Then the priest read from Gary’s favorite Psalm. From experi ence 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 dis eases.
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: x-iz, and again he gave only the first part. “Son, flay 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.
On Saturday evening, near midnight, Father Meersman set up Maximum kitchen as a chapel and said a Mass for Gary, using the portable metal serving tables as an altar. In order to be able to everything, Gary sat up on one of the fixed kitchen tables with’ feet on the bench. A guard who had once been an altar boy Mass.
Father Meersman laid out the portable altar stone, these circumstances, coming from his Mass kit, was a cloth,
This is My Body… this is My Blood,” said Father Meersman, .consecrating the bread and wine, and held up the host and the chal ice, and the guard who was serving as an altar boy rang the bell thrice so would Father Meersman describe it h rang the bell thrice.
“Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof. Speak only the word and my soul sha.ll be healed.”
Father Meersman took communion. After he had drunk the
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THE EXECUTIONER’S SONGp>
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
ve given hi a lot things to give you.p>
They will be in a black duffel bag, taped shut —
There will be my photo album, some jewelry, a lot oJ
Gilmore T-shirts, a few letters, mostly from foreign countries.
A Sorry radio.
I been tryin to get a sacred eye ring from the Aladdin Hou Jewelry Company in New York. If I can get it today, I’ll put it with the stuff.
Oh Baby Baby Baby I miss you!
I love you with all I am.
They play our son9 a lot. “Walking in the footsteps of mind” I don’t know if you get to listen to the radio. KSOP in Lake really likes us. They play “Valley of Tears” for us.
In about 3o hrs. I will be dead.
Thats what they call it —death. Its just a release —a
form.
I hope I’ve done it all right.
God Nicole. I feel such power in our love. I don’t think s’posed to know right now what this is about. We’re just do it right. It’s inside of us; the knowledge. But we can’t know it till later.
Angel its a quarter to 3 in the mornin. I’m gonna get some ee. 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 ff 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 whatit will do?” For she felt as ff 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.
Number One: Two: Three: Four: Five:
Hollywood.
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THE EXECUTIONER’S SONGp>
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 fil ing 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 pople 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 thought she was uppity.
On this recollection, she said goodbye to Saturday night greeted the dawn.
SUNDAY MORNING, SUNDAY AFTERNOON
It’s xo A.M. Sun Morn. I got up and showered and shaved —well first I did my exercise, o 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 Nicole
Vern Damico
Ron Stanger, lawyer
Bob Moody, lawyer
Lawrence Schiller, big Wheeler dealer from
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 day’s interview when all of a sudden, she couldn’t help it and made. sound. Schiller turned around. She was crying her head off, there on Sunday morning.
Vern was on the phone to Larry. Offers were coming in wax museums to buy Gary’s clothes. The sums were up to thousand dollars. While there was no question of selling, it had become a matter of safeguarding the last things Gary wore. they decided they had better protect his remains as well. While prison would deliver Gary’s body to the Salt Lake hospital where eyes and organs would be removed, Schiller decided to post his guard. He had truly lucked into Jerry Scott. Just the man to watch when they moved Gary from the hospital to the
GILMORE Fagan said, “There’s still a chance you’ll get your call from Nicole;” I told him, “You foul, sleazy cocksucker, fuck in the ass.” He said, “Oh, ah ah ah ah.’, He says, “My hands are I said, “Well, how does it feel to walk around with your hands Have you ever thought about feeling like a man, you piece don’t even know if I’ll come in to the visiting room tonight. will say, “Well, we really treated him great on his last night. him unlimited visits. We let him see his uncle and his (laugh)
Moody began his last list of questions.
MOODY If on your passage you meet a new soul coming to your place, what advice would you have for him?
GILMORE Nothing. I don’t expect someone to take my place. your replacement.., where’s the key to the locker.., where you keep the towels?
SUNDAY MORNING, SUNDAY AFTERNOON
889p>
MOODY I don’t know, wou/dn’t you have something to tell him about
the life that ah… awaits him?
GILMORE Shit That’s a serious question.
MOODY I think he wants you to be very serious about it.
