The Executioner's Song

by Norman Mailer

  Gibbs got Big Jake to buy him a card, and sent it to Gary. It read, "I hope you have many more happy birthdays." He knew that would hit Gary's funny bone.

  Brenda and Johnny had a birthday visit on the phone. "Hey, cousin," she said, "did you know that you are the most notorious convict in the United States? That's what they said about you last night." He answered in a strained little voice, "I would much rather be acclaimed on my art ability and my intelligence." It was his hungry stomach speaking. He sounded like an empty eggshell. "I don't appreciate this kind of publicity," he complained.

  Brenda said to herself, "Maybe Gary don't like the publicity, but he's sure enjoying it."

  Gary had given Vern a list of names and the amount of money he wanted each person to receive. Brenda was to get $5,000, and Toni $3,000. Gary also gave $5,000 to Sterling and Ruth Ann. Wanted to give $3,000 to the baby-sitter Laurel and her family, but Vern gave an argument about that.

  Then Gary talked about a couple of girls in Hawaii who had been writing him love letters. He wanted to send them a few hundred dollars. Vern agreed, but never withdrew the money. Figured about the time Gary had given it all away, he'd be happy to discover a few hundred left. Of course the way Gary handed it out, was enough to make you sick.

  There was a convict out in the midwest named Ed Barney. Gary got a letter from him one day and told Vern he'd known the guy at Oregon State. They'd put a lot of time in Segregation together. "Ed Barney is a great guy," said Gary. "One of my very best and dearest friends. I want you to give him a thousand dollars." Vern thought Gary was talking like his mother. When Vern first knew her, Bessie could never describe a good-looking man or woman without getting carried away by the power of the description. At the end she would always say, "That was the best-looking man I ever saw." Or, best-looking woman. Must have described a hundred people that way.

  Gary was the same about friends. Today, Sterling was the best friend he ever had. Yesterday, LeRoy Earp, or Vince Capitano, or Steve Kessler, or John Mills or many another prison buddy Vern couldn't even keep in mind. Tomorrow you knew another fellow would be nominated. Gibbs, probably. So, Vern decided to hold on to the award to Ed Barney. With the way they kept delaying his execution, Gary would be broke before he knew it. A few thousand dollars could buy him a lot of comfort in prison.

  Vern did, however, have to give $2,000 to Gibbs. Gary was insistent.

  Then, there was another fellow named Fungoo. Gary said he'd hurt the man's feelings something awful with a tattoo he had drawn once. He wanted to give him a sum. Vern had a hell of an argument.

  Finally talked him out of that.

  Then there was the mystery recipient. A particular fellow was to receive a total of $5,000 in two equal installments. Vern was to meet him on the street corner and hand over $2,500. Gary said he wanted the job done without argument. Vern had a pretty good idea what was up. He finally had a meeting with the fellow, and gave over the money in a restaurant, hated the idea. A wanton waste. Was glad when Gary never paid the second installment.

  Now, on his birthday, Gary wanted to give $500 to Margie Quinn. "Margie Quinn?" asked Vern. "You know," said Gary, "that nice little girl Ida introduced me to." "Well, why do you want to give her $500?" asked Vern. "Well," said Gary, mimicking the way Vern said "well," which was always very soft as if he wanted to draw you close, "well, I happened to break the windshield on her car."

  Vern wasn't too surprised. "I thought you did, you dirty bugger," he said. He remembered how Margie Quinn's mother had asked him months ago if Gary had done it, and Vern replied, "I don't know. He may have." That was $500 he didn't mind paying.

  From time to time, Gary would say, "See that my mother is taken care of," yet he didn't talk of real money. It seemed to Vern that Gary wanted to believe his mother did love him a great deal and worked with the evidence pro and con. Yet he must have kept turning on that evidence, for he sure was acting stingy toward her. Vern actually had to say, "You can't give $3,000 to your baby-sitter when your mother is living without money." "All right," Gary answered, "cut it down. Take a thousand off. Give that to my ma." Then he would hesitate.

