The Executioner's Song (63 page)

“How could you have done this to my son?” asked Bessie.

He looked unhappy but said Prolixin was the best drug they had found for violent and psychotic people.

Grace wanted to say, “Bullshit.” Didn’t.

The prison took him off Prolixin, and the symptoms went away, but he was a different man to Grace. There was something in him now she did not trust, His talk turned shabby. His view was nasty. It was as if they were on different islands.

One year, there were riots in Oregon State, and Gary took part in them, and was interviewed on TV. A girl saw the show, started corre-spending, and liked him enough to visit. According to Gary she was 26, her name was Becky and she was very fat. Nonetheless, she wrote beautiful letters. He told Bessie he was going to marry her and adopt her little boy.

Becky, however, had an ulcer, and went into surgery, and came home from the operation, and died.

Gaylen Gilmore came into Grace’s life. Gaylen, whom Bessie had talked about for two years. Gaylen who, of all the boys, wanted most to be a writer. He wrote beautiful poetry, Bessie said. Also wrote checks. When he was 16, he began to drink. Then he would go down to the bank and write a check with her name on it. His downfall, said Bessie, was that he was handsome. In Bessie’s mind, she had never seen a more handsome boy. She laughed even more with Gaylen than with Gary.

The prison would not let Gary go to the funeral. He was not a rel ative. Bessie sent flowers in his name.

Not too long after this, Gary and four other convicts in Isolation slashed their wrists. The next time Grace saw him, he was on Prolixin. Looked as if he had left his body, and come back in the hulk of a stranger. His jaw dropped, his mouth hung open, his eyes were blank as glass. He walked as slowly as a man with shackles on his legs.

The worst thing Gaylen ever did was cash a check at Speed’s for $Ioo. When it bounced, she said to Speed, “I’ll turn over my next check,” and he said, “No, it’s not your fauk.” Bessie said, “I have to.” When she told Gaylen about the conversation, he got in his car and was gone for five years.

Called from Chicago and said, “Mother, this is the first time I’ve been away from you at Thanksgiving and I wish I was there.” Bess said, “If I send the money, will you come?” Said he would, but he didn’t.

Bessie took one look and burst into tears. The visiting room stopped. There wasn’t a sound. Prisoners kept calling out, “Hang in there, buddy.”

Years later, he came back with Janet, his wife, and a bleeding stomach. Bess didn’t know that it was not an ulcer, He had been

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stabbed with an ice pick. Bess was going to take him to Gary for a visit — he hadn’t seen Gary for years — but Gaylen said, “I’m hung over.” Bessie said, “What did you do to get so drunk last night?” He said it was the anniversary of Harry Houdini’s death, and he always celebrated that.

Then one night, close after midnight, Janet called Grace to say that Gaylen was very ill, and had no money for a cab. Could she drive them over to Mflwaukie Hospital? Grace did, but Gaylen could not get admitted. He had neither a welfare card nor a doctor.

On the hospital’s suggestion, they went on to Oregon City. There, Gaylen was told the same thing again. It was now two in the morning. The next hospital said no. Grace said she would sign for his treatment, whatever it cost, but they said he needed a doctor to admit him. Grace thought: This boy is going to die in the back seat of my car.

At the Medical School, they were told to wait, and my God, they sat there until a quarter after five. Gaylen, in considerable pain, finally stood up and told the women he would wait no longer. Grace said goodbye at the motel. Grace said, Call me if I can help you, and went home thinking they could lay her out next to a basket case and little to choose.

A day later, Grace got a letter from Gary. There was $5o enclosed as partial payment for $Ioo she had advanced for a new set of teeth, but the rest of the letter was terrifying. His hatred for the prison seemed uncontrollable. He spoke of violence with a gusto she could not comprehend. It was altogether outside every conversation or understanding they had ever had of each other.

At this point, Grace said to herself, “I only have so much energy. I have children and grandchildren. I can’t carry this. I am a devout coward.”

She called Bessie and said, With all the love in the world, and I will not stop the way I feel for you, I just have to pull out.

