The Executioner's Song

by Norman Mailer

  She didn't know how she felt, and she didn't know if she cared how she felt. It had been a real hang-up listening to Barrett. The last couple of days he had been coming on as the wise man. Her judgment, he kept saying, was so goofy. Like she had picked a middle-aged murderer for herself.

  On the way, Lieutenant Nielsen was nice and polite, and he laid it out. They were going to let Nicole talk to Gary, but she had to ask if he had done the murders. Nicole was about to get mad at the suggestion, except she figured out Nielsen needed a reason to justify bringing her over. She was sure he wasn't so dumb as to think Gary was going to answer her question while a bunch of cops was listening.

  That was how it turned out. Nicole walked into this funky one-story jail, went down a couple of short corridors, passed a bunch of inmates who looked like beer bums, then a couple of dudes who whistled as she went by, twirled their mustaches, showed a bicep, generally acted like the cat's ass. Two cops and Detective Nielsen were right behind her, and she came to a big cell with a table in the middle of it, four bunks she could see, and thick prison bars in front of her.

  Then she saw Gary come toward her from the back of the cell. His left hand was in a cast. It was only three days from the night she had seen him arrested and lying on the ground, but she could feel the difference. He said, "Hello, baby," and, at first, she didn't even want to look at him.

  With her head down, she muttered, "Did you do this?"

  She was really whispering as if, should he say yes, maybe the cops wouldn't hear the question. He said, "Nicole, don't ask me that."

  Now, she looked up. She couldn't get over how clear his eyes were. There was a minute where they didn't say any more. Then he put one arm through the bars. She wanted to touch him, but didn't. However, she kept feeling the impulse. More and more she had this desire to touch him.

  It was close to a spooky experience. Nicole didn't know what she was feeling. She certainly wasn't feeling sorry for him. She wasn't feeling sorry for herself. Rather, she couldn't breathe. She could hardly believe it, but she was ready to faint. That was the moment when she knew that it didn't matter what she had said about him these last couple of weeks. She had been in love with him from the moment she met him and she would love him forever.

  It wasn't an emotion so much as a physical sensation. A magnet could have been pulling her to the bars. She reached out to put a hand on the arm he extended through, and one of the officers stepped forward and said, "No physical contact."

  She stepped back, and Gary looked good. He looked surprisingly good. His eyes were more blue than they had ever been. All that fog from the Fiorinal was gone. His eyes looked into her as if he was returning from all the way back and something ugly had passed through completely and was gone. All through these last couple of bad weeks, it was like he had been looking a year older every day. Now he looked fine. "I love you," he said as they said good-bye. "I love you," she said.

  In the same hour that Nicole was going to and from the jail, April went berserk. She began to scream that someone was trying to blow her head off. Kathryne could do nothing. First she had to call the police and then she decided to commit her to the hospital. It was horrible. April had flipped out completely. Kathryne even had to keep the children out of the house all those hours while it was being decided.

  The Sheriff, Ken Cahoon, was a tall man with an easy-going manner and white hair. He wore metal-rimmed glasses, had a large nose, a small mouth, a small chin, and a little potbelly. He liked to believe he ran a reasonably good jail. His main tank had bunks for thirty men but he never went over twenty if he could help it. That kept the fights down. The trustees who worked in the kitchen were given a cell to themselves, and there was also Maximum Detention, with room for six. That was the tank where Gary now sat by himself. Plus another cell for six down the same hall to hold prisoners on work release. Altogether, Cahoon's jail could carry forty people without busting the seams of anyone's patience.

  A while after Nicole left, Cahoon decided to look back in on Gilmore.

  "I have blisters on my feet," Gilmore told him.

  "From doing what?" asked Cahoon.

  "Why," said Gilmore, "I've been jogging in place."

  "Well, dummy, quit jogging in place."

  "No," said Gilmore, "give me some Band-Aids. I'll put them on and I can jog some more."

  Next day, he asked the same thing. Said he wanted them because his feet were sore. "Why, let's see," said Cahoon, "if you've got an infection."

  Gilmore said, "Just give me some Band-Aids. It's not that bad."

