The Executioner's Song (28 page)

He waited for her to come out and repeated his offer. Finally she said, Okay, and told him she’d follow his car. So they met at the High Spot, and he told her where he worked, stuff like that. Found out the fellow in her home was an ex-convict. At which point, Roger said, Okay, let’s just forget it. He was frankly scared to be dealing with an

ex-con.

She said, “Well, you know, I might need your help.” Nothing to do then but tell her how to find his office.

Sure enough, she came the very next day, and without the kids. They talked a lot. Before she left, he gave her ten dollars she hadn’t even asked for, but was not embarrassed to receive. Just pocketed it.

After that, she’d visit him every other day or so, and they would talk. They were each pretty interested. The other’s life was so different. He could really sympathize with her troubles. That ex-convict was someone to be afraid of, apparently. One morning she came to see him, and was a little beaten up. There were a couple of bruises on those juicy thighs.

After a couple of weeks, she got in the habit of meeting him almost every day. Sometimes she would come to the Mall, but usually they met in a park over in Springville after work. Talk maybe an hour. A couple of times they went off in the Malibu and made love. It was interesting, maybe even a little beautiful, although Roger could never tell how special because frankly they didn’t have time to do it tight, just a half hour or less, and he was in a state somebody would spot him and bring his marriage down around him. So they were always driving on back roads. It was dangerous, to say the least. Then of course her kids were with her, and apart from frustrating any ideas of sex, they didn’t always put Roger in the best mood. At times, they weren’t too clean. Roger remembered the first time he

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met her over at the High Spot. The little boy was wearing no pants, and went out in the parking lot and took a shit right there on the asphalt. Of course, he was only two years old, but Roger was awfully embarrassed, Jeez. Nicole didn’t care. She just said to Jeremy, Get back in the car where you belong. Put him in with no pants. He started bawling and screaming and went to sleep after five minutes.

One day she came over and laid it on him. She wasn’t living Spanish Fork anymore. Had fled this fellow Gary, and was living in little apartment her ex-husband had found in Springville. All while she was talking, it got to him how much she needed clothes. So he told her to come by after six and he would take shopping for an outfit. After he bought it, she stayed with him really had a night. She was living with this ex-husband now, she him, but was not afraid of him. They could do this again real The weekend was hopeless, and even Monday was out, Roger because his wife’s family was coming over, but they agreed should call him Tuesday morning, July zo. All through Sunday Roger was thinking of getting through Monday.

“I can’t take it,” Gary said. “I told you I can’t take it.”

“Some things in life we can’t handle. Okay. Maybe this is yours. But, God, it’ll pass! If you kill her, that won’t pass. She’ll be dead for ever. You’re damned stupid, do you know that, Gary?” He didn’t like to be called stupid.

“When she pulled the gun on me today,” he said, “I thought

about taking it. But I didn’t want Nicole to start screaming.” He shook his head. “She was frantic to get away from me.”

Brenda was not unhappy when he left. What with Johnny at the hospital, this was too much emotion to be nursing on a hot summer night.

Craig told him that if he couldn’t find a place, to come on back. After visiting Brenda, Gary did, in fact, go over on Sunday night and sleep on Craig’s couch. He told Craig that he was close to an ulcer now from misery and beer. As of tomorrow, he was going to give up drinking.

“Nobody,” offered Brenda, “said it was going to be easy out here.” Gary said, “I can’t handle it.”

“I know,” she said. “At the time, it always feels like you

“No,” he said, “you don’t know. You and Johnny have been happy.”

“John and I,” said Brenda, “have come very close to Gary, I’ve been through separation and divorce. It can be frightening.”

Gary looked like he was mulling over his pains. “Hey,” he “I’m beginning to find that out.” :

She said, “Nobody is ever really free, Gary. As long as you with another human being, you’re not free.”

Gary sat there like he was grinding bones in his mind. When spoke, it was to say, “I think I’m going to kill Nicole.”

“My God, Gary, are you that selfish of a lover?” Brenda’s was bombing out in her face.

The Gas Station and the Motel

THE GAS STATION

She had once been told she looked like a Botticelli. She was tall and slender, and had light brown hair, ivory skin, and a long well-shaped nose with a small bump on the bridge. Yet she hardly knew Bot ticelli’s work. They did not teach a great deal about the Renaissance at Utah State in Logan where she was majoring in art education.

It was at Utah State that Colleen was introduced to her future husband, Max Jensen. Afterward they would laugh at how long it took. The few times Max saw Colleen Halling on the campus she happened to be talking to her cousin. Max decided the fellow was her boyfriend, and therefore it never occurred to him to ask her out.

The following year, however, Max happened to be rooming with the guy, and got around to inquiring if he was still interested in the girl he had seen him with. Max’s new roommate started laughing and explained that was no romance —just cousins. By now, Colleen was already out of college, but since she was working at the College of Education, she was, in the practical sense, still on campus.

Colleen only became aware of Max when he spoke in church at the beginning of the new school year. He was wearing a suit that day and looked very distinguished, and seemed a little older than the other students, but then he had already finished his two-year mis sion, That stood out. He spoke on the importance of not tearing other

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people down but building them up. Managed to show he had quite a sense of humor as he spoke.

He was a tall fellow, six-one, and weighed about a hundred and ninety pounds. With his even features and his hair cleanly parted on the side, he looked real handsome up there in the pulpit. In fact, he created a ripple among the girls. The Ward Colleen belonged to at the University was, after all, a single Ward, that is, single girls and single boys there to meet each other.

