God bless you, Dr. Kevorkian (25 page)

The turning point in his career as a physician, if not as a poet, was the death of his beloved wife Gertrude at the age of only thirty-nine. She was killed by breast cancer detected too late. Every moment of his professional life thereafter was devoted to fighting that disease: What a success!

I found him at the edge of a crowd of frenzied angels who wanted their feathers autographed by Dimaggio. I said that his glowing obituary in the
Times
indicated that he was extraordinarily fond of women, and they of him. He recited these unabashedly feminist lines of his own composition:

Let us remind our poor

in deed and song:

There are two

men in this womanly world:

Those who know they are weak,
Those who think they are strong.
This is

in the indispensable company

of Jack Kevorkian, who has saved my life a hundred times now, signing off until the next time. Ta ta.
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if is

in

afternoon

of February

I have just been unstrapped from

a gurney following another controlled near-death experience in this busy execution chamber in Huntsville, Texas.

For the first time in my career, I was actually on the heels of a celebrity as I made my way down the blue tunnel to Paradise. She was Carla Faye Tucker, the born again murderer of two strangers with a pick-axe. Carla Faye was completely killed here, by the State of Texas, shortly after lunch time.

Two hours later, on another

I myself was

made only three-quarters dead. I caught up with Carla
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Faye in the tunnel, about a hundred fifty yards from the far end, near the Pearly Gates. Since she was dragging her I hastened to assure her that there was no Hell waiting for her, no Hell waiting for anyone. She said that was too bad because she would be glad to go to Hell if only she could take the governor of Texas with her. "He's a murderer, too," said Faye. "He

murdered

Dr. Jack Kevorkian supervises my trip to near death and back. Your reporter from the Afterlife has to sign off now. Jack and I have been asked to vacate the lethal injection facility, which must be prepared for yet another total

Speaking for both of us, I now

say, ta-ta.

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