The Executioner's Song (87 page)

                Vern said, "I'm a shoemaker. I don't know as I can do it. I'm not an attorney."

                Gary said, "With your business ability and my brains"—he gave a big smile as he said this—"we can do it."

                That was all they said about it. As Vern was getting ready to go, Gary said, "Know how to shake hands through the glass?" and put his open palm on the window. Vern touched the other side with his palm, and they wiggled fingers back and forth. A prison handshake.

Brenda was also there for that visit, and it was emotional for her.

                Gary was looking weak, she thought, like a lot of the fight was out.

                Brenda, however, decided to sail right in, so she said over the phone "Gary, you old shithead. Looks like you pulled through."

                "You haven't changed any," he said.

                Brenda asked, "Still mad at me?"

                "Well, I don't like what you did," he said. Brenda replied, "I don't give a damn. I did what I had to do. I suppose you did what you had to do." She paused for breath, and said, "I love you and I'm glad you made it." Then she added, "Are you going to do something stupid like this again?"

                "No," Gary said, "I don't think so. I have a hell of a headache."

                "You're cold assed. You really are. You wanted to stay awake long enough to find out if she was really dead, then you wouldn't have to worry she'd take another lover."

                Gary said, "I am jealous."

                "Don't you know, there's a real possibility she'll be damaged in her brain?"

                "Impossible. I don't even think of that," he said.

                "Come on, Gary, isn't that what you wanted? If she has brain damage, nobody else is going to want her."

                "You're cruel," said Gary.

                "And you're an asshole," said Brenda. At that point, she knew she'd gone too far.

                Gary said, "You have a vile and dirty mouth."

There was a guard standing by, and he was having a conniption.

                After Brenda gave the phone back to her father, the guard walked up and said, "I wouldn't dare call him any of the names you did. He's mean. He'll kill you soon as look at you. I'd be scared to death to talk to him like that."

                "God," Brenda said, "he can't hurt you. Look at him. Locked behind a door and in a weakened state. He couldn't hurt a pussycat."

                The guard said, "Well, I wouldn't bet on it."

Back at the window, Brenda couldn't stop herself. The guard might just as well have egged her on. "Hey, Gary," she said, "how come you didn't take enough to do the job?"

                "What makes you think I didn't?" said Gary.

                "If you had," said Brenda, "you'd have been dead."

                "What in the hell are you trying to do? You know I really meant to do it."

                Brenda said, "You know more about drugs than that. I think you knew just what you were doing."

                Gary started to tuck his lip in. Finally, he kind of snickered, and said, "Well, I might know one of my cousins would pick up on that."

                Yet, in the way he said it, she was confused. He was perfectly capable of letting her think she was right when she was wrong. Gary liked to toy with her head.

                It made Brenda mad. She said, "I think you're being a selfish lover. What about those two little kids?"

                "Oh," said Gary, "somebody would have taken care of them."

                They started to stare at each other, and it got to be quite a contest.

                Even across the hallway, ten feet wide, through two panes of glass, Brenda could feel the heat coming out of his eyes, and she thought to herself, I'm not going to let him outstare me this time, not when he's half dead and there's all this protection between us. But, it went on so long, she finally remembered his favorite saying and quoted it to him on the phone: "An honest man will look you in the eye, but the soul of a man will try to convince you of his lie." At that point, Gary began to laugh, and said, "God, Brenda, you sure are a mess."

                He gave her a wink before they said good-bye. On the way out, she put her hand on the glass, and said, "I love you," and he wiggled his hand from his side.

DESERET NEWS

Profile of a Wasted Life

Nov. 18—Through the study of psychodiagnostics, in which the writer has specialized, it is possible from a person's art efforts to draw some clues to the state of his personality . . . Sometimes such art will indicate brain damage, psychosis, or at least anxiety.

                In Gilmore's case, there is no such evidence. In picture after picture, we see remarkable coherent, organized, and disciplined work. In this writer's judgment, these are not the product of a crazy or psychotic mind . . . Gary Gilmore has an extremely keen mind.

SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

By Paul Rolly Tribune Staff Writer

Provo, Nov. 18— . . . Dean Christensen said members of the Provo 5th Ward, where Benny Bushnell was a home teacher, are "sick to their stomachs," about the continued publicity Gilmore is receiving, and "at a loss for an explanation."

                The bishop said Benny's wife, Debbie, still writes to him, asking for his advice.

                "Of course, we cling to our religious belief that we will meet again in an afterlife and I try to reassure her, but she's taking it hard and it's difficult at times," he said.

A police sergeant came out to Everson's house to interrogate Dennis. He was a suspect at the prison certain enough. Dennis went to Sam Smith's boss, the Head of the Board of Corrections, Ernie Wright, a big man wearing a white Texas cowboy hat, and said, "Look, Sam Smith is acting vindictive," and the Head of the Board of Corrections looked back and said, "Frankly, Mr. Boaz, we don't trust you." Stared at him like he had just squashed a fly. Then, he added, "I don't care what the Warden's doing. He can continue doing it."

Not only was Dennis reduced to talking to Gary through a telephone across a hallway, but for all he knew, the phone was tapped.

                And Gary was considerably less friendly. "Did you say on Rivera's show that you can't work for my execution anymore? I don't appreciate that." Dennis was feeling embarrassed over all that emotionality himself. "Well, I'm sorry," he said, "I still feel I can help you, you know."

