The Executioner's Song

by Norman Mailer

  INTERVIEWER What could you have been doing to get her so mad?

  GILMORE Just the way I was talking to her and the way I was acting. I was never quite . . . a boy. One evening in Portland, when I was about eight, we all went over to these people's house, and there were two or three adults there. I don't remember just what I did, giving everybody a lot of lip, fucking with everything in the house—I don't remember what all—but anyhow, this one lady finally flipped completely out. Screamed. Ranted. Raved. Threw me out of the house. And the other adults there supported her and all felt the feelings she felt. Apparently, shit like that didn't have much effect on me. I can remember just walking home, about three miles, whistling and singing to myself.

  INTERVIEWER It sounds as thought you were on the course you've always followed well before you went to reform school

  GILMORE Well, I always knew the law was silly as hell. But as far as courses go, you react in a certain way because your life is influenced by all the varieties of your experience. Does that make any sense?

  INTERVIEWER It's hard to say. Give us an example.

  GILMORE Well, this is kind of a personal thing. It'll sound like a strange incident to you, but it had a lasting effect on me. I was about eleven years old and I was coming home from school, and I thought I'd take a short cut. I climbed down this hill, a drop of about fifty feet, and I got tangled in these briar bushes, and blackberry, and thornberry. Some of these bushes were fifty feet high, I guess, down in this wild, overgrown area in southeast Portland. I thought it would be a short cut, but there was no pass through there. Nobody had gone through there before. At one point, I could have turned around and gone back, but I chose to just go on, and it took me about three hours to pick my way. All during that time, I never stopped for a rest and just kept going. I knew if I just kept going I'd get out, but I was also aware that I could get hopelessly stuck in there. I was a block or so from any houses, and if I screamed . . . well, I could have died in there. My screams would have gone unheard. So I just kept going. It was kind of a personal thing. I finally got home about three hours late and my mom said, well, you're late, and I said, yeah, I took a short cut. (laughs) It made me feel a little different about a lot of things.

  INTERVIEWER What things?

  GILMORE Just being aware that I never did get afraid. I knew that if I just kept going, I'd get out. It left me with a distinct feeling, like a kind of overcoming of myself.

  INTERVIEWER Well, why then did you say it was going to reform school that got you started?

  GIILMORE Look, reform schools disseminate certain esoteric knowledge. They sophisticate. A kid comes out of reform school and he's learned a few things he would otherwise have missed. And he identifies, usually, with the people who share that same esoteric knowledge, the criminal element, or whatever you want to call it. So going to Woodburn was not a small thing in my life.

  INTERVIEWER Was it bad at Woodburn? How did you fit in there?

  GILMORE Man, that place made me think that was the only way to live. The guys in there I looked up to, they were tough, they were hipsters—this was the Fifties—and they seemed to run everything there. The staff were local beer-drinking guys that put in their hours, and they didn't care if you did this or did that. They had a few psych doctors there, too. Psychoanalysis was a big thing then. They would come in and they would show you their ink-blot tests and they would ask you all kinds of questions, mostly related to sex. And look at ya funny and . . . things like that.

  INTERVIEWER How long were you there?

  GILMORE Fifteen months. I escaped four times, and after that, I finally got hip that the way to really get out of that place was to show 'em that I was rehabilitated. And after four months of not getting into any trouble, they released me. That taught me that people like that are easily fooled.

  INTERVIEWER Did other inmates ever try to make you their punk?

  GILMORE NO . . . nobody ever . . . I've never had any trouble like that. No, never once. If it had happened I would have handled it in a decisive violent manner. I would have killed somebody—or beat them with something, you know, if they were too big. I would've took some weapon to 'em. But that never did happen to me.

  INTERVIEWER How did you feel when you were released from Woodburn?

