The Executioner's Song

by Norman Mailer

  Charley began to feel like he was missing every conversation and that got him to brooding again how he had been pushed out of the Service three years short of his pension. A terrible business to think about 'cause he felt April had done it to him with her mental difficulties, which, after Midway, just got worse and worse. One time she cut her wrists, another night, an overdose. Whenever Charley left the family to go overseas, he had to ask for a leave to come back because April had flipped out again. Then he was out with Battalion, doing rugged duty on Okinawa, and they were kind of depending on him, but he had to go home twice. Emergency leaves. What with the problem looking like it would continue, they recommended he get out. Charley said, "I don't want out." They gave him a discharge. He refused to sign it. Finally they just handed the thing to him and said "Buddy, get on the plane." Like that. He only had three more years to go. They really slipped it to him.

  It was that kind of night. He finally asked Nicole to call Kathryne. Maybe Angel, the youngest child, could come over and stay with him tonight. He always felt upset about Angel. He away from her just now when she was 6, and she needed him. At that point, Verna started to give him hell. Said there were too children around. For a woman who had raised eight kids, couldn't count how many grandchildren, she sure didn't like little ones. Then his father started to get on him. "You ain't staying here. The kids ain't staying here." They got in a fight. His father might be 68, but Charley was tempted to kick his butt if he hadn't been so old. Actually did give him a push. Then he grabbed Wendy and left without speaking.

  A true bummer for a Fourth of July Bicentennial celebration.

  At first, Nicole was hating her relatives and feeling double-loyal to Gary, necking with him on the grass. But she lost respect when he jumped so fast after Verna said, "Knock it off."

  In a funny way, Nicole began to feel half-ass proud of her family. So many strong cockeyed people, and there was Gary getting drunk on red wine, and feeding pills to her cousins. He was really looking on the battered side, and the goatee he was starting still looked like the three hairs of a goat. She wasn't that sad when he left.

  After all the trouble at Grand Central, she had never loved him more, but that was for a night, and another night. Now he was back on beer and Fiorinal. She just didn't know how loyal she still felt. She was having thoughts about another man.

  Mr. Clean was in her life. She hadn't told Gary about him. He was too recent. Roger Eaton was his name, a super-clean super-sweet executive dude over at Utah Valley Mall and he had come into her life this unbelievable way. She got a letter from some fellow who never signed his name but said he would pay $50 if she slept with him Wednesday night. Could she leave her front door light on for a signal?

  She showed the letter to Gary. He tore it up. Said he'd kill the son of a bitch. She forgot about it. Part of the weirdness of things.

  But a couple of weeks later, this really good-looking well-built fellow, blue eyes and nice dark brown hair, came up to her at a gas station and introduced himself. He was the one who wrote the letter, he said, and he wanted to buy her a Coke. She talked to him a little that day, saw him for coffee, and then really went to him for help after the fight with Gary on the highway, when she discovered that the scuffle in the car had left bruises all over her body. That got her so upset she went directly over to Roger Eaton's office. He was sympathetic so she went to see him again just yesterday after she went to visit Gary at work and found him drinking beer in place of his lunch.

  She had never known a fellow who wore a suit to the job every day, and it tickled her. The first thought to go through her head tonight when Gary had to leave the party, was that Roger Eaton told her to use his home phone for emergencies. She could call him tonight. But that might spoil whatever little thing was there. It had been so long since she was able to think about one special or sexy quality in a fellow she liked instead of having to live with the whole thing—sweat, habits, gross-out, all. So she didn't call. Just talked to her father awhile, then went home.

  Gary came in later. He had gone on drinking at Fred's Lounge with a couple of heavies in the Sundowners and now he was talking of getting a motorcycle. Told them he was going to rip one off. Then he looked kind of sheepishly at Nicole. Admitted they had laughed out loud at him. The one thing, they explained, a cop looked over was a motorcycle. A hot motorcycle lasted about as long as an ice cube in your ass. Still, they were real dudes—equal to himself. He looked forward, he said, to doing business with them.