  "No," said Cahoon, "if you got blisters, I want to see them."

  "Oh, hell," said Gilmore, "forget it."

  Cahoon decided he was pulling a bluff. There was no telling what he might use the Band-Aids for, unless it was to tape contraband to the bottom of the bedsprings or something.

  Next morning, Gilmore said to a guard, "I want out of here today. I've got a Writ of Habeas Corpus. Let me see the head man of the jail."

  Cahoon decided Gilmore must have the opinion they were back-woodsy in this little old humble place. Now Gary said to Cahoon in a nice confidential voice, "Look, I'm in for five days. I'm not being held for nothing but a traffic violation. So I would like out of here right now. You see," he said, "I've got to be under a doctor's care. As you may know, I came in with this cast on, and things of this nature want attention. I'd like to be taken to the hospital. The hand has to have its medication, and if you can't get me out, you see, there could be complications."

  Cahoon thought Gilmore was a pretty good con man, considering the odds, and he didn't exactly laugh at the idea that Gilmore might get loose in some simple but crazy way. A while back, they'd had a man in the tank named Dennis Howell, and another prisoner happened to come in also named Dennis Howell. The same day, word came to release the first Dennis. So the jailer on duty who was new on the job went down the list, went back and said to the new arrival, "Howell, your wife is outside, you can go now." The wrong Dennis walked out the door, trotted right past the woman, took off like a whistle.

  Gilmore sure kept trying. A little later, he wanted to get ahold of his attorney. Said he was going to sue the jail for not giving attention to his hand. He was really in sympathy with himself over that hand.

  After it all failed, Gary said, "I know Utah County is poor in spirit, and full of hard feelings toward me, but Sheriff, you can let me go home now. I'm not mad anymore."

  That was a pretty good sense of humor, Cahoon decided.

  It made it easier for him to put up with Gilmore decorating the walls. Cahoon liked to eliminate any drawing of obscenity pictures but Gary was not doing that. Pictures he drew were nice pictures.

  They were also something you could erase. One day he'd do a drawing, and next day wipe it out, do another, so Cahoon never made an issue of it.

  They really got along all right until Gilmore learned that they wouldn't allow him to see Nicole on visits. It seemed she wasn't family. That left Gary not speaking to anybody.

  About the second time that Brenda went down to the jail, which was on Sunday, a week and a half after his arrest, Nicole had also shown up. When Gary heard she was outside, the expression on his face, Brenda had to admit, was beautiful. "Oh, God," he said, "she promised to come back and she did."

  However, he explained, it didn't mean he could visit with her. She wasn't allowed on his list just yet. Brenda said, "Let me see what I can do." She went up to a big tough Indian guard at the door, a confident-looking fellow, and said, "Alex, could you put Nicole Barrett in for the last five minutes of my time?" "Well, now," he said, "we really shouldn't break the rules." "Bullshit," said Brenda, "what's the difference if it's me or Nicole? He ain't going to go nowhere! Why, Alex Hunt, you mean to tell me," she asked, "you can't take care of this poor man with a busted-up hand? What's he going to do with one hand? Tear you apart?" "Well," said Alex, "I think we can handle Gilmore."

  While Nicole was visiting, Brenda walked over to Nicole's sist
er-in-law, who had also come. It was hot that day, and Sue Baker was holding her newborn baby and perspiring in volumes, "How is Nicole doing?" asked Brenda.

  The sun didn't stir on the black cinder gravel back of the jail.

  "She's pretty broke up," said Sue.

  Brenda said, "Gary's not going to get out of this one. If Nicole gets all hung up, it's going to ruin her."

  "She won't quit," said Sue, "we already tried."

  "Well," said Brenda, "she's in for a lot of hurt."

  When Nicole came out, she was weeping. Brenda put her arms around her and said, "Nicole, we both love him."

  Then Brenda said, "Nicole, why don't you think a little about giving up the ship? Gary is never going to get out. You'll spend the rest of your life visiting this guy. That's all the future you're going to have." Now Brenda began to cry. "Tuck those beautiful memories in your heart," she said, "tuck them away."

  Nicole muttered, "I'll stick."