Bessie understood. There was no bad-mouthing. Grace just very gently pulled out, and that was it. She had not seen any of them since.

Later, she heard that Gaylen had died, and Bessie took on the costs of two guards’ bringing Gary to the funeral. The officers were decent and dressed in regular clothes and stood way back. Nobody knew Gary was in custody. Afterward, Bessie went over personally and paid the guards while she was thanking them.

had to fight on; belief and courage. They were out of supplies —out of food and ammunition and the things it takes to fight a war. But they almost won. They came within a hair of winning that most bloody of wars.

WILD WIND BLOWING

“When Honest Abe heard the news about your fall,

The folks That he’d threw a great victory ball,

But he asked the band to play Dixie, for you

Johnny Reb — and for all that you believed —

You fought all the way Johnny Reb, Johnny Reb,

You fought all the way.”

Oh well, its one of the things in history that appeal to me, like also the Alamo.

October 7th

Angel Nicole.

I’m at the joint now. Just got .here. I seem to be in the hole. A single cell with a fucked up mattress, no pillow and somebody else’s dirty paper plates on the floor …. They gave me a pair of white coveralls to wear and I hate to wear coveralls. Too tite in the crotch.

What is to become of us Nicole? I know you wonder. And the answer is simply: By love.., we can become more than the situation.

Nicole my inclination is to let them execute me. Ill Were to drop the appeals they would be forced to either commute the sentence or carry it out. I don’t think they would commute it.

October 8th This morning they brought me a pillow. Wow! I’m shittin in tall cotton now!

I was given a brief rundown on the place by a lieutenant and a caseworker. I asked them about visits and they said that you would be able to see me. Even though we are not legally married you will be able to visit me. One hour a week on Friday morning between 9 and ii o’clock. Listed you on the visiting form as NICOLE GILMORE (BARRETT) and under “Relationship” I put common law wife—fiancee. I would like you to use my name but of course your identification says Barrett — and they will probably ask you for I.D.

October 9th

I don’t know if I’ve told you of my feelings of the Civil War before-I probably have. You won’t be surprised anyway to know

that all of my sympathies lie with the South. And its as strong a pull as that I feel for the Emerald Isle.

Right or Wrong, they Believed-toward the end that’s all they

The decision is not really mine alone to make. I cannot ask you to commit suicide. I That at one time that I could but I can’t. Ill am executed and you do commit suicide well to be simply honest I guess that is what I would want.

But Im not going to put it on you by asking you to do that.

October 11 I wrote to my mother Friday after she called me here. I hae never before spoken to my mother in the way that I talked to her two days ago. Although the feeling between my morn and I runs deep it has always been expressed in surface tones. Anyhow, I told my mon of the love you and I have for each other. I told her that I can’t and don’t want to explain just what happened that resulted in this. I did tell her that thru a lifetime of lonely frustration I have allowed weak bad habits to develop that have left me somewhat evil. That I don’t like being evil and that I desire to not be evil anymore.

Oh, Nicole, there comes a time where a person must have the courage of their convictions. You know I’ve spent about i8 years of

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my 35 locked up. I’ve hated every moment of it but I’ve never cried about it. I never will. But I am tired of it, Nicole. I hate the routine, I hate the noise, I hate the guards, I hate the hopelessness it makes me feel, that anything and everything I do is just to pass the time. Prison maybe affects me more than most people. It drains me. Everytime I’ve been locked up I guess I’ve felt so hopeless about it that I’ve allowed myself to sink so fully into it that, well, its resulted in me spending more time in jail than I’ve probably had to. If that makes sense.

You are a very strong girl, a very strong soul. You know that, and you know that I know it. You had to get that strength somewhere, you’re not simply born with it. I mean you can bring it from an earlier life, but you had to originally earn it by overcoming something hard. We are only stronger than the things we overcome.

October i uth

My bills are all due and the babies need shoes

And I’m busted.

Cotton is down to a quarter of a pound

And I’m busted

Got a cow that went dry and a hen that won’t lay A big stack of bills that get bigger each day The county will haul my belongings away

I’m busted.

I went to my brother to ask for a loan

I was busted.

