The Executioner's Song

by Norman Mailer

  At this point, Gary said, "I'll run you over." Quickly, Kathryne told her, "You don't need to go," but April jumped into the truck, and Kathryne barely had time to repeat, "Gary, she don't need to go," when he replied, "That's all right. I'll bring her back." They were gone.

  It was in this moment that Kathryne realized she didn't know Gary's last name. Knew him as Gary, just Gary.

  They sat in the kitchen among all the boxes of cherries they'd picked. Kathryne wasn't about to call the cops. If the police stopped Gary, he might open up on them. Instead, she waited till Pat got back and went out with her to look for the white truck. They drove till one or two in the morning, going up and down roads. No way they were going to find him, it seemed.

  April moved in close, turned on the radio, said, "It's hard to get along if you have to wait too long. The rooms get narrow and very often there is a dog." She began to shiver as she thought of the dog. "Every day," she said, "is the same. It's all one day," and nodded her head.

  "You have to get them used up."

  "That's right," he said.

  Just before he arrived, she had been lying in the grass, watching others pick cherries. She was playing the guitar with the broken string. It came over her that grandmother was going to die if she didn't fix the string. April was letting her soul run wild as she played, and thought of Jimi Hendrix and Otis Redding dead and that made her start thinking hard about the diseases. The bugs, spiders and flies bring it in, and the fevers give a humming sound until they are amused, then they make a noise like a breaking string. Death would certainly come to Grandma if she didn't fix the string. That was her thought in the grass. As she looked up, there was a dog in front of her.

  This dog started crying. It sounded like a man crying his heart out. The recollection of the tragedy of that sound got April nodding full force in Gary's truck. She didn't like such feelings. When she nodded that way, she might just as well have been galloping on a horse. Her head was certainly being snapped each step the horse came down. It got her to the point where her personal motor turned on again as if Satan was running her body, and pulling in all the people who usually floated around as personalities from Mars and Venus. The black man was staring at her with his cold black eye, and the white man had started acting like he was ecstasy in the worst way the entire galaxy. The guitar needed a new string to attract more harmonious spirits. "I," said April to Gary, "am the one swinging on the string." She nodded, careful not to do it so hard that the galloping horse would snap her neck.

  "Look," she said, "my grandma's washing machine is next to the sewer. That's why those people are floating around. I hate filth." She could feel her mouth twisting from her nostrils to the lips. "Oh, Gary, I'm cotton-mouthed," she said, "I need Midol. Can you get me a toothbrush?" She could feel him patting her. He said he would get her what she needed.

  It was crucial to put it across to people that you didn't go to a store and pull things from the counter, but took a good look at the object you were going to buy and inquired of it. There were all sorts of answers: the object could say, "Go away," or "Please steal me." It could even ask to be bought. The objects had as much concern about themselves as anyone else. Gary just went plink, plink, plunk, got her Midol, got her toothbrush, got her the hell out of there. He wasn't drinking beer. Boy, he was uptight.

  Now they were driving in Pleasant Grove again. "I don't want to go home. I want to stay out all night," she said.

  "That's cool," he said.

  Julie had to stay in the hospital one more night, so Craig Taylor was still alone. He was just putting the kids to sleep, when Gary knocked on the door and introduced this girl as Nicole's sister, April. They looked odd. Not drunk, but the girl was in bad shape. Paranoid. She couldn't sit down. Walked around Craig like he was a barrel or something.

  Gary came out of the bathroom, and asked did he still have the gun. Craig said, Yeah. Gary asked to borrow it back. Plus a few shells. "Oh, yeah," said Craig. "Well, it's yours, I'll give it to you."

  Added, "Why do you want it?" Gary didn't give any answer. Finally he said, "I'd like it." Craig didn't exactly have a good feeling as he passed the shells. Gary seemed awful emotionless. "Gary, I can't refuse you," Craig said, "it's your gun," but he took a good last look. It was a gold-trigger Browning Automatic with a black metal barrel, nice wood handle.

  "I don't want to go home," said April when they were in the truck again. "Hell," said Gary, "I'll keep you out all night." He drove to Val Conlin's to sign the papers. On the way, April realized they hadn't gone to the K-Mart after all. She still didn't have the guitar string. It got too complicated to ask again. She felt like she was fighting spider webs.

