April 21, 2022 is wind in the trees under a cloud-painted gray sky. In “Flatliners,” Kiefer Sutherland would have called it a good day to die. I guess a good a day as any. For me, it will be a day filled with holes that I wish weren’t empty, because someone will die in a world that I’m not sure will notice, and I’ll miss more that I want to mark.
It’s called “execution,” for those who would rather use a synonym for killing in vengeance, so it sounds as innocent as pressing a button or administrating a will or something . Understandably, people debate the morality of the death penalty. Personally, I note that it equates to the premeditated killing of someone who is defenseless at the time. I also note that lots of people make lots of money from the proceedings throughout the trial, incarceration, appeals, and execution process in capital cases.
The Huntsville Unit is basically a square of historical buildings ranging from the 18th to 19th centuries around a central yard, all one big museum. You might be able to tour us, if you like. See scary pictures, decrepit cells, a country chapel, buzzards, squirrels, Smokey the black tomcat, actual koi, and maybe even me. This unit is also called “The Walls,” due to the brick walls around it.
Of course, people have mentioned the execution all day, most without knowing who would be killed or for what. Yet the world filled the yard back in with guards and inmates moving routinely about to chow and classes and other places in a world within an indifferent world. Am I that different walking back to my cell at 5:53; where I look across the street at a mixed crowd of suits and casuals? Maybe victims’ families and advocates, reporters, family of the condemned, and others. Under the clouds in the wind, a female guard with a big rifle looks from a gun picket on the wall at the crowd in front of The Walls. By 6:02, more people are walking out of the building across the street, past a woman working a tablet or reading or something.
Formerly, all releasees went through a room here of highly polished brass bars on their way from the Texas prison system to freedom. Or, we could take “Ole Sparkey,” and ride the lightning out of here as well. Since inmates are released from units all over Texas now, and execution by electric chair is apparently illegal, the bars are not as polished, and “Ole Sparkey” has been demoted to a tourist attraction. However, it is legal to euthanize those convicted of capital offenses and condemned to death in Texas. So via lethal injection, The Walls continues its history of being the sight of Texas executions.
Now, prisoners wait on the Polunsky Unit until their death day. Then they’re transported here to their last row of cells while reporters, activists, victims’ families, police officers, bureaucrats, condemned inmates’ families, and politicians haggle and mourn and party and get paid until the “execution.” Shortly thereafter, everyone goes home (except us) and the world rolls through time that erases every voice, event, person, and death.
THAT DAY
At eleven something a.m., the yard was cleared out–no movement. We assume it is for the arrival of Carl Buntian, on Death Row for killing a cop. When 2:10 p.m. arrives, I realize I never saw the transport van leave that I have been watching for. At 4:15, I try to fill the hole in my mind as the yard is cleared out, supposedly for Carl’s arrival. Whatever the truth of the clearing, I see nothing. Another hole. I ponder this as I hear a cart go by. Taking Carl his last meal?
Of course, people have mentioned the execution all day, most without knowing who would be killed or for what. Yet the world filled the yard back in with guards and inmates moving routinely about to chow and classes and other places in a world within an indifferent world. Am I that different walking back to my cell at 5:53; where I look across the street at a mixed crowd of suits and casuals? Maybe victims’ families and advocates, reporters, family of the condemned, and others. Under the clouds in the wind, a female guard with a big rifle looks from a gun picket on the wall at the crowd in front of The Walls. By 6:02, more people are walking out of the building across the street, past a woman working a tablet or reading or something .
At 6:11, more people appear in front of The Walls, or at least step into my view. Some are adjusting cameras. Do they care? Or are they just gawking, capitalizing , protesting, or cheering? Why do reporters always walk like their suits are too starched? Some of them look like they’re writing things down like me or texting. Ten or fifteen minutes later, the crowd I’m watching gets larger and more active.
At 6:29 p.m., Carl Buntion is executed by lethal injection. One minute later, ABC 13 on the TV behind me shows Carl’s mom live, describing Carl praying and engaging with his spiritual advisor. Next, the victim’s son is describing the satisfaction of looking into Carl’s face as he died. By 6:32, ABC 13 shows a lady named Lucia scheduled to be executed soon for killing her child. Inmates begin shouting that she’s high profile and Kim Kardashian is trying to save her. In this cold world, I think Kim’s money is better spent exposing the dirt suffocating criminal justice reform in Texas if she really wants to save people–in here and out there.
