The Executioner's Song

Norman Mailer

THE EXECUTIONER’S SONG

Norman Mailer was born in 1923 in Long Branch, New Jersey, and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. After graduating from Harvard, he served in the South Pacific during World War II. He published his first book, The Naked and the Dead, in 1948. Mailer won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize in 1968 for Armies of the Night, and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize again in 1980 for The Executioner’s Song. He has directed four feature-length films, was a co-founder of The Village Voice in 1955, and was president of the American PEN from 1984 to 1986. His most recent novel, The Gospel According to the Son, is his thirtieth book. The Time of Our Time, an anthology of the best of Mailer’s writing, was published in May of 1998 to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Mailer’s literary debut.

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Also by Norman Mailer

The Naked and the Dead The Deer fork Advertisements for Myself Deaths for the Ladies (and Other Disasters) The Presidential Papers An American Dream Cannibals and Christians Why Are We in Vietnam? The Deer Park—A Play The Armies of the Night Miami and the Siege of Chicago Of a Fire on the Moon The Prisoner of Sex Maidstone Existential Errands St. George and the Godfather Marilyn The Faith of Graffiti The Fight Genius and Lust The Executioner’s Song Of Women and Their Elegance Pieces and Pontifications Ancient Evenings Tough Guys Don’t Dance Harlot’s Ghost Oswald’s Tale: An American Mystery Portrait of Picasso as a Young Man The Gospel According to the Son The Time of Our Time

THE EXECUTIONER’S SONG

Norman Mailer

THE EXECUTIONER’S SONG

VINTAGE INTERNATIONAL Vintage Books A Division of Random House, Inc. New York

INTERNATK FIRST VINTAGE INTERNATIONAL EDITION, MAY 1998

Copyright Š 1979 by Norman Mailer, Lawrence Schiller, and The New Ingot Company, Inc.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Little, Brown & Company, Boston, in 1979. This edition published by arrangement with Warner Books, Inc., New York. All Rights Reserved.

The author is grateful to the following corporations and individuals for permission to quote material as noted below. Barry Farrell for excerpts from “Merchandising Gary Gilmore’s Dance of Death” in New West, December 20, 1976. “Good Morning America” for excerpt from broadcast of November 17, 1976, copyright Š 1976 by American Broadcasting Company The Los Angeles Times for material by David Johnston, copyright 1976 Los Angeles Times; and material by William Endicott, copyright 1978 Los Angeles Times. Used by permission. The New York Times for excerpt Š 1976 by The New York Times Company Slow Dancing Music, Inc. for lines from “Old Shep,” copyright 1935 Whitehall Music, assigned to Slow Dancing Music, Inc. 1978. All rights administered by Slow Dancing Music, Inc. Tree Publishing Company, Inc. for lines from “Busted,” words and music by Harlan Howard Š copyright 1962 by Tree Publishing Co., Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Veronica Music Inc. for lines from “Paloma Blanca” by Hans Bouwens Š copyright 1975 Witch Music. All rights for the United States and Canada controlled by Veronica Music Inc. and WB Music Corp. The author is also grateful to the Daily Herald, Deseret News, Los Angeles Herald Examiner, National Enquirer, New Times and the Salt Lake Tribune.

LC number: 9860167 Vintage ISBN: 0375700811 Author photo Š Nancy Crampton Random House Web address: www.randomhouse.com

Printed in the United States of America

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To Norris, to John Buffalo, and to Scott Meredith

Contents

Book One WESTERN VOICES

PART ONE Gary 3

PART TWO Nicole 69

PART FOUR The Gas Station and the Motel 205

PART FIVE The Shadows of the Dream 307

part six The Trial of Gary M. Gilmore 371

PART ONE In the Reign of Good King Boaz 507

PART TWO Exclusive Rights 575

PART THREE The Hunger Strike 665

PART FOUR The Holiday Season 739

PART FIVE Pressures 791

PART SEVEN The Fading of the Heart 993

Deep in my dungeon I welcome you here Deep in my dungeon I worship your fear Deep in my dungeon I dwell I do not know if I wish you well.

—old prison rhyme

Brenda was six when she fell out of the apple tree. She climbed to the top and the limb with the good apples broke off. Gary caught her as the branch came scraping down. They were scared. The apple trees were their grandmother’s best crop and it was forbidden to climb in the orchard. She helped him drag away the tree limb and they hoped no one would notice. That was Brenda’s earliest recollection of Gary.

She was six and he was seven and she thought he was swell. He might be rough with the other kids but never with her. When the family used to come out to Grandpa Brown’s farm on Decoration Day or Thanksgiving, Brenda would only play with the boys. Later, she remembered those parties as peaceful and warm. There were no raised voices, no cussing, just a good family get-together. She remembered liking Gary so well she would not bother to see who else was there — Hi, Grandma, can I have a cookie? — come on, Gary, let’s go.

Right outside the door was a lot of open space. Beyond the backyard were orchards and fields and then the mountains. A dirt road went past the house and up the slope of the valley into the canyon.

Gary was kind of quiet. There was one reason they got along. Brenda was always gabbing and he was a good listener. They had a lot of fun. Even at that age he was real polite. If you got into trouble, he’d come back and help you out.

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Then he moved away. Gary and his brother Frank Jr., who was a year older, and his mother, Bessie, went to join Frank Sr., in Seattle. Brenda didn’t see any more of him for a long time. Her next memory of Gary was not until she was thirteen. Then her mother, Ida, told her that Aunt Bessie had called from Portland, and was in a very blue mood. Gary had been put in Reform School. So Brenda wrote him a letter, and Gary sent an answer all the way back from Oregon, and said he felt bad putting his family through what he did.