  When they came into V.J. Motors, April said aloud, "Hey, that's a show for free." Gary and this fellow Val kept looking at car keys like old magicians studying old dried herbs, weird! She wandered around and the room distorted. Warp was in the atmosphere. So she sat down in a corner. That way you could hold the thing together. They came over, but she didn't know what they were talking about. Just said, "You're the witness. Look at this." Signing a paper.

  Rusty Christiansen was bored. By the time they could get Gary out, it would be nine-thirty. She wouldn't be home till a quarter of ten. The interest still had to be calculated, and the payments worked out. They kept going out to the lot to take numbers off the car and the truck. Once in a while, this little girl April in the corner said something in a big voice.

  For that matter, Val's voice was pretty good, too. "I'm going to take a chance," said Val, "because you've been good with me. But goddamn it, Gary, you better pay." "Right," said Gary. "Okay," said Val, "I'm going to take a chance."

  Gary went to transfer some clothes from the Mustang to the truck, and while he was gone, Val looked at the little broad in the corner and said, "Hey, what are you on?" She looked at him like she had just come in from the next century, and then she honked, "Whawhaaowha . . . "

  Val thought, Whee, she's plain out there in orbit. The girl looked at him steadily and said, "Sometimes I'm not even a girl."

  She began to cry.

  When Gary returned, Val said, "If you don't pay me that first four hundred in two days, I'll take the truck back so goddamn fast you won't even know you had wheels, Pardner. You won't have the truck and you won't have the Mustang. Gary, you don't have that money you walk, understand?" "Understand," said Gary, "no problem. Okay." He signed the last papers and Val turned the truck over.

  When they got in, Gary told April, "Let's go." They drove around looking for Nicole. "Use your radar," Gary said. She didn't want to tell him about interference; he would think she was copping a plea. Interference could keep the most powerful forces of mind from entering a focus. So, they kept driving. April kept hoping she could say something proper. That could regain a lot of force. That was what it took. A word to go out and get everybody in harmony.

  "When I was young," said April, "my grandpa put me on the back of a hog in the pigpen and scared me half to death. There was a bunch of wild hogs loose and they was chasing us. I hid in the bathtub. Wasn't much to do that night but I learned to hide. You hide by getting half inside." She snickered. "You see, Gary," April said, "I always wanted to be a pig." She was feeling the force of the pig. Gary pulled the truck over and parked it. "I'm going to go make a phone call," he said, "see if your mother's heard from Nicole."

  After he got out, she listened to a group sing "Let Your Love Flow." Two guys, not a sad group. It was all right if she didn't think of Hampton. "Let your love flow, and let your love grow." She was trying to remember going through people's medicine cabinets in olden times when she baby-sitted. "Let your love flow and let your love grow." It used to be like love was flowing through her fingers as she went through cabinets taking out the right pills to get stoned.

  Oh, to be inside a trance again with black beauties. She loved the way she got on them. Black beauties could be sweet as the harmony of the spring. "I mean," said April to herself, "I can always talk to the radio i
f I'm that desperate. Disc jockeys realize that people are talking to them."

  Gary walked around the corner from where the truck was parked and went into a Sinclair service station. It was now deserted. There was only one man present, the attendant. He was a pleasant-looking serious young man with broad jaws and broad shoulders. He had a clean straight part in his hair. His jawbones were slightly farther apart than his ears. On the chest of his overalls was pinned a nameplate, MAX JENSEN. He asked, "Can I help you?"

  Gilmore brought out the .22 Browning Automatic and told Jensen to empty his pockets. So soon as Gilmore had pocketed the cash, he picked up the coin changer in his free hand and said, "Go to the bathroom." Right after they passed through the bathroom door, Gilmore said, "Get down." The floor was clean. Jensen must have cleaned it in the last fifteen minutes. He was trying to smile as he lay down on the floor. Gilmore said, "Put your arms under your body."

  Jensen got into position with his hands under his stomach. He was still trying to smile.

