The Executioner's Song (83 page)

He gave her a wink before they said goodbye. On the way out, she put her hand on the glass, and said, “I love you,” and he wiggled his hand from his side.

DESERET N’Ews

Profile of a Wasted Life

Nov. 18 …. Through the study of psychodiagnostics, in which the writer has specialized, it is possible from a person’s art efforts to draw some clues to the

626
p>

THE EXECUTIONER’S SONG

state of his personality …. Some times such art will indicate brain damage, psychosis; or at least anxiety.

In Gilmore’s case, there is no such evidence. In pic ture after picture, we see remarkable coherent, orga nized, and disciplined work. In this writer’s judgment, these are not the product of a crazy or psychotic mind , . . Gary Gilmore has an extremely keen mind.

SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

By Paul Rolly

Tribune Staff Writer

Provo, Nov. 18—… Dean Christensen said members of the Provo 5th Ward, where Benny Bushnell was a home teacher, are “sick to their stomachs,” about the continued publicity Gilmore is receiving, and “at a loss for an explanation.”

The bishop said Benny’s wife, Debbie, still writes to him, asking for his advice.

“Of course, we cling to our religious belief that we will meet again in an afterlife and I try to reassure her, but she’s taking it hard and it’s difficult at times,” he said.

A police sergeant came out to Everson’s house to interrogate Dennis. He was a suspect at the prison certain enough. Dennis went to Sam Smith’s boss, the Head of the Board of Corrections, Ernie Wright, a big man wearing a white Texas cowboy hat, and said, “Look, Sam Smith is acting vindictive,” and the Head of the Board of Corrections looked back and said, “Frankly, Mr. Boaz, we don’t trust you.” Stared at him like he had just squashed a fly. Then, he added, “I don’t care what the Warden’s doing. He can continue doing it.”

Not only was Dennis reduced to talking to Gary through a tale-phone across a hallway, but for all he knew, the phone was tapped. And Gary was considerably less friendly. “Did you say on Rivera’s show that you can’t work for my execution anymore? I don’t appreciate that.” Dennis was feeling embarrassed over all that emotionality him—

ENTERPRISE [ 627

self. “Well, I’m sorry,” he said, “I still feel I can help you, you know.” He was damned if he was going to say, Go ahead and fire me, Gary.

Now, Gary started to query Dennis about expenses. He had found out $5oo had come in from the London Daily Express, and $5oo from a Swedish interview, and wanted to know why Dennis had told him his half was $25o, not $50o. Dennis tried to explain. “You said you were reckless about money, and I should be your financial manager, so I held;back $25o and only gave you $I25 from the En glish interview. Then you asked me to give another $I25 to Nicole. That took care of your half.”

Yes, but what about the other $5oo from Sweden?

“Gary,” said Dennis, “everything went to expenses. There are a million things. I haven’t cheated you.” It wasn’t good between Gary and himself.

Outside the prison, Dennis had never felt more like talking to the press. “I’m a character in this thing I’m writing,” he said to them, “so I don’t plan out everything I do. I’m being acted upon by the real au thor of these events. Whoever or whatever that is. In fact, I almost got fired today! Whew! It was close.”

“What do you think of the suicide now?”

“Nonviolent,” Dennis said. “Really mellow. Like Romeo and Ju liet, they took a” poison.” Dennis thought the tragic aspects of this relationship, if properly presented, could raise Gary and Nicole into a kind of democratic Romeo and Juliet. Then every card he played would have more value. He could get them connubial rights yet.

“Don’t you think,” said Barry Farrell, “that if Gilmore isn’t execu ted, he’ll slip right back in with four hundred and twenty-four other condemned men and women? A lot of them may have more tragic stories than Gilmore.”

“Gary is the only one,” said Boaz, “who has the courage to face the consequences of his act.”

“How,” asked another reporter, “is Susskind going to do the film?”

“Susskind,” said Dennis, “has chosen a sensitive, dignified screenwriter, Stanley Greenberg, to write it. Ask them.”

“Is Schiller still in the bidding?” Farrell wanted to know. “Schiller,” said Boaz, “went around me and sent a telegram.

11

628
THE EXECUTIONER’S SONGp>

Now Gary feels I’m not telling him about dll the offers. I don’t have to wonder where some bad vibrations are coming from.”

