The Executioner's Song (2 page)

Those were the words she used when she talked to Gary’s future parole officer. When asked, Why do you want this man here? Brenda answered, “He’s been in jail thirteen years. I think it’s time Gary came home.”

Brenda knew her power in conversations like this. She might be that much nearer to thirty-five than thirty, but she hadn’t gone into marriage four times without knowing she was pretty attractive on the hoof, and the parole officer, Mont Court, was blond and tall with a husky build. Just an average good-looking American guy, very much on the Mr. Clean side, but all the same, Brenda thought, pretty likable. He was sympathetic to the idea of a second chance, and would flex with you if there was a good reason. If not, he would come down pretty hard. That was how she read him. He seemed just the kind of man for Gary.

He had worked, Mont Court told her, with a lot of people who had just come out of prison, and he warned Brenda that there would be a recycling period. Maybe a little trouble here or there, a drunken brawl. She thought he was broad-minded for a Mormon. A man couldn’t, he explained, walk out of prison and go right into

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IO THE EXECUTIONER’S SOl’It straight normal living. It was like coming out of the Service, espe cially if you’d been held a prisoner of war. You didn’t become a civil-Jan immediately. He said if Gary had problems, she should try to en courage him to come in and talk about it.

Then Mont Court and another probation ocer paid a visit to Vern at his shoe shop and looked into her father’s ability as a shoe repair man. They must have been impressed because nobody in these parts was going to know more about shoes than Vern Damico, and he would, after all, not only give Gary a place to live, but a job in his shop.

A letter arrived from Gary to announce that he was going to be released in a couple of weeks. Then, early in April, he called Brenda from the prison and told her he would get out in a few days. He planned, said Gary, to take the bus that went through Marion to St. Louis, and from there connect with other buses to Denver and Salt Lake. Over the phone, he had a nice voice, soft spoken, twangy, held back. A lot of feeling in the center of it.

With all the excitement, Brenda was hardly taking into account that it was practically the same route their Mormon great-grandfather took when he jumped off from Missouri with a handcart near to a hundred years ago, and pushed west with all he owned over the prairies, and the passes of the Rockies, to come to rest at Provo in the Mormon Kingdom of Deseret just fifty miles below Salt Lake.

Gary couldn’t have traveled more than forty or fifty niles from Marion, however, before he phoned in from a rest stop to tell Brenda that the bus ride so far had been the most kidney-jogging experience he ever felt and he’d decided to cash in his ticket at St. Louis and come the rest of the way by plane. Brenda agreed. If Gary wanted to travel deluxe, well, he had a little coming.

He called her again that evening. He was definitely on the last flight and would phone once more when he arrived.

THE FIRST DAY

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“Gary, it takes us forty-five minutes to get to the airport.”

“I don’t mind.”

Brenda thought this was a novel approach, but then he hadn’t been taking a lot of airplanes. Probably he wanted time to unwind.

Even the children were excited, and Brenda certainly couldn’t sleep. After midnight, she and Johnny just waited. Brenda had threatened to kill anybody who called her late — she wanted that line to be open.

“I’m here,” said his voice. It was 2 A.M.

“Okay, we’re coming to get you.”

“Right on,” said Gary and hung up. This was one guy who wouldn’t talk your ear off for a dime.

On the ride, Brenda kept telling John to hurry up. It was the middle of the night, and nobody was on the road. John, however, wasn’t about to get a ticket. They were traveling the Interstate, after all. So he kept at 6o. Brenda gave up fighting. She was altogether toe excited to fight.

“Oh, my God,” said Brenda, “I wonder how tall he is.” “What?” said Johnny.

She had begun to think he might be short. That would be awful. Brenda was only five feet five, but it was a height she knew well. From the time she was ten years old, she had been I3o pounds, five—

five, and wholly equipped with the same size bra as now — C cup. “What do you mean, is he tall?” asked Johnny. “I don’t know, I hope he is.”

In junior high, if she put on heels, the only person big enough to dance with her was the gym teacher. She used to hate like hell to kiss a boy on the forehead and tell him good night. In fact, she got so paranoid about being tall it could have stunted her growth.

