Californians will be resting easier tonight following the erasure of one of the golden state's scariest monsters, rabid Redskin hit-man employer, seventy-six year old blind cripple, Clarence Ray Allen.

Allen may have been only the second oldest guy ever to be executed in the United States, but he sounds like number one in terms of bad health. Aside from being blind and crippled, he also had diabetes and chronic heart disease. He last had a heart-attack in September, after which he petitioned prison officials to let him die if he went into cardiac arrest prior to his execution, a request the authorities denied.

''At no point are we not going to value the sanctity of life," said prison spokesman Vernell Crittendon. ''We would resuscitate him."

"The sanctity of life - that's a good one, isn't it," laughed deputy assistant warden Floyd Benson. "I don't know why we always say that - the papers like to hear it, I guess. The bottom line is that these guys on death row have a job to do, and that job is to die. And no, it is a job, it is not a hobby, you can't just die anytime you feel like it, you've got to die on time, on schedule. It's a very precise thing. What did our press release say - 'Clarence Ray Allen, Execution by lethal injection, San Quentin, Tuesday 12:01 AM'. That's pretty clear, pretty exacting. None of this 'Hey, we're gonna kill some dude on Tuesday. Come on by the prison. Eightish'."

In spite of his deteriorating health, Allen was still seen as a major threat on the prison yard. At least three guards claim to have been dismissed after Allen uttered Choctaw Indian heebie jeebie curses at them, causing them to smoke a joint in the engineering room against their will. And some inmates whisper warily amongst themselves about late night pudding thefts. Recently, administrative assistant Sandy Stevens was the victim of a physical attack.

"I was taking a memo up to the chief of Food Services, when suddenly I see this old madman barreling down the hallway at full speed. His wheelchair had to be going, I don't know, thirty-five or forty miles an hour, way too fast for a prison corridor. As he approached me, he swerved and ran over my foot before I had a chance to move. It really hurt. And all I could think of was what would have happened if this had been a highway rather than a corridor and a ten ton truck instead of a wheelchair. I'd be dead now, that's what."

Allen was sentence to death in 1982. Monday was his 24th birthday on death row. His last meal included Kentucky Fried Chicken and black walnut ice cream, and his final words were 'Hoka Hey it's a good day to die'.