He turned to me. We shook hands through his handcuffs, then he ruffled my hair. “You did right. Now do me a favor. Put on some weight, okay? You’re too goddamned skinny.”
The next time I saw him was six days before his execution.
WHAT NONE OF US KNEW, THROUGHOUT ANY OF THIS, was that Gary had been betrayed by his best friend, Barry Black. Barry had known that Gary planned on meeting him and the guards at the dental school with a gun, but he grew afraid that he might get killed himself, or that he might end up drawing additional time for attempting such an escape. Barry went to the warden and made a deal. He told the warden what Gary’s plans were, and who he might be staying with in the Portland area. In exchange, the warden gave Barry protection, and an assurance that all this would be taken into consideration during his next review before the Parole Board.
When Gary arrived back at the prison, he made it known that he was hurt and angry. Barry was kept in a separate part of the prison yard, away from Gary. Gary would stand outside and yell, “Barry Black is a fink!” so loud and so long, the guards would drag him off the field and into his cell. Barry went into isolation for protection. Gary got into a fight with somebody so he could also be placed in isolation. When the warden caught wind of this, he had Barry Black transferred to another prison. There was little question in anybody’s mind that Gary would have killed his old friend the first chance he got.
YEARS PASSED. I wrote Gary a couple of letters during this time and he wrote back, but there was a coldness and bitterness in what he wrote. I figured he had never forgiven me for my resistance that day in the topless bar. In turn, I had my own anger: Gary’s request had been unfair, and he had been a fool to destroy the best chance he’d ever had at a second start. But it was more than anger: I was also afraid of my brother. I saw him as a walking deadly force.
I returned to my habit of not going to see him, and we both drifted into a long silence. We were each too proud to give the other person’s viewpoint much thought. In time, Gary had me taken off his visitors list. I didn’t feel insulted, I didn’t feel ashamed. Instead, I felt relieved.
Meantime, Frank continued to see Gary. Not long ago, he wrote me a letter, telling me about those visits:
I started these visits because of a letter I received from Gary. He was filled with pain and hatred because he had been forgotten by his family. He sounded like a man who was ready to jump off an eleven-story building.
On my first visit, I was really surprised at how much he had changed. He was much meaner-looking than I had remembered him being before. I remember one of the first things that we talked about was the guards. Gary was of the opinion that all guards were pussies, and that they were trying to make him and his friends look bad all the time.
I asked, “Well, Gary, are they treating you decent?”
“C’mon, Frank, they don’t treat any of us like we are human. All guards suck—don’t you agree?”
“No, Gary. Me, I think some guards suck, but I think some prisoners suck too.”
“Well, Frank, old buddy, you’re wrong. All guards suck. In one way or another. But you should know this. You’ve been in prison. You’re a pro too.”
“No,” I would tell him, “I’m not even an amateur.” Then I’d try to change the conversation a bit: “Look, Gary, I don’t like to see you in here. I would do whatever I could reasonably do to help you get out. But don’t you think you’ve put yourself in here this last time? Don’t you think you keep putting yourself in here?”
“Fuck you, Frank. And I don’t mean that to be disrespectful. I just mean it. You and no one else can ever understand what I have gone through. So just get fucked. I mean, I get really pissed when people like you start asking me questions and giving me a bunch of bullshit opinions—opinions I don’t need and wouldn’t use anyway.
“I mean, you don’t know what it is like after seven or eight years, do you, asshole? So why don’t you tell me, huh, asshole? Tell me. C’mon, tell me.”
“Okay, Gary, I’m sorry. Let’s talk about something we both know about. Let’s talk about what you remember about home.”
“That’s bullshit, Frank. I mean, I remember that the food was real good, and that Dad sucked. You might think he was a great man, for whatever reason, but to me he was just as big an asshole as you are—except that he was a better man than you are. But that’s not saying a whole hell of a lot.
