The electrician had watched his friend Dane build the chair and helped him paint the oak a dark brown. The polish stained his fingers for several days. Another man upholstered the chair with quality leather.
Dane kept the chair in his barn for several years. When they finally pulled it out to take to Nebraska, the piece was covered with bird crap and dirty cobwebs. Dane grabbed a broom.
“Jesus,” he muttered. “Shoulda covered it with a sheet.”
The electrician filled a bucket and scrubbed gently with a soapy rag.
“Do you think it will crack?”
“No,” Dane replied, “That is solid oak. Thick, too.”
They lifted the chair into the back of the electrician’s truck. He was a thin man, but his grip was jolting, his forearms corded.
“You been zapped lately?” Dane asked.
The electrician’s glasses masked his eyes. “A few months ago. Nothing serious. Woke my ass up.”
Dane laughed. “Won’t this time.”
After he delivered the chair, the electrician started preparations with everyone else. He busied himself at the site and spoke to a couple of the other workers. Most minded their own business, which was fine. The electrician was quiet, new on the job.
He had not told his wife much about the assignment. Her days were occupied with chores and caring for the children.
Only his teenage son was excited by the local buzz. A last motion had been denied. The electrician suspected the boy would be out with others tonight, drinking beer, waiting for the news on their car radios. His son had been playing Johnny Horton all spring. Horton’s song was Number One but would take a backseat now.
When his preparations were done, the electrician sipped a Coca Cola. Someone’s wife brought sandwiches.
“It’s a lot of voltage,” one of the men remarked.
“Ain’t enough,” another snickered.
The electrician studied his shoes. Rubber soles. Not all the men wore them. He wasn’t taking any chances, when he hit the man in the chair with 2200 volts. He had even brought insulated gloves.
Dane’s chair had stained him those years ago. He didn’t want any marks to take home now. There would be no blood, he knew, but the electrician before him said a burnt smell might haunt his nostrils.
The electrician imagined he could live with that. Already, he was thinking of the cool cleanliness of home, his wife preparing breakfast, and readying fresh linens for his sleep.
And $180 for the execution in his pocket.
Steve Saulsbury lives on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. A writer of flash fiction, his work has appeared in many online journals and several printed collections, including the 2024 London Independent Story Prize Anthology. More recently, his piece, “The Field,” was included in the Halloween anthology Flash of the Dead.
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