  He was like a 19-year-old kid. Into bikes. Happy that bikers liked him. It softened her enough for things to get sweet again. What with meal, drink, and relatives in the flesh, the party had left a little sugar after all. So they started to get it on. Then Gary had a time getting it up. She couldn't think of how she had once been so sure it would improve.

  Gary always put the blame on prison. All those years he had get his rocks off on nude pictures instead of leaning on a woman. She got mad enough tonight to tell him it was bullshit. He was drinking too much, using Fiorinal too much. Gary defended Fiorinal. "I don't want to make love with a headache," he said. "I have headaches all the time, and Fiorinal relieves it."

  She sat there with her anger pushed in like a spring. Dead and wet, he was going to give it a go. Don't start what you can't finish she told him. Be straight.

  The work began. Now they wouldn't get to bed till four, be up at six. Then he took some speed, and it took effect. He got hard as a horn and wanted to fuck. She was so tired she could only think of sleep. But they were doing it. On and on. He couldn't come.

  Lying there, she said it clearly to herself, "He's a bad package."

  In the second week of July, on a hot morning, she found Jim Hampton over at her mother's house. After the way he had played around with April, Nicole didn't feel too good about him, but he had his little sister and brother in tow, and she kind of enjoyed spending a day with somebody else for once. They just drove around and even stopped at her place in Spanish Fork so she could pick up something for the kids. Then she returned Hampton to her mother's, and drove her own car back. With all that cruising, she must have driven close to a hundred miles that day.

  By the time she got in, Gary was already back from work and looking at the motor of his car. She sat down on the front step. There was a silence between them you could push.

  He finally asked her what she'd been doing. I, Nicole said, have been sitting on my ass over at my mother's. I didn't have enough gas to come back, so I had to stay there all the goddamn day. "Yes," she told him, "I've been sitting on my ass." Well, he told her, something feels different in the house than when I left this morning. Were you back here today?

  Yeah, I got back here today, she answered. I thought you were sitting on your ass over at your mother's all day, he said. She gave a smile and said, That's exactly what I said.

  Gary walked over from the car, looking as casual as if he was going into the house, and when he passed, he slapped her front-handed across the face. Pretty sneaky. Her head was ringing like an alarm clock.

  Nicole felt like she deserved it. Rudeness that came out of nowhere was something he couldn't handle. Still, this was the second time he had hit her. She could feel a lot of ugliness beginning to collect in her.

  Next day, she was able to let some of it out. Since she didn't always have money for diapers, or laundry soap, and there wasn't always clean underwear, she liked to let the kids play naked in the summer. Some of the neighbors must have gotten uptight.

  On this day, while Jeremy was on the grass of somebody's lawn, and the rest of the kids were sitting on the edge of the ditch between the sidewalk and the street, their feet in the water, a cop car pulled up and hollered something. Nicole couldn't believe what she was seeing. The cop drove no faster than a walking pace right up to her house, and came to her door, and started laying down some unbelievable shit, like you know, your kids are in danger of their playing in the ditch down there. Your little boy could drown. She said, "Mister, you don'
t know what you're talking about. My little wasn't anywhere near that water. He doesn't have one drop on his body." He didn't.

  The cop started to say the neighbors had been phoning in complaints about her not taking proper care of the kids. "Get off my property," said Nicole, "get your fucking ass down the road."

  She knew she could say anything so long as she stayed in the house. The cop stood outside making threats about welfare, and she shut the door in his face. He hollered, I better not see those kids outside. She swung the door open again.

  Nicole said, "Those kids are going to play outside all the damn day, and you better not touch them, or I'll shoot you."

  The cop looked at her. He had an expression like, "Now what do I do?" In the middle of her anger, she could see his side—it was such a crazy situation for a cop. Threatened by a lady. Then she closed the door, and he drove off, and Gary got up from bed. These hot days the bed had been moved up right by the living-room window.

