...or forever hold your peace

I was in Canada that day. I had driven up to visit my boyfriend, who was finishing up a Ph.D. at McMaster, in Hamilton, Ont. We went into Toronto that morning in April with plans to meet up with some friends from a Usenet group we all read.

I remember listening to a radio station on the drive into the city, maybe it was a station from Buffalo, or maybe it was a station in Toronto reporting news from the south. I remember hearing about the threats on a federal building, possibly one in Fort Worth, Texas. I made a momentary note about the news item, but figured it was just more chatter.

I remember that day as one of the nicest in my memory. The weather was mild. Anthony, whom I met for the first time that day, told a wonderful story about falling in love. "The most beautiful man in the world got down on his knees and asked me for a kiss." K. and I walked around Queen Street West for a while before we were supposed to meet Anthony, Dave and Em for dinner at a place around the corner from Ant's apartment.

K. bought a pair of Doc Martens; he and I bought old pulp novels to give as gifts to some dear friends. We walked in and out of shops and cafes, generally oblivious to the world at large. It was that kind of day.

I remember that dinner was lovely, although Em had taken ill at the last minute and Dave came alone. The conversation was easy and the food was good. Every one of us was satisfied. We were having such a good time that we wondered if there might be time to hit a liquor store for a bottle of good scotch. As it turned out, there was not. We returned to Ant's place and logged on to our IRC channel, #genx.

Anthony's computer was an old IBM laptop, made before they were called Thinkpads if I'm not mistaken. He used to complain about it, but telnet worked well enough.

The four of us sat in Anthony's bedroom crowded around the small screen: green letters on a black background. These were our peers, and there were a lot of them online. We joked around as we commented and waited for responses.

I remember the conversation coming into focus: Truck Bomb. Federal Building. Oklahoma. How many dead?

Oh.

My God.

I remember falling back onto the bed, all the air pushing from my lungs as if I'd been struck. I thought of the radio report. The words So Far from Home. We went back into the living room and tuned the television to CNN.

I remember that I could not sit upright, prefering to lay on the couch. As the heads talked, reporting the horror, I began to feel strongly that I should be back in my own country. I cannot remember ever having felt so American, not before or since.

So, yesterday the Federal Government put Timothy McVeigh to death. To be honest, I'd forgotten that yesterday was the day. For me, the bombing wasn't about the aftermath, it was about the act itself.

Although I'm against the death penalty in virtually all cases, I'm not necessarily against a federal death penalty for use only in extreme cases, possibly such as this one. I do not believe that individual states should have different rules on how they punish the same crime. Murder is murder no matter who controls the ground under it.

A couple of diarists I read regularly agree with each other that prison conditions should be less humane. It's true that I've done time as a human rights activist, and that my opinion is formed on a different kind of information; however, if any of you honestly think that prison is some kind of picnic, or that a prisoner is safe behind bars, I think we're going to have to agree to disagree.

I stopped arguing these points a few years ago, because people are going to believe what they want to believe; what helps them sleep better at night. On the other hand, there are some brave souls who continue to take issue. We can say their reportage is propaganda, and in some sense we would be correct.

But if there's even a kernel of truth in any of the links on that page--and there are a lot of them--what does that make us?

before - after