Months Before Six – Part Eight

Carl Buntion aka “CB” (Executed: April 21^st, 2022)

Foreword

At the time of Carl Buntion’s execution he was 78-years-old. He had been incarcerated for 32 years, and his health had deteriorated significantly. He had such a hard time hearing and standing upright for more than brief periods, he’d entirely stopped going to recreation, where he could socialize with others. Due to these health issues, he rarely spoke to anyone while inside of his cell. He could not stand at his door for long, nor hear well enough to carry on a conversation. These issues also put limitations on how well he and I got to know each other in the few short months we were housed near one another.

These same physical frailties that so limited my chance to socialize with CB also, inadvertently, gave me a chance to see his inner core. In his last few months alive, despite many hardships, he never once complained to anyone about anything, nor said anything negative about anyone or anything. To carry on with dignity and maintain kindness to others while his health forced him to live like a hermit showed me CB was much more than a man society had deemed unworthy to continue to live. 

More than once as I watched CB stoically shuffle, every single day, to the handicapped shower, I thought: “There goes one tough man. Most wouldn’t bathe daily when it was such a painful ordeal.” He did not beseech the guards to escort him in a wheelchair, despite the pain walking caused him. He simply shuffled on. The way he endured showed me so much about who he was at his core, I felt like I knew him better than I did.

My farewell for CB is about his last days more than about his personality. However, I hope you still glimpse his humanity.

“Know how sublime a thing is to suffer and be strong.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Eight days from execution

Shortly before 6:00AM, I was just finishing cleaning my sink when a sound as loud as a pistol shot ripped through the early morning silence. This obnoxiously loud, metal-on-metal sound was the lock inside our section’s gate snapping backwards in its iron case. The gates unlocking announced to all captives that shift change had occurred and the guard working the floor was making the first round of the shift.

Curious to see what guard was working, I took the small step needed to move from my now gleaming stainless steel sink to my white, steel cell door and peered through the narrow right hand slit cut vertically through the door.

The section walkway (i.e. run) lights were all off, casting the whole area in shadows. Distant light faintly penetrated the darkness, barely illuminating the compound. I heard the 200-pound iron gate open and the footsteps of a guard walk through it, pause, and then, as quietly as possible, the heavy gate was shut; which is not a courtesy that is common. Most do not make the effort and simply use force to push the gate over the rolling lock, causing the huge gate to slam loudly into the frame.

“Huh,” I thought to myself, “that narrows down who it could be.” As the guard’s footsteps moved forward, I could just make out a tall and slim form walking through the shadows. The steps paused at 1-Cell, where CB was housed, then continued past the empty 2-Cell. Then I heard a lightly spoken voice I could not initially identify say, “Hi, Tracy,” as the guard walked in front of my cell. The light from inside my cell cast the still unidentified guard’s face in profile. I could just make out a pair of bodacious lips before the now immediately identifiable guard faced me, and then was once again was lost in shadow.

“Lee!” I said, happy to see one of the most genuinely kind guards I’ve ever known. “How are you? How’s your tom boy [her daughter]?”

“She’s doing good. How have you been?” she asked in a soft voice.

“I’m fine, Lee. I’m glad to see you again, it’s been awhile since you’ve worked this pod,” I said.

“Yeah, I’ve been…” Then, as she was speaking, CB, just ten feet away, made a light coughing, grunt like noise. A faint noise I’d clearly heard him make for the past couple of days and thought nothing of it at all.

As soon as Lee heard CB make that noise her head snapped sideways in the direction of his cell. She snapped her head in the way only a black woman can; a way that lets you know instantly that ‘shit just got serious’. 

Immediately, Lee’s body tensed up and she pivoted to match the direction of her head and marched straight to CB’s cell.

I heard her lightly tap on CB’s cell door and ask him, “Mr Buntion, are you okay?”

CB mumbled something I couldn’t clearly hear, and Lee immediately told him she was having Medical called. Off she marched to the control picket to tell the Picket Officer to call Medical.

A couple of minutes later, she returned to CB’s cell and told him he would be taken to Medical shortly.

