Ricabar's Deathwish

By Humberto Garcia

This is a novella depicting the experience of a man born with great intelligence and physical strength but who chose the criminal path due to the unfortunate circumstances of his childhood. His dream to atone for his sins directly with God is finally realized. Or was it?

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Sep 19, 2022
• ISBN: 9781665571241

Humberto Garcia

Humberto Garcia is the author of two other books. Mustang Miracle is his first one and it is being turned into a movie to be released in early 2023. The second one is Kilhaven Farms published in 2016. He is a practicing attorney and a student of politics having received a BA in Government from the University of Texas at Austin in 1975.

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RICABAR’S

Deathwish

Humberto Garcia

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© 2022 Humberto Garcia. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or

transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 09/19/2022

ISBN: 978-1-6655-7125-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-7124-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022917346

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As the night dragged on at an excruciatingly slow pace, Ricabar Dane prayed that his body would somehow find a way to give up

working and that he would quietly and peacefully slip into a permanent slumber. He was tired of being confined to the solitude of his dark and lonely cell though he knew he had earned his ticket to admission to wherever men like him went after their lives were gone. Lying on his bed fully awake he looked in every direction around him, but the view never changed. Complete darkness is all he could see. Not only did the complete absence of light bring him to despair but the lack of any sound as well compounded his inability to fall asleep. On top of this the irritation he felt only made the problem worse. Not being able to sleep drove his mind to thoughts of suicide and different ways he could accomplish it. However, nothing in the small cell he called home provided any assistance. A metal bed that did not move with a mattress lacking sheets provided no comfort. A steel commode attached to the wall and personal items, which could serve as tools of death were of no help. There was nothing he could use to bring an end to his misery. His lack of creativity in achieving his untimely death created a desire to yell out in anger but he knew this would only force further sanctions upon him by the uncaring guards who ruled the night. He wondered how it was that he had not gone insane after all this time in solitary confinement. To him, the prospect of death seemed far more favorable than being alive and confined to a prison cell knowing he would never be released.

To add to his frustration and inability to sleep, he thought about the uncertainty and time-consuming process of the appellate court system, which held his fate in its midst. Ricabar had spent eight years on death row at the Allen B. Polunsky Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, which operates the state’s prisons and where the cruelest and most dangerous murderers are confined as they await their appointment with the grim reaper. Ricabar was one of those deemed to be deserving of the ultimate penalty but his turn in the death chamber, twice scheduled, had been turned back by the courts as his appeal was considered. Though he had not vocalized it to his lawyers, over the last two years he had come to grips with the notion that the punishment imposed on him was well deserved and should be carried out without further delay. Now, there was no longer any justification for trying to avoid his fate, he thought, as he had come full circle to admit that he was undoubtedly responsible for the death of his victim. For the first six years on death row he had denied to everyone, including his mother, that he had committed the atrocity for which he was convicted by a Bexar County jury. He had also been insistent in telling his lawyers he was innocent, and everything should be done by them to spare him the death penalty the jury said was warranted. He had consistently blamed someone else for the crime but, spending his nights and days reading hundreds of books, including the Bible, his will had begun to break down. He had convinced himself that asking for forgiveness before he died was far more noble than to insist on hanging on to a lie that would surely foreclose any mitigation of his condemnation by the Lord. Now that he had recognized and embraced his guilt he had grown eager to enter the permanent darkness.

Rotating from his right to his left side in an effort to begin his slumber proved unsuccessful over the several hours that he made his attempt. He usually would not fall asleep until three to four hours after he hit his prison bed but tonight it had been six and he felt no closer to sleep than when he laid down. Admittedly the bed in his cell was not the most comfortable and it was not big enough to accommodate his six-foot six frame, but he had gotten accustomed to its inadequacies and he had been able to drift off into dreamland for years. Tonight seemed different. His sense of guilt had never been so intense. Perhaps this