The Executioner's Song

by Norman Mailer

  Next time she came into the store, he said he'd like to trade with her, you know? Said it in a nice way and told her how pretty she was, and that he really liked her. She joked back. "Nothing to trade this week," she said. Then, after a while, she moved out of Provo to Spanish Fork and rarely got to shop there.

  Now, about a year later, she started seeing Albert Johnson again. He was the only store manager she knew who would give her cash for her food stamps. To get him to agree, she had had to tell him about Gary and her new troubles but he sympathized enough to trade eighty bucks for that much worth of stamps. This time, however, she was out and told him she just needed fifty. He gave it to her without conditions. She heard herself saying that she didn't like leaving debts unpaid.

  Afterward, Johnson said he wished to Christ he hadn't done this to her. Begged her not to turn professional. She wasn't that way. He was a family man, and felt real bad.

  She told him not to worry. It was only because she was without a car and needed wheels so desperately. It was really an incredible story in her own ears, all that stuff about the transmission out, and hitching to see Gary.

  Albert Johnson hadn't been bad to her, but it was an ugly experience. With all she had mentioned to Gary about her life, she could never tell him about the store manager.

  Anyway, she had the cash, fifty dollars. And gave it to Barrett. He got in his car and went off to get the main clutch plate. She went home. Next thing she learned Barrett had split for Wyoming. Must have been a week before he returned. Then she went over to look at her car, and he still hadn't done a damned thing. The Mustang was sitting wide open with the parts on the ground starting to rust, and the body on blocks like a corpse. She could feel how angry Barrett was. So she did no more than leave word she'd been there. Sure enough, three in the morning, he showed at her apartment, stoned out of his head.

  It had been one of those days when Nicole was getting to Barrett on the sentimental side. He kept remembering the first time he had brought her home to his mother and dad. When his mother had said they'd have to sleep outside in the Volkswagen until they were married, Nicole had answered, "I don't care where we sleep. We're going to be happy." He could never get that out of his head. Every time he was sure that he was free of Nicole, no love left whatsoever, he would think of that remark, and all over again would be nothing but a man with a wound.

  He had been on so many hits the last week in Wyoming that he could hardly remember what he had taken and with whom—couldn't even remember who first said Nicole was seeing Gary again. Then everybody was telling him. They all knew but Barrett. He went on a self-pity cruise. Couldn't help thinking of all the times he had come in to rescue Nicole, taken his lumps, dared his life if you get down to it, and she had rewarded him with a trip to the bedroom. Not love, just the bedroom. It was an unhappy situation when screwing your nearest could bend you out of shape.

  Full of self-pity, he decided it was still all right. At least, self-pity let the good memories come back. Like the time Hampton found him after he first stole Nicole, and wasted him, and yet that was still a good memory after all these years.

  He had been over at a friend of his selling drugs, a little crystal, some speed, toked a couple, got blasted. He drove down a Technicolor mad from Lehi to Pleasant Grove to pick up Nicole at high school, She was staying with her parents then.

  Well, just as Nicole walked out the school door, Hampton drove up in a '58 DeSoto and jumped out, Barrett got on the street also, figuring, I know Nicole. If I sit here and lock the doors, she's going to say I'm chickenshit. So Barrett stepped up, hoping Hampton wouldn't punch him, just eat him out, but Hampton went right over to meet him, looking three heads taller, and as Barrett smiled and said "How are you doing?" Hampton knocked him down.

  Having smoked those two joints, Barrett was pretty loose. Everything went black. He couldn't see. He'd been cooled. Tried to get up, and then he did get up, and Nicole came on at that point and called Hampton a fucker. Everybody could see Barrett wasn't able to defend himself. After they pulled Hampton off, Nicole and Barrett got in the car and drove up to the river. They sat by the water and he told Nicole how the windshield was turning yellow and melting. All kinds of shit, you know. Between the blow he'd taken and the pot he'd smoked, he might as well have been flying an acid trip. But it was over and he felt fine. Full of colored streams. Nicole was sitting next to him. If he had to take a couple of bumps, big deal. He felt like heaven thinking she loved him and took his side.