                He was damned if he was going to say, Go ahead and fire me, Gary.

Now, Gary started to query Dennis about expenses. He had found out $500 had come in from the London Daily Express, and $500 from a Swedish interview, and wanted to know why Dennis had told him his half was $250, not $500. Dennis tried to explain. "You said you were reckless about money, and I should be your financial manager, so I held back $250 and only gave you $125 from the English interview. Then you asked me to give another $125 to Nicole. That took care of your half."

                Yes, but what about the other $500 from Sweden?

                "Gary," said Dennis, "everything went to expenses. There are a million things. I haven't cheated you." It wasn't good between Gary and himself.

Outside the prison, Dennis had never felt more like talking to the press. "I'm a character in this thing I'm writing," he said to them, "so I don't plan out everything I do. I'm being acted upon by the real author of these events. Whoever or whatever that is. In fact, I almost got fired today! Whew! It was close."

                "What do you think of the suicide now?"

                "Nonviolent," Dennis said. "Really mellow. Like Romeo and Juliet, they took a poison." Dennis thought the tragic aspects of this relationship, if properly presented, could raise Gary and Nicole into a kind of democratic Romeo and Juliet. Then every card he played would have more value. He could get them connubial rights yet.

                "Don't you think," said Barry Farrell, "that if Gilmore isn't executed, he'll slip right back in with four hundred and twenty-four other condemned men and women? A lot of them may have more tragic stories than Gilmore."

                "Gary is the only one," said Boaz, "who has the courage to face the consequences of his act."

                "How," asked another reporter, "is Susskind going to do the film?"

                "Susskind," said Dennis, "has chosen a sensitive, dignified screenwriter, Stanley Greenberg, to write it. Ask them."

                "Is Schiller still in the bidding?" Farrell wanted to know.

                "Schiller," said Boaz, "went around me and sent a telegram.

                Now Gary feels I'm not telling him about all the offers. I don't have to wonder where some bad vibrations are coming from."

                "Dennis," said another reporter, "you were fighting for Gary's right to be executed, and now you are trying to save his life. Square that realistically, will you?"

                "The Declaration of Independence guarantees the right to life, but only if you haven't been brutalized by the system. Gary was, Gary wants to die. But only because he can't have Nicole. Gary would love it," said Boaz, "if he could be with her. Get him into a place where they could be together, right?"

                "Name one American prison with connubial rights."

                "Since their story has become international," said Dennis, "transfer them to Mexico. The real obstacle is to convince Gary to live. He's depressed right now. But if I can keep going on Geraldo Rivera and Tom Snyder and get people thinking in a new way, they might start demanding that Gary live. Legislators will have to listen."

                "Will Gilmore listen?"

                "If he knows that he's going to be with Nicole eventually, he'll do it. We're winning people's hearts with this case. When you get into their emotions, you've got them. Definitely, definitely. It's heavy."

                "Are you saying that Gary will be living with Nicole in Minimum Security?"

                "Or Medium Security," said Dennis. "A year at the outside. With the profits from the story, he'll be able to pay his own way, too. That will please the taxpayers. You see, it's not as preposterous as you think. Look at today's news. Patty Hearst's father has bought her a private prison on Nob Hill. Give Gary a little space, like that."

                "You're tooting, Dennis," said Barry Farrell.

                "You watch."

                "I'll watch," said Farrell.

                "What do you really think of Schiller?" Farrell now asked. It was a bad question for Dennis to answer—he had nothing to gain by the reply. He didn't like, however, to disappoint Barry Farrell. Boaz was impressed with him. Farrell was very Scotch in appearance for a man with an Irish name. Tall, good looking. Tall enough so Dennis could talk to him comfortably. Wore tweeds. Nearest thing to a British gentleman among the press corps. Well-trimmed pepper and salt beard, and those old Life credentials. Dennis vaguely remembered reading Barry Farrell's column in Life on alternate weeks with Joan Didion.

                Life must have been trying to bring some literary class to the people.

                He decided to use Farrell as a superpipeline. So he said, "Schiller is a scavenger, a snake."

Susskind had just gotten a phone call from Stanley Greenberg telling him that he had decided to leave Salt Lake City.

                "It's getting to be a terrible mess," said Stanley.

                Then Boaz called. "Listen," he said to David Susskind, "I'm being wooed by a lot of people, and I think I was too easy with you. Monetarily, I can do much better with somebody else. Do you wish to revise your bid?" Susskind said, "No, I don't, but who are you dealing with?" Boaz said, "A guy named Larry Schiller." "Well," said Susskind, "I know Mr. Schiller as an entrepreneur who put together a project that became a book about Marilyn Monroe, that's the only way I know him. I don't know him as a producer of films and television, but if he looks better than me, do it with him. I'm not raising the price." The story was getting to be, in Susskind's view, a very sensational, malodorous, exploitative mess.

                Nonetheless, he called Schiller. Susskind was not in love with the idea of working with the man, but he called anyway and said, "You're throwing money and figures around, and that poor guy, Boaz, is dazzled. I don't understand it. Are you now in the film business?"

                "Yes," said Schiller, "I am."

                "Look," said Susskind, "you're not a producer. Somebody, some day, is going to have to make this film. That's not your cup of tea."