  She was feeling an animosity toward Brenda she didn't even understand. Nicole heard herself thinking, "As if I owe her a million dollars for giving me five minutes of her visiting time."

  There was a Preliminary Hearing on August 3 in Provo and Noah Wootton was determined to ram it through as hard and fast as he could. He had a lot of witnesses so his problem was to keep the case intact. When the defense asked for delay, Wootton objected.

  He was reasonably confident of the conviction, or to put it more precisely, he was confident that if he did not get a conviction, it would be his own fault. He was, however, not at all sure of getting the death penalty. So he was feeling the usual tension he had before a case began. His stomach was right with him that morning.

  At the Preliminary Hearing, Gilmore didn't take the stand, but Wootton did talk face to face with him in the recess. They got on well. They even joked. Wootton was impressed with his intelligence. Gilmore told Wootton that the prison system was not doing what it was designed to achieve, that is, rehabilitate. In his opinion, it was a complete failure.

  Of course, they avoided talking about the crimes themselves, but Noall did detect that Gilmore was doing his best to soften him up.

  Gary certainly kept flattering him about what a fair and efficient prosecutor he was, what a basic sense of fairness he had. Said he'd never seen another prosecutor with that kind of fairness.

  Not every con knew enough to run that line. Wootton expected Gilmore was working up to a deal. He must have heard they were going for the death penalty, and thought if he was nice enough, Wootton might feel encouraged to return from so far out a stand, far out at least from the defendant's point of view.

  Sure enough, Gilmore got around to asking what Wootton thought would happen, Noah looked him in the eye and said, "They might come back with the death penalty." Gilmore said, "I know, but what are they really going to do?" Wootton repeated, "They might execute you." He had the impression that took Gilmore aback.

  Snyder also approached Noall, and suggested they plead guilty to Murder One, and accept a life top. Wootton kind of dismissed it. "No way," he said.

  He had made up his mind to go for Death after looking at Gilmore's record. It showed violence in prison, a history of escape, and unsuccessful efforts made at rehabilitation. Wootton could only conclude that, one: Gilmore would be looking to escape; two: he would be a hazard to other inmates and guards; and, three: rehabilitation was hopeless. Couple this to a damned cold-blooded set of crimes.

  Nicole drove down to the Preliminary Hearing in Provo on August 3, but they let her visit with Gary for only a moment. It made her dizzy to see him in leg shackles. Then they only gave her time for one hug and a tremendous kiss before pulling him away. She was left in the hall of the court with the world rocketing around her. Outside, in the summer light, the horseflies were mean as insanity itself.

  On the drive back to Springville, she was dreaming away and got in a wreck. Nobody was hurt but the car. After that, all the way home, her Mustang sounded like it was breaking up in pain. She couldn't shift out of second.

  It became a crazy trip. She kept having an urge to cross the divider, and bang into oncoming traffic. Next day, when the mail came, there was a very long letter from Gary that he had begun to write as soon as they took him back to jail from the hearing. So she realized he had been saying these words to her at the same time she had been driving along with the urge to smash into every car going the other way.

  Now she read Gary's letter over and over. She must have read it five times and the words went in and out of her head like a wind blowing off the top of the world.

  August 3

  Nothing in my experience, prepared me for the kind of honest open love you gave me. I'm so used to bullshit and hostility, deceit and pettiness, evil and hatred. Those things are my natural habitat.

  They have shaped me. I look at the world through eyes that suspect, doubt, fear, hate, cheat, mock, are selfish and vain. All things unacceptable, I see them as natural and have even come to accept them as such. I look around the ugly vile cell and know that I truly belong in a place this dank and dirty, for where else should I be? There's water all over the floor from the fucking toilet that don't flush right. The shower is filthy and the thin mattress they gave me is almost black, it's so old. I have no pillow. There are dead cockroaches in the corners.

  At nite there are mosquitoes and the lite is very dim. I'm alone here with my thoughts and I can feel the oldness. Remember I told you about The Oldness? and you told me how ugly it was—the oldness, the oldness. I can hear the tumbrel wheels creek. So fucking ugly and coming so close to me. When I was a child . . . I had a nightmare about being beheaded. But it was more than just a dream.

