The Executioner's Song (134 page)

Of course, Jerry was always thinking about getting shot himself. It could happen any time on duty. He had to keep wondering what it would be like. Now, looking at the heart, he repeated, “He didn’t feel anything, did he?” The doctor said, “No, nothing.” Jerry said, “Well, did he move around after he was shot?” The doctor said, “Yes, about two minutes.” “Was that just nerves?” Jerry asked. The fellow said, “Yes,” and added, “He was dead, but we had to officially wait until he quit moving. That was about two minutes later.”

After this, it got really gruesome. Jerry had to admit it. They started removing different parts of Gilmore’s body. Took his plumbing out, stomach, entrails and everything, then cut little pieces out of each organ. One guy was up at the head just working away. Next thing you knew, he had Gilmore’s tongue in his hand. “Why take that?” asked Jerry Scott. He didn’t know whether his questions both ered the doctors or not, but since he had to witness, he thought he might as well find out what was going on. The dissectionist an swered, “We’re going to take a sample of it.” Put the tongue down on the slab, cut it in half and sliced out a piece. Put it in a bottle of solu tion.

Jerry Scott had seen a lot of bodies, and gone to a lot of plane wrecks, and he knew what a person dismembered could look like, but

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just sitting there, watching them cut away, got to him. These fellows were real!y good at it, and kept talking back and forth, but they couldn’t have been less excited if they were in a meat stall doing a job on a quarter of beef Once in a while they’d call across to some other medics working on that woman who had drowned. She was so fat, that when they cut her open, her stomach hung over her thigh. Kept working like it was nothing.

Now, the fellow who was at the head of Jerry’s table made an in cision from behind Gary’s left ear all the way up across the top of his head and then down below to the other ear, after which he grabbed the scalp on both sides of the cut, and pulled it right open, just pulled the whole face down below his chin until it was inside out like the back of a rubber mask. Then he took a saw and cut around the skull. Picked up something like a putty knife, and pried the bone open, popped the top of the head off. Then, he stuck his land inside the cavity and pulled the brain out, weighed it. Pound and a half, it looked like to Jerry Scott. Then they removed the pituitary, put it aside, and sliced the brain like meat loaf. “Why are you doing that?” asked Jerry Scott. “Well,” said one of the doctors, “we’re looking for tumors.” They started explaining to him about the different areas of the brain, and how they were looking to see if there were any prob lems in Gary Gilmore’s motor system. Everything however, looked to be just fine. ‘

Then they took pictures of his tattoos. “Morn” had been written on his left shoulder, and “Nicole” on his left forearm. They took his

fingerprints, and then they took all the organs they did not need for dissection and put them back into the body and head cavities, and drew his face up, pulled it right back taut over the bones and mus cles, like putting on the mask again, fit the sawed-off bone-cap back on the skull, and sewed the scalp, and body cavity. When they were all finished, it looked like Gary Gilmore again.

During all of this, Jerry Scott noticed that Gilmore only had two teeth on his bottom gums and none on the top. Then they put his false teeth back. Looking at him now, reconstituted, Jerry Scott was amazed to see he had quite a layer of body fat for a fellow as skinny as he was. Still, he looked in pretty good shape, practically the build of an athlete, but for that belly fat.

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THE EXECUTIONER’S SONG

Jerry looked at his watch then. It was one-thirty in the afternoon. He had been there four hours. Then the fellow from Walker Mortu ary came over, and they put Gilmore on a rollaway-type bed with sheets covering him and a nice blanket over the top, and scooted him out to the street and loaded him in a hearse where they took him over to the Shriner Crematorium in Salt Lake. Maybe because of the four hours it took, there was no crowd waiting outside the hospital, and al though they had two other police to meet them when they arrived, no crowd was at the crematorium either.

Since the coffin would be incinerated with the body, they had only a welfare-type casket waiting. It was made of plywood, although covered in maroon velvet, and it had silver rails on the side, and nice white satin on the inside, plus a real nice satin pillow. It was better than just a plain wood box, although nowhere near one of the fancy metal jobs.