At 6:48, I wonder if the cameras out there see us in here. At 6:49, ABC 13 shows motorcycle cops in front of The Walls texting and shaking hands. Five minutes later, Whiteshirt is doing something in front of what looks like a little blue tent. Soon, more people come out of the building and it looks like the reporters are trying to interview them in vain. Eventually, I see who looks like Carl’s mom.
By 7:08, it looks like the mostly video cameras are being repositioned towards the northeast side of The Walls. An African American photographer in a suit begins flashing a bunch of photos. At 7:15, it looks like interviews or something out there, at least from the entrance of my cell. A solitary oversized cowboy hat (surprised to see only one out there in Texas) is bobbing from person to person . He must be important or something.
Everyone seems to be packing up by 7:29. Whiteshirt puts on the blue tent that turns out to be her jacket. As she walks off at 7:43 p.m., the last to go, I reflect upon how punctual they all were to begin packing up exactly one hour–to the minute–after Carl Buntion’s execution, leaving another hole.
So Carl Buntion died, leaving a hole in the April 21, 2022 of the world that time filled up with its ever progressive pageant of people and problems and beauty and tragedy and other things that are life on Earth. Within the vortex, many people celebrated the death of a man who murdered a father, son, husband, police officer. Carl’s mom didn’t. She seemed like a quiet woman. Solemn, mourning, yet with some measure of peace. Realistically, she also has a hole in her heart paid for by millions of tax dollars for the proceedings and results of a capital investigation, trial, and death penalty. A lot more than the thousands she has to pay the state for her son’s corpse.
Was Carl Buntion an incorrigible killer who had to be euthanized like a rabid or unwanted animal? Or was he a rheumy-eyed old man who lived beyond an atrocity he committed? Had he changed? Would he have killed again? Did his ”execution” serve no other purpose than revenge killing? Will this heal his victims? Or will they find that it actually leaves a hole where a foothold for new life could have been? Will Carl’s mother no longer appear younger than him as the hole within her eclipses her life? Or will she find resolution and continued life in peace? Will the execution devour the victims and Carl’s mother? These are the questions in the debris filling the hole that was Carl Buntion’s life and place in his victims’ pain and mother’s heart.
I will not be surprised if someone claims to see Carl in the old supposedly haunted East Building museum. I looked when I went through a while back, but saw nothing haunting it except a mannequin, pictures of long-dead inmates, and a moldy smell. Never thought I’d end up ghost hunting in a Texas prison. Well, there were various things stored in some of those cells, and it reminds me of the places things go when they disappear, leaving holes in our lives.
The truth is, nothing is really destroyed, things just change form, sometimes going other places, like rising smoke or falling water. Unfortunately, people are often like Smokey the tomcat, in that they only see what’s in front of them. So we don’t see the pile of debris that eventually suffocates our lives, because whatever leaves a hole has to go somewhere. When we find another hole, hopefully we’re not at the bottom of it with dirt filling our grave.
Whether Carl Buntion was buried or burned, he had to go somewhere. Did he take anything that left a bigger hole in the conscience and humanity of society? Did his death make the world a better place? Or did he leave a big question mark at the bottom of another hole dug by tragedy and profit? When a person dies, it’s never right, no matter what the reason or remedy, and in the human quest to end all of it, we must begin with ending any of it.
Tracy Lee Kendall (#875004)
Tracy Lee Kendall Gib Lewis Unit (TDCJ)
P.O. Box 660400
Dallas, TX 75266-0400
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Tracy Lee Kendall
Gib Lewis Unit (TDCJ)
777 FM 3497
Woodville, TX 75990
One Comment
Carl Buntion was also a convicted child sex offender and had a rap sheet of burglary, narcotics use and destruction to property. He didn’t accidentally kill Officer James Irby. He was the passenger in a car that was pulled over by Officer Irby. Buntion got out of the passenger seat, walked around the car, and shot Officer Irby in the head. Then he put two more in Officer Irby’s back for good measure. Buntion then shot at others nearby and fled. He then shot at another driver in an attempt to steal the driver’s car. Finally, he took a person hostage during a police standoff w/ a gun to the hostage’s head.
So, no offense but this person was rotten. His life was “over” before it was physically terminated. Perhaps the death penalty is a form of vengeance. Well, too bad.