The Executioner's Song (52 page)

Of course, Gary did fit into a psychiatric category. There was a medical term for moral insanity, criminality, uncontrolled animao lity — call it what you will. Psychiatrists called it “psychopathic personality,” or, same thing, “sociopathic personality.” It meant you were antisocial. In terms of accountability before the law, it was equal to sanity. The law saw a great difference between the psychotic and the psychopathic personality.

you were under such tension you thought it was a fire siren, and saw imaginary flames and leaped out of a high window into eternity, well, it hardly mattered then whether your normal label had been psychopathic, manic, melancholic, or obsessive-compulsive, you could be sure to be called psychotic as you went through the window. The psychopath had fantasies. The psychotic had hallucinations.

Maybe they could attack the problem here. The line between fantasies and hallucinations would certainly not be precise. The trouble, however, remained that in the observations made of Gary over these weeks, there just hadn’t been any behavior that was excessively paranoid. They had to recognize, Woods warned, that the law wanted to keep psychopathy and psychosis apart. If the psychopath were ever accepted as legally insane, then crime, judgment, and punishment would be replaced by antisocial act, therapy, and convalescence.

In psychosis, Woods said, there was little connection between the event and the personal reaction. If Gary, after he shot his thumb, had said, “They are poisoning hot dogs in Chicago,” you could assume he was psychotic. Instead, Gary had said, “You stupid son of a bitch,” just like anyone else.

A certifiable psychosis usually depended on thought disorder. Gilmore did not exhibit that. Of course, it wasn’t always a simple question. If a man came up to you and said, “My mother just died,” and he giggled, you would think psychosis was present. If the man, however, was a hardened criminal, his pride might be that there was no feeling he would not laugh at. So his attitude would be sociopathic, not psychotic. Of course, that example was small use to the lawyers. They needed something that might appear psychopathic but would prove psychotic.

Woods had pondered this question before. A psychopath could certainly become a psychotic. The average psychopath lived, after all, in a dangerous world. A reasonable amount of paranoia was even necessary. You had to be sensitive to trouble in the environment. Under stress, however, what had been a serviceable paranoia could become magnified. If you were asleep, and the alarm went off, and

GEELMORE AND GEEBS

Gary had propped up a photograph of Nicole, and made a sketch with a ballpoint pen, then took an old refill and broke it in half. Using a toothpick, he dug out a little of the coagulated ink. With a watercolor brush and a few drops of water, he shaded the drawing. Gibbs always enjoyed watching him.

Sept. 2o Wish I had taken more pictures of you naked. No kiddin — Nicole I think you should never have to wear clothes. There is something about nakedness and you that just go together. I don’t mean anything crude, baby, you know that-although you are tremendously sexy. You are just so natural naked —innocent, playful, happy, pretty, like a sprite in the forest. Just something that belongs.

I was surprised to get this flick back — l bet those cops in Orem looked this picture over pretty good, huh? Bastards pisses me off to think that some fuckin pig — or anybody — saw such a personal picture of my love.

Sept. 2i . I would really like you to see a picture of that sculpture “Ecstasy of St. Therese.” I believe the sculptor is Bernini. I’ve never seen any great works of art in person but I guess I’m familiar with most European Art through books I’ve studied. I once saw a picture of Christ by a Russian artist that really haunted me for a long time. Christ didn’t look anything like the popular beaming Western Christian version of the kindly shepherd we’re used to. He looked like a man, with a gaunt, lean, sort of haunted face with deep set large dark eyes. You could tell he was pretty tall, angular, rangy, a man alone and I guess that was the most striking thing about the picture. No halo, no radiant beam from heaven above. Just this extraordinary man—this ordinary human being who made himself extraordinary and tried to tell us all that it was nothing more than any of us could do. Loneliness and a hint of doubt seemed to fill the picture. I would like to have known the man in that picture.

In the Salt Lake pokey, just before Gibbs had been transferred to Provo, a jailer told him about some student who’d been in law school with Jensen. The dude had actually tried to get into jail to kill Gary. He had planned to tell the guards he was a working lawyer, but would smuggle in a knife.

