The Executioner's Song (27 page)

THE EXECUTIONER’S SONG

To her surprise, Kathryne felt like she wanted to cry. Gary came in so’ pathetic. Just kind of sat. He put a carton of cigarettes and a box of Pampers on the table, and said, “She’ll probably be needing these.” There was a silence, then he said, “Would you do something for me7” Kathryne said, “Well, yes, if I can.” “Will you give her this me? That’s the best one I could find. It’s not very good, but it’s best I could find.” Kathryne looked. Gary was standing in the wearing a blue windbreaker. She thought it had probably been in prison. He was looking young and tough, and he’d written on back “I love you.” After she lay the photograph down, Gary said, got to be going.”

When Sissy dropped by later that evening, she just glanced the photo, made an umph sound, and threw it on the cupboard Later Kathryne put it at the back Of the dish closet where it wouldi safe from the kids and the jam and the peanut butter.

Toward evening, Gary went to sit with Brenda and Johnny. patio wasn’t much of a garden spot, more like a shed with pale corrugated plastic roofing that let light through, and a wrought-iron chairs and dirty old canvas camp chairs. Brenda tried to fix her yard too much, but it was nice to have a drink the dark,

Not only was Gary having his emotional pains but Johnny soon be hurting. He had to go into the hospital for a hernia

It might not take long, but it wasn’t going to be fun. Brenda have liked a joke’ about the doctor not clipping any extra meat there, but that, unfortunately, was not Gary’s mood.

The white and yellow socks he was wearing looked in taste than usual, so Brenda remarked, “I like those socks, stared at her and said, “They’re Nicole’s.” Looked like he was to cry.

It was awful. Brenda could feel that empty house in Fork. “I can still smell her perfume,” Gary said. It was

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was in that advanced kind of suffering where he could hardly keep a thought to himself.

“I’ve got to find her,” he said.

“Honey, this kind of thing takes time,” said Brenda. “Maybe Nicole needs a couple of days.” “I can’t wait,” he said. “Will you help me find her? …. It don’t work that way,” Brenda said. “If a woman don’t want to talk to you, she’ll kill you first.”

Usually no matter what Gary might be feeling, he liked to seem the picture of relaxation. Today he was on the edge of his chair. It was like the air was being eaten by the nervousness he felt. She didn’t want to think of his stomach. Shreds. She thought his goatee looked awful.

“This is the first time I’ve experienced a pain I can’t take,” he said. “I used to be able to handle anything that came up, didn’t mat ter how bad, but it’s tougher out here. Everybody’s going about their business. Where is Nicole?”

A dread went into the air with the evening. Brenda could almost hear Gary listening to Nicole with other men. They kept drinking. After a couple of hours he passed out on them. In the morning, he went to work.

“Why look so hard,” Spencer asked, “for a woman who doesn’t to get back with you? Leave her alone. She knows’ where you

“I’m going to paint my car,” said Gary.

He started to drive the Mustang into the shop, but didn’t raise sliding door high enough. So he banged it going, in. Bent it. didn’t even groan. Gary could have had the car painted for and now it would cost three hundred or more to get the working right once more. For the present Spence just tied a to the stove-in part and winched the dent back to usable condi-The shop door looked like hell.

During lunch, Gary drove to Spanish Fork and walked through

rooms. Next, he came back to Springville and visited the

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laundromat. Stopped to visit Sue Baker. She hadn’t heard from Nicole.

“Sissy,” said Kathryne, “just doesn’t like drinking. She won’t put up with it no matter how much she cares about you. She could really love you,” Kathryne said, “and I think maybe she does, but you have to make up your mind. What means the most, drinking or Nicole?”

“I’ll give up the drinking,” he said, “ff she’ll come back to me. I’ll give it up.”

They sat there and Kathryne felt close. “Yes, I’ll give up the drinking,” he said.

He went on to tell Kathryne how brilliant Nicole was, what guts she had. He had never met a girl with such guts. Told Kathryne about the time Nicole went over to Pete Galovan and warned him that

Gary meant more to her than life. “She’d have done it too,” Gary said. “Yes,” Kathryne said, “she just might.”