  "But don't mail it," he would say, "you and Aunt Ida fly down and give it to her in person." Vern couldn't understand. If Gary was afraid somebody might rip it off, he could have a bank in Portland deliver the thousand by special messenger. Good Lord, it would practically cost half that much for Ida and him to fly there and back.

  Brenda got into the act. "Just a thousand, Gary?" she asked. "Yep," said Gary. Brenda gave her father a look to say, "No sense going further."

  Vern thought Gary might be provoked at his mother because of the Supreme Court Stay, but then he recollected that even before Gary heard of Bessie's legal actions, he had never included her in the money to be given out.

  On Sunday, Bob Moody and Ron Stanger were interviewed by TV people from Holland, England, and a couple of other countries. Then they went to the country club for lunch. Then out to the prison.

  GILMORE Hey, uh, maybe the Tribune would print an open letter to my mother.

  STANGER I don't see any doubt about that.

  GILMORE I'll make it brief, if you want to take it down.

  STANGER Go ahead.

  GILMORE Dear Mom. I love you deeply and I always have and I always will. (pause) But please disassociate yourself from the Uncle Tom NAACP. Please accept the fact that I wish to be dead. That I accept it. That I accept it.

  MOODY Do you want to put "That I accept it" more than once?

  GILMORE Please accept the fact that I want, that I accept death. What's a better way of saying that? Please accept this.

  MOODY Maybe, please accept the fact that I accept that which has been imposed upon me by law, is that what you're trying to say?

  GILMORE Yeah. That would be all right. I don't want it to look like a death wish by saying I wish for death.

  MOODY I just accept what the law is.

  STANGER Carry out the law.

  GILMORE Uh, I would like to talk to you. I'd like to see you. But I can't, so I'm sending you this letter through the newspaper. (long pause) We all die, it ain't no big deal.

  MOODY Is this in the letter?

  GILMORE Yeah. (long pause) Sometimes it's right and proper. (pause) Please, disassociate yourself from that Uncle Tom NAACP.

  I'm a white man. The NAACP disgusts me that they even dare associate theirself with me or that they dare even, or that they dare anything. Well, read that to me and I'll think of what I want to say. . . Uh, I could have made a few disparaging remarks about niggers but I do have a few black friends you know, and, uh, very few. But, the NAACP ain't among them. I mean they're so goddamned phony. Do you know anything about the NAACP?

  STANGER Oh yes.

  GILMORE Every Spook I know hates them.

  MOODY Is that right?

  GILMORE Yeah, just like they hate Martin Luther King because he was such a pacifist, you know. The NAACP, they're nonmilitant, they're passive. They're very wealthy people that run it.

  MOODY What do you think the average black man would like?

  GILMORE Just some watermelon and some wine.

  The prison had moved Gary back to the hospital and today they could not see him, only hear his voice over the telephone. It sounded acidulous. "Black people," he said, "learn by rote more than anything else. You show them how to do something, and they can do it." He paused as if imparting valuable information. "On the whole continent of Africa, they never found the wheel or anything more deadly than a spear. That's what I think of black people. It ain't a hatred, just fact. I don't care if one guy did something with some peanuts a long time ago."

  Ron could feel the growling in Gary's empty gut and the hatred coming through the telephone wires. A dark side of Gilmore was running like a current into his ear. Man, he had an evil nature when he felt like it. Stanger was very happy at this moment that he had never belonged to the NAACP or the ACLU.

  On her visits, Kathryne would tell Nicole that Gar
y had intended for her to die, not him. Nicole would think that it could be true. Gary didn't ever want her with another man. Still, it couldn't change her feelings. It wasn't like he had been trying to do it cynically. He would certainly have followed in the near future. So Kathryne's accusations never bothered Nicole. She just wanted to see Gary.

  It was making her crazy not to be able to have a phone call or a letter. Sometimes she'd think of getting ahold of a gun. She would tell them if they didn't let her talk to Gary, she would blow her head off.