Before Max got up to speak, the fellow who introduced Many couples get introduced to each other right here in church later they get married, but there is one guy who didn’t meet last year and that is Max Jensen. “He really wants to get married, know,” said the friend up there in the pulpit. ‘

At that point, since Max hadn’t risen yet to speak, all roommates and herself were looking around, and asking, is Max? and laughing about it. Right here was where Max had stand up. However, he got back at his friend in a real neat telling a story how that fellow, who was a football player, wake up from a dream one night yelling signals, then bashed line — except it was the wall. Max now connected that to the su[ of his talk by pointing out how it was not enough to devote your to living by the Scriptures, you also had to know just where you in life, otherwise you might not relate the teachings properly to own situation.

A few weeks later, Colleen invited her cousin and his five

to come over for a little dinner party with herself and her five mates. Everything was laid out on the table and people walked get their porcupine meatballs, that is, hamburger-and-rice Since they were all strict Mormons, no iced tea or coffee was just milk and water. A pleasant meal on regular plates, not they talked about school, basketball, and church activities. remembered Max sitting several feet away on a big pillow and

THE GAS STATION

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ing with the group. He had a distinctive voice that was a little bit raspy. She learned later he had hay fever and it gave his voice the deep throbbing sound that comes from having a cold. One of Colleen’s roommates later described it as being very sexy.

The next day he called. One of her roommates told Colleen she was wanted on the telephone. This was their little trick. If a girl was on the line, they would yell, “Phone!” but should it be a guy, then “Telephone.” Colleen was used to hearing the second, so she had no particular idea it would be Max. The night before, she certainly hadn’t gotten the feeling he was making any special attempt to communicate with her, yet he now asked her if she would like to go to a show tonight. She told him yes.

Afterward, it was kind of funny when they each admitted they had seen What’s Up, Doc? before, but hadn’t wanted to spoil the other’s opportunity to go. Then they went to the Pizza Hut and talked about their ideas on life, and how active they and their families were in LDS work. Max said he was the oldest of four children and his father, a farmer in Montpelier, Idaho, was also a Stake President. That impressed Colleen. There couldn’t be that many Stake Presidents in all of Idaho.

He also told her about his mission to Brazil. What got her respect was that he had earned all the money to do that by himself. Missionaries had to pay their own way over, of course, and then also pay for living expenses on the mission, so most of them had to be helped financially by their families. It wasn’t easy for an adolescent to earn enough money by the age of nineteen to maintain himself for two years on a mission in a foreign country. Max, however, had done that.

He enjoyed Brazil, his conversion rate had been high. On average, you could hope to convert One person a month over your two-year stretch in that country, but he had done considerably better. He remembered it as a time of great challenge and much necessity to learn how to live with different people.

Naturally, she had heard a lot about missionary work but he explained some of the things that didn’t always get mentioned. For

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instance, he told her how a missionary might have trouble with companion. It could be tough to live with a fellow who was a plete stranger. You and your companion had to be together all time in a foreign city. It was closer than marriage. You did your and you lived together in pairs. Even people who really knew get along had to grate on each other a little with their personal Just the noise you made brushing your teeth. Of course, the had a practice of rotating missionaries before too much irritation up.

The most valuable part, he told her, was the way you

your ability to take rebuff. Sometimes you would really be fruitful conversations with a possible convert, and the person even declare they were close. Then one day you’d go over, and, behold, the local Catholic priest was sitting there. He wasn’t too friendly to you. There were a lot of such setbacks. You learn it wasn’t y.ou doing the converting but the readiness of other person to meet the Spirit.

Colleen’s family life wasn’t too different from his. Her

a lot of things that centered around the church, and they you to take on things and do well. In high school, she told him had been Yearbook Editor, President of the Service Club, and Artist. She had also done portraits out at Lagoon Resort, abled her to save money for college. From the time she entered grade she wanted her drawings to be better than anyone else’s.

All the while, she kept feeling how strong a person he was. was strict and wouldn’t bend spiritually or mentally. She could even in the way he felt obligated to tell her that he was datin other girl. He did take the sharp edge off, however, by how things were not going well with the other girl who was not strong enough, in his opinion, about the Church. Then he tioned that he had a sister who was also named Colleen and liked the name.

Afterward, he drove her home in his car, a bright red Nova he kept sparkling clean. Her roommates said the two of them looked good together as a couple.

On their second date they went to hear a speaker on Sunday night meeting in church, a Fireside. On their third date, they saw South Pacific put on at the college. Afterward, she got him to go to a dance. He didn’t care for them usually, but this was a nice slow one with foxtrots and waltzes, nothing exhibitionistic. She teased him because he didn’t like to dance. Hadn’t he been told in Sunday School how their ancestors danced their way across the plains when that was the only entertainment?

Now they began dating pretty steadily..Colleen never did think, however, that it was exactly love at first sight. It was more that Max was impressed with her, and she was impressed with him.

Her birthday was on December 3, and he made reservations at Sherwood Hills, about twenty miles from Logan, a special place to go and eat. That evening he also bought her a red rose. Colleen really

appreciated his thoughtfulness. She wore a velvet dress and he was in a suit; they spent about two hours at SherwoodHills eating steak.

On February I of 1975, they got engaged. Just that morning he had received a letter from BYU Law School accepting him. In the evening, they went to a basketball game and he kept turning to her and saying. “When we’re at the Y next year”—by which he meant BYU. But he hadn’t asked her to marry him. So Colleen kept saying, “When you’re at the Y…”

It began to bother him. Later that night, they were driving to Montpelier, Idaho, to hear his father speak at church the next day, and en route, Max stopped at the shores of Bear Lake, on a little road that led to a docking area. Laughing a little, he told her to get out of the car. She answered that she’d freeze to death. “Ah, come and see the beautiful sight,” he said. She was shivering in her blue parka with the fur around it, but she left the car, and while they stood on the dock looking at the moon and the water he came right out and asked her to marry him.