They sat there and Gary looked at Kathryne in a way to touch her right to the center of her heart. He said, “You know, here I am, thirty-five years old, and I’ve only known three women in my life. Isn’t that nalCmOUS.

Kathryne just laughed. She said, “You’re two up on me, Gary. I’m almost forty and I’ve known only one man.”

They just seemed to get along. She felt so sorry for him. He

“I feel left out. Sometimes I don’t even understand what people talking about.” Drank a couple of beers and said, “When Nicole

back, tell her I love her. Will you do that for me?”

“I will, Gary,” Kathryne said.

“I promise you, I’ll quit,” Gary said. “I’ll leave the booze alone’ I’m a mean rotten bastard when I drink.”

A few hours later he called to find out if Nicole had been “No,” said Kathryne, “I haven’t seen her.” In fact, she hadn’t.

That evening, Gary went by Spencer McGrath’s house with guns. “I want to leave them as security so you can cosign truck.”

“Number one,” said Spencer, “I don’t need the guns. Two, not going to co-sign. Take them with you.”

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“I’m going to leave them,” Gary said. “I want you to know I’m real serious.”

Spencer decided to ask how he got them. Gary said a friend of his in Portland owed him money, so had given over the guns. He mentioned the guy’s name. Soon as Gary was gone, Spence copied the serial numbers, and made a few calls to see if any sporting goods store had been broken into. Couldn’t find one. Never called as far south as Spanish Fork, however.

Gary stayed with Sterling and Ruth Ann again, and spent all day Saturday driving between Lark and Spanish Fork. He dropped by to see Kathryne, but the Elders from the Church were visiting, so through the open door he called, “Where is she? …. I don’t have any idea where she is,” Kathryne said sharply, and knew Gary didn’t believe her. You could tell by the way he took off mad.

At midnight, Gary drove out to Spanish Fork one more time to see if Nicole might be there in the house without furniture, and he walked through the empty rooms, and took out a little more of his clothing and put it in the trunk of the Mustang. He was living out of the Mustang by now. Then he drove to the Silver Dollar and had a couple of drinks.

Behind the bar, tacked to the mirror, were some cartoons. One

said: HAPPINESS IS A TIGHT PUSSY. It showed a fat woman with

breasts hanging out of her halter. She had a big wrinkled belly button and was sitting on top of a mountain of empty beer cans.

Another drawing showed a man with a face of pure misery sitting at a desk. Underneath was printed:

I’M SO HAPPY HERE

I COULD JUST SHIT.

GERMAN SAUSAGES STEAMED IN BEER

HAPPINESS IS A COLD BEER

NO CHECKS CASHED

NO CREDIT

When he finished his glass, he went out and got into his truck and stopped off at Vern’s. They were all asleep so he went down to the basement and found a cot.

Sunday morning he went to the hospital to visit John who was recovering from the hernia operation. John’s dad, who was a Mormon Bishop, was there, and he was a little on the straitlaced side. Gary came up wearing a dirty white T-shirt, old slacks, tennis shoes, and, by God, a joke tie that came down to his knees — it had very wide alternating stripes of maroon, gold, and white. On top of his head he had a little hat. He sat around and tried to make conversation with the Bishop. Nothing much got said.

The apartment in Springville was not as nice as the house in Spanish Fork. It was just a two-room cinder-block apartment in a two-tier development of cheap apartments on a little old side street. There were kids around, and dogshit on the stairs and in the parking lot. The day she moved in, three rotting mattresses were leaning against the side of the building, and an overtumed tricycle was lying in a mud puddle. The doors to the apartments were plywood, and her bathtub had been painted blood red by the last tenant. Still, she had a view from her balcony. Just two blocks away, the town came to an end, and the land went up into the mountains. She was free of Gary. Free to feel a lot of fear. Her breath was heavy.

Without her vacuum cleaner, Nicole couldn’t keep the apartment clean, so on Sunday, she had to go back to Spanish to pick it up. As she came to the house his car wasn’t there at all.

Still she had a feeling that Gary was inside, and the Mustan was stashed around the corner, and, in fact, when she walked u door was open, and she could hear water running in the tub. clothes were on the living-room floor right next to her cleaner which was also placed in the middle of the room as if he set it out for her. So she picked it up, and carried it to the trunk her car. Then she came back for the accessories.