  Suddenly she realized what those last couple of minutes must have done to him. She had completely forgotten about the guns. The sight of that cop stopping at their house was going to add up to a lot more beer and Fiorinal.

  Next morning, he was over at Kathryne's house. She thought he was real abrupt. "Come outside," he said. Kathryne felt scared. "Can't you tell me here?" "No," he said, "outside."

  She didn't like the way he was acting, but it was daylight. So she went out and Gary said, "I've got something in my car I want to leave here for a little while," and he went over to the Mustang and took a diaper bag out of the trunk and moved it over to the back of her car. Kathryne said, "What have you got, Gary?" and he answered, "Guns."

  "Guns?" she said. "Yes," he said, "guns." She asked where he got them. "Where do you think? I stole them." Kathryne just said, "Oh." Right there on the back deck of her car he started bringing them out for examination. "I'd like," said Gary, "to leave them here." "My God, Gary," said Kathryne, "I don't think you better. I can't keep them here."

  "I'll be back," Gary said, "when I get off work. I just want to leave them in a safe place for a little while."

  She couldn't believe the way he had set them out on the trunk of the car. If any of the neighbors looked through the window, they wouldn't believe what they were seeing.

  Deliberately, he took each gun and described it to her like it was a rare beauty. One was a .357 Magnum this-or-that, another was a .22 Automatic Browning, then a Clan Weston .38 something-or-other.

  Kathryne just said, "Gary, I don't know much about guns."

  "How do you like this one?" he asked.

  "Oh, they're nice, they're all nice, you know." She said, "What are you going to do with them, Gary?"

  "A couple of dudes are going to buy them," he said.

  By now, all the guns were unwrapped. He said, "I gave Nicole one to protect herself. Pretty little over-and-under Derringer. I want you to have this one."

  "I don't need it, Gary. I really don't want it."

  "I want you to," he said. "You're Nicole's mother."

  "God, Gary," said Kathryne, "I've already got a gun."

  "Well," he said, "I want you to have this Special. It's just not safe for two women living out here alone like you and your sister."

  She tried to explain that she already had her husband's Magnum. But Gary said, "That's too big a gun. You shouldn't even attempt to shoot it."

  Now he laid the guns in her car trunk. Kathryne let him know that she definitely didn't want to be driving around with them. So he said, "Let me leave them in the house." Told her he'd return at five o'clock. Well, she declared, she wouldn't be home then.

  That was all right, he'd just come and get them. With that, he carried the diaper bag into the house, and put the guns behind their couch, all seven or eight of them. Then he wrapped the Special in an old cloth, and put it under her bedroom mattress.

  That evening when she and Kathy got home, they ran to look behind the couch and yes, the guns were gone.

  During the day, while Gary was at work, Barrett came by in his and Nicole drove up with him to the Canyon. Sunny and Peabody left the pickup and went out to play. Before they could even light a stick, his pants were off, hers were off—they were getting it on. She heard herself say, "Gary is crazy. We might end up dead." Then she Jim, "If anything happens, I want you to know that I love you." She really did as she said it.

  Gary came home in a sloppy old windbreaker with the sleeves cut off. His pants were a mess, and he was half drunk. He told her go over with him to Val Conlin's to examine the truck. She asked to get cleaned up first. She didn't really want to be seen with him. She looked like he slept out in the yard.

  Gary kept talking to that man Conlin as if he had the money. It was a real irritant.

  Next, he wanted to stop off and see Craig Taylor. That was the dumbest. Craig's wife, Julie, was in the hospital. Now Nicole's kids and the Taylor kids were carrying on all over while Gary got to play chess with Craig. Whooped when he beat him.

  Then Gary started to tee off on Val Conlin for making him wait on the truck. "I'll wreck the place and a couple of his cars too," he said. "I'm going to kick them windows in." It was like opening a bottle that smelled awful.

  Craig just listened like an owl. He had the biggest shoulders she'd ever seen for a guy with an owl's face. Never said anything. Just blinked.

  Gary said he hated to watch TV. He especially hated the police shows. Nicole yawned.