It certainly made her like boys taller than herself. They let her feel feminine. She just had this nightmare that when they got to the airport, Gary would only come up to her armpit. Why, she would abandon the whole thing right there. Shift for yourself, she would tell him.

They pulled up to the island that ran parallel to the main en trance of the terminal building. So soon as she got out of the car, there was Johnny over on the driver’s side, trying to tuck his shirttail in. That annoyed Brenda no end.

She could see Gary leaning against the building. “There he is,” Brenda cried, but Johnny said, “Wait, I have to zip my pants.”

“Who gives a shit about your shirttail?” said Brenda. “I’m going.”

As she crossed the street between the parking island and the main door, Gary saw her and picked up his satchel. Pretty soon they were running toward each other. As they met, Gary dropped his bag, looked at her, then encircled her so hard she could have been hugged by a bear. Even Johnny had never gripped Brenda that hard.

When Gary put her down on the ground again, she stood back and looked at him. She had to take him all in. She said, “My God, you’re tall.”

He started to laugh. “What did .you expect, a midget?”

“I don’t know what I expected,” she said, “but, thank God, you’re tall.”

Johnny was just standing there with his big good face going, um, um, um.

“Hey, coz,” said Gary, “it’s fine to see you.” He shook hands with Johnny.

“By the way, Gary,” said Brenda demurely, “this is my husband.” Gary said, “I assumed that’s who it was.”

Johnny said, “Have you got everything with you?”

Gary picked up his flight bag—it was pathetically small, thought Brenda — and said, “This is it. This is all I have.” He said it without humor and without self-pity. Material things were obviously no big transaction to him.

Now she noticed his clothes. He had a black trench coat slung on his arm and was wearing a maroon blazer over-could you be lieve it? — a yellow and green striped shirt. Then a pair of beige poly ester trousers that were badly hemmed. Plus a pair of black plastic shoes. She paid attention to people’s footwear because of her fhther’s

THE FIRST DAY
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trade and she thought, Wow, that’s really cheap. They didn’t even give him a pair of leather shoes to go home in.

“Come on,” said Gary, “let’s get the hell out of here.”

She could see then he’d had something to drink. He wasn’t plas tered, but he sure was tipped. Made a point of putting his arm around her when they walked to the car.

When they got in, Brenda sat in the middle and Johnny drove. Gary said, “Hey, this is kind of a cute car. What is it?”

“A yellow Maverick,” she told him. “My little lemon.”

They drove. The first silence came in.

“Are you tired?” asked Brenda.

“A little tired, but then I’m a little drunk too.” Gary grinned. “I took advantage of the champagne flight. I don’t know if it was the al titude, or not having good liquor for a long time, but, boy, I got tore up on that plane. I was happier than hell.”

Brenda laughed. “I guess you’re entitled to be snockered.”

The prison sure cut his hair short. It would, Brenda judged, be heavy handsome brown hair when it grew out, but for now it stuck up hick style in the back. He kept pushing it down.

No matter, she liked his looks. In the half-light that came into the car as they drove through Salt Lake on the Interstate, the city sleeping on both sides of them, she decided that Gary was everything she expected in that department. A long, fine nose, good chin, thin well-shaped lips. He had character about his face.

“Want to go for a cup of coffee?” Johnny asked.

Brenda felt Gary tighten. It was as if even the thought of walking into a strange place got him edgy. “Come on,” Brenda said, “we’ll give the tencent tour.”

They picked Jean’s Care. It was the only place south of Salt Lake open at 3 A.M., but it was Friday night and people were sporting their finery. Once installed in their booth, Gary said., “I guess I got to get some clothes.”

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THE EXECUTIONER’S SONGp>

Johnny encouraged him to eat, but he wasn’t hungry. Obviously too excited. Brenda felt as ff she could pick up the quiver in each bright color that Gary was studying on the jukebox. He looked close to being dazzled by the revolving red, blue, and gold light show on the electronic screen of the cigarette console. He was so involved it drew her into his mood. When a couple of cute girls walked in, and Gary mumbled, “Not bad,” Brenda laughed. There was something so real about the way he said it.

