The Executioner's Song

by Norman Mailer

  Spence said, "Nobody catches you, huh?" "No." "How long you been doing that?" "Weeks." Spencer said, "Steal a six-pack of beer day and never been caught?" Gary said, "Never." Spencer said, "I don't know. How come people get caught and you don't?" Gary said, "I'm better than they are."

  "I think you're pulling my leg," said Spencer.

  Gary proceeded to tell about the black convict he had stabbed 57 times. Now Spencer thought Gary was trying to impress him with how tough he was, see if he would scare. "Come on, Gary," he said, "57 times sounds like a variety of soup."

  After they finished laughing, Gary broke it to Spence. He'd like to get off early on Friday.

  "I don't know if you've noticed," said Spence, "but the other fellows don't take off. They work all day, and take care of things after hours. That's how it's normally done."

  Still, he gave him the time. One more time. Spence felt a little uneasy. After all, the government, with the ex-convicts' program, was paying half of Gary's $3.50 an hour. It could account for why Gary was giving him half an hour on the hour.

  One afternoon, while Nicole was away on a visit to Kathryne, Barrett visited the house in Spanish Fork and found Rosebeth there. By the time Nicole came back, her little friend was no virgin anymore.

  At first, Rosebeth merely mentioned that Barrett had been there. Oh, Nicole asked, for how long? About an hour, said Rosebeth, and a half. Nicole began to laugh, If Barrett wasn't feeling bashful, he was in bed. An hour and a half was time enough for Barrett. Seeing that Nicole wasn't upset, Rosebeth began to giggle. She knew now, she told Nicole, why Gary had never been able to put it in. Too big. Nicole and Rosebeth began to have this long laugh waiting for Gary to get home from work.

  Gary, however, had dropped in on Val Conlin. The beer he brought was ice cold. After that run-in for not paying on time, Gary made a practice of bringing a six-pack when he went by. Val was appreciative.

  Gary had his eye on a truck. The one on the lot that was painted white.

  "Buddy," said Val, "pay off the Mustang and I'll get you something better."

  "I got to have that truck."

  "No can do without mucho mazuma," said Val. The truck was up for sale at $1,700. "Listen, pardner, unless you come back with a co-signer, it's too good a truck for you."

  Gary thought he could. Maybe his Uncle Vern.

  "I know Vern," said Val, "and I don't think he's in shape for this kind of credit. But, if you want, have him fill out the application. We can always see what we can do."

  "Okay," said Gary, "okay." He hesitated. "Val," he said, "that Mustang is no good. I had to put a new battery in, and an alternator. It came to fifty dollars."

  "What do you want me to do?"

  "Well, if I buy the truck, I think you could allow for what I had to lay out on the Mustang."

  "Gary, you buy the truck, and we'll knock off that fifty dollars. No problem. Just get a cosigner."

  "Val, I don't need a co-signer. I can make the payments." "No co-signer, no truck. Pardner, let's keep it simple." "The goddamn Mustang isn't any good."

  "Gary, I'm doing you the favor. If you don't want the Mustang leave the son of a bitch right out there."

  "I want the truck."

  "The only way you get the truck is by putting a lot of money on the front end of the loan. Or come in with a co-signer. Here, take this credit application to Vern."

  Gary sat across the desk, looking out the window at the white truck on the end of the line. It was as white as the snow you could still see on the peak of the mountains.

  "Gary, fill out the application and bring it back."

  Val knew it. Gary was madder than hell. He didn't say a word, just took the application, got up, walked out the door, wadded it up, and threw it on the ground.

  Harper, Val's salesman, said, "Boy, he's hot."

  "I don't give a shit," said Val. Around him, people got hot. That was run of the mill. Just his hell-of-a-success-story boiling away.

  In the middle of making love that night, Gary called Nicole, Pardner.

  She took it wrong. Thought he was jiving at her for getting it on with Rosebeth. But as he tried to explain later, he often called men and women alike by Buddy or Pal, Pardner, things like that.

  In the morning, it was the Mustang. His car would not start. was as if something in Gary's makeup killed off the system every morning.

