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Falconer 60<br />
ethics of the medical profession, a profession that is surely a<br />
critical part of our social keystone. Chisholm decided to deny me<br />
the healing medicine that society had determined was my right. Is<br />
this not subversion, treachery, is this not high treason when the<br />
edicts of the Constitution are overthrown at the whim of one,<br />
single, uneducated man? Is this not an offense punishable by death<br />
—or in some states by life imprisonment? Is this not more farreaching<br />
in its destructive precedents than some miscarried<br />
assassination attempt? Does it not strike more murderously at the<br />
heart of our hard-earned and ancient philosophy of government<br />
than rape or homicide?<br />
“The rightness of the doctors’ diagnoses was, of course, proven.<br />
The pain I suffered upon the withdrawal of that medicine granted<br />
to me by the highest authority in the land was mortal. When<br />
Deputy Warden Chisholm saw me attempt to leave my cell to go<br />
to the infirmary he tried to kill me with a chair. There are twentytwo<br />
sutures in my skull and I will be crippled for life. Are our<br />
institutions of penology, correction and rehabilitation to be<br />
excluded from the laws that mankind has considered to be just<br />
and urgently necessary to the continuation of life on this continent<br />
and indeed this planet? You may wonder what I am doing in<br />
prison and I will be very happy to inform you, but I thought it my<br />
duty to first inform you of the cancerous criminal treason that eats<br />
at the heart of your administration.”<br />
He scarcely paused between his letter to his governor and his letter<br />
to his bishop. “Your Grace,” he wrote. “My name is Ezekiel<br />
Farragut and I was christened in Christ’s Church at the age of six<br />
months. If proof is needed, my wife has a photograph of me taken,<br />
not that day, I think, but soon after. I am wearing a long lace gown<br />
that must have some history. My head is hairless and protuberant<br />
and looks like a darning egg. I am smiling. I was confirmed at the<br />
age of eleven by Bishop Evanston in the same church where I was<br />
christened. I have continued to take Holy Communion every<br />
Sunday of my life, barring those occasions when I was unable to
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