Among Jerry Scott’s orders this day was to make sure the right guy was being burned. So, just before they put the casket into the furnace, he lifted the sheet to verify Gary’s face. Then they lifted the big oven door they had slammed down earlier to protect against the four-foot flame that shot out during the preheating, and inserted the box and body. Once it was in the kiln, and burning for a few minutes, they opened the door another time for Jerry, and the guy who ran the place took a long poker and knocked off the head of the casket. Then they stared through a furnace hole about fourteen inches by fourteen through which Jerry Scott could see Gary’s head. Already the scalp was burning and the skin was falling off to the side.

Scott could see Gary’s face going, and the top flesh blacken and disappear. Then the muscle began to bum, and Gilmore’s arms which had been folded on his chest came up from the tightening, and lifted until the fingers of both hands were pointing at the sky. That was the very last recognition Jerry Scott had of him. He kept this picture in his head all the while the body was burning, and that was plenty of time, for he had gone to the furnace at two-thirty, and the work wasn’t done until five when there was nothing left but a bit of ash and the char of the bones.

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A cohple of waitresses, friends of Toni Gurney, who worked at The Stirrup, came over to the place before the evening shift to sit at the bar. It was a large, dark cocktail lounge with a dance floor and, of course, being Utah, you had to buy a membership in the club to get your drink, but that was not too difficult. The Stirrup was lively in the evenings, and one of the few nice places between Provo and Salt Lake where you could drink and dance. Now, however, being after noon, it was quiet, and only a couple of people were there in the half dark.

One of these friends, named Wiila Brant, asked Alice Anders, the hostess, who the three guys were sitting in the lounge, for they were certainly new. Alice replied they were some of Gary’s executioners. “How do you know?” asked Willa. The hostess replied, “Well, I signed them in. They’re members of the Pronghorn Club in Salt Lake, and we honor that membership.” Willa went to get a pack of cigarettes, and made a point of passing their table. One of the men said, “Why don’t you sit down and talk to us?”

They were sitting there drinking and playing liar’s poker with dollar bills. After Willa took a seat they played only a little while before one of the men said, “I bet you think we are bloodthirsty bas tards, don’t you?”

“Well,” said Willa, “it had to be done. That was what Gary wanted.” She left it at that. Didn’t say she knew Toni Gurney and the rest of the family. Then the executioner said, “Want to see something sadistic?” He showed her a strap of webbing, and the slug of a bullet, and he said, “This is one of the bullets that killed Gary, and this is one of the nylon straps that was holding his arm.” Asked if she wanted to touch them, Willa said, “No,” but couldn’t help herself. She did it with a slight smirk on her face. Then he put them back in his pocket.

Another one at the table now said he had the hood out in the car. He didn’t talk much about it. Merely said ‘he had it. They were cer tainly drinking.

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One of these men was short and stocky and in his mid-thirties, bald on top, and another was also in his mid-thirties with light brown hair, around six feet tall, average weight, only he had a real potbelly and wore glasses. Those were the two talking the most. The third one who didn’t talk had dark hair and an average build, but he had a real full beard and a mustache that was graying and he had tears in his eyes. Finally, he said if he had known what he was getting in for, he would never have done it. Then, a young married woman named Rene Wales, whom Wilia knew slightly, sat down with them, and they all played a lot more liar’s poker.

After a while, the executioners began to talk about their CBs. All three were equipped, but one began to brag about the distance he could get on his. Before you knew it, Rene Wales left with him to go Check out the CB in his pickup. Before she got back, forty-five min utes had passed. Rene came in with the fellow, and beth had a look on their faces like they’d been sopping up some of the gravy.

Next morning, Tuesday, January i8, Schiller had a meeting with Debbie, Lucinda and Barry Farrell about cleaning up the office and returning the rented equipment. Right in the middle of such house keeping, a phone call came from Stanger. There was going to be a memorial service in Spanish Fork that afternoon for Gary. Everybody wanted Larry and Barry to be there.

When Schiller told the girls, they wanted to go, too. Debbie even began to crY. So, of course, that took care of it. They were also in vited. Then the service had to be moved a couple of times to elude the press and was finally held not in a church, but at a mortuary in Spanish Fork.