  Chapter 9

  IN TROUBLE WITH THE LAW

  Kathryne was getting quite an impression of Gary. It began one day around lunchtime when he came knocking on her door. It startled her. He was so covered with insulating material that he looked like a man who had clawed his way out of the earth.

  He had dropped by, he told her, to take a look at the room she wanted done. Kathryne just about remembered that the time Nicole had brought him over to meet her, there was a conversation about insulating the back room. Fine, Kathryne told him now, fine. She wanted to get rid of Gary fast.

  Well, he took the look and said he'd have to talk to a boy who worked with him. Then they'd give the estimate. Kathryne said that was real nice. Sure enough, he was back that same afternoon with a kid of eighteen who figured the job at $60. She said she'd think about it.

  Three days later, at lunchtime, there was Gary in the doorway again. Talking fast. Said, I thought I'd come and have a beer with you. Got some beer? Gee, she didn't, said Kathryne, just coffee. Well, he told her, I'll come in anyway. Got something to eat?

  She said she could make him a sandwich. That was okay. He would run down and get a six-pack. Kathryne just looked at her kid sister Kathy.

  Ten minutes later, he was back with the beer. While she fixed the sandwiches, he started talking. What a conversation. If the first time he came to her house he never opened his mouth, now, right off, he told Kathryne and Kathy that he had stolen the six-pack. Wanted to know if they might need cigarettes. No, she said, she had plenty. How about beer? he inquired. Seldom drink it, very seldom.

  The day before he had gone in the store, he said, picked up a case, walked out, and was setting it in his trunk when a kid not old enough to drink asked if Gary would buy him a case, and handed over five bucks. Gary started to laugh. "I walked in, picked up the kid's beer, walked out, gave it to him, and took off with the cash."

  They were careful to laugh. Weren't you afraid? they asked. No, said Gary, act like you own the place.

  He started telling stories. One after another. They couldn't believe him. Told of tattooing a man named Fungoo, and taking photograph of a pervert named Skeezix, then there was a fellow hit over the head with a hammer, and he stabbed a nigger 57 times. He'd look at them carefully, say, Now did you understand that? His voice got gruff.

  They would put on a smile. Gary, the ladies would say, was something else, you know. They got themselves to laugh. didn't know if she was more afraid for Nicole or herself. About the time he'd stayed an hour and a half, she asked if he wouldn't be getting back to work.

  To hell with the job, said Gary. If they didn't like it over at the job, they knew what they could do. Then he told about a friend who gave it to the manager of a supermarket with a hot curling iron. All the while, he watched them real close. He had to see their reaction. They felt they better have a reaction.

  Weren't you afraid, Gary? they would ask. Didn't you somebody would catch you?

  He did a lot of boasting. Sounded like he was banging a boat from rock to rock. When he left, he thanked them for being sociable.

  Nicole heard about the lunch. There was a piece of him, she decided, that liked to tell crazy stories to grown-ups. It must have gotten locked in at the age of eight.

  Then she thought of the night up on the hills behind the nut-house when she wondered if he was a magnet to evil spirits. Maybe he had to act that nasty to keep things off. The idea didn't cheer her. He could get meaner and meaner if that was the truth.

  Around midnight, Nicole was feeling awfully cooped up with Gary. She found herself thinking of Barrett. It kept working away i
n her. There had also been a letter from Kip that afternoon but she kept thinking about Barrett and Rosebeth.

  She hadn't even wanted to open Kip's letter, and when she did, he wrote that he wanted her to come back. The letter left her feeling crowded. It was like the past was coming back. Hampton, of all people, was going around with her sister April. Everybody Nicole decided, was fucking with her head.

  All the while she was having these thoughts, Gary had been sitting at her feet. Now he had to pick this moment to look up with all the light of love shining in his eyes. "Baby," he said, "I really love you all the way and forever." She looked back. "Yeah," she said, "and so do seven other motherfuckers."

  Gary hit her. It was the first time, and he hit her hard. She didn't feel the pain so much as the shock and then the disappointment. It always ended the same way. They hit you when they felt like it.