  Then there was the day when Sunny, Jeremy, Nicole and himself were getting into a car, and Joe Bob Sears, the animal—Barrett could still hear the whistle in his ears—came, zoom, right from across the street, his car pulled across theirs, so they couldn't go. Joe Bob Sears in a black Maverick. Barrett's heart hiccupped out of his chest. Joe Bob opened their door, jerked Nicole out, grabbed Sunny, jerked her out, grabbed Jeremy, hit his head on the car, gathered them all up, threw them in his Maverick, and all the while Nicole was calling Joe Bob every rotten name. Barrett got out to see what he could do, and Joe Bob grabbed a knife, pointed it at Barrett, said, "I'm going to cut you open." At that, Jim jumped in his car, backed up and came forward to run Joe Bob over, but Sears jumped away, got in his car, and took off down the road with Nicole and the two kids. Just then a cop came along, Barrett flagged him, said, "That guy just kidnapped my wife, you know, my girl friend." The cop gave chase, gave Joe Bob the red light, pulled him over.

  Nicole and the kids were standing on the grass, Joe Bob was saying, "She's my woman, she's coming with me," and the cop was saying, "She doesn't have to go with you if she doesn't want to." Nicole was saying, "I ain't going with you, you bastard." Finally, the cop said, "Listen, young lady, you better knock off that language or I'll lock you up too." Finally, Sunny, Jeremy, and Nicole got back in the car with Barrett and he took off and that's the last they ever seen of Joe Bob. They went back to living in the tent.

  All this was in his head when he went over to see Nicole on this occasion at three in the morning. She was sitting there, writing a letter to Gary and did not want to be interrupted, but Barrett came in, and announced right off he wanted to fuck. She wasn't into it, she said.

  As she started to walk away, he sat her down. Didn't throw her, but sat her hard enough she knew she wasn't getting up in a hurry. "Oh," he said, "you are writing a letter to your murdering sweetheart." Why, he started to say, if she knew the things going on in him, she would be scared right now. "Nothing," said Nicole, "scares me anymore."

  Barrett took the picture of Gary that she had taped on the wall, and started to rip it. But it was some kind of tough Polaroid that was hard to tear, and it struck her as comical. He was so stoned he was having difficulty. Then she got mad, and said, "Give me that son-of-a-bitching picture." But Barrett held it away, took his lighter out, started burning it. She picked up an ashtray, and hit him in the head.

  He started throwing her all over. He might just as well have been Joe Bob Sears, except he wasn't hitting her so much as slapping her, picking her up, pushing her down. She knew she was in trouble, yet she felt no fear. Which was interesting. She'd always had the idea she could handle Barrett if it came to it, but tonight he was awful strong in his anger. She didn't even try to hit back.

  Then Sue Baker came to the door. She had left her baby with Nicole and was taking the night off, but happened to drive by, and saw Nicole's light on, so she came up to see. Jim told her and her boy friend to get lost, and Sue didn't say a word, just left, but Nicole knew she would call the police.

  They got there pretty fast. When the uniforms showed at the door, Barrett hid in the hallway. It was like the movies. He kept motioning to Nicole not to let them know he was there. Threatening gestures, like you fucking well better not, Nicole just opened the door, however, and said, "Will you get him out of here?"

  The cops walked in, asked what was going on, and Barrett said, "Nothing." Nicole said, "Nothing, my ass! That motherfucker's been knocking me around for the las
t hour. Excuse my language, officer, but he's been terrible." They handcuffed him, and read his rights, and took him away. About that time, she began to realize they had been looking for him on something else and had a warrant. Barrett spent the night in jail.

  It was only when the police were gone that she understood how crazy Barrett had made her. After they'd handcuffed him, one of the cops went down to his car to answer the patrol radio and the other happened to turn his back. She saw a knife on the kitchen sink. There was one moment when she wanted to cut Barrett's throat. Do it right while he was handcuffed. Quick as that. They could have given her the cell next to Gary.

