Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [158]
After all, it had never been important to her. Easier to let things happen than tell a guy to leave you alone. It was kind of a relief now to have a reason for saying no. Of course, it wasn't that easy to turn away Cliff or Tom Dynamite. She would explain, "I'm not here with you anymore, I'm with somebody else." They understood, Cliff particularly. That didn't keep them from still trying to get it on. She did need company.
Once or twice it was really hard to tell them to go home. Besides, other people kept dropping over. Dudes out of the past. It wasn't that she couldn't say no, it was that they were expecting it to be like the last time. She didn't want to stand in front of them and scream, "Get out of my life." They hadn't done her any harm.
She had to figure it out. So she didn't visit the jail, or write. She wanted to wait until she could tell him she loved him enough to be able to do what he asked.
Chapter 22
Truth
Gary was so quiet over the next few days that it got ominous. Cahoon decided he was too morbid and needed company, so he moved over a prisoner named Gibbs from the main tank. They had both done so much time, they might get along.
Cahoon noticed that soon as he shut the bars, they started a conversation in jail talk. It was that gibberish talk. Use a word like rigger to say nigger. Show the other fellow how many years you put in by carrying on a whole conversation. Cahoon didn't try to get it all. If they said lady from Bristol, that meant pistol, and he would have to get concerned, but Gilmore was talking of ones and twos, and those were shoes. "Yeah," said Gilmore to Gibbs, "A nice pair to go with my fleas and ants."
"You still got to think," said Gibbs, "of your bunny and boat."
"Fuck the goat," said Gilmore, "let me stroll in with a dickery dick."
"That's right, it could juice the chick."
Cahoon left. They were just doing time. He thought they made a cute couple. Both had Fu Manchu goatees. It was just that Gilmore was a lot bigger