  Soon enough, he apologized. He kept apologizing. But it did no good. She had been hit so fucking many times. The kids were in bed, and she looked at Gary and said, "I want to die." It was how she felt.

  He kept trying to make up. Finally, she told him that she had felt like dying before but never did anything about it. Tonight, she wouldn't mind.

  Gary got a knife and held the point to her stomach. He asked her if she still wanted to die.

  It was frightening that she wasn't more afraid. After a few minutes, she finally said, "No, I don't," but she had been tempted. After he put the knife away, she even felt trapped. She couldn't believe the size of the bad feeling that came down on her then.

  They had one more marathon. Up all night about whether to fuck. In the middle, around midnight, he took off. Not too long later he came in with a bunch of boxes. There was a pistol in every box.

  She got over it a little. She had to. The guns hung around.

  Sterling Baker had a birthday party the last Sunday afternoon June, and the party went on in Sterling's apartment and out in the backyard, fifteen or twenty good people. A lot brought bottles. Nicole had cutoffs on, and a halter top, and knew she was looking good. Gary was sure showing her off. A couple of dudes began to tell what a hot lady he had. Gary would say, "Know it," and grab her both breasts, or pull her into his lap.

  Well, it was Sterling's birthday, and Nicole still had this crush on her cousin. So Nicole started kidding him about a kiss and Sterling said he'd take her up on it. She asked Gary's okay. He gave her a look, but she went and sat on Sterling's lap anyway. Gave him a long kiss that would tell a lot about her.

  When she opened her eyes, Gary was sitting with no expression on his face. He said, "Had enough?"

  They were keeping a keg of beer out in the back. The fellow upstairs had also invited his friends, and one of them was a guy Jimmy, a Chicano. He picked up a pair of sunglasses that had laid on the roof of a broken-down old car out in the while he was tapping a keg. Nicole figured maybe Jimmy didn't know, just picked them up. Only thing, the glasses were a present from Gary to Sterling.

  Gary came on strong. "I want them glasses back," he told Jimmy, "they're mine." Jimmy got kind of upset and left. Nicole started shrieking. "You're fucking up the party," she shouted at Gary. "All this horseshit over a stupid pair of glasses."

  Jimmy came back to the party with a couple of friends. As soon as he walked in the yard, Gary was on his feet and heading toward him. They were throwing fists before you could stop it.

  Maybe Gary was too drunk, but Jimmy split his eye with the first punch. Blood was running all over Gary's face. He got hit again and went down to his knees, got back up and started swinging.

  About that time, everybody broke the fight up. Sterling walked Jimmy around the front of the house and got him to leave. Just as Jimmy was walking off, Gary came up holding a gear knob that he'd taken off the beat-up car in the backyard. Sterling stepped in front of him. "Gary, you're through with that, you're not going to hit him," he said. Just talking in a normal tone of voice. But he had a big fellow standing next to him to back what was said. Nicole got Gary out and took him home.

  She hated to see her man have his ass whipped. Especially when he started it. She thought he was a fool all the way. A cheater, too. Like when he arm wrestled her brother.

  He wanted to go back and find Jimmy. By keeping her mouth shut about how disappointed she was in his fighting, she managed to get him to Spanish Fork. She had hardly ever known a guy who hated to lose a rumble as much as Gary. That softened her feelings somewhat. After all, he had taken a beating from a very tough dude, and hadn't quit.

  After she washed him off, Nicole discovered that the cut was bad. So she took him next door to her neighbor Elaine, who had just gotten through taking this emergency course on being an ambulance driver and Elaine said he definitely needed stitches. Nicole started to worry. She had heard that oxygen in the air could enter a cut near the eye, go right to the brain, and kill you. So she did take him to the doctor. Through the rest of the night she kept ice packs on his face and babied him, and kind of enjoyed it, considering how things had been lately. In the morning, when he tried to blow his nose, his cheeks blew up right around his glands and sinuses.

  Spencer said, "Gary, it doesn't make much sense putting your body up to be abused."

  "They can't hurt me," said Gary.