In all my years in prison, I had never seen a guard react that instantly to an inmate’s needs. It was awesome and also humbling. She knew CB was in danger, immediately upon hearing him make that noise; while I’d heard it repeatedly, and had insensitively chalked it up to just another “old man” noise.

What Lee had done really hit home when I later learned CB was transported to the hospital and had pneumonia: a deadly serious condition for an elderly person.

This occurred just eight days prior to CB’s scheduled execution. 

My first thought was about the irony of Texas going to all of the expense and trouble to keep CB alive only to poison him to death. Then I thought to myself… “How good did it feel, old fella, to experience the love, grace and kindness that Lee showed you? I bet she made you feel like a human being – a valued human being – and what a gift that must have been for you at the end of your life.”

Three days from execution

“Billy, did you see CB when he came back from the hospital last week?” Ramiro Gonzalez asked me from inside the dayroom cage that’s directly in front of my cell.

“No, I didn’t. I was asleep,” I replied.

“He came in with blood all down the side of his face and on his jumper too,” he said.

“CB?” I called.

“Yes,” he replied, in his raspy, quavering voice from inside his cell.

“Are you alright? I heard you got tossed around in the back of the transport van on your return from the hospital, but I didn’t know you’d been hurt,” I asked.

“Sargent Dorman slammed on the brakes to avoid a car and the sudden stop tossed me from the back of the van, where I was looking out the back window, all the way to the front of the van, where I slammed headfirst into the wire wall of the cage. It busted my head, elbow and toe up, but I’m okay,” he stated slowly and matter-of-factly.

“What did Sargent Dorman say to you?” Ramiro asked.

“He had to have apologized a dozen times. He was more upset about it than I was,” he replied.

One day from execution

“Tracy, here’s some stuff Buntion wants you to have. He’s got some stuff for you and a couple of others over here,” a guard told me, as he set a big paper bag full of commissary on the security box welded to the outside of my door.

On Death Row, it’s common practice for the condemned to give away most, or all, of their possessions prior to execution. That’s what CB was doing.

“CB?” I called.

“Yes,” he replied.

“Thank you. I’m going to set this to the side and, if you make it, I’ll return it all. I’m praying for you. God bless you.” 

“Okay, Billy. God bless you, too”.

A version of this conversation was repeated with other men he gave his last possessions to.

When I got everything into my cell, I organized it all neatly into a brown paper bag, and set it in the corner against the white concrete wall and the black metal bunk. 

The only thing I’d removed was an old pair of shoelaces that he had in a Ziploc bag with dental floss, toothpaste, nail clippers, a pencil sharpener and pencils. The shoelaces were once white and flat, but age had turned them yellow and made their flat surface curl up at the edges, making them appear more round than flat.

The sight of the old, broken down laces made me feel incredibly sad. I’d looked at them through the clear plastic Ziploc bag and I wondered how long CB had had them for them to look so ancient. My gaze went to an exact same pair of laces I’d had for over a decade that still looked new. I wondered what he’d used them for and why he’d kept them so long. That the laces were so worn down is what bothered my heart. They seemed to be saying to me, “Yeah, we’re worn down, our time is almost over… too.”

With that thought, I removed the laces from the Ziploc bag and washed them in my sink. After washing them several times, the yellow stains were gone, but they remained curled at the edges; more round than flat and still looking worn.

As they dried, I’d occasionally look at them and hope I’d get the chance to return them. And I wondered why I’d thought washing the old laces would change anything…

One day after execution

The day after CB’s execution, I was drying off in our section’s tiny, dingy concrete shower when the following conversation took place with Sargent Dorman.

“Dorman,” I said, “this was your first execution as a supervisor. Was it harder to go through than the others you’ve been here for when you had no rank?”

Sargent Dorman paused for a long time and finally said, “Yes, yes it was. I think because now I was more responsible for the process and I couldn’t act like I was just here working and not a participant.”

“It made what happens here more real didn’t it?” I asked.