“Say, Frank, I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but you are an asshole. Let’s face it, Frank, that’s what you are. I don’t mean to say that you haven’t been better than the rest of the family. At least you’ve remembered that I’m still alive. The rest of the family—if you want to call them a family—has not remembered anything when it comes to me. And as far as being a brother in this family of complete assholes, you are above average. That doesn’t mean I really care about you. But then, do you really care what I think?”
“Yeah, Gary. Yeah, I do.”
Gary turned and pointed at another prisoner, who was sitting a few seats away in the visitors’ room. Then he said: “Don’t you think that asshole looks just like Woody Allen? That guy is a real asshole. He thinks all of us are animals, and he thinks that the guards are his buddies. That asshole is going to learn a whole hell of a lot before he does his time.”
And then Gary pointed right at one of the guards and said, just as loud as he could: “See that asshole? Well, they say he fucked his sister, and I for one believe it.”
The guard walked over to us and said: “One more remark like that, Gilmore, and your visit is over.”
Gary just laughed and said: “That asshole never did like me much.”
I don’t recall one visit when Gary did not tell me at least once about how much he hated Dad and all the times that Dad had beat him. “I cannot remember most of the reasons the old bastard beat me,” he said. “All it really taught me was to hate him.”
I always hated to leave Gary behind. It bothered me much more than he ever knew. Probably much more than anyone ever knew. I really didn’t mind it when he would say all those angry things to me, or when he would call me names. I figured it was better for him to let off steam at my expense, to vent on me, than to get in more trouble at prison.
LATE IN 1973, GARY’S WAR about his teeth flared up again. He renewed his demands for new dentures, and continued to get in fights with guards. He also grew more demanding of his friends on the inside. He would insist that they support each of his protests and each of his demands, and that they should join him in his hell-raising. If they didn’t, he considered it a betrayal of loyalty, and Gary was not a man that one could lightly consider offending. There were more fights with dentists, more hammer attacks on enemy inmates. Among the guards, according to one of them, there was an agreement: If Gary ever gave a guard a legitimate reason, the guard should shoot him. “I wish he had fired on me,” one guard said, “so I could take him out. But Gilmore was gutless and would wait until your back was turned before he’d hit you.”
Gary knew the guards were watching him closely, and he tried to convince some of the other prisoners that they should all kill a guard or two. The other inmates thought this was too extreme. There was no way you could kill a guard and get away with it. It would be suicide.
IN THE FALL OF 1974, GARY FELL IN LOVE with a woman named Becky. She had become familiar with him through another woman who was visiting a friend of Gary’s at the prison. Becky started writing Gary, then started visiting him. She talked to him about shaping up and starting his life over—maybe in Canada. She said she would do everything she could to get him released if he would promise to change his life and curb his violence. Gary agreed. Then he asked Becky to marry him. Becky agreed.
First, though, she had to have some surgery—something to do with an ulcerous condition that had been painful for a long time. She died while she was on the operating table.
The night Gary learned of her death, he went to see the prison psychiatrist and asked for some medication. The psychi
atrist decided Gary wasn’t seriously depressed enough to merit the medication and sent him back to his cell.
Over the next month, Gary grew more outrageous and more violent. One day he got hold of a razor blade and blockaded himself in his cell. He was going to kill himself, he announced, and he would slice anybody who tried to stop him. It took several guards and a can of Mace to get him under control and to get the razor from him.
That was when Dr. Weissert decided to put Gary back on Prolixin. Weissert wrote: “It is my impression that at this time Gilmore is in a paranoid state, so that he is unable to determine what his best interests are. He is totally unable to control his hostile and aggressive impulses, and external controls seem necessary, as he is unable to place internal controls on his own aggressive impulses. He presents a real danger to the physical safety of himself and others, and this, in a structured and closed environment, creates a real physical hazard. It is, therefore, my recommendation he be given intramuscular injections of tranquilizers to help him control his hostility and aggression until such time as he is able to apply the necessary controls … In a paranoid psychotic state, medication is the most expedient treatment modality to insure a subsidence of symptoms so that the condition is more manageable. I feel completely justified in giving Gilmore medication against his wishes, as he creates a serious problem to the patient and the entire institution.”