Couples kept coming from parties and leaving, and the sound of cars parking and taking off didn’t stop. Stfl’, Brenda was not looking at the door. Her best friend could have walked in, but she would have been all alone with Gary. She couldn’t remember when somebody had absorbed her attention this much. She didn’t mean to be rude to Johnny, but she did kind of forget he was there.

Gary, however, looked across the table and said, “Hey man, thanks. I appreciate how you went along with Brenda to get me out.” They shook hands again. This time Gary did it thumbs up.

Over the coffee, he asked Brenda about her folks, her sis, her kids, and Johnny’s job.

Johnny did maintenance at the Pacific State Cast Iron and Pipe. While he was blacksmithing now, he used to make iron pipe, fire it, cast it, sometimes do the mold work.

The conversation died. Gary had no clue .what to ask Johnny next. He knows nothing about us, Brenda thought, and I know so little about his life.

Gary spoke of a couple of prison friends and what good men they were, Then he said apologetically, Well, you don’t want to hear about prison, it’s not very pleasant.

Johnny said they were only tiptoeing around because they didn’t want to offend him. “We’re curious,” said Johnny, “but, you know, we don’t want to ask: what’s it like in there? What do they do to you?”

Gary smiled. They were silent again.

Brenda knew she was making Gary nervous as hell. She kept staring at him constantly, but she couldn’t get enough of his face. There were so many corners in it.

THE FIRST DAY
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“God,” she kept saying, “it’s good to have you here.”

“It’s good to get back.”

“Wait till you get to know this country,” she said. She was dying to tell him about the kind of fun they could have on Utah Lake, and the camper trips they would take in the canyons. The desert was just as gray and brown and grim as desert anywhere, but the mountains went up to twelve thousand feet, and the canyons were green with beautiful forests and super drinking parties with friends. They could teach him how to hunt with bow and arrow, she was about ready to tell him, when all of a sudden she got a good look at Gary in the light. Speak of all the staring she had done, it was as if she hadn’t studied him at all yet. Now she felt a strong sense of woe. He was marked up much more than she had expected.

She reached out to touch his cheek at the place where he had a very bad scar, and Gary said, “Nice looking, isn’t it?”

Brenda said, “I’m sorry, Gary, I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

This set up such a pause that Johnny finally asked, “How’d it happen?”

“A guard hit me,” said Gary. He smiled. “They had me tied down for a shot of Prolixin — and I managed to spit in the doctor’s face. Then I got clobbered.”

“How,” asked Brenda, “would you like to take that guard who hit you, and get ahold of him?”

“Don’t pick my brain,” said Gary.

“Okay,” said Brenda, “but do you hate him?” “God, yeah,” said Gary, “wouldn’t you?” “Yeah, I would,” said Brenda. “Just checking.”

Half an hour later, driving home, they went by Point of the Mountain. Off to the left of the Interstate a long hill came out of the mountains and its ridge was like the limb of a beast whose paw just reached the highway. On the other side, in the desert to the right, was Utah State Prison. There were only a few lights in its buildings now. They made jokes about Utah State Prison.

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THE EXECUTIONER’S SONG

Back in her living room, drinking beer, Gary began to unwind. He liked beer, he confessed. In prison, they knew how to make a watery brew out of bread. Called it Pruno. In fact, both Brenda and Johnny were observing that Gary could put brew away as fast as anyone they knew.

Johnny soon got tired and went to sleep. Now Gary and Brenda really began to talk. A few prison stories came out of him. To Brenda, each seemed wilder than the one before. Probably they were half true, half full of beer. He had to be reciting out of his hind end.

It was only when she looked out the window and saw the night was over that she realized how long they had been talking. They stepped through the door to look at the sun coming up over the back of her ranch house and all her neighbors’ ranch houses, and standing there, on her plot of lawn, in a heap of strewn-about toys, wet with