  GILMORE I came out looking for trouble. Thought that's what you're supposed to do. I felt slightly superior to everybody else 'cause I'd been in reform school. I had a tough-guy complex, that sort of smart-aleck juvenile-delinquent attitude. Juvenile delinquent—remember that phrase? Sure dates me, don't it? Nobody could tell me anything. I had a ducktail haircut, I smoked, drank, shot heroin, smoked weed, took speed, got into fights, chased and caught pretty little broads. The Fifties were a hell of a time to be a juvenile delinquent. I stole and robbed and gambled and went to Fats Domino and Gene Vincent dances at the local hails.

  INTERVIEWER What did you want to make of your life at that point?

  GILMORE I wanted to be a mobster.

  INTERVIEWER Didn't you think you had any other talents?

  GILMORE Well, yeah, I had talents. I've always been good at drawing. I've drawn since I was a child, and I remember a teacher in about the second grade telling my mom, "Your son's an artist," in a way that showed she really meant it.

  INTERVIEWER Did you ever have a time when you had second thoughts about that criminal destiny, where you thought you might change?

  GILMORE Well, I figured if I could get something going as an artist—but it's so damned hard, you know. I wanted to be successful on a large scale—a fine artist—not a commercial artist. After a while I figured I'd probably just spend the rest of my life in jail or commit suicide, or be killed uh, by the police or something like that. A violent death of some sort, but there was a time as a kid when I thought seriously about it, you know, being a painter.

  INTERVIEWER How long was it before you were locked up again?

  GILMORE Four months.

  INTERVIEWER Four months! We thought you said that reform schools educate. Couldn't you have used your esoteric knowledge to stay out of jail?

  GILMORE It was just the pattern of my life. Some guys are lucky all their lives. No matter what kind of trouble they get into, pretty soon they're back on the bricks. But some guys are unlucky. They fuck up once on the outside and it's the pattern of their lives to be drawn back to do a lot of time.

  INTERVIEWER And you're one of the unlucky ones?

  GILMORE Yeah, "the eternal recidivist." We're creatures of habit, man.

  INTERVIEWER What's the longest stretch of time you've been free since you first went to reform school?

  GILMORE Eight months was about the longest.

  INTERVIEWER Your I.Q.'s supposedly about 130, and yet you've spent almost nineteen of the past twenty-two years behind bars. Why were you never able to get away with anything?

  GILMORE I got away with a couple of things. I ain't a great thief. I'm impulsive. Don't plan, don't think. You don't have to be a superintelligent to get away with shit, you just have to think. But I don't. I'm impatient. Not greedy enough. I could have gotten away with lots of things that I got caught for. I don't, ah, really understand it. Maybe I quit caring a long time ago.

  All that was fine. Farrell was not for buying any of this without further examination, but the man was at least trying to give a presentation of himself. Clearly, it was the way he wanted the world to think of him, remember him. A mighty different man from the letters!

  Farrell and Schiller agreed that the trick was to get Gary to talk truly about the murders. Something always happened then. Gilmore's readiness to comment on himself disappeared. His account fell into the same narrative style every hustler and psychopath would give you of the most boring, or of the most extraordinary evening—we did this and then, man, like we did that. Episodic and unstressed. Resolute refusal, thought Farrell, to attach value to any detail. Life is a department store. Lift what you can.

  GILMORE April got in the truck and, man, she turned the radio
on real loud and moved right over beside me and told me she didn't want to go home, and I told her, Well, look, I'll keep you out all night, if you want. So I drove down to the place where I'd bought my truck and I talked to those guys about the financial arrangements. I give 'em my Mustang as the down payment and we drank some booze and just kind of made a loose arrangement about the truck, they were more or less just holding my guns for me, and, uh, I kept one pistol with me, the loaded one, and I signed the papers and took ownership of the truck and left my Mustang there, and then I was driving around with April and we got out into Orem and I pulled around the corner to this service station and it looked fairly deserted. That's what I guess drew my attention to it. I just drove around the corner and parked and told April to stay in the truck. I'd be back in a moment.

