The State of Texas executes more of its citizens than any other state in the Union. Thirty three last year, eleven already this year, more scheduled for later this spring. These executions happen in a drab cinderblock building deep within the Huntsville Unit, whose towering brick walls have earned it the nickname "The Walls." The "death house" sits in the northwest corner of the prison, hidden from outside view. It shelters the execution chamber -- a frigid room with light blue walls and a slight ammonia smell, where fluorescent bulbs hang unadorned from the ceiling, their harsh, sterile light illuminating the room's focal point: the gurney. Draped in a white sheet, with arms spread wide like a cross, the gurney waits for my client, Eddie Johnson.

I am here to visit Eddie one last time, but first I have to go through the usual drill: filling out forms, having my identification examined, being scanned with a metal detector. Finally, the pot bellied guard with a limp from a stroke motions me to follow him into the bowels of the prison. We pass through the regular visiting room, vacant except for stiff wooden chairs and the ghosts of visitors past. We walk through another dark corridor, which leads out into the sunlight, its brightness almost blinding. Then we wait outside the death house door for locks to be unlocked and more guards to escort us inside. I enter through the iron gray door, steeling myself for these final thirty minutes with Eddie.

I had represented him during the last three years of his appeals. He'd had tumultuous relationships with most of his previous attorneys, and ours was no different. He had 'fired' me on numerous occasions, but I continued to represent him despite his orneriness -- and his crime.

Eddie had been convicted of shooting a ten-year-old girl, her mother and her mother's boyfriend; they all died bleeding in a barren field in south Texas. Despite the overwhelming evidence against him, Eddie had always maintained his innocence. His appeal, however, was based on the incompetence of his trial attorney, who had never tried a murder case before Eddie's. My client had not received a fair trial, and I had deep regrets that because I couldn't convince any court of the errors, his life would end today.

Eddie stands in a visiting cell which is unique among the six in that sky-blue cell block. Its bars are curtained with a diamond shaped mesh that obscures his face; rhombus patterns of fluorescent light dapple his dark skin. Eddie greets me by placing his palm against the mesh; I place my hand against the other side, the lattice precluding all but the smallest patches of skin from touching. We rest our palms for a minute, lock eyes, and exchange a smile. Then, without really thinking, without preparing my words, I blurt out: "Raoul says you're in checkmate." Eddie had been playing chess through the mail with a colleague in my law office for years, so I was thinking of those games, and how both the games and Eddie's appeals were at an end. Eddie looks startled, and then bursts out laughing.

"Did he really say that?"

"Well, no." I backpedal. "It just came out." Eddie keeps laughing.

Then he gets quiet and steps back. His hands curl around the blue metal bars, the nicks and scars on his knuckles evidence of the hard-scrabble life that came before. Flexing his massive forearms, Eddie pulls himself back and forth -- first intimately close to the mesh which separates us, then back into the cell, into his thoughts, unreachable. Slowly, back and forth, back and forth.

His tan plastic sandals aren't much protection from the chill of the cement floor, and Eddie's "whites" (his prison issue cotton shirt and pants) seem even more dingy than usual. The "DR" -- for death row -- stenciled above the pocket is faded, the letters' edges no longer crisp. Regulations allow the inmate to wear whatever color clothes he wants on this day, but Eddie figures what was good enough for his life in prison is good enough for his death. We continue our conversation as if he isn't a dozen steps and two hours away from that gurney.

Eddie begins talking about tea. Not the usual prison tea, but a special concoction which arrived unrequested -- but not unwelcome -- with his last meal.

"It's better than the stuff we got back on the Row," he says, "much sweeter." I nod, and then because Eddie is from Chicago, I explain that here in the South there is iced tea and sweet tea -- you can add sugar to iced tea, but sweet tea is made with the sugar dissolved long before it hits your glass. Eddie looks up with an incredulous -- and amused -- smile. "They're about to execute me, and you're giving me cooking lessons?"