“Yeah. Plus, what made it hard, was after his last visit and we were pushing him in the wheelchair from Visitation down the sidewalk [which runs directly in front of Death Row’s A-Pod and B-Pod], all of those guys were banging on their windows in support of Buntion. I’d never seen so many men banging on their windows like that. It’s normally just a couple – or none,” he replied, with emotion in his voice.

“Did it bother you that Buntion was so elderly?” I asked.

“Yes. What really made his age hit home was when we had to do that real thorough strip search before he left the prison in the transport van. We had a very tough time doing it,” he stated.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Buntion was so frail he couldn’t stand up on one leg to show us the bottom of his feet, or bend his legs enough to do a proper search. Then, when we put the restraints on him, he couldn’t bend his arms right and we had to put them on differently than usual,” he said, with weariness in his voice.

I felt what Sargent Dorman was telling me was he felt absurd being part of killing someone so obviously no longer a danger to anyone. I said nothing because nothing needed to be said. However, I appreciated his openness. 

CB, your long journey is over.

Rest in peace.

“If you can’t learn from flawed people, you can learn from no one.” – Unknown

Always,

Billy

Life Watch Update: May 1^st, 2022

The State of Texas has me housed on the Death Watch section, where the State holds its Death Row men captive once they receive their execution date. However, I’ve been here four and a half years now without an execution date of my own. (To read about why I’m housed on Death Watch without an execution date read Months Before Six – Part One.)

During this period of time, I’ve been witness to 29 men leaving my company to be exterminated from existence by a lethal drug concoction. I’ve also witnessed four men taken away in chains to the “Death House” in Huntsville to be exterminated, but who received last minute “stays” of execution from the US Supreme Court. And I’ve been witness to over two dozen men get within two weeks, or less, of their State-mandated death dates before receiving stays.

To have witnessed so many men led away to die, and so many men living out their last days with the expectation to die before getting last minute stays, has been both horrific and beautiful.

In the past many years now that I’ve dwelled in this bizarre reality, I have seen some of the most amazing acts of humanity one could imagine. I’ve witnessed acts of selflessness, love, generosity, compassion, fear, humor, grace, and profound anguish. I’ve captured many of these moments in this series and will continue to do so in hope that I show readers, anti-death penalty and pro-death penalty alike, sides of the condemned you never imagined. Sides of us that may give you hope for redemption and might give you pause in just what you think you know about society’s worst.

Life Watch Update: May 15^th, 2022

As Hurricane COVID has greatly altered your freeworld lives, it has also done a number on those of us facing execution. The greatest effect from Hurricane COVID was causing a great reduction in executions due to court room closures. In the two years since Hurricane COVID hit our shores, there have been five executions and 22 stays of execution. By comparison, in the two years prior to Hurricane COVID, there were 24 executions and 18 stays. The lack of State-authorized homicides has meant the normally-near-full 14 cell Death Watch section has been mostly empty, as men stopped rotating in once others were executed or given stays.

The second greatest effect on the condemned due to Hurricane COVID was a staff shortage, so severe the Polunsky Unit lacked appropriate staff to operate the unit normally and was forced to keep the Death Row building on lockdown roughly ninety percent of the time. This meant being stuck in our cells all day without recreation and showering only one to three times a week. Death Row men live in solitary confinement with no TVs or phones for entertainment; recreation is our only opportunity to leave our cells other than to shower.

We use recreation as a stress reliever. We’ll go to the small dayroom cage, which has a pull-up bar, table, and toilet, or the outside recreation cage, which has a basketball goal, ball, urinal, and pull-up bar. Here we can exercise, but mainly we can socialize. Recreation is our main chance to interact with others, to form and maintain bonds, to gossip, to argue, to vent – to feel human in such an impersonal existence.

Even for those not participating in any of the conversations or activities, it still does them good to hear life being lived: laughter, banter, jokes, verbal sparring – human activity.

Most inmate-to-inmate interaction starts when recreation does because that’s the only time we can actually look at who we are talking to. Otherwise we are having conversations from inside our one-man cells with a disembodied voice. 

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) changed Directors and the new Director has begun implementing changes to the old, uber Texas Tough “lock ’em up and forget about ’em” mentality. The new TDCJ focus is on rehabilitation with an emphasis on religious based rehabilitation – even for Death Row.

