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    Death Minus Hours
    Death Minus Hours
    Death Minus Hours
    Ebook28 pages20 minutes

    Death Minus Hours

    By Ulf Wolf

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    About this ebook

    The day before his execution, I saw my dad for the next to last time.

    I had never seen him this thin, nor this unshaven. In fact, I can't for the life of me ever remember him unshaven. Yet, here in his cell, with only a day to go—less than a day, now, more like twenty hours (not even that) till the blessed event, as he liked to call it—the gray stubble was probably a week old.

    It had been a while. For months, now, he had refused all visitors, and not even the Warden, apparently, could overrule that. But now, Death banging on the door as it were, he had finally conceded to see me. But that's where he drew the line. Only me. No Frannie. No mom. Absolutely no mom.

    So there I was. Sitting next to him on his narrow death-row cot.

    The cell's cinderblocked walls were not exactly white. My guess is that they had been white at some point, but that too much cleaning over the condemned years had worn off much of the paint to reveal the gray of the cinder beneath. Somewhere between white and gray, like an impure white. Couldn't put my finger on it, not that I tried very hard. But that's what I was looking at waiting for him to say something, waiting for him to look up at me.

    But he wouldn't. Would not look up at me. Would not look me in the eye. He'd glance, though, now and then, at my knees, as if to assure himself I was still there and still prepared to listen to what he had to say. Finding me still there, he'd continue the nervous rub of his misshapen left thumb, which lacked its nail—something that had always fascinated me. Growing up I'd ask him about it. Sometimes he'd say it was a boating accident, other times he'd say nothing. Beyond that he'd never elaborate, no matter how much I pleaded.

    He never had no boat.

    What fascinated me the most about that thumb was the grotesque little thing that had sprouted in lieu of nail. A little keratin mountain he not so much had to cut as sculpt to make resemble its once-upon-a-time forebear.

    Now rubbing it again, as if easing a long-ago pain, or some untold sin, and then another glance in my direction, higher this time, chest-high, it almost caught my eye (at least the corner of), though soon enough back to some portion of the floor by his feet.

    Then he said, as if this had just occurred to him, which it may well have, but somehow I doubt it, "She had the most beautiful voice, Carla did."

    Carla was my aunt, my dad's sister, dead these many years by his hand.

    "I always said she could sing the rain away if she had a mind. She could have been a star."

    Then he fell quiet again. Did he expect me to answer? I wasn't sure, so I didn't. Then he said:

    "They say you piss yourself, or worse."

    He was to hang. They give you a choice in this state, and he had been given it: the chair or hanging. Your pick. Done right, or so I've read, hanging snaps your neck and you die pretty much on the spot. Done wrong, you're strangled at the end of a rope—or cable rather, which is what they use here, a cable with a big fat rope noose at the end of it that's supposed to snap your neck, but if it doesn't, if it's not positioned correctly, instead it'll leave you dangling, chocking, eventually dying from strangulation. We should all pray the hangman in this place knows what he's doing.

    The chair, he'd concluded, is very messy. He'd done some research. Asked some questions. Some even survive it, pissing and shitting all over themselves, he said at the time, and has to be done over. Hanging any day, he said—not quite singing its praises, but not far from it.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUlf Wolf
    Release dateMay 6, 2013
    ISBN9781301442973
    Death Minus Hours
    Author

    Ulf Wolf

    Ulf is a Swedish name that once meant Wolf. So, yes, Wolf Wolf, that's me. I was born Ulf Ronnquist one snowy night in late October, in one of those northern Swedish towns that are little more than a clearing in the forest. Fast forward through twenty Swedish years, ten or so English ones, and another twenty-four in the US and you'll find me in front of an immigrations officer conducting the final citizenship interview, at the end of which he asks me, "What name would you like on your passport?" And here I recall what a friend had told me, that you can pick just about any name you want at this point, and I heard me say "Ulf Wolf." That's how it happened. Scout's honor. Of course, I had been using Ulf Wolf as a pen name for some time before this interview, but I hadn't really planned to adopt that as my official U.S. name. But I did. I have written stories all my life. Initially in Swedish, but for the last twenty or so years in English. To date I have written six novels, four novellas and two scores of stories; along with many songs and poems. My writing focus these days is on life's important questions (in my view): Who are we? What are we doing here? And how do we break out of this prison?

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      Book preview

      Death Minus Hours - Ulf Wolf

      Death Minus Hours

      Ulf Wolf

      Smashwords Edition

      October 2019

      Copyright

      Death Minus Hours

      Copyright © 2019 by Wolfstuff

      http://wolfstuff.com

      All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      Smashwords License Notes

      This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      ::

      Contents

      Death Minus Hours

      Contribution

      About Author

      The day before his execution, I saw my dad for the next to last time.

      I had never seen him this thin, nor this unshaven. In fact, I can’t for the life of me ever remember him unshaven. Yet, here in his cell, with only a day to go—less than a day, now, more like twenty hours (not even that) till the blessed event, as he liked to call it—the gray stubble was probably a week old.

      It had been a while. For months, now, he had refused all visitors, and not even the Warden, apparently, could overrule that. But now, Death banging on the door as it were, he had finally conceded

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