  After he got out of jail, Barrett sold her car. It was logical. He needed some money for his legal problems, and Nicole had ripped him off for a lot more than money. So he sold the transmission to a neighbor and towed the rest over to a wrecking yard in Mapleton where he signed a bill of sale. It was all done. She would never have her Mustang again.

  When Nicole found out, she decided to smash the windshield of Barrett's pickup.

  It was a cool August night and she put on a jacket with baggy sleeves and stood outside his motel room holding a borrowed hammer. Even with two Valiums to mellow her out, she felt crazy inside every time she thought about Barrett selling her car, so kept waiting for the Valiums to take effect, but they didn't. Besides she had a problem. The moment she went to work on the windshield, he would hear the noise. His truck was parked just outside his door. Maybe she should put dirt in his gas tank.

  She thought she'd try a different approach, however, and walked up. Through a locked screen door, she said, "I want to talk to you, Barrett." He wouldn't open, however. He was cooking a steak, which she could smell, and she said, "Come on out, I want to talk to you," and he kind of laughed a little." "No," he said, "talk to me here." "I'd rather," Nicole said, "you come outside." He laughed again. "I don't know, Nicole, I don't trust you," he said. "You got a strange look." Then a friend of his came up, and Barrett felt a little more safe, cause he opened the door and said, "Come on in." At that point, Nicole decided to have it out on the basis alone of the money. "You owe me for my car," she said. They started talking, and Barrett said he couldn't believe what he had done. He didn't have the right.

  She wasn't going to buy too much of that. Nicole didn't shout, but she did threaten him in a nice quiet way. Said, "Barrett, you screwed me up pretty bad this time. I'm tired of messing around. You owe me $125."

  "There's no way," said Barrett, "I'm going to come up with that much." He paused, however, and said, "I can get you sixty tomorrow, forty a few days after."

  She believed him. In fact, he came by the next day with $40 and told her that was all he had. Nicole was really rude, and said, "I want the rest." Finally he came with another sixty. That was about it. He just trailed off, like with everything else. She had no wheels and finally had to spend the hundred for other things. Food. Rent.

  Gary received a letter from a woman in Nevada who wrote she was 27 years old, divorced, five feet five inches tall, a little on the plump side.

  "Please feel free to ask me anything that is on your mind, because I am quite broad minded, and nothing will shock me either. I am a red-blooded American female, and definitely enjoy it too, and of course, I like sex, attention, a lot of affection, and like to do just about anything that is connected with the opposite sex for sure." Gary sent the letter to Nicole who wrote him back right away to say it was like a slap in the face.

  She couldn't believe how angry she became at this woman. Underneath all the talk of how much she loved Gary, she had to be really crazy about him. Never felt jealousy like this for another man. It was so bad, she decided she had to see him right that minute.

  Only it was a bummer. Hitchhiking over to the nuthouse, the whole day got lost. First, she couldn't find a sitter for the kids. Then, when she finally got a ride to the hospital, they told her he had been returned to the jail that very morning. It wouldn't be visiting day over there. Nicole wanted so much to hear his voice, however, that she walked all the way across town from the nuthouse, and stood outside by the wire fence in back and hollered, "Gary Gilmore, can you hear me!" She shouted it loud as she could. Just about, she heard a voice call back, "Yeah, babe."

  "YEAHI" she cried out.

  Then she screamed for all the world to hear, "Gary Gilmore I love you!"

  A cop came around the building and told her she'd have to leave. She could be arrested for doing something like that. It surprised her. She didn't know they could keep you from expressing yourself that way. She hollered out to Gary that she had to go, and took off. But she felt a whole lot better.

  Aug. 20

  Hey baby the most beautiful thing just happened to me. I just heard a magic elf's voice holler, "Gary Gilmore, can you hear me? I love you!" Well I love you too! Boy, oh boy, do I love you! Nicole—you amaze me. You are absolutely wonderful. I just don't have words to say how great you make me feel. You make me cry happy tears.

  Sat. Aug. 21

  I went to sleep for awhile this afternoon and I woke up feeling that clear cold thing that I hate so much. It's more than a feeling—it's a sort of knowledge. Like a total awareness of being in a box and it's bright daylite outside and the whole world is going on without me.

