Hi Kay,

Gary knows by now everything you and everyone else has done on his behalf. I just received a letter from him. It was mailed after he was sent back but it was written from the hole. The text of the letter follows along with a satirical look at the recent debacle in Florida's death chamber.

Thanks again, Tom Waid

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16 Aug 99

So anyway, here I am in the box. It's hot, too. But I think I may be a "high profile" inmate; they've gone strictly by the book so far.

The official reason I'm here is "Typing," but the real culprit is cowboy guards who would like nothing better than to do a Valdez on my ass for stirring up the shit.

Typing is so Byzantine anyway; don't they see what that looks like? I mean, are my first amendment rights still intact if I'm only allowed to write with a purple crayon on the backs of old envelopes or on warty toilet paper in Punic Runes from the fifth century?

How best can they keep their dirty secrets, but by making the writings of convicts unintelligible, hard to read and unorganized, and it's so OBVIOUS!

How paranoid is a giant rogue agency when they won't allow their witnesses to communicate in the language of the current century? What is the Florida D.O.C. afraid of?

I'm okay. I look a little rough, but I'm okay.

Love, Take care,

Gary

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Gary's letter to Dave Barry

Dear Sir/Ma'am

I'm a federal convict, marijuana offender, one of 30 minimum custody guys the Federal Bureau of Prisons illegally traded to the Florida Department of Corrections in exchange for 30 lifers.

I now live (horribly) at the satellite camp that services Florida State Prison in Starke. But although I live here, I'm still a fed, and somewhat immune with regards to beating the crap out of prisoners if they blab out of school.

So I feel free to report my keepers' recent impressive coup in Florida's death chamber. Everything I say is based on rumor, of course.

*The man they killed was, according to the reports, a really rotten human being who murdered and tortured a woman and her kids.

I don't want to get into the politics of his execution; everyone has an opinion on the right or wrong of the death penalty, and each is as valid as any other as far as I'm concerned.

But did they have to blow the guy up?

I mean really, isn't the lesson lost when the body has to be shoveled into a bucket?

Of course, not long ago they set a dude on fire here. Maybe FSP'll go down in history. Next guy'll be pureed or something.

The FLORIDA LAW WEEKLY says things like "...the (appropriate officer) shall assure that the salt-free, hypoallergenic electrically conductive gel is applied to the crown of the shaven head..blah blah blah" .and goes on forever about stuff like "...and whomsoever shall mix the saturated saline solution yadda-yadda." ...with evermore endless instruction that almost never ends, and continues to continue even with regards actually  fRYING the guy, as in ".cycle begins with the programmed 2,300 volts, 9.5 amp, for 8 seconds; 1000 volts, 4 amps for three minutes on each side until golden brown." ...and so on.

So why did all those extremely scientific, science oriented scientists at FSP Death Chamber throw all that good advice out the window and decide to turn up the juice?

I'll tell you.

It's because the bad guy was fat.

According to my unimpeachable source(many of the guards here are unimpeachable), the head chef decided that because the inmate weighed close to 350 pounds, a setting of BROIL was in order. So he cranked up the rheostat accordingly.

As you may know, rumors abound in prison. The guards talk, the inmates talk, the press stands outside and hopes for a talker. And I want to be the first one to insist that there's not one thing remotely funny about a blown-up dead guy. Not one even tiny funny thing.

Imagine how the next killer in line is gonna feel the night before they strap him in, knowing he may end up all over the walls. But the geniuses who run this place have made it way too easy to laugh at someone else's misfortune.

Bucaroo Banzai once said "no matter where you go, there you are." Which, all things considered, is correct.

Unless you're unlucky enough to be in Starke, on Death Row, in which case you'll end up there, but also there and over there and under that thing and all the way across over there, too.

And now, because of the screw up, there's approximately five thousand guards and convicts in the immediate area this week, all telling exploding convict jokes.

Now, I don't pretend to know about such things - I'm not even supposed to be here. Where I was before we had no such moral dilemmas as cooking people. I was a low-custody fed, in jail with more pot guys, plus some tax cheats and crooked judges.

Just it seems to me that if Florida is gonna kill all those Death Row killers, Florida should ask them how best to do it. I mean they're experts, aren't they?

There are over three-hundred-and-seventy experts here on the row. And these experts have absolutely nothing to do while they wait for their big debuts. A few hints on the details would not be out of order.

So my advice to the set-up guys would be to get with those who know best before throwing any switches in front of the entire universe (including twelve witnesses who in this instance held their cookies admirably), because the National Enquirer will not tread lightly.

Not long ago the guards here constructed a brand new electric chair. Maybe they should have made a skillet.

And on a lighter note, applications are now being accepted at FSP Stark for a fry cook. All candidates should know what extra crispy means and how to microwave an elephant.

Thank you,

Gary Waid

* Okay look, the official position around here is that the aforementioned convict didn't actually explode. One guard said he was all bloody, another claimed he looked like he'd been shot in the chest with a shotgun. The coroner supposedly called it a "nosebleed," and the doctor claimed the gouting was because of a medical condition not related to the dispensation of his sentence.

The press, by the way, were told everything was fine and plenty of blood and lumps of stuff was to be expected.

Obviously you can tell the press anything.

Gary Brooks Waid 

The Smuggler's Mail

Making The Walls Transparent