Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [13]
It was not uncommon, Gary said. You could always see fat women in the visiting room of a jail. For some reason, very fat women and convicts got along. "Once you get behind bars," Gary remarked, "maybe you need more of an earth mother."
They were going to get married but Becky had to go into the hospital for an operation. She died on the table. That was his prison romance.
He had other stories. LeRoy Earp, who had been one of his best friends as a kid, was sent to Oregon State Penitentiary two years after Gary. LeRoy had killed a woman, picked up a life sentence and didn't have much to look forward to. So he had a bad habit. LeRoy, Gary explained, would stay fucked-up on Valium for months.
"He got in debt to this guy named Bill, who was dealing in prison dope," said Gary, looking at Sterling and Ruth Ann, "and Bill was always fucking with people. One time LeRoy sent word to me, Bill had come to his cell and beat him up, all that shit," said Gary, "put the boots to him while LeRoy was on the floor. Then Bill walked off with LeRoy's outfit, you know, his syringe and needle, his money, everything." Gary took down half a can of beer at a swallow. "Well," he said, "Valium can make you hallucinate, so I wasn't certain LeRoy's story was true. I talked it over with a guy who was going in the hole for seven days and he checked it out for me, confirmed it. The guy wanted to know if I needed any help with Bill.
"I told him I would do it myself. LeRoy was my personal friend. The prison was doing some construction out in the yard, so I went over, stole a hammer and caught Bill watching a football game on TV. I bounced the hammer off his head. Then I turned around and walked off." Gary nodded, studying their reactions. "They took Bill up to Portland for brain surgery. He was pretty fucked-up."
"What happened to you?" asked Ruth Ann.
"There was two or three snitches in the TV room and they saw me do it and told the Warden. But the snitches were afraid to stand up in Court. So the Warden just kept me in the hole for four months. When I got out, this buddy of mine gave me a little toy hammer to wear on a chain, and nicknamed me Hammersmith."
Gary told this story in a Texas accent, very even voice. He was kind of informing Sterling that he had a code. It went: Be loyal to your friends.
Gary now asked Ruth Ann if she knew any girls who would go out with him.
She didn't, offhand.
Chapter 3
THE FIRST MONTH
Gary went back to visit with Brenda and Johnny for Easter weekend. After the kids went to sleep, they spent Saturday night coloring Easter eggs around the table, and Gary had a fine time and drew beautiful pictures and wrote the names of the kids in Gothic script, and in three-dimensional letters so that, small as they were on the Easter egg, they still appeared to be cut out of stone.
After a while, Johnny and Gary began to giggle together. They were still painting eggs, but instead of saying, "Cristie, I love you," or "Keep it UP, Nick," they were printing stuff like "Fuck the Easter Bunny." Brenda exclaimed, "You can't hide those."
"Well," said Gary with a big grin, "guess we got to eat 'em." He and Johnny had a feast of mislabeled hard-boiled eggs.
They spent the rest of the evening drawing maps-Take so many steps; Look under a rock; You can read the next clue only in a mirror; etc.-they were up half the night putting candy, eggs and treats all over the yard.
Brenda had a good time watching Gary climb around in the tree-which was wet for that matter. They were having a wet Easter. Here he was looming through the branches, hiding goodies, and getting soaked right