  "Oh, no? Your eye is cut and it's turning black, and you've got a lump on your forehead and he gave you a good one on the nose. Don't stand there and put that stuff on me, Gary. I just can't believe you keep getting the best of these deals."

  Gary said, "I sure did, you know."

  Spencer said, "What's going to happen one night is some little guy about five foot six"—which was around Spencer's height—"is going to stuff a mudhole right in the middle of your face. Because that's what happens. A guy doesn't have to be seven feet tall to be mean."

  "I'm Gary Gilmore," Gilmore said, "and they can't hurt me."

  In the evening, driving around with Nicole and Sunny and Peabody, he stopped at V.J. Motors to talk to Val Conlin about the truck. Even got to take it out for an hour. Gary was that happy up behind the wheel with something like a real motor in front of them. All the while she could feel him thinking of the guns. They were shining like $$$ in his eyes.

  When he got back, he talked to Val about the size of a payment. Nicole was hardly listening. It was boring to sit in showroom with all the freaks and deadbeats who were waiting to some piece of a car. One girl was wearing a turban and had a swipe of eye shadow under each eye, and her blouse just about coming out of her belt. She said to Nicole, "You have very beautiful eyes." "Thank you," said Nicole.

  Gary kept repeating himself like a record with a scratch. "I don't want that Mustang," he said to Val.

  "Then let's get closer to the truck, buddy. We're not near it. Come in with a co-signer or with money."

  Gary stalked away. Nicole hardly had time to gather the kids and follow. Outside the showroom, Gary was swearing like Val had never heard him swear before. Through the showroom window Val could see the Mustang, and it wouldn't start. Gary sat there pounding the wheel as hard as he could.

  "Jesus," said Harper, "this time, he is really hot."

  "I don't give a shit," said Val, and walked through the people sitting around with their debts on different cars. Yeah, I'm right on top of the mountain, thought Val, and went outside and said to Gary, "What's the matter?"

  "This son of a bitch," said Gary, "this goddamn car."

  "Well, now, hold it. Let's get some jumper cables, we'll get it started," and, of course Val did, just needed the boost, and Gary took off in a spray of gravel like he had a switch to his hind end.

  By the following night, Gary had a guy who would sell the guns. But they had to meet him. That meant carrying the guns in the car. Gary didn't have a license and her Mustang still had last year's license plates. Both cars had the crappy kind of look a State Trooper would pull over for nothing. So they had quite an argument before they finally put the pistols in her trunk and started out. They brought the kids along. The kids
might be insurance against a State Trooper waving them over for too little.

  On the other hand, Sunny and Jeremy made her awfully aware of his driving tonight. That definitely got Nicole nervous. He finally swung into the Long Horn Cafe, a taco joint between Orem and Pleasant Grove, to make a phone call. Only he couldn't get ahold of the guy who was to peddle the guns. Gary was getting more and more upset. It looked like the evening was going to get totally squandered. A sweet early summer night.

  He came back out of the Long Horn and looked in the car for another phone number, then started tearing pages out of the book.

  By the time he finally found the number, his guy was out. Sunny and Jeremy were beginning to make a lot of noise. Next thing she knew, Gary spun out of the Long Horn and headed back toward Orem. He was going 80. She was petrified for the kids. Told him to pull over.

  He slammed to the shoulder. A screeching halt. He turned around, and started spanking the kids. They hadn't even been making a sound the last minute. Too scared of the speed.

  She started hitting Gary right there, hit him with her fists as hard as she could, hollered for him to let her out of the car. He grabbed her hands to hold her down, and then the kids started screaming. Gary wouldn't let her out. Then this really dumb-looking guy walked by. She must have sounded as if Gary was killing her, but the fucker just stopped and said, "Anything wrong?" Then walked on.

  Nicole wouldn't stop hollering. Gary finally wedged her into the space between the bucket seats and got his hand over her mouth. She was trying not to pass out. He had his other hand on her throat to hold her down. She couldn't breathe. He told her then that he would let her go if she promised to be quiet and go home. Nicole mumbled, Okay. It was the best she could get out. The moment he let go, she started yelling. When his hand came back to her mouth, she bit real hard into the flesh near his thumb. Tasted the blood.