Auschwitz Of the Mind:
Tim McVeigh's Stark Vision Of Death Row
This page strays somewhat from my usual format. Here, Tim is speaking in his own words and so we get a much clearer picture of his situation and are able to almost palpitate the despair fostered from being locked up in a tiny cell like a homeless cat in a shelter.
You are probably going to say that he deserved to live like that----that he chose to be put on death row by bombing the Murrah building. Maybe so, in some ways, but to actually live day by day, month by month and year by year with certain death hovering menacingly above those inmates' heads is nothing short of inhumane and unnecessarily cruel in an emotional maelstrom of dread, fear and loss of all hope.
In this story, Timothy McVeigh works to transform himself into the true prototype of the "prisoner-of-war." He believes, particularly as the end of his short life looms in the near distance, that his situation mirrors that of those who became incarcerated for their political beliefs and even, their religions. I would draw a great deal of fire if I were insensitive and blasphemous enough to compare someone like McVeigh to, say, a Jewish man who had been sent off to a terrible death camp like Auschwitz or Dachau---I have far too much respect for the six millions Jews who died in Hitler's concentration camps during World War II to allow myself to see my fictional character in the same light----so instead, I am likening him to anyone of any race, religion or country who's intense beliefs, be they right or wrong, lead them to be imprisoned and sometimes, even killed.
When I wrote my book, I entitled one of the chapters "Auschwitz In the L.P.H." (London Psychiatric Hospital). That is why I posted that very chapter on this site, as a matter to fact, to show that I know full well what institutionalization in a terrible place can do to a person. By likening an abusive behaviour modification unit of a government-owned mental hosptial to the Nazi concentration camp called Auschwitz, it did not in any way detract from my solumn respect for all of those millions of people who were butchered all in the name of the Aryan race. I was simply making a strong point in using the death camp as an analogy.
Of course, this is not really going to be Timothy McVeigh's words that you will read here. They are, however, words, ideas and concepts that I believe that he would agree with and speak for himself, if he were still with us. Add to the mix that the reality that my character is not REALLY Tim McVeigh, so, of course, everything I'm writing is pure fiction. I hope you will take the time to read this, for it may offer you some insight into how this man's mind operated and how he truly saw himself when he gazed into his own mental mirror. My purpose for writing this book is to show how inhumane capital punishment is and that it represents nothing less than cruel and unusual punishment. Death row inmates do anything and everything they can to try to control their dismal environments. I have done a great deal of research on the culture of death row in the United States and am currently reading, "Among the Lowest Of the Dead," one of the books that McVeigh perused near the end of his short life. My charater does not think of himself as a mass murderer, or someone who kills without feeling, just for the sake of taking lives. That is neither his purpose nor rasion d'etre and though I am well aware that no excuse is adequate to justify the many lives lost and damaged in McVeigh's bombing of six years ago, I feel it is my literary purpose to denounce capital punishment as it applies to even the most notorious and devastating crime. Still, if one climbs inside the convoluted mind of a young man who honestly felt he is doing something big for the greater good, they may see and come to understand just how a human being, one who had not been diagnosed to be either a psychopath or a sociopath, could carry out such a heinous act and feel no sense of remorse for it. Here then, is the chapter. Your comments, be they positive or negative, are always welcome, here and on anything else I've posted on this one-of-a-kind website. I am telling the story through the eyes, ears and thoughts of my condemned prisoner. In other words, I, a female with no criminal record, must crawl inside a mind like Timothy McVeigh's and perceive what I believe to be a fairly accurate assessment of his character, background and motives.
The Resurrection Of Auschwitz:
Tim McVeigh's Dismal Life On Death Row
As I sit here on this narrow, hard cot, it occurs to me that I have only three more months to live. I waived all the rest of my appeals last December and demanded a speedy execution date. Well, I got it---on May 16th as a matter of fact. It's funny, I thought I'd feel a tremendous relief, a blessed release from my hellish life here on death row, but now I am not so sure what I really want. I guess the best thing for me to do now that my day with the executioner is imminent, is to carefully and meticulously plan my final exit from this world that offered me nothing. There's a lot to do to get ready, not the least of which is drastically altering my physical appearance in order to allow me to present myself as a kind of concentration camp inmate. That may make some people even more angry at me than they already are, but I want everyone who watches me die to see an emaciated prisoner of war, complete with shaved head.Since my arrest, I've put on twenty extra pounds, due to the almost total lack of any kind of exercise here on the row. I'm used to being skinny, with sunken cheeks---not someone bordering on pudgy. It's not me, and what's more, it's not the build of one who has suffered and been emotionally scarred since my incarceration. The best way to lose not only the extra twenty pounds, but also at least twenty more, is to restrict my diet to nothing but vegetables. I doubt if they have a vegetarian diet here, but all I want is rabbit food anyway. I never eat breakfast, since it arrives at the ridiculous hour of 5:30 AM, so living on greens won't be any big deal. I've always had a big appetite but the food here is so damned starchy and greasy that anyone would gain weight, even if they only ate some of their meals. I'll ask the warden today to change my diet. I know it won't be a problem---and people can rest assured that a lot of their taxes aren't going to feed much to me.
As for the shaved look, well, that doesn't have to happen until just before the execution. But then, now that I think about it, those idiots out there won't even clue into what I am doing. They just want my blood and don't care what the hell happens to me. I'm going to use the hour for recreation now---I used to shun it since I could never feel any sun on my back---so David and Jeff will be surprised to see me running up and down that, well, that rabbit run.
...To be continued.
