

Frank knew this particular tale since he was a fan of history regarding the Old West. Wynn began to tap his fingers on the table once again and Frank replayed falling to his death over and over in his head.

“What do you wanna do, Frank?” Wynn asked.

“Tell them to give me a short drop” he said.

“A what?” Wynn asked puzzled. “The hell's that?”

“Trust me. Short drop.”