The Executioner's Song (124 page)

INTERVIEWER   This is an educational book?

GILMORE            Well, it's a high line, a real classic. It was made in Germany and all German children and they're really artistic, tasteful, tactful photographs. It's not a piece of smut, but I wanted to see it.

                Farrell passed it by and then came back. That little elucidative light one depended upon was flickering again. Yes. Could it be said that Gilmore's love for Nicole oft depended on how childlike she could seem? That elf with knee-length socks, so conveniently shorn—by Gilmore—of her pubic locks. Those hints in the letters of hanky panky with Rosebeth, the rumble with Pete Galovan. Barry nodded. You could about say it added up. There was nobody in of prison whom hardcore convicts despised more than child molesters. The very bottom of the pecking order. What if Gilmore, so soon as he was deprived of Nicole, so soon as he had to live a week without her, began to feel impulses that were wholly unacceptable? What his unendurable tension (of which he had given testimony to every psychiatrist who would listen) had had something to do with little urges? Nothing might have been more intolerable to Gilmore's idea of himself Why, the man would have done anything, even murder, before he'd commit that other kind of transgression. God, it would even account for the awful air of warped nobility he seemed to extract from his homicides. Barry felt the woe of late discovery. He could not say a word about this now. It was too insubstantial. In fact, it was sheer speculation. If Gilmore was willing to execute himself for such a vice, assuming it was his vice—beware of understanding the man too quickly! then let him at least die with the dignity of his choice. In fact, how much could a word like dignity conceal?

On Saturday evening, near midnight, Father Meersman set up the Maximum kitchen as a chapel and said a Mass for Gary, using one of the portable metal serving tables as an altar. In order to be able to see everything, Gary sat up on one of the fixed kitchen tables with his feet on the bench. A guard who had once been an altar boy served Mass.

                Father Meersman laid out the portable altar stone, which in these circumstances, coming from his Mass kit, was a cloth, and then he laid on miniature altar linens, put out the corporal, the chalice, and the paten, the candles in their holders, set the crucifix, and gave a missalette to Gary so he could participate. Father Meersman wore a complete set of vestments, white alb, cincture, stole, maniple, and chasuble. Across from him, Gary was wearing a white shirt and pants.

                Father Meersman recited the Confiteor, " . . . I have sinned through my own fault in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done, and in what I have failed to do," and heard the echo of the old Confiteor. "Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault"

                Then the priest read from Gary's favorite Psalm. From experience Meersman knew it was most familiar to him over the first few Lines.

                Bless the Lord, O my soul: and let all that is within me bless His holy name.

                Bless the Lord, O my soul, and never forget all He hath done for thee.

                Who forgiveth all thy iniquities: who healeth all thy diseases.

                Who redeemeth thy life from destruction: who crowneth thee with mercy and compassion.

                Who satisfieth thy desire with good things: thy youth shall be renewed like the eagle's.

                Father Meersman read next from the Gospel, Mark 2: 1-12, and again he gave only the first part. "Son, thy sins are forgiven thee."

                Strictly speaking, thought Meersman, he wasn't supposed to deviate from the Gospel of the Day, but in a case of this sort, he didn't think anybody would fault him for it.

                "This is My Body . . . this is My Blood," said Father Meersman, consecrating the bread and wine, and held up the host and the chalice, and the guard who was serving as an altar boy rang the bell thrice—so would Father Meersman describe it—rang the bell thrice.

                "Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof. Speak only the word and my soul shall be healed."

                Father Meersman took communion. After he had drunk the wine, and the altar boy had gone to communion, and the other guards at the head table behind Gary, being Mormon, merely watched, Gary took the wafer on his tongue in the old style, mouth open, way back, in the way, observed Father Meersman, he had received as a child, and then he drank from the chalice. Father Meersman stood beside him while Gary consumed the bottom of the cup.

                Father Meersman thought it was a beautiful night and very good. Gary had blessed himself at the beginning of the Mass, and then had listened in a subdued way. Now that it was all over, he kidded Father Meersman. "Padre," he said, "I don't think the wine was as strong as it could have been."

Sunday, 2:00 A.M

Hi Elf

                When you're released go to Vern's. I have given him a lot of things to give you.

                They will be in a black duffel bag, taped shut—

                There will be my photo album, some jewelry, a lot of books, Gary Gilmore T-shirts, a few letters, mostly from foreign countries.

                A Sony radio.

                I been tryin to get a sacred eye ring from the Aladdin House Jewelry Company in New York. If I can get it today, I'll put it in with the stuff.

                Oh Baby Baby Baby I miss you!

                I love you with all I am.

                They play our song a lot. "Walking in the footsteps of your mind" I don't know if you get to listen to the radio. KSOP in Salt Lake really likes us. They play "Valley of Tears" for us.

                In about 30 hrs. I will be dead.

                Thats what they call it—death. Its just a release—a change of form.

                I hope I've done it all right.

                God Nicole. I feel such power in our love. I don't think we're s'posed to know right now what this is about. We're just supposed to do it right. It's inside of us, the knowledge. But we can't consciously know it till later.

                Angel its a quarter to 3 in the mornin. I'm gonna get some shut-eye. Write you some more in a little . . .