When Gary heard of Weissert’s recommendation, he wrote the warden, Hoyt Cupp, begging him for any other form of punishment. He said he was more afraid of Prolixin than anything else on earth, and he didn’t think he could withstand any more treatment with the drug. He said he would be willing to go for the rest of his life without teeth, rather than submit to Prolixin.
Warden Cupp offered Gary a compromise: a transfer to a maximum security federal penitentiary, in Marion, Illinois. After all, Cupp reasoned, Gary had become a risk to everybody at OSP, including himself. There were several rumors that many of the prisoners who had been his former friends and supporters were now so disgusted or frightened by his behavior, they were talking about killing him themselves.
Gary agreed to Cupp’s transfer offer. Then, on the last day, Gary reneged. He told Cupp he thought the transfer was illegal. Besides, he wanted to stay close to his friends and family in Oregon. Cupp told Gary that whether he liked it or not, he was going to Marion.
On the night of January 21, 1975, Gary was sitting in his cell, awaiting the guards. They were supposed to come for him at midnight and take him to his plane to Illinois.
“Man, I don’t want to go,” Gary told a friend by the name of Roger, in the cell next to him. “At least I don’t want to go without a little noise. When they come to get me, do me a favor. Raise some hell. Pound on the bars. I want everybody to know this is going down and how wrong it is.”
Roger agreed to Gary’s request. No matter what any of the prisoners thought of Gary, he was still an inmate, and inmates had to back each other whenever possible.
When the guards came for Gary, Roger was asleep. Gary asked the guards if he might wake his friend, to say good-bye. They said okay.
Gary called Roger’s name. His friend woke up, saw Gary standing with the guards, and started to make some noise, but Gary told him to calm down. “It’s all right. I’ll go quietly. I just wanted to see if you were still my friend.”
Roger offered Gary his hand. “Well, take care of yourself,” Roger said.
Gary took his hand. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll be seeing you down the road. Right now, I’m going to go get me a couple of Mormons.”
Roger thought about Gary’s last words for some time. What had he meant?
A little over a year and a half later, Roger said, he had no doubt what Gary meant. By that time, Gary Gilmore was the most famous murderer in America.
WITHIN DAYS OF HIS ARRIVAL AT THE FEDERAL PENITENTIARY at Marion, Illinois, Gary began petitioning Warden Cupp for a return to Oregon State Penitentiary. “I don’t want any more trouble,” Gary wrote the warden. “I would like to straighten my hand up and repair the mess my life has become. Please reply.”
Cupp wrote back, telling Gary that there were no plans to make any changes in his present arrangement. Whether Gary ever returned to Oregon, he indicated, would depend on the nature of the reports that came from Marion.
Gary realized he was in a tight spot. Marion had a reputation as a place that did not abide much crap from its inmates; the guards could be rough, and the isolation techniques were rigid and unpleasant.
I can’t say for sure that Gary was anything like a model prisoner at Marion, since the federal prison system would not release his records to me. It’s obvious, though, from the reports in his Oregon files that his behavior improved dramatically. There were numerous letters from the federal facility’s psychiatrists and officers, stating that Gary was cooperative and friendly. Wrote one doctor: “He does not have a psychiatric illness in the form of pyschosis, organicity or requiring special procedures, or tests. From a psychiatric (neuropsychiatric) point of view, he has probably reached the maximum benefits so far as the United States Penitentiary, Marion, Illinois, is concerned.” It was Marion’s view that Gary should be returned to Oregon. In addition, there was another matter: The transfer, in all probability, had not been legal, and if Gary could muster the means to press his case, Oregon would probably have to take him back whether the prison wanted him or not.