  August 24

  What will I meet when I die? The Oldness? Vengeful ghosts? A dark gulf? Will my spirit be flung about the universe faster than thought? Will I be judged and sentenced, as so many churches would have us believe? Will I be called to and clutched at by lost spirits?

  Will there be nothing? . . . Just an end? . . . I can't even picture the concept of nothing—I don't think that "nothing" exists. There is no such thing as "nothing." There is always something—some energy. But how long a journey is death? Is it instantaneous? Does it take minutes, hours, weeks? What dies first the body of course—but then does the personality slowly dissolve? Are there different levels of death—some darker and heavier than others, some brighter and lighter, some more and some less material?

  Nicole, I believe we always have a choice. And I choose, that when I die, or change form, or whatever best describes this thing called death, I choose that I wait for you, that I meet you, that I find you—the part of my heart and soul I have sought for so long—the only real love I've ever known. Then we will know. We'll know everything that we know now but can't consciously recall.

  You said that girl's letter was like a slap in the face—Baby, Baby, I didn't mean anything like that when I gave it to you! I just thought I'd let you read it. Guess I wasn't thinking, huh?! I'm not gonna write to her. You're the only girl in my life Angel. I wouldn't take a thousand girls for you.

  August 25

  Maybe when you get your next check you could get me a couple things, okay? What I would like to have is a couple "Flair" felt tip pens, one brown and one blue with fine points—and a fairly decent watercolor brush: a Grumbacher Sable Round No. 5 watercolor—and a decent pad of paper. If you can't afford it, it's okay honey, 'cause I know they don't give you much on that fuckin welfare and I don't want you to be broke again like you was this month.

  I got into a search for Truth real heavily at one time. I was looking for a truth that was very rigid, unbending, a single straight line that excluded everything but itself. A simple Truth, plain, unadorned. I was never quite satisfied—I found many truths though. Courage is a Truth. Overcoming fear is a Truth. It would be too simple to say that God is truth. God is that and much, much more. I found these Truths, and others . . .

  I found a lot of Truths. But I was still hungry—and it's true that hunger teaches many things. So I kept looking. And one day I was fortunate. I saw a simple, quiet Truth, a profound, deep, and personal Truth of beauty and love.

  It came down on Nicole what an expression like "horrible loss" really meant. It was throwing away the most valuable thing in your life. It was knowing you had to live next to something larger than your own life. In this case, it was knowing that Gary was going to die.r />
  She began to think there was not even a minute when she stopped loving him, not for a minute. Not a minute of her day in which the guy was not in her mind. That she liked. She liked what was inside of her. But it was spooky. She would take in a breath and recognize that she was falling more and more in love with a guy who was going to be dead.

  One night Tom Dynamite came over, but she couldn't bring herself to screw him. That surprised her. Sex had nothing to do with Gary. It was just that this night she had been thinking about him so hard she didn't want to separate herself from the pleasure of continuing to think about him. Somehow, she got Tom to sleep on the floor next to the couch where she always lay down, and Nicole even put her hand on Tom's shoulder in gratitude while they slept. He left in the morning without waking her.

  On opening her eyes, she remembered that even while falling asleep, she had decided to kill herself in the morning. She awoke with the same thought. She sat as quietly as a bird not moving in its nest.

  If she died first, Gary would soon be with her. He had told her that. She didn't know where she would be then, or what else might happen, but she would be with him on the other side. His love would be so strong that she would be attracted to him like a magnet. It would be like the magnet that pulled her to him the day she first saw him in jail.

  She didn't have any decent razor blades, and considered going next door to borrow one, but thought that might be too suspicious. So she broke open a Daisy Shaver, a kind of disposable plastic dingus, cracked it with a steak knife and got the blade loose. Then wrapped it in some notebook paper, and put it in her bra. She thought if she didn't move around too much it would be safe and not cut her. She felt strange leaving the kids over to a friend's house, but set out to hitchhike to the jail. A couple of guys picked her up.