First, in 2020, the Polunsky Unit, where Death Row is housed, allowed Field Ministers (long-term inmates who have graduated a four-year seminary college within TDCJ) to walk the pods. Our two Field Ministers are allowed to stand outside the cell of any inmate they choose to, for as long as they choose to, and speak to us about God – or just chit chat. They also teach classes and are on-call to help with any emotionally disturbed men.

Then, in late-2020, the Polunsky Unit decided to do two new things on Death Row.

One was to allow the Kairos Prison Ministry program to put on a two-day event for 14 selected men. Kairos is a freeworld group of Christians who come into prisons to spread God’s word. They spent each day with the inmates, immersed in singing, preaching and eating. They provided freeworld food for all three meals each day. During this event, the Kairos volunteers included all of us on the Death Watch section in each meal… None of us ever expected to taste freeworld food again. The unexpected gift will never be forgotten by any of us. I could expound on what it meant to me, but I think Michael Gonzales did a fantastic job of summing up how we all felt. After devouring the Domino’s pizza the Kairos volunteers provided, Michael sighed theatrically and rumbled in a content voice, “I’m never brushing my teeth again”.

The second new Death Row rehabilitation initiative involved creating two faith-based sections. Each section has 14 men who requested to participate in the one-year program. In that year, which is now halfway through, they are to complete multiple different classes. Some classes, such as “Overcomers” and “Bridges to Life”, are put on by freeworld people, and the rest are taught by our two Field Ministers, Troop and Solley.

The two faith-based sections were created on A-Pod, right next to Death Watch – isolating those of us on Death Watch with inmates whose focus is on God. The new dynamic completely altered the atmosphere on A-Pod. Shortly after the two faith-based sections were established, the men had organized themselves into two Churches, carving out two-hour singing and preaching services each day for each section, eight hours of preaching and singing every day.

The noise can be both bodacious and aggravating for all of us on Death Watch at times. But, overall, we do love the atmosphere and seeing our brothers praising the Lord with such childlike enthusiasm. The fellowship also put an end to the silence and lifelessness the lack of recreating caused. The pod is alive again.

The Administration has also allowed anyone on Death Watch who’s interested to participate in the faith-based programs, and only two men have declined. We can’t interact with the freeworld people, but we receive all of the books, and the Field Ministers help us as needed. 

Since the Kairos program began and faith-based sections were created, two men on Death Watch, one being me, have been saved, and two others have rededicated their lives to God.

The positivity on this pod is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced in any of the numerous penal institutions I’ve frequented since 1995, and it is not something I ever could have fathomed being possible on Death Row.

The number one story I can share with you that best illustrates this amazing new atmosphere is…

On Carl Buntion’s last night alive, April 20^th, the Polunsky Administration allowed the Field Ministers and Life Coaches (similar to Field Ministers, without a seminary degree) to throw a concert for him.

At about 5:00PM, just before CB (as we called him) was expected back from an all-day visit with his family and friends, a multitude of Field Ministers and Life Coaches who work all over the prison came streaming onto the brightly lit section, wheeling in speakers, amps, beautiful guitars, microphones and a keyboard.

Most, if not all, of these men had never met CB before, but they wanted to be part of comforting another human being – be a part of a loving “going away party”. As I stood at my cell door and observed these men organizing their equipment in our dayroom and then await CB’s return, I noticed every single man was wearing a pristine set of freshly pressed TDCJ clothing, their shoes all gleamed, and every man had a fresh haircut. These men had obviously taken this event very seriously and the effort they put into looking nice was their humble way to honor CB and show their respect. Their genuineness humbled me too.

During the concert, one of the Life Coaches, Jimmy Smith, a very large man who has been incarcerated for 30 years, was so overwhelmed by the situation that he collapsed against the dayroom wall and cried like a baby – and felt completely accepted and comfortable in his vulnerability. Knowing such a large man cried so openly over a man he did not know made me wonder just who is incarcerated and who is free.

Always,

Billy