Gilmore said he could sympathize. What was a dead man worth, if he didn’t have friends to avenge him? Then he looked at Gibbs and said, “You know, this is the first time I’ve ever had any feelings for either of those two guys I killed.”

Sept. 22

I’m the only one in my family who feels the pull of the Emerald Isle. It’s a land of magic.

I got something I want to give you and I hope you won’t think its silly. It’s something I do and it’s kind of magic. It’s a force, a pull, that I’ve tapped and it works. Just a little sort of chant:

GOOD THINGS COME

TO ME NOW.

Lately I have revised it to: GOOD THINGS COME TO US NOW. Just a personal prayer spoken softly, quietly in my mind, aloud if I’m alone. I hope this don’t seem silly to you. I know the power of things like this, the rhythm, the repetition of a soft harmonic chant sets magic in the air, pulls, draws, gives the believer power to attract and power to receive.

,2

In their tank, labeled by Gilmore The Stinking Dungeon, they had a cracked porcelain toilet, now nicotine yellow in color. You flushed it

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by pressing a button on the wall. But in order to get enough leverage, you had to grab on to the side of the shower, and lean for two full minutes on the button. Only that way could you build sufficient pressure.

Then, once the waters started, you had to hold the toilet plunger to the base of the bowl until the level came up to the rim, That was the only way to have enough liquid to force a load down. All the while, a leak would be oozing around the seal at the bottom. The Open-Pit Sulfur Mine, they called it.

One afternoon, needing fuel for coffee water, they tore down the cardboard sign that gave instructions on how to flush the pot, and Gary replaced it with words of his own, written with a Magic Marker on the wall.

Now, the trustee who did the haircutting was afraid to be in the cell with Gary. So Gary asked Gibbs to do the job. Gibbs told him, “Never in my life,” but Gary said he was a master barber, and would give the instructions step by step.

Luis brought them a big pair of scissors. The propped up a sheet of polished aluminum to make a mirror, and Gary would run his hand through his hair and stop with the amount he wanted cut off above his closed fingers. It took about an hour. Gibbs was real cautious. When they were done, however, Gary asked Luis if they could use the electric clippers. “No,” said the guard, “no outlet.” He wasn’t about to go to the trouble of running an extension cord. Gary threw the scissors as hard as he could at the tray slot where Luis was standing. It hit the steel door and shattered into pieces. Luis said, “You zon of a beech, Geelmore.” Gary started toward the bars. “What did you say?” he asked, The Mexican took off for the front office.

Important Notice I II

To Flush this Chitter

You keep Butt on Bowl

Press Button Firmly with Tongue

Good Luck Motherfucker

Then he fell in love with the Magic Marker. “After I’m gone, they’ll really think a nut was in here,” he said, and on all the walls,

he wrote, “WALL,” wrote “CEILING” on the ceiling, “TABLE” on the

table, “BENCH” on the bench, “CHOWER” in the shower. Then he numbered each bunk “BUNK ONE,” “BUNg TWO.” Finally he printed

on Gibbs’s face and his own: “FOREHEAD,” “NOSE,” “CHEEK,” “CHIN.”

When the jailer arrived to serve the evening meal, he asked “Vy you do thees?” He was a wetback named Luis. Thickest accent, “Vy

you do thees? Oh,” said Gilmore, “they told me to get ready for

Court.”

They looked forward to getting the wetback. One time Gary asked to phone his lawyer, and since Luis never wanted to stir ass for a prisoner, he said, “Geelmore, ees thees important?”

“Yeah,” said Gary, “it’s a matter of life and death.” They howled. Old Luis just stomped away.

About an hour later, he came back with a deputy and a plastic Zip-Lok bag. Luis.handed it through the window and told Gary, “Put broke pieces een sack.” Gary did it. He had cooled down quite a bit. “I’ve probably blown Nicole’s visits,” he said, “that’s all that really has any meaning to me.” Gibbs said, “Wait until six when Big Jake comes on.” “They can put me in the hole,” Gary said, “just so long as they don’t stop me from seeing Nicole.”

When Big Jake came over, he was laughing. “You scared Luis so bad with them scissors,” he said, “that he shit tacos clear out to the front desk.”