The Mormon boy whom the Church sent to look after Bessie was a young married man named Doug Hiblar, and he felt he had come a little closer to Bessie in the last month. Sometimes, she still would not let him in, and he would just tell her through the door that he loved her, and leave, but there were days when she was receptive, and encouraged by that, he once made the mistake of telling her he understood how she felt. That was an error. Bessie said, "You don't know." He thought about it and recognized he didn't, and would never know, and did not use such words with her again. Perhaps it made a difference. She seemed to talk to him more after that.

Saturday night, he went to visit her, even as he had been visiting all week, and she seemed calm. It was as if she expected the Courts would postpone things. She had been talking the week before of going to Utah, but he got the idea Gary convinced her not to. Doug figured it would take from her son's strength if he saw her.

Bessie may have looked calm, but she couldn't sleep. All week she had been afraid of a night when she would go to bed and come awake with Gary dead. So, each night, she spent most of the hours sitting up. After Mikal's call came in each evening from Salt Lake, she might drowse, but then she would stir again, and there would be no more sleep. Just the long storm of insomnia to travel through. In her mind, like telegrams she could not bear to open, would appear the words, "How can I reach Gary? How can I tell him what it will do?" For she felt as if a sword would sever one half of herself from the other when the moment came.

                She would think of Y Mountain in Provo and of the day she went back to Utah when her father was dying. Mikal was with her, and the boy had said, "Will you show me your mountain?" It was night and she answered, "I'll show you in the morning." The dawn, however, came in with fog, and Mikal remarked, "I don't see a mountain." He was eight years old.

                "It's there," Bessie said. "The mountain is telling me that my dad is not going to live." Indeed he died, a few days later.

                One of those nights in Provo, waiting for her father to pass away, there had been a rally for a football game, and BYU students went filing up the mountain with torches. Mikal said, "Mother, come out and look. You have never seen anything like this."

                "Oh, Mikal, I have seen it before," she told him. "Remember, this is my mountain."

                All her nieces and nephews looked at her as if to say, "Who do you think you are? You don't even live around here." She would smile at them. They did not understand. When people asked her, "Don't you get homesick to come back?" she would reply, "No, but I get homesick for my mountain. Because I own that." She knew they thought she was uppity.

                On this recollection, she said good-bye to Saturday night and greeted the dawn.

Chapter 30

SUNDAY MORNING, SUNDAY AFTERNOON

It's 10 A.M. Sun Morn. I got up and showered and shaved—well first I did my exercise, 10 minutes running. These fucking guards think I'm nuts when I run up and down the tier. Almost all these guards are fat lazy fuckers.

                Hey you're an elf, ain't ya?!

                They asked me who I invite to watch me get shot. I said

                Number One:        Nicole

                Two:       Vern Damico

                Three:     Ron Stanger, lawyer

                Four:       Bob Moody, lawyer

                Five:       Lawrence Schiller, big Wheeler dealer from Hollywood.

                I knew they wouldn't let you come, so I said to just reserve a place in your honor.

                The New York Post said I was auctioning off seats. Lot of people write a lot of shit in the paper.

                Baby you said if I am shot . . . what will be in you?

                I will.

                I will come to and hold you my darling companion.

                Do not doubt.

                I'll show you.

                Baby I've been avoiding something but I'll come to it right now.

                If you choose to join me or if you choose to wait—it is your choice.

                Whenever you come I will be there.

                I swear on all that is holy.

                I do not want anybody else to ever have you if you choose to wait.

                You are mine.

                My soul mate.

                Indeed, my very soul.

                Do not fear nothingness my Angel. You will never experience it.

Sunday morning, Lucinda was typing the transcript of yesterday's interview when all of a sudden, she couldn't help it and made a sound. Schiller turned around. She was crying her head off, right there on Sunday morning.

Vern was on the phone to Larry. Offers were coming in from wax museums to buy Gary's clothes. The sums were up to several thousand dollars. While there was no question of selling, it had now become a matter of safeguarding the last things Gary wore. Then they decided they had better protect his remains as well. While the prison would deliver Gary's body to the Salt Lake hospital where his eyes and organs would be removed, Schiller decided to post his own guard. He had truly lucked into Jerry Scott. Just the man to keep watch when they moved Gary from the hospital to the crematorium.

GILMORE            Fagan said, "There's still a chance you'll get your phone call from Nicole." I told him, "You foul, sleazy cocksucker, fuck you in the ass." He said, "Oh, ah ah ah ah." He says, "My hands are tied." I said, "Well, how does it feel to walk around with your hands tied? Have you ever thought about feeling like a man, you piece of shit." I don't even know if I'll come in to the visiting room tonight. Fagan will say, "Well, we really treated him great on his last night. We gave him unlimited visits. We let him see his uncle and his lawyers." (laugh)

Moody began his last list of questions.

MOODY               If on your passage you meet a new soul coming to take your place, what advice would you have for him?

GILMORE            Nothing. I don't expect someone to take my place. Hi, I'm your replacement . . . where's the key to the locker . . . where do you keep the towels?

MOODY               I don't know, wouldn't you have something to tell him about the life that ah . . . awaits him?

GILMORE            Shit. That's a serious question.