On the other hand, he sure didn’t like it in Reform School. His dream when he came out, he wrote, was to be a mobster and push people around. He also said Gary Cooper was his favorite movie star.

Now Gary was the kind of boy who would not send a second letter until he received your reply. Years could go by but he wasn’t going to write if you hadn’t answered his last. Since Brenda, before long, was married — she was sixteen and thought she couldn’t live without a certain guy — her correspondence lapsed. She might mail a letter from time to time, but Gary didn’t really get back into Brenda’s life until a couple of years ago when Aunt Bessie called again. She was still upset about Gary. He had been sent from Oregon State Penitentiary to Marion, Illinois, and that, Bessie informed Ida, was the place they built to replace Alcatraz. She was not accustomed to thinking of her son as a dangerous criminal who could be kept only in a Maximum Security prison.

It made Brenda begin to think of Bessie. In the Brown family with its seven sisters and two brothers, Bessie must have been the one who was talked about the most. Bessie had green eyes and black hair and was one of the prettiest girls around. She had an artistic temperament and hated to work in the field because she didn’t want the sun to make her tough and tanned and leathery. Her skin was very white. She wanted to keep that look. Even if they were Mormons farming in the desert, she liked pretty clothes and finery, and would wear white dresses with wide Chinese sleeves and white gloves she’d made herself. She and a girl friend would get all dressed up and hitchhike to Salt Lake City. Now she was old and arthritic.

Brenda started writing to Gary once more. Before long, they were into quite a correspondence. Gary’s Intelligence was really coming

THE FIRST DAY
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through. He hadn’t reached high school before they put him in the Reformatory, so he must have done a lot of reading in prison to get this much education together. He certainly knew how to use big words. Brenda couldn’t pronounce a few of the longer ones, let alone be sure of their meaning.

Sometimes, Gary would delight her by adding little drawings in the margin; they were damn good. She spoke of trying to do some artwork herself, and mailed a sample of her stuff. He corrected her drawing in order to show the mistakes she was making. Good enough to tutor at long distance.

Once in a while Gary would remark that having been in prison so long he felt more like the victim than the man who did the deed. Of course, he did not deny having committed a crime or two. He was always letting Brenda know he was not Charley Good Guy.

Yet after they had been sending letters for a year or more, Brenda noticed a change. Gary no longer seemed to feel he would never get out of jail. His correspondence became more hopeful. Brenda said to her husband, Johnny, one day. Well, I really think Gary’s ready.

She had gotten into the habit of reading his letters to Johnny, and to her mother and father and sister. Sometimes after discussing those letters, her parents, Vem and Ida, would discuss what Brenda ought to answer, and they would feel full of concern for Gary. Her sister, Toni, often spoke of how much his drawings impressed her. There was so much sorrow in those pictures. Children with great big sad eyes.

Once Brenda asked: “How does it feel to live in your country club out there? Just what kind of world do you live in?” He had written back:

I don’t think there’s any way to adequately describe this sort of life to anyone that’s never experienced it. I mean, it would be totally alien to you and your way of thinking, Brenda. It’s like another planet.

— which words, in her living room, offered visions of the moon.

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THE EXECUTIONER’S SONG

Being here is like walking up to the edge and looking over 4 hours a day for more days then you care to recall.

He finished by writing:

Above all, it’s a matter of staying strong no matter what happens.

Sitting around the Christmas tree, they thought of Gary and wondered if he might be with them next year. Talked about his chances for parole. He had already asked Brenda to sponsor him, and she had replied, “If you screw up, rll be the first against you.”

Still, the family was more in favor than not. Toni, who had never written him a line, offered to he a co-sponsor. While some of Gary’s notes were terribly depressed, and the one where he asked if Brenda would sponsor him had no more good feeling than a business memo, there were a few that really got to you.

Dear Brenda,

Received your letter tonight and it made me feel nice. Your attitude helps restore my old soul A place to stay and a job guarantee me an awful lot, but the fact that somebody cares, means more to the parole board. I’ve always been more or less alone before.

Only after the Christmas party did it come over Brenda that she was going to sponsor a man whom she hadn’t seen in close to thirty years. It made her think of Toni’s remark that Gary had a different face in every photograph.

Now, Johnny began to get concerned about it. He had been all for Brenda writing to Gary, but when it came down to bringing him into their family, Johnny began to have a few apprehensions. It wasn’t that he was embarrassed to harbor a criminal, Johnny simply wasn’t that sort of person, he just felt like there’s going to he problems.

For one thing, Gary wasn’t coming into an average community. He would be entering a Mormon stronghold. Things were tough enough for a man just out of prison without having to deal with people who thought drinking coffee and tea was sinful.

THE FIRST DAY
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Nonsense, said Brenda. None of their friends were that observing. She and Johnny hardly qualified as a typical straitlaced Utah County couple.

Yes, said Johnny, but think of the atmosphere. All those superclean BYU kids getting ready to go out as missionaries. Walking on the street could make you feel you were at a church supper. There had, said Johnny, to he tension.

Brenda hadn’t been married to Johnny for eleven years without coming to know that her husband was the type for peace at any price. No waves in his life if he could help it. Brenda wouldn’t say she looked for trouble, but a few waves kept life interesting. So Brenda suggested that Gary might only stay weekends with them, but live with Vern and Ida. That satisfied John.

Well, he told her with a grin, if I don’t go along, you’re going to do it anyway. He was right. She could feel awfully sympathetic to anybody who was boxed in. “He’s paid his dues,” she told Johnny, “and I want to bring him home.”