Cupp, though, remained unmoved. In a June memo to the Oregon corrections deputy administrator, Cupp stated: “I remain adamant in my opinion on the return of Gary Gilmore to Oregon State Penitentiary. We have seen him go this route before, and then revert to his troublemaking patterns. With our present pressure conditions, I would not want to return this man for at least six months more.”
Whether he liked it or not, Gary was stuck where he was, a thousand miles from home.
ONE DAY IN EARLY NOVEMBER 1975, my mother and Frank were sitting in the living room of the trailer, talking about ways of bringing Gary back home, when my mother stopped in midsentence. Her face went white immediately, her mouth opened as if to say something, and then she started to spit up blood. It came with such force, it hit the walls of the trailer. She fell from her chair to the floor. Frank ran over to her and tried to cradle her head. “Mom,” he said. “Mom! What’s wrong?” She couldn’t answer, and the blood was still coming. Frank ran over to the landlady’s office, told her what happened, and asked her to call an ambulance. By the time he got back, my mother was trying to climb back into her chair. “I don’t want an ambulance,” she said. “I’ll be fine. It was just something I ate. I don’t like hospitals. They scare me.” Then she collapsed again, in a faint.
When she awoke hours later, she was in a hospital bed. She looked around her. She knew the room. She knew the bed. This was the same room, the same place, in the Oregon City Hospital, where Gaylen had lain as his life slipped away from him. My mother began to scream for a nurse.
FOR YEARS, MY MOTHER HAD BEEN BOTHERED by the progression of arthritis. She had been taking aspirin to help alleviate the pain, but it wasn’t helping much. Each time I saw her, I noticed that her hands were becoming more and more crippled. The fingers were starting to curl in on themselves, like a small bird’s claws, and her feet had a hard time moving across the floor. My mother’s affliction was beginning to slow her down at work, and we all knew it was just a matter of time before she would have to quit her job.
Frank and I tried repeatedly to get her to see a doctor, but it was no use. My mother did not like or trust doctors, and, more to the point, my mother was not a person you could make do anything she did not want to do. In that way, we were all her sons.
So my mother kept taking the aspirin. It was her only defense against the pain. What we didn’t know was, she was taking massive amounts of it—sometimes as much as a bottle a day. All that medicine played hell with her stomach, and on the day she had thrown up in front of Frank, it was because a hole had been eating its way through her
on the inside, and it chose that time to make its perforation complete. Had Frank not been there, she likely would have died in her own blood on the dirty kitchen floor.
Now, in the hospital, she was in and out of consciousness a lot, and the doctors were nearly certain they would have to operate to save her. They wanted the consent of a relative. Frank was reluctant to give the consent, since the operation would necessitate a blood transfusion—a practice that ran contrary to Frank’s beliefs as a Jehovah’s Witness. I called my mother’s doctor and told him I would take responsibility for the decision. If there was any need to operate, they should do so. They should do whatever was necessary to save her life.
Two days after my mother’s arrival at the hospital, the doctors operated. Her stomach was so ruined, they had to remove over half of it and sew the rest up into a small bag. She would have trouble eating; she would have to live according to a certain diet, and if she didn’t follow the diet, she would risk reopening the perforation.
The first time I visited my mother in the hospital, she was still in an unconscious state. She had tubes running in and out of her, and she looked dead. I fully expected her to die, even with the surgery. Later, when she was out of the hospital and back home, it was hard for me to relate to her for a while. I had prepared myself for her to be dead—I felt I had already gone through the emotions of grieving for her. Somehow, it didn’t seem real that she was still alive. I was glad she was, but I also dreaded the idea that I would have to go through her death all over again someday. Once seemed more than enough.
MY MOTHER’S PHYSICAL COLLAPSE BROUGHT A NEW URGENCY to Gary’s situation. He wrote several letters to the Oregon corrections administrators, petitioning a return to Oregon. His mother had almost died, he explained, and he was afraid that if he couldn’t get back home soon, he would never again see her alive. He wanted to put his life in order, he said. He wanted to win a parole and help take care of his mother.
Shot in the Heart Page 38