How I hate to beg like a dog for a bone

but I’m busted.

My brother said “There ain’t a thing I can do

My wife and nineteen kids are all down with the flu,

And I was just thinkin of callin on you —

I’m busted.”

The bravest people are those who’ve overcome the greatest amounts of fear.

I just hate fear. I think that fear is sort of a sin in a way ….

I may shortly, next month, be faced with more fear than I’ve ever known before… I can’t say what I will feel when and if that time comes… I sort of feel that all my life has been building to this.

WILD WIND BLOWING
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October I 5th

If you come to see me and they won’t let you in, go to the Warden, his name is Sam Smith. Don’t argue or get angry with him —people in his position don’t have to listen to arguments, they are a power unto themselves, just explain that we are engaged to be married and that the visits, and our letters, mean an awful lot to both of us.

It’s a dull motherfucker bach here. I ain’t got conversation. All these two Mexicans talk about is pimpin bitches and how sharp they are. Little greaseball turds. I’ve heard all this conversation for years—it never varies from penitentiary to penitentiary. Pure bullshit — essence of bullshit.

I’m not saying its right to break the law. I’m not talhin about that —but,these prisons as they exist are wrong.

October 7th I ain’t had a nite’s sleep since I been here. They keep the lites on outside the bars 24 hrs. a day. ] hang my towel up at nite to shut out some of the lite and they wake me up when they count and threaten to take my fuckin mattress ill don’t take the towel down. It’s insane.

Kathryne was in a state about Nicole. Things were bad enough when Gary was at the County Jail, but then Nicole was just going from Springville to Provo. Now, it was different. Hitchhiking to the prison took Nicole through Pleasant Grove, and she would often leave the kids with Kathryne and stop off on her way back.

Kathryne tried to talk about Gary, but it wasn’t very successful. “How’s he seem?” she would ask, and Nicole would answer, “How? How could he seem?” Then, Kathryne found out through Kathy that Gary was saying he wanted to die. Nicole was very quiet about this. Kathryne really got scared when Nicole said that her kids would be better off without her.

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They got into a big fight over that. Kathryne said a lot of mean things she didn’t even feel. To begin with, she was afraid of hitchhiking, so she got on Nicole’s ass over that. Then, Gary. “He’s no good,” Kathryne would say. “He’s nothing but a damned killer and he deserves the death penalty. No,” she would correct herself, “that’s too good for him.”

“You don’t understand him,” Nicole would say. “No,” Kathryne said, “I don’t, but why don’t you try to understand those two poor women who have to raise those kids who don’t have a father now, while you am running up every cockeyed day to see that damned killer.”

Kathryne wasn’t really feeling as angry at Gary as she pretended. Secretly, she might even feel bad for him, but she had to find a way to stop Nicole from hitching to the prison. All Kathryne could see for the future was that when they executed Gary, Nicole would go to pieces.

It was one big argument. At the end, Nicole was yelling. That, at least, was better than silence. “Fine, isn’t it,” Kathryne said. “Go and blow a man’s head off. ….. I don’t cam,” said Nicole, “I don’t want to hear a goddamned thing you got to say.”

“Oh, Nicole, why, why,” asked Kathryne. “Why in the hell are you going them?”

“Because he has nobody else. I’ll go every single day until they execute him. In fact,” said Nicole, “I’ll go and watch it.”

“How could you?” shrieked Kathryne.

Then it wore itself down to simpler stuff. “If you need a ride,” said Kathryne, “for Christ’s sake, if you need to get up there, call one of us.” “Well, you work,” said Nicole, “and I don’t want to bother you.” “Dammit,” said Kathryne, “it don’t make any difference if I’m working. I don’t want you hitchhiking.” “Well,” said Nicole, “I can’t waste the time to drop off here.”

Even Mr. Overman, for whom Kathryne was working, told Nicole, “Listen, girl, if you need a ride, call us at work. It don’t matter if you want to go at eight o’clock in the morning. Your mother can take off to go with you. I don’t like hitchhiking.” Nicole just laughed. She said, “Oh, you all worry too much.”