“Dennis,” said another reporter, “you were fighting for Gary’s right to be executed, and now you are trying to save his life. Square that realistically, will you?”

“The Declaration of Independence guarantees the right to life, but only if you haven’t been brutalized by the system. Gary was, Gary wants to die. But only because he can’t have Nicole. Gary would love it,” said Boaz, “if he could be with her. Get him into a place where they could be together, right?”

“Name one American prison with connubial rights.”

“Since their story has become international,” said Dennis, “transfer them to Mexico. The real obstacle is to convince Gary to live. He’s depressed right now. But if I can keep going on Geraldo Rivera and Tom Snyder and get people thinking in a new way, they might start demanding that Gary live. Legislators will have to lis ten.”

“Will Gilmore listen?”

“If he knows that he’s going to be with Nicole eventually, he’ll do it. We’re winning people’s hearts with this case. When you get into their emotions, you’ve got them. Definitely, definitely. It’s heavy.”

“Are you saying that Gary will be living with Nicole in Minimum Security?”

“Or Medium Security,” said Dennis. “A year at the outside. With the profits from the story, he’ll be able to pay his own way, too. That will please the taxpayers. You see, it’s not as preposterous as you think. Look at today’s news. Patty Hearst’s father has bought her a

private prison on Nob Hill. Give Gary a little space, like that.” “You’re tooting, Dennis,” said Barry Farrell. “You watch.”

“I’ll watch,” said Farrell.

“What do you really think of Schiller?” Farrell now asked. It was a bad question for Dennis to answer — he had nothing to gain by the reply. He didn’t like, however, to disappoint Barry Farrell. Boaz was impressed with him. Farrell was very Scotch in appearance for a man with an Irish name. Tall, good looking. Tall enough so Dennis could talk to him comfortably. Wore tweeds. Nearest thing to a British gen tleman among the press corps. Well-trimmed pepper and salt beard, and those old Life credentials. Dennis vaguely remembered reading

Barry Farrell’s column in Life on alternate weeks with Joan Didion. Life must have been trying to bring some literary class to the people.

He decided to use Farrell as a superpipeline. So he said, “Schiller is a scavenger, a snake.”

Susskind had just gotten a phone call from Stanley Greenberg telling him that he had decided to leave Salt Lake City.

“It’s getting to be a terrible mess,” said Stanley.

Then Boaz called. “Listen,” he said to David Susskind, “I’m being wooed by a lot of people, and I think I was too easy with you. Monetarily, I can do much better with somebody else. Do you wish to revise your bid?” Susskind said, “No, I don’t, but who are you dealing with?” Boaz said, “A guy named Larry Schiller.” “Well,” said Susskind, “I know Mr. Schiller as an entrepreneur who put together a project that became a book about Marilyn Monroe, that’s the only way I know him. I don’t know him as a producer of films and televi sion, but if he looks better than me, do it with him. I’m not raising the price.” The story was getting to be, in Susskind’s view, a very sensational, malodorous, exploitative mess.

Nonetheless, he called Schiller. Susskind was not in love with the idea of working with the man, but he called anyway and said, “You’re throwing money and figures around, and that poor guy, Boaz, is dazzled. I don’t understand it. Are you now in the film business?” “Yes,” said Schiller, “I am.”

“Look,” said Susskind, “you’re not a producer. Somebody, some day, is going to have to make this film. That’s not your cup of tea.”

“I am a producer,” said Schiller. “I don’t consider myself in your league, but I’ve produced some movies you don’t even know about.”

“Well, I think you’re being unrealistic,” said Susskind. “Of course, maybe you’ll be lucky. Maybe you’ll get the whole thing.”

“I certainly hope so,” said Schiller.

When Susskind spoke again to Greenberg, Stanley said, “I wouldn’t feel too badly. It’s not what we hoped it would be.” Susskind

630
THE EXECUTIONER’S SONGp>

agreed. “I don’t think I’m going to bid anymore. Everybody’s getting kind of crazy there. It’s no longer a story about the breakdown of the criminal justice system, it’s a farce, the girl’s suicide, poison being slipped in.” They agreed they didn’t like the smell of it. Stanley said, “t think anybody who does the story now is jumping on a dead and putrefying body, It’s bizarre and sick.” They agreed. One of those to-hell-with-it conversations.

Still, they didn’t really want to let go. Once some dust settled, the story might still have a lot to offer. They decided Stanley would try to keep himself available in case the right arrangements could yet be made.