She could have rushed but somehow she didn’t want to out with the last parts while he was still in the tub. Maybe she

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have been more afraid if she didn’t have the gun, but she waited. She wanted to see into his eyes. It almost felt good waiting. Like the end of a lot of tension might be near.

He didn’t look vengeful when he came out of the tub, just all worn out. Right off, he told her he loved her, and asked if she loved him. She said no. He began to hug her. She tried to push him away. Nicole wasn’t really scared, but something nauseating got into her like she was going to pass out if there wasn’t some fresh air soon. She said, “I have to sit down.”

They rested on the outside steps. She told him she couldn’t live with him anymore. They sat. She had to get away. After a few minutes, she took the kids and got into the car. But now he wouldn’t let her go. He put his hands through the open window and held her. She opened her purse, took out the gun and pointed it at him.

It was a .22 Magnum and he had told her it was capable of putring a hole in you like a .45. Gary stood there for one minute after another. Just looked at her. He didn’t move. She knew if he reached for the gun, she would pull the trigger.

Then he said, “Go ahead and shoot.” She said, “Get away from my car.” He wasn’t about to get away, he told her. Finally she put the gun in her purse. “You left the accessories for the Electrolux,” he said. “Come back and get them.” That was one thing he had not ripped off— the Electrolux. A long time ago he had missed the first payment on his Mustang to buy her the Electrolux. Now, if she left the accessories, somebody would steal them for sure. Too bad. She started the motor, put the car in gear, and drove off.

Roger Eaton wasn’t too backward about telling Nicole how he was well liked, and had practically been a movie Star at his senior prom in high school. He’d had a nice time dating his wife, who was a sweet Smart hometown girl from a good Mormon family. Which was all right with Roger. He didn’t practice anything, but he didn’t mind

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having a little religion in the family. What with the salaries he and his wife were making, they could buy a Dodge for her and for himself a nice little Malibu hardtop. It would have been swell, he assured Nicole, but here they’d only been married six months and his wife had developed colitis.

Being a high-school basketball star, Roger had wanted to play college ball, but didn’t like to wait all those years to make real money. Wanted it right away, he guessed. So he had gotten this administrative position in the Utah Valley Mall, and there he met his wife who was in administration for the supermarket. He had been at the Mall for a couple of years now, and was into management training. He earned $i ,8oo a year, he told Nicole. Felt right about life except for the wife’s ailment. It certainly had her out of action.

Roger had a friend who lived down the street from Nicole in Spanish Fork, and he got along pretty well with this fellow’s folks, and visited them all the time. So he’d heard plenty about Nicole before he ever saw her. Nicole had to stand out in a place like that: His friend’s parents were as Mormon as you come, but they were some of the biggest bullshitters Roger had ever known. One they told about Nicole was that a fellow drove up to her door one day last winter with a big bag of groceries, got out, handed her the ba and then, right there on the street, started feeling her breast. To didn’t really believe the story because, one, it was winter, and, concerning sexual things, these people couldn’t see straight. But was fascinated all the same with stories about the girl, and after got his first look at her, he felt real drawn. There she was, divorced, and living with a man. Roger found himself traveling Spanish Fork just on the chance he’d get another look. He thought | was stupid to get involved with such people, but he wanted to to know her. The guy she was living with didn’t even faze him first.

Roger wrote a letter. He said if she needed help, in any she should turn on her front door light come Wednesday evening. would get in touch. He didn’t identify himself in the letter, but Wednesday night he went by to visit the bullshitters and there no light. He tried to forget about it.

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A few weeks after he wrote the thing, he was getting gas in Provo, and saw her Mustang pull in. Roger was afraid. If his wife found out, it’d be a catastrophe. He simply didn’t understand what was drawing him. Never done anything like this in his life, but he said to her, “Aren’t you Nicole Barrett?” When she answered that she was, he said, “I’m the one who wrote that letter.” She kind of laughed. “Let me buy you a Coke,” he said. She just walked past him into the office to pay for her gasoline.