  Ken Sundberg, who had been retained by Kathryne at Phil Christensen's advice, brought Nicole a letter. It was the first word from Gary since she had taken the pills. He just told her not to let the place get to her. Didn't talk about death or dying. Only wrote about how much he loved her. Later, Nicole found out that Sundberg, who was a nice fellow but an uptight Mormon, had agreed to bring in the envelope provided Gary made no reference to suicide at all.

  After Nicole finished reading, she wrote a couple of lines at the bottom, and sent it back. Then, she got an idea. Everybody was accustomed to see her writing poems in her notebook, so for Gary's birthday she wrote a letter instead, tore it out when no one was looking, put it in her shoe and slipped it to Ken.

  At the top she had written December second, but put a question mark after it. She was uncertain of the date. Beneath it, therefore, she wrote, Wednesday nite. Later she found out it was Thursday night.

  Gary i love you More than life.

  i think about you constantly. You never leave my mind. Before i got your letter i felt as if i was only half alive no knowing how you were. They won't tell me nothin here. When i awoke in U.V. hospital i was only told that you had also awaken, i tryed callen you then—Next thing i knew i was being escorted here. And here is like being buried alive. Cut off from life. You. Oh, Baby, i miss you—i've read your letter every chance i get. Your words touch my soul.

  i love you

  As you said in your letter, you do not need my life for yourself.

  i am yours through all things and time. All Things and Times. i was thinking of the best nite we had . . . that was a nite of ecstacy and Love more tender than mere words can speak on. I call it Sweet Apprehension.

  I despise this place. This place despises me. it is all you said it to be. Sheep, rats.

  Darlin lites are out. i can jest barely see these lines.

  Touch my soul with your truth . . .

  Forevermore NICOLE

  Chapter 14

  THE NEXT FRIEND AND THE FOE

  Mikal had not spoken to his brother since that moment in Court four years ago when Gary was sentenced to nine more years in jail, but he heard his name often enough these days. Ever since November, the syllables of Ga-Ry Gil-More came in over the radio with increasingly hypnotic interest in the voice of the announcer, and the leads on top of news stories leaped out from the paper until they were front-page headlines. It wasn't far into November before Mikal made a phone call to Utah State Prison.

  On the line, Gary was perfunctory. He spoke tersely. Mikal was informed that Gary had just hired a lawyer named Dennis Boaz and would appear with him at the Utah Supreme Court next morning. At that time he would ask for the execution to be carried out.

  "Are you serious?" Mikal asked.

  "What do you think?"

  "I don't know."

  "You never knew me," said Gary.

  Mikal could only request Gary to ask Dennis Boaz to give a ring.

  That night the lawyer called and brought Mikal up to date on a few details, but it was not much of a conversation. As soon as the Utah Supreme Court made its decision, Mikal asked, would Boaz phone again?

  "Is it okay if I call collect?" said Dennis, "I'm a poor man."

  Boaz never did call. Mikal learned the outcome by watching TV.

  When Mikal phoned Boaz to complain, the lawyer said he'd been swarmed with calls. When Mikal wanted to know where Boaz had practiced in California, Dennis said he found Mikal's attitude "belligerent." After that call, Mikal had to recognize that Gary had cut the family off. He decided to wait.

  A few days later, a lawyer named Anthony Amsterdam phoned Bessie to express his interest in the case, and said he would soon be talking to her son. Mikal was ready, therefore, when the call came.

  He had already looked into Amsterdam's credentials. They certainly seemed prestigious. The man was a professor of law at Stanford University and an expert on capital punishment. A friend of Mikal's who was going to law school said Amsterdam had won a famous Supreme Court case called Furman v. Georgia which showed that black prisoners on Death Row were being executed in numbers far out of proportion to white prisoners with the same sentences. The case had produced a landmark decision by the Supreme Court that ruled out capital punishment for a while.

  Over the phone, Tony Amsterdam now explained to Mikal that he was associated with an organization called the Legal Defense Fund and they had contacts with a nationwide network of lawyers willing to cooperate on death cases. When one of these situations took off, Amsterdam usually heard about it from several sources. In the last couple of weeks, he had certainly heard quite a bit from Utah. There had been an early call from Craig Snyder to "inform" him of the problem, and another from a prominent Salt Lake attorney named Richard Giauque. In the last few days, half a dozen lawyers he respected had gotten in touch to say the case was shocking. So Amsterdam thought it might be time to get in touch with Bessie Gilmore.