  It was a bathroom with green tiles that came to the height of your chest, and tan-painted walls. The floor, six feet by eight feet, was laid in dull gray tiles. A rack for paper towels on the wall had Towl Saver printed on it. The toilet had a split seat. An overhead light was in the wail.

  Gilmore brought the Automatic to Jensen's head. "This one is for me," he said, and fired.

  "This one is for Nicole," he said, and fired again. The body reacted each time.

  He stood up. Them was a lot of blood. It spread across the at a surprising rate. Some of it got onto the bottom of his pants.

  He walked out of the rest room with the bills in his pocket, and the coin changer in his hand, walked by the big Coke machine and the phone on the wall, walked out of this real clean gas station.

  Just working along, Colleen had accomplished a lot that day. She did the ironing and the cleaning, worked in the garden, picked the beans. She'd been planning to wait up for Max but before it eleven, she climbed into bed.

  On the edge of falling asleep, she felt like somebody was knocking at the door, but when she opened, nobody was there. She thought it was a cat. Still too early for Max to be home. So she went back to bed, fell right into sleep.

  Sitting in the truck, on this quiet side street, April thought it was probably quiet. She couldn't tell because the radio was so loud. Except the trees looked quiet. There was a long night just sitting there.

  After a while Gary came back. She had been smoking a smoke and waiting. "Come on," he said, "let's go."

  As they pulled up to the drive-in theatre, April saw "Cuckoo" in the title so she thought they were going to see The Sterile Cuckoo with Liza Minnelli. April had always thought her own looks outside had to be just like the way Liza Minnelli felt inside, so she was looking forward a lot to seeing the movie. But right as they stopped under the light of the ticket booth, she could see that Gary's pants had blood on the cuffs.

  They parked. He got shifty in his seat and said he would take a leak. Then she could see him rummaging in the back of the truck.

  Looked like another pair of pants to her. He went off to the men's room. To herself, April was saying, "The FBI look in on houses to see if people are committing crimes. Through the TV, you know."

  She tried to watch the movie while Gary was gone, but it made her think of the night she was raped. That was after walking through the street in Hawaii with the black dudes and the first one of the three black dudes said there was a party going on. Cocaine, and they would all get high. She'd had LSD already, and so was fascinated with the high-class looks of their pad, although the red couches aggravated the problem of her odor. She sweated when she sniffed Lady Snow, and the odor was very bad. The black boy named Warren told her she stunk, and she turned purple inside from those red couches and all these black people. Started to dance around. They asked her if she wanted a shower. She said yes. Then she was in the tub and wet and streaking through the place. She was naked, and she was dancing. "I think I'm a nymphomaniac," she said. "You're a maniac?" they asked. She said it again slowly, and they asked, "Info with a maniac?" She replied haughtily, "You are trying to make myself and my face black."

  She danced with them right on the floor and they danced her down to the floor and hurt her pretty bad. She was bleeding all over the place. Like a whore. Warren was forceful on cocaine, awful mean. Even when he relaxed he was hard on her. She was hallucinating so bad that the one called Bob made his face come together at the top and the bottom while his nose wib-wobbled from side to side. One time, two times, three times, intercourse. Then they turned a light on and Bobby was sitting on the floor, and said, "Why don't you sit on the couch? Get high. Don't think of yourself so low, you know?" Then he was on top of her and she was screaming to the song. The twist they gave was vertigo and she was a turntable with the motor started and Satan could dance in the whirlpool the table made.

  Suddenly, she could see the movie she had been looking at. It wasn't The Sterile Cuckoo. It was One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

  All the kooks she had ever lived with in the hospital were on the screen. Jack Nicholson bothered her enormously. He had a numb spot under his nose like the numb spot under her own nose. That reminded her of the blood on Gary's pants—it was in the stiff way Jack Nicholson walked.

  Now, Gary came back. She said, "Let's blow this place. I hate the movie. Fucker's freaking me out."

  Gary looked disappointed. "This is one movie," he told her, "I want to see again."

  "You insane fool," she said, "don't you have any taste?"

