By: ABDOOL A. AZIZ
AS A BOY, I loved to wander in the bush. One day I came across a shack with cats hanging from the roof. This was a hide-out for a fugitive from Cayenne by the name of Fisher.
They took him into custody, but just before deporting him, he saw the long-outstanding vacancy for a hangman. He offered himself and quickly enjoyed the awful thrill of hanging those cats. He got the job and did so well that the government offered him domicile status.
Whenever he travelled to the prisons to carry out a hanging he would yell: “Wan gon dance today in the air, boy ah gon laugh.”

On return he would stagger and shout: “See the fellow fight! But ah got he neck. Wen dey cut he down, dem eyes pop out and he tongue hang out. Me name Fischer, the hangman from Cayenne.” No one shared his dirty boast. No one liked him for ‘springing’ those feline pets. How cruel! He loved to spend his dirty money at the ‘Chinee’ gambling shop.
One day he lost his bet to an ordinary fisherman but refused to give in. Fisher knifed the man to death in a fit of rage. He was charged, placed before the court, found guilty and sentenced to be hanged.

He laughed because he thought there was no one to hang him but he was mistaken. One of the victim’s sons begged to pull the lever. Before dawned on a Monday, Fisher was pulled out of death row. He was the sole inmate. He had cleaned up the backlog. He ranted and raved. He kicked and swung, cursing and spitting all the way to the gallows.
“You can’t hang me, you ain’t got a hang-man,” he bawled. The guards had a difficult time to get him up the short stairs to the trap-door. This diminutive hang-man put up a fight. Finally the hood went over his wrinkled face. Then the noose.
He cried out: “God have mercy!” Then the special hangman balled: “Did you show mercy to those innocent cats?”

With that he wrenched the lever. The door fell. Fischer dangled for a while and swung still. When they brought him down and removed the hood his eyes bulged out their sockets, and his tongue clenched between his teeth. His body was still warm. The doctor ensured he was dead by cutting the ankle tendons.
Had Fischer not been a naturalized citizen he would have been sent back to the French Guiana to serve a life sentence, but Fate had it other-wise.

With him gone no hanging took place. The capital death penalty is still on the books but not enforced due to cries from the public to ban it. No one is willing to do the scum job. The villagers burnt Fisher’s shack down. To this day, I get ‘goose bumps’ when I visit my native place and walk on that dam I still recall the horrible sight of those creatures dangling in mid-air. What kind of man was Fischer? Some saw him as a cold-hearted villain. Others say he was a hero who served justice by ‘springing.’
I have pity for the criminals. But those cats – Oh!