Tamera walked in the office about that time, and Schiller made a decision not to tell her. Felt he couldn’t trust her not to write about it. From what the girls were saying, however, she picked Up quickly what was happening and confronted Larry. She was livid. Just out of her mind. “I’ve been with you,” she was saying, “I’m part of the team. Why can’t I go?” Schiller had to say, “Well, it isn’t that I don’t trust you, Tamera, I can’t take the chance. It isn’t my story to give out.” Tamera got mad, and then madder. She was terribly jealous of the fact that Lucinda and Debbie were going. It was the nearest she ever came to looking ugly. In fact, Tamera looked so mad, it was like she was on fire. A pure reporter.

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The mortuary was on the main street, a one-story, pale stucco with a horizontal band of colored-glass window that ran around the front. It was supposed to look like stained glass, Schiller assumed, but it came out looking more like a mosaic on a coffee table. No great building, that was certain.

There were, to Schfller’s surprise, forty people there. He was introduced to many of Bessie’s siters and didn’t even try to-remember their names, but one by one, they came up and started thanking him. Schiller didn’t understand what for. Then, the organ music began.

CAMPBELL Our Eternal Heavenly Father, with deep humility we pause at the beginning of this special memorial service, on behalf of one of our departed, Gary Mark Gilmore, with deep sense of respect and awe for the great character which he was and is and shall forever be. Father, a great tragedy has taken place many years ago in the juvenile justice system to throw a young man, a great person, a child of Thee, into the Courts, and into confinement in this country. We knew him as a great, lovable person, we shall always retain and keep that memory. Be with us now, we pray, in the name of Thy Son, Jesus Christ, Amen. (pause) We have, this afternoon, a message to be delivered by Toni Gurney from Gary’s mother.

TONi Aunt Bessie has asked me to give her message to everyone. She says, “I have many wonderful memories of my son, Gary. Beautiful things he has given me, the off paintings that he painted, and the hand-tooled leather purse he had ordered for me, but the most priceless things Gary has given me, was his love and kindness.” : . . I also want to say on behalf of myself and my sister, Brenda… (breaks down)

VERN (reading Toni’s message) Ah, I also want to say on behalf of my sister, Brenda, we will all miss Gary. We watched him in time of happiness, and in time of suffering, and we all know he is in peace

now.

CAMPBELL Thank you so much. Mrs. Evelyn Gray wreote some special poems to Gary, that she gave him personally, one of which she would like to read today. Evelyn is a cousin.

EVELYN To my dear Gary:

Can death then end such spirit lives, as from life’s stormy sea it drives,

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the frail soul drifting o’er the tide, no, they through dark portals guide, to sail upon a broader sea until another port they see when home they sail through the calm held in the hollow of His loving palm. They sail a beautiful sea, so broad, its bounds are known, only to God.

Thank you.

CAMPBELL Another person who came to know Gary very well, through many visits, a man who came into his life, through the legal system, Attorney Robert Moody.

MOODY My dear friends, I think it’s appropriate that we take this time to remember Gary. When we talked about it, he said, Yes. yes, I would like to be remembered, I would like a service held in my memory, and I would like Uncle Vern to say something there, to those who see fit to come. As we met with Gary for so many hours over these past several months, we came to know a human being, a creative individual, an individual who thought deeply. Gary didn’t have the opportunity that any of us here have had, he was serf-taught, and serf-taught he was. He’d read widely, and had come to know about many, many things. Gary developed his own philosophy, and he developed his own sensitivity with God, and he did so through the limitations of the incarceration that was inflicted upon him. And this self-education taught something to each of us who conversed with him …. I think the one thing we will always remember, is that Gary, who looked so long, and so hard for love, only realized in these last few weeks and months that love was in the world, that love was for him, love that he’d never been able to find. As we remember Gary today, let us remember that indeed, love is for all, and no matter what others may say about Gary, his love was there, and I’m assured that Gary’s in peace.., that Gary found God. Thank you.