Big Jake and Gary got along. He and Alex Hunt were the only jailers Gary had respect for. Because they had no fear. Shortly after Gary came to the prison, a couple of big dudes in the main tank tried to jump Jake and pull an escape. Jake beat them halfway to death. One good-looking, wellbuilt Swede from Montana. He was confident, all right. There was an order put out by Captain Cahoon that when Nicole came to visit Gary, a call was to be put in for a patrol car. That way a couple of extra cops would be around the jail. Every guard did this but Jake and Alex. Neither of them needed extra help.

Now Gary explained in a real sincere tone of voice wh’at had happened. He told Big Jake he was in the wrong for losing his temper.

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Went on to say he would accept his punishment, but hoped they wouldn’t take away his visiting privileges. Big Jake said it was up to Captain Cahoon, but he would talk to him personally. Maybe replac ing the broken scissors would be sufficient. Gibbs spoke up. “If that’s what it takes to mend things,” he said, “use some money from my ac count.”

“Gibbs,” asked Gilmore, “have you ever heard of Ralph Waldo

Emerson?”

“No.”

“He was a writer, and he made a statement you and me live by. Emerson said, ‘Life is not so short that there is not always time for

courtesy.’ “

They put in a big fellow with them. He was an ex-paratrooper about six-three, 2o pounds, named Bart Powers. He had walloped a kid in the main tank that morning.

When Powers entered the cell, his first words were “Which one of you guys is Gilmore?” It popped out so loud and so tough that Gibbs thought Powers had come to sell a Wolf ticket. He got off his bunk immediately, and went over to the toilet in order to get behind him.

Gary’s eyes lifted from the letter he was writing, and he said real cool, “I’m Gilmore. Why do you want to know?”

It could have been hypnosis. Gary must have given him a dose of psychic powers. Gibbs could see Bart Powers lose his peace of mind. In a meek tone, Bart said, “The guys in the main tank said to tell you ‘Hi.’ ” It was all Gibbs could do to keep from snickering. Powers said “Hi” like a kid in school.

The new arrival stayed good. Kept to himself, read a book, made no trouble. Gibbs could see Gary getting agitated, however. There had been a deal talked about with Big Jake to bring Nicole in for a night. Jake had seen a saddle he wanted to buy. It would probably cost $ioo, but Gibbs thought he might be able to get the sum to—

GEELMORE AND GEEBS
39Ip>

gether. The deal was still very much in the unmade stage, but they had been thinking on it. Now, the presence of Powers would kill it.

Luis came by, and said through the bars, “Pow-ass, vy you heet a choovenile? He vuz justa keed, Pow-ass.” Then he left.

Gilmore and Gibbs cracked up. They started to look at Powers and then they would laugh. “He vuz justa keed, Pow-ass,” they would say, “justa keed.” Then they would laugh again. Bart Powers looked like he hated it. Only he wasn’t about to speak up, Gibbs noticed.

Powers bad no cigarettes, so Gibbs flipped him a pack. “You don’t owe me nothing,” said Gibbs. “You could never pay me back, therefore I’m giving it to you.”

“You’ve met a generous man,” said Gilmore, looking Powers over,

and added, “That’s a nice-looking shirt you’re wearing.” “Thanks,” said Powers.

“I’d like to buy it,” said Gary.

“It’s the only shirt I got.”

“Well, man,” said Gary, “I’m going to trial soon, you see, and man, I want to appear in Court in proper attire, you know.”

“I couldn’t sell this shirt, why, it’s a gift from my girl friend.”

“I’ll give you mucho cigarettes for it,” said Gary. There was a nod

from Gibbs. It would be Gibbs’s carton.

“The shirt’s all I got,” said Powers.

“Give back the pack I just threw you,” said Gibbs. Powers did. Quickly.

“He vuz justa keed,” said Gilmore.

They roared in Powers’s face.

That evening, Gary said, “Nothing personal, but this cell is too crowded for three. I think it’s in your best interest, Powers, to tell the man you can’t get along in here.” Gary looked as serious as a heart at tack. “Tell him if he don’t move you out tonight, I’ll kill you.”

Powers started yelling for Big Jake. “Nothing personal,” Gary whispered.

“Oh, you want out?” said Big Jake. “Ready to go to Isolation? What’s the matter, Powers? Can’t smack these two around, huh?

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