NEGOTIATIONS

Next day, Gary brought it up again. “Are you ready, Vein, to take Boaz’s place?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” said Vein. “Am I supposed to feel ready?”

“I’m going,” Gary said, “to turn everything over.” He nodded. “I just want a few thousand dollars to pay off a couple of people, and a couple I want to help.”

“I don’t know yet,” said Vein, “who to make a deal with. A lot of

people are ringing my phone these days.”

“Vein, it’s your decision.”

“Well, if you think I can handle it,” said Vein.

“Being a businessman in town,” said Gary, “you know the way.” “This is a different type of business.”

“Hell,” said Gary, “I’ve seen you operate in your own store. You can do it better than Boaz.”

In the afternoon, Vein got a call from Dennis. “Did you know Gary is talking of firing me?” he asked.

“Well, why did he do that?” asked Vein. “You mean he came right out and said it?”

“Between us,” asked Dennis, “do you think you can take my place?”

Vein said softly, “I think I can do as well as you have.”

After this conversation, Vein spent a couple of hours in thought. Then he called a few friends in Provo to ask advice about a lawyer.

2

3

632
p>

THE EXECUTIONER’S SONG

That evening around ten, he phoned one fellow at home that they all recommended, a lawyer named Bob Moody. Vern could practically hear Moody think about the proposition. Then he answered, “I would be happy to take the case. I’ll help you all I can. Do you want to get

together tonight, or tomorrow morning, or Monday?”

“Monday’s good enough,” said Vern.

He felt as if he were moving an immense weight. Nothing was ever going to be the same again.

Nicole’s cigarettes were becoming a problem. They had a lot of oxygen tanks around in Intensive Care, and wouldn’t let her strike a match. She kept complaining, “I want a cigarette.” They couldn’t do much with her. “You had one a few hours ago,” they would tell her. “Well, I want another.”

Finally, they let Kathryne take her out to the utility room where, among the laundry sinks and old dirty cloth mops soaking in the bowl, Kathryne could sit with Nicole while she smoked. There they would relax. Once Nicole even said, “Maybe I’m glad I’m here. I don’t know.” Nicole never admitted it exactly, but Kathryne decided she hadn’t really wanted to die, just had to prove to Gary she loved him enough. Finally, Nicole did say right out loud, “I thought it was wrong to take my life, and if God thought so also, then I’d stay alive. But if it wasn’t a sin, I would die.” Kathryne felt close to her then.

Naturally, next thing, this awful jumbled-up mess had to begin. The doctors wanted Kathryne to sign papers putting Nicole in Utah State Hospital. In the administrator’s office, Kathryne tried to argue, but the man there said, “It isn’t going to make any difference. There are already two physicians’ signatures that she’s incompetent and suicidal, and Niole has also signed.” Kathryne didn’t know what to do. She didn’t think Nicole was ready to come home. Come home to where? On the other hand, she was afraid that once they put Nicole in the nuthouse, she might never get out. Kathryne was afraid of state hospitals. Anyway, they pulled out the paper, and Kathryne wrote her name under Nicole’s. She was shaking.

The moment Nicole had put her signature on the page, she knew it was an awful mistake. “Why didn’t I just walk out of this motherfucker?” she asked’ herself. All the way to the ambulance she kept telling herself, “The reason you didn’t, girl, is because you got nothing but hospital pajamas and a blanket.” They had wrapped her good and she couldn’t move her arms or legs. A bug all trussed up. As they drove, she couldn’t see out of the ambulance, but there was something about the whine of the gears as the vehicle went up one long grade that sounded like the end of the trip. She was on the long approach road to Utah State Hospital. Oh God, the nuthouse they had had Gary in.

She was familiar enough with that. Same feeling. Even the same ward. It was shaped like a U, with the boys in one wing, the girls in the other, and a social room connecting them. The halls were long and narrow, with bedrooms and cells, and bright linoleum on the floor. Goddamned asshole paintings all over the place. Thoroughly stupid stuff like COMMUNITY IS US! painted in pastel watercolors that had caked and gone dead. Orange couches, yellow walls and plastic cafeteria chairs and tables. It depressed the hell out of her — like she was condemned to live in a visiting room forever. Everybody looked all tranked out. It would take you I5O years to die. Everything so god damned cheerful and phony.