  As they were leaving, Gary asked Craig, "What do you think of me?"

  "Well, it seems like you're trying," said Craig. "Just have a few breaks and you'll be all right."

  Going up from Craig's to Kathryne's, right on the long road to her mother's house, darn if the Mustang didn't stall again. Gary got so pissed he broke the windshield.

  Simply reared back with his feet and kicked the windshield. It cracked.

  That got the kids upset. Nicole didn't say two words. She got out and helped him push the car to get it started. It still didn't go. Then somebody came along to give them a shove. They drove in silence for a couple hundred yards.

  For a week she had been trying to say that they could live in separate places and see each other time to time. Now, when it came to it, Gary spoke. "I'm taking you to your mother's house," he said, "I don't want to ever see your face again."

  He dropped her off with the kids as easily as going down to the grocery for a six-pack. She thought she'd be glad, but she wasn't. It didn't feel like it was over in the right way.

  In twelve hours, Gary showed up at Kathryne's house. Just ahead of lunch. He wanted her to come back. He was drunk even as he asked her. She said she wouldn't. She said, I want to think about it awhile.

  He didn't want her to think. He wanted her to agree. Still, he amazed her. He didn't force a thing. After he left, though, she decided it had been too easy. By tomorrow he would be coming every few hours. So she called Barrett and asked if she could stay at his pad. Nicole made it clear she didn't want to hang in. Just wanted a bed for a couple of days.

  If she was going to disappear from Gary, there had to be places other than Barrett's. She went looking for an apartment. The same day, Barrett found one in Springville. Hardly anybody knew the address, and she made him swear to keep it secret.

  Now she was living five miles from the house in Spanish Fork. If Gary took the back highway to Provo instead of the Interstate, he would pass two streets from her place.

  Barrett wanted them to try one more time. One more trip of the mind. When she was young and used to read animal stories Kathryne had told her about reincarnation. Made it sound like a fairy tale. That was when Nicole made the choice to come back as a white bird. Now she thought that if she didn't straighten out the way she lived with men, she was going to come back ugly and no would ever want to look at her.

  Chapter 11

  EX-HUSBANDS

  Barrett had this tendency to think of himself as small. In fact, his mom and dad used to tell him that when he was born, he l
ooked no bigger than a kitten you put in a shoe box. Now he was five-ten and might weigh 145, but he never had the habit of thinking of himself as other than small-sized and self-sufficient. Like a kitten. During the stretch when he had his first romance with Nicole, he remembered spending one week all by himself in a yellow cell in the nut-house. Painted pale yellow like a kid's nursery, only it was a cell. He remembered taking his socks, rolling them up, and throwing them at the wall, throwing them and catching them. It was the only thing he had to do. He got along.

  On the other hand, he wasn't built for the heaviest punishment. Not with his long pointed nose and his fine pale brown hair, soft as a girl's. His hair could pick up bad vibrations from a stranger he passed on the highway. So Barrett had some idea usually what to expect. That was just as well considering the horror right now on his hands of helping Nicole hide out from that old scroungy madman, Gary Gilmore. Here was one love affair caught Barrett by surprise. He was horrified by Nicole's bad taste. Only once before had he seen her exhibit such real lack of judgment.

  Barrett had been through everything with Nicole. Seen a lot of dudes come and go, studs, jocks, freaks, animals, characters you could almost call cripples, but they always had something. If they weren't good looking, strong, well hung, then they had something you could relate to, some good trick. Barrett knew Nicole was a beautiful person and really independent, and if you had the misery to be stuck in love with her like Barrett, then you had to live with who she would come up with next. Had to be there when she was ready to quit the guy.

  Barrett wasn't built for heavy encounters. That was part of his understanding of himself. Yet the bravest, heaviest things he'd done in his life happened because of Nicole. For example: helping her move out of Joe Bob's house was scary. All those hours with a borrowed truck outside—why, Joe Bob could have come back from work to check on her. Barrett had a gun that day, but Joe Bob was heavy enough to walk through a gun.