  At eleven o'clock in the evening, a man drove into the Sinclair service station at 800 North, 175 East in Orem, and served himself twelve gallons of gas and one quart of oil. He couldn't find an attendant so he left his business card with a description of what he had purchased. A little later, Robbie Hamilton, who lived in Toelle, Utah stopped off. After filling his tank with gas, he went to the open door of the grease room and hollered, "Anybody home?" No answer, so he went back to the car. His wife told him to knock on the bathroom door. When he received no answer there, he pushed the door open a crack and saw a lot of blood. He did not enter. He just called the Orem City Police Department. It took them fifteen minutes to find it. Being from Toelle, Utah, Mr. Hamilton did not know what street he was on, and had to describe the location in general terms to the dispatcher.

  John was back from the hospital and sleeping on the couch again. Brenda was ready to go to bed. There was a knock on the door. It was Gary with this strange little girl.

  "Well, coz," she said, "where you been?"

  "Oh," he smiled, "we went to see One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." "You didn't see that again?" asked Brenda. "Well," Gary said, "she hadn't seen it yet."

  Brenda took a good look at the girl. "It looks to me," she said, "as if she wouldn't know what she's seen."

  Gary said, "This is Nicole's sister, January."

  The girl got mad. She came alive for the first time.

  "It's April." Gary chuckled. Brenda said, "Well, April, May, June, or July, whatever your name is, I suppose I'm glad to meet you."

  Then she said to Gary, "What's wrong with her?" This girl looked awful.

  "Oh," Gary said, "April's having flashbacks from LSD. She took it a long time ago, but it keeps catching up."

  "She's sick, Gary," Brenda said. "She's awfully pale." At that point the girl said she wanted to go to the bathroom. Following her, Brenda asked, "Honey, are you all right?" The girl said, "I just feel sick to my stomach."

  Brenda came out to Gary and said, "What's going on?"

  He said nothing in reply. Brenda had the impression he was nervous but careful. Very nervous, and very careful. He was sitting on the edge of his seat, as if to concentrate on every sound in the silence.

  April came back and said, "Man, you really scare me when you act like that. I can't take it."

  "What scared you, honey?" Brenda asked.

  April said, "Gary really scares me."

  He
drew himself up then. "April, tell Brenda I didn't try to rape you, or molest you."

  "Oh, man, you know I didn't mean that," April said. "You've been nice to me tonight. But man, I really get afraid of you."

  "Afraid of what?" asked Brenda.

  "I can't tell you," April said. There was something so broken-assed about it, that Brenda was getting ill herself. "Gary, what have you done?" she asked. To her surprise, he winced.

  "Hey," he said, "let's drop it? Okay?"

  Gary said, "Can I talk to you in the other room?" When he got her in the kitchen, he said, "Look, I know John is just back, and you guys won't be getting your check right away from the hospital insurance, so, listen, Brenda, could you use fifty?"

  "Gary, no," she said, "we've got groceries. We'll make it."

  Gary said, "I really want to help."

  Brenda said, "Honey, you are generous." She knew what he was up to, but she was moved in spite of herself. Ridiculously moved. She felt like crying at the fact that even in this phony way he could think of her a little. Instead, she said, "Keep your money. I want you to learn to handle it." Saying that, she was suddenly suspicious, and had to ask, "Gary, where in the hell did you get a lot of cash?"

  "A friend of mine," said Gary, "loaned me four hundred for my truck."

  "You mean you stole the money."

  "That's not very nice," he said.

  "If I'm wrong," said Brenda, "then it's not very nice."

  He took ahold of her face and kissed her on the brow and said, "I can't tell you what's going on. You don't want to be involved."

  "All right, Gary," she said. "If it's that bad, then maybe "you shouldn't involve us."

  "Okay," he said, "fair enough." He wasn't angry. He took and went to the truck. Picked April up by the elbows, so he ushered her out.

  Brenda found herself following. He had a half gallon of milk in the back of the truck and a bunch of clothes with a rag around them. She said, "Gary, you'll tip your milk over. Let me fix it. He said, "Don't touch it. Leave it alone!" "All right," Brenda said, "spill your milk. See if I care." After he drove off, she kept wondering what there was about the bunch of clothes that he hadn't wanted her to see.