“Their team won.”

An exercise for my writing group that challenged me to write 400 words on the phrase “Their team won.”

Tonight, at 11:45 PM CT, prisoner 555 would be transferred from her cell in Baker Unit to Bravo Site for her execution by lethal injection.

There was no doubt as to her guilt. She had killed two men with a pick axe during a botched robbery attempt. Shortly after her arrest she confessed and implicated her boyfriend as well. They had not anticipated killing. They expected no resistance. Yet like so many of these stories, things had gone wrong.

It took a jury of her peers 45 minutes to find her guilty. The judge handed down the mandatory death sentence as if she were handing out candy. That was 15 years ago.

Executions were common in this state. Nearly one resident in four worked in the penal system. They were familiar with institutionalized death.

They depended on it for their livelihood.

Yet tonight would be different. Prisoner 555 would be the first woman to be executed in the state in more than 100 years. She was not the only female prisoner on Death Row; yet in the intervening century every one of them had either died, been pardoned, or had their sentence commuted.

Prisoner 555 had not been front-page news in 15 years. Yet as the date of her execution drew near, a vocal minority of residents once again engaged in debate about the possibility of a person to change. To redeem herself. About the value of human life. And the very purpose of the country’s justice system. This time the debate reached beyond the local network affiliate to the actual Network.

Once, Prisoner 555 had been named Susan. By all accounts, Susan had been a model prisoner. An impeccable discipline record. A comfort and confidante to fellow inmates. She was guided, she said, by the Bible that she had picked up in the prison library. It was the only book she had ever read.

Or would read.

As the day drew near, calls for clemency grew louder and more numerous. Reporters from the Network showed up to interview both sides and nod sagely. But Prisoner 555 was not to be spared. This year the state’s conservative governor was vigorously campaigning for President on a law-and-order platform. Leniency, his advisers told him, would cost votes.

For her last meal, she chose fried chicken, a Coke, and a slice of cherry pie.

In this moment, though, I knew none of this. I was in the city on business and had come into the bar simply for something to eat. It was late – nearly midnight. Yet inside was a boisterous crowd, their eyes transfixed to the TV screens, which were all showing the candlelight vigils happening outside the prison.

Suddenly high-fives and hollers from men and women alike.

“What’s going on?” I asked the bartender.

Without looking up, he said in a low, resigned voice, “Their team won.”