  And I went over to the gas station and told Jensen to give me the money, and he did, and I told him, well, come on in the bathroom and get down on the floor, and it was pretty quick. I didn't let him know it was coming or anything. It was just a .22, so I shot him twice in rapid succession, to make sure that he was not in any pain or that he wasn't left half alive or anything. And, and, I left there and I drove to, uh, I don't know just where that Sinclair station was, but I drove back to the main drag. State Street, I guess it is, and I went into Albertson's and bought some potato chips and different things to take to a movie and half a case of beer and some things that April wanted to eat.

  Finally, one of the lawyers asked a question. Farrell couldn't help but note that it produced better results. It was obvious Gilmore had to be pushed out of the psychopathic flats.

  INTERVIEWER Now, one thing. When you stopped at the gas station, did you have any intention of either robbing Jensen or killing him?

  GILMORE I had the intention of killing him.

  INTERVIEWER When did that concept form in your mind? To kill somebody—

  GILMORE I can't say. It had been building all week. That night I knew I had to open a valve and let something out and I didn't know exactly what it would be and I wasn't thinking I'll do this or I'll do that, or that'll make me feel better. I just knew something was happening in me and that I'd let some of the steam off and, uh, I guess all this sounds pretty vicious.

  INTERVIEWER No. No. Did Jensen say anything to annoy you?

  GILMORE No, not at all.

  INTERVIEWER What prompted you to leave the truck and go into the office where Jensen was?

  GILMORE I don't really know.

  INTERVIEWER What do you mean by that?

  GILMORE I mean, I don't really know. I said the place looked deserted. It just seemed appropriate.

  INTERVIEWER Apparently, killing Jensen didn't do anything to take the pressure off. Why did you go out the next night and kill Bushnell?

  GILMORE I don't know, man. I'm impulsive. I don't think.

  INTERVIEWER You killed him the same way you'd killed Jensen the night before—ordering him to lie down on the floor, then firing point-blank into his head. Did you think killing Bushnell would give you some kind of relief you didn't get with Jensen?

  GILMORE I told you, I wasn't thinking. What I do remember is an absence of thought. Just movements, actions. I shot Bushnell, and then the gun jammed—them fucking Automatics! And I thought, man, this guy's not dead. I wanted to shoot him a second time, cause I didn't want him to lie there half dead. I didn't want him in pain. I tried to jack the mechanism and get the gun working and shoot him again, but it was jammed, and I had to get my ass out of there. I jacked the gun into shape again but too late to do anything for Mr. Bushnell. I'm afraid he didn't die immediately. When I ordered him to lie down, I wanted it to be quick for him. There was no chance, no choice for him. That sounds cold. But you asked.

  INTERVIEWER Was there any difference in the way you approached the two killings?

  GILMORE No, not really. You could say it was a little more certain that Mr. Bushnell was going to die.

  INTERVIEWER Why?

  GILMORE Because it was already a fact that Mr. Jensen had died and so the next one was more certain.

  ITERVIEWER Was the second killing easier than the first?

  GILMORE Neither one of 'em were hard or easy.

  INTERVIEWER Had you ever had any dealings of any kind with either of those men?

  GILMORE No.

  INTERVIEWER Well, what led you to the City Center Motel, where Bushnell worked? We're just trying to understand the quality of this rage you speak of. It wasn't a rage that might have been vented in sex?

  GILMORE I don't want to mess with questions that pertain to sex. I think they're cheap.

  INTERVIEWER But if, on the night you killed Bushnell, you had wound up with a friendly girl who could offer you beer and company and a relaxing time, wouldn't that have helped you feel better?

  GILMORE I don't want to answer that question.

  INTERVIEWER You seem to find it easier talking about murder than sex.

  GILMORE That's your judgment.

  Good stuff, thought Farrell. A good beginning.

  All through Christmas week, however, there was a pall. No more interviews of merit. Farrell began to wonder if he had scared Gilmore off. Or was Gary disabled from the holidays? Looking over his bitter responses about Christmas in prison, it was not hard to read between the lines: my last New Year's on earth.

  Barry also began to worry that the lawyers might be the cause.

  Day after day, in that last week of the year, they went out and bantered with Gary, skipped around key points, ignored any reasonable follow-up to good responses, and read Farrell's more elaborate questions as if they were too literary for real men to get their mouth around.

