Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [152]
Well, just as Nicole walked out the school door, Hampton drove up in a '58 DeSoto and jumped out, Barrett got on the street also, figuring, I know Nicole. If I sit here and lock the doors, she's going to say I'm chickenshit. So Barrett stepped up, hoping Hampton wouldn't punch him, just eat him out, but Hampton went right over to meet him, looking three heads taller, and as Barrett smiled and said "How are you doing?" Hampton knocked him down.
Having smoked those two joints, Barrett was pretty loose. Everything went black. He couldn't see. He'd been cooled. Tried to get up, and then he did get up, and Nicole came on at that point and called Hampton a fucker. Everybody could see Barrett wasn't able to defend himself. After they pulled Hampton off, Nicole and Barrett got in the car and drove up to the river. They sat by the water and he told Nicole how the windshield was turning yellow and melting. All kinds of shit, you know. Between the blow he'd taken and the pot he'd smoked, he might as well have been flying an acid trip. But it was over and he felt fine. Full of colored streams. Nicole was sitting next to him. If he had to take a couple of bumps, big deal. He felt like heaven thinking she loved him and took his side.
Then there was the day when Sunny, Jeremy, Nicole and himself were getting into a car, and Joe Bob Sears, the animal-Barrett could still hear the whistle in his ears-came, zoom, right from across the street, his car pulled across theirs, so they couldn't go. Joe Bob Sears in a black Maverick. Barrett's heart hiccupped out of his chest. Joe Bob opened their door, jerked Nicole out, grabbed Sunny, jerked her out, grabbed Jeremy, hit his head on the car, gathered them all up, threw them in his Maverick, and all the while Nicole was calling Joe Bob every rotten name. Barrett got out to see what he could do, and Joe Bob grabbed a knife, pointed it at Barrett, said, "I'm going to cut you open." At that, Jim jumped in his car, backed up and came forward to run Joe Bob over, but Sears jumped away, got in his car, and took off down the road with Nicole and the two kids. Just then a cop came along, Barrett flagged him, said, "That guy just kidnapped my wife, you know, my girl friend." The cop gave chase, gave Joe Bob the red light, pulled him over.
Nicole and the kids were standing on the grass, Joe Bob was saying, "She's my woman, she's coming with me," and the cop was saying, "She doesn't have to go with you if she doesn't want to." Nicole was saying, "I ain't going with you, you bastard." Finally, the cop said, "Listen, young lady, you better knock off that language or I'll lock you up too." Finally, Sunny, Jeremy, and Nicole got back in the car with Barrett and he took off and that's the last they ever seen of Joe Bob. They went back to living in the tent.
3
All this was in his head when he went over to see Nicole on this occasion at three in the morning. She was sitting there, writing a letter to Gary and did not want to be interrupted, but Barrett came in, and announced right off he wanted to fuck. She wasn't into it, she said.
As she started to walk away, he sat her down. Didn't throw her, but sat her hard enough she knew she wasn't getting up in a hurry. "Oh," he said, "you are writing a letter to your murdering sweetheart." Why, he started to say, if she knew the things going on in him, she would be scared right now. "Nothing," said Nicole, "scares me anymore."
Barrett took the picture of Gary that she had taped on the wall, and started to rip it. But it was some kind of tough Polaroid that was hard to tear, and it struck her as comical. He was so stoned he was having difficulty. Then she got mad, and said, "Give me that son-of-abitching picture." But Barrett held it away, took his lighter out, started burning it. She picked up an ashtray, and hit him in the head.
He started throwing her all over. He might just as well have been Joe Bob Sears, except he wasn't hitting