  More like a memory. It brought me right out of the bed. And it was sort of a turning point in my life . . . Recently it has begun to make a little sense. I owe a debt, from a long time ago. Nicole, this must depress you. I've never told anybody of this thing, except my mother the nite I had that nitemare and she came in to comfort me but we never spoke of it after that. And I started to tell you one nite and I told you quite a bit of it before it became plain to me that you didn't want to hear it. There have been years when I haven't even thought much of it at all and then something (a picture of a guillotine, a headmans block, or a broad ax, or even a rope) will bring it all back and for days it will seem I'm on the verge of knowing something very personal, something about myself. Something that somehow wasn't completed and makes me different. Something I owe, I guess. Wish I knew.

  Once you asked me if I was the devil, remember? I'm not. The devil would be far more clever than I, would operate on a much larger scale and of course would feel no remorse. So I'm not Beelzebub. And I know the devil can't feel love. But I might be further from God than I am from the devil. Which is not a good thing. It seems that I know evil more intimately than I know goodness and that's not a good thing either. I want to get even, to be made even, whole, my debts paid (whatever it may take!) to have no blemish, no reason to feel guilt or fear. I hope this ain't corny, but I'd like to stand in the sight of God. To know that I'm just and right and clean. When you're this way you know it. And when you're not, you know that too. It's all inside of us, each of us—but I guess I ran from it and when I did try to approach it, I went about it wrong, became discouraged, bored, lazy, and finally unacceptable. But what do I do now? I don't know. Hang myself?

  I've thought about that for years, I may do that. Hope that the state executes me? That's more acceptable and easier than suicide. But they haven't executed anybody here since 1963 (just about the last year for legal executions anywhere). What do I do, rot in prison? growing old and bitter and eventually work this around in my mind to where it reads that I'm the one who's getting fucked around, that I'm just an innocent victim of society's bullshit? What do I do? Spend a life in prison searching for the God I've wanted to know for such a long time? Resume my painting? Write poetry? Play handball? Eat my heart out for the wondrous love you gave me that I threw away Monday nite becau
se I was so spoiled and couldn't immediately have a white pickup truck I wanted? What do I do? We always have a choice, don't we?

  I'm not asking you to answer these questions for me, Angel, please don't think that I am. I have to make my own choice. But anything you want to comment on or suggest, or say, is always welcome. God, I love you, Nicole.

  PART FIVE

  The Shadows of the Dream

  Chapter 19

  KIN TO THE MAGICIAN

  Shortly after Gary got out of Marion, and was living in Provo with Vern and Ida, he sent Bessie an eleven-pound box of chocolates for Mother's Day. Then, a letter arrived. "I didn't know I could be this happy. I have the most beautiful girl in Utah. Mom, I'm making more money than I could take in stealing."

  Bessie wrote back, "This is what I always wanted for you. I'm glad you have this girl. I hope someday to meet your beautiful Nicole."

  Then she didn't hear any more, and phoned Ida, who told her Gary had gotten in a little trouble by walking out of a store with a few things. Bessie asked Ida to tell him to call, and began to worry. Gary never got in touch when he was in trouble.

  The day she found out about the murders, she had been out on the porch of her trailer taking the sun. Her phone rang and it was a woman. Quick as she heard the tone of voice, Bess said, "It's you, Brenda. Something's happened to Gary." She thought he had robbed a bank.

  Brenda told her they were holding Gary on Murder One. "I don't believe that, Brenda. Gary wouldn't kill anybody." "Oh, yes," said Brenda, "he killed two people and shot one of his thumbs off." That was how Bessie got it.

  She said, "Well, there has to be a mistake. Gary did not do this. No matter what else, he is not a killer." She hung up, and the phone rang again, and it was Ida to tell her that the blood kept spurting out of Mr. Bushnell and she and Vern had seen it. Bess felt she would never get over that description. Then Vern got on the phone and said, "They have a death penalty here. They're going to kill Gary." It was all Bess could take. Execution had always been a phobia to her. She couldn't go near the thought. When she was a little girl growing up in Utah, she would hide if she heard they were having an execution.