  He had been, he said, considerably affected by that conversation.

  Bessie Gilmore had impressed him as a person of great strength who was in great pain. One had to respect the spiritual and psychic stress of this ungodly situation. He told Mikal that he believed his mother would welcome a little help, but was not yet certain she wanted to assert herself in Gary's case. So she had asked him to discuss it with her youngest son.

  Mikal knew this exposition was accurate, since Bessie had told him much the same, although with some suspiciousness of strangers calling. In turn, Mikal spoke to Amsterdam of his concern that people interested in abolishing capital punishment might not care about Gary so much as they were looking for an ideological ax to grind.

  Amsterdam answered that he was not about to subordinate Gary's interest to the service of ideology. He was not a man to sacrifice the individual for abstract issues. However, he said, there was a limit to how much you could or even wanted to convince somebody over the phone. If Mikal was willing to talk further, Amsterdam would like to meet him.

  Mikal was not unimpressed, but said he wanted to discuss the matter with his mother and sleep on it. In the meantime, he was curious how much the fees might come to. Amsterdam explained that his practice was exclusively pro bono. He accepted no fees. In fact, he would write into the retainer that all services were to be rendered free of cost of any sort.

  They agreed to speak again two days later.

  Over the period, Bessie came to think it would be a good idea to retain Amsterdam. She liked, she said, the voice of this man very much. She could feel confidence in it. Next morning she heard of Gary and Nicole's suicide attempt.

  Mikal phoned the prison a few days later and Gary was in a terrible temper. He had just fired Boaz. Hoping this might prove an opening, Mikal said that the affair had become a circus. It was taking away any claim Gary could have to dignity. It was also wreaking its toll on the family. The last remark was a mistake. "What do I owe you?" Gary snapped. "I don't even think of you as a brother."

  "You're running," said Mikal, "over a lot of people's lives."

  Gary hung up. Mikal brooded about it. After a day or two, he decided to authorize Anthony Amsterdam to take action on Bessie Gilmore's behalf.

  Amsterdam laid out to Mikal the moves he proposed to make. He was going to ask them to consider a Next Friend petition. They were going to claim that Mikal's mother was acting on behalf of an individual who was not able to protect his own interest. That gave them a right to sue the State of Utah. Next Friend was ju
st a legal term to indicate closeness to the person on whose behalf they were suing, It did not have to be next of kin, but as a practical matter, that was good, since a Court would be more sympathetic to the idea if the Next Friend wasn't a crank or meddler, but, in fact, a close relative.

  Discussing the brief he would file, Tony Amsterdam said he must touch upon a delicate point. In his opinion, Gary was a sick man and not acting in a competent manner. The fact that he'd been certified as sane came to no more than three form reports turned in by three form shrinks writing three form conclusions. It didn't tell you a goddamned thing. Even then, the doctors couldn't ignore the fact that Gary was suicidal. Having talked to Craig Snyder, Amsterdam would judge that discharging a competent lawyer, when you are under a death sentence, is a form of suicide in itself. Gary had raised questions about free will and self-determination, but wasn't the situation analogous to watching a distraught woman getting ready to jump off the San Francisco Bay Bridge? These were strong words to use, and he certainly would not speak in this fashion to Bessie Gilmore, but he wanted to underline that the question of whether Gary was mentally competent had not been satisfactorily settled.

  Such incompetence, however, was not going to be the foundation of the suit. There were two other very important elements. Gary, in these recent dramatic days, had been receiving his legal advice from Dennis Boaz who was writing about this damn thing. If Gilmore became the first man to be executed in ten years, Boaz had a great deal to gain. That would also be true of the lawyers now retained by the uncle, Vern Damico. For that matter, the uncle was in the same position Gary had not been and was still not being advised adequately.