GILMORE I’ve talked to people who know more than I do, and people who know less, and I listen, and I decided the only fucking thing I know about death, the only real feeling I have about it, it’ll be familiar; I don’t think it’ll be a harsh, unkind thing. Things that’re’harsh and unkind, are here on earth, and they’re temporary. They don’t last. This all passes. That is my summation of my ideas, and I might be all wet.
MOODY Do you know what Joe Hill’s last message to the Wobblies
was?
GILMORE Joe?
MOODy Joe Hill. He’s a man who was killed in Utah a number of years ago,
GILMORE His name was Joe Hfllstrom. What did he tell the Wobblies? MOODY “Don/t mourn, boys, organize.”
GILMORE Don’t warn?
MOODY “Don’t mourn, boys, organize.”
GILMORE Well, I got something like that I kinda like: “Never fear,
never breathe.” That’s a Muslim saying. I don’t know where they got it, but you can apply it to anything, it makes pretty good sense. “Don’t mourn, boys, organize.”
MOODy You know the old line in the war movies, “Any man who said he ain’t scared is either a liar or a fool”?
GILMORE What about it?
MOODy Doesn’t that apply at least a little to your situation? GILMORE I didn’t say I wasn’t scared, did I?
MOODy No. But your message to the world has the connotation of don’t fear.
GILMORE Well, why fear? It’s negative. You know you could damn near call it a sin if you let fear run your life.
MOODy You’re certainly determined to defeat fear. ,
GILMORE I don’t feel any fear right now. I don’t think I will tomorrow morning. I haven’t felt any yet.
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THE EXECUTIONER’S SONGp>
MOODY How are you able to overcome fear from coming into soul?
GILMORE I guess I’m lucky. It hasn’t come in. You know a brave man is somebody who feels fear and goes out and does he’s supposed to do in spite of it. You couldn’t really say i’m fucking brave because I ain’t fighting against fear and overcoming I don’t know about tomorrow morning … I don’t know if I’ll any different tomorrow morning than ] do right now, or than I felt the first of November when I waived the fucking appeal.
MOODY Well, you’re remarkably composed.
GILMORE Thank you, Bob.
MOODY I don’t know what to say, I just really …
GILMORE Look, man, I’m being kind of rude. You guys are a upset about all of this, aren’t ya?
MOODY It’s hard, Gary. I’m physically ill.
At this point, Bob Moody began to cry. A little later, when he control of himself, he and Gilmore and Stanger talked a bit Then, they said goodbye. They would return in the late visit through the night. As they went out, Gilmore said, the vest.” The what?” asked Bob. “The bulletproof vest,” said more. “Iql wear it in myself,” said Moody. “You guys take care,” more said.
Sunday morning, Vern went to Maximum Security and Gary on the telephone, looking through the glass. For once spoke about his mother’s sisters in Provo. Gary was curious whyi of his aunts, except for Ida, had been to see him. “What do’i think?” he asked directly.
“Oh, Gary,” Veto said, “I’m sure they wanted to, but I swer for them.” In Vern’s head, he was still hearing one of Ida’ i
ters say, “I just can’t make myself go up and talk to him.” Gary said, “Mom is too sick, or she would be here.”
There was such a long, grim silence that Gary began to Johnny Cash song. Rolled his eyes back and tried to let
When Gary saw Vern laughing, he said, “Well, I satisfy Veto roared. “I’ll sing you a little ditty,” he told him.
Gary groaned. “Not ‘Old Shep.’” Vein was famous for
SUNDAY MORNING, SUNDAY AFTERNOON
891p>
“Old Shep.” Every year when the Archery Club had their dinner,
Vern would sing it.
“Yes, ‘Old Shep,’” said Vern.
When I was a lad, and Old Shep was a pup,
Over hills and meadows we’d roam.
Just a boy and his dog, we were both full of fun
And we grew up together that way.
As the years went along, Old Shep, he grew old
And his eyesight was fast growing dim
Then one day the doctor looked up at me and said,
“I can’t do no more for him, Jim.”
With a hand that was trembling, I picked up my gun