  Barry would call up Stanger's office and, with great difficulty, dictate new questions. A day or two later, the tape would come back so empty of content that Farrell would wonder whether the lawyers wanted to show they could not only produce, but hold back. He figured they must still be mad over Schiller's trip to Hawaii. Maybe there was something unholy in interrogating a man on the way to his death, but virtually nothing came back.

  STANGER Have you ever been any good as a prison politician?

  GILMORE In the last period when I was in Oregon I got off into a revolutionary bag a little bit, and then I just seen them revolutionaries ain't gonna revolution shit, so I fell out of that. (laughing)

  STANGER Okay. You spent more than four years in the hole. Is this because you choose to do it the hard way? Or, because your acts are beyond your control?

  GILMORE (laughing).. I gotta pick A, or B now, huh? (laughing)

  STANGER Multiple choice . . . (laughing)

  GILMORE Man, I'm just a fuck-up.

  Moody and Stanger might not have been overworking the mine, but they were sure curious about sales. As soon as Schiller came back from Hawaii they began to question him about the overseas sales.

  Schiller had to give them details on deals before they were even discussed.

  His remark at lunch that he could sell the letters, and they would never know, had come home to him. They paid a lot of attention to the prospect of money coming in. He hoped it might fire them up to do better interviews, but it only made them feel that they were doing the work for everybody else. They even started to claim that the interviews were not part of their original arrangement, and they should get additional compensation. He could tell it would be an ongoing discussion.

  About the way it went. Certain exchanges drove Farrell up the wall In the interview on December 20, there had been a clue in the back-and-forth:

  INTERVIEWER Your sense of the inevitability and the rightness of your fate suggests that the killings were a long time coming. Had you fantasized yourself in the killer's role long before it became a reality? (pause) It's a good heady question, isn't it? (laughter)

  GILMORE Yeah, it is. I wonder if I could go take a hit 'n' miss? (laughter) That's rhyme in Cockney for "piss."

  INTERVIEWER Sounds good. Let's do it.

  GILMORE And come back and answer that one. I'll
give that some thought.

  INTERVIEWER Okay.

  GILMORE It's rather religious.

  Then Gary had come back with his long and half-satisfactory account of killing Jensen. That was last week. It proved what Farrell had expected.

  Secretly, Gilmore did like literary questions and highly formulated approaches. It dignified his situation. Here, despite the lawyer's mockery of the question, he had still worked to find some kind of answer. But such willingness to reply would not bear up if the lawyer kept responding with nothing but jokes. It was like people making quips around the bed of a man dying of cancer.

  The problem, Schiller decided, was that vis-a-vis Gary, the lawyers were feeling stronger all the time. They had made a point of letting him know that while he was sunning in Hawaii, they had been out at the jail on Christmas Day. They had also been out New Year's Day. And every day in between. That Gary had sure been lonely. The lawyers informed Schiller as if he had been absent for years. There was no question Gary looked forward to the visits they would make. It enabled him to leave his cell and go to the booth just off the visitors' room. Even after a couple of hours of conversation, they had no more than to hang up the phone and start to leave, when they would hear a tap on the window. Gilmore was pulling them back. He wanted to inquire about their children. He would give advice. When they do something wrong, punish them. But keep telling them you love them.

  Those daily sessions had given the lawyers such concern for Gary's daily situation, Schiller decided, that they were not seeing the big job. It had become natural for them to downgrade it.

  Schiller's most worrisome problem on returning, however, was with Gary. First, he had to tell him about the National Enquirer.

  That piece would be out in a few days. From Hawaii, he instructed the lawyers to explain to Gilmore that he had sold a few rights to the Enquirer because they were going to do a story on Gilmore anyway, and he thought they should pick up some money. That worked. Gilmore agreed. But then, in another telegram, Schiller made the mistake of using a code name for Nicole. Not wanting the prison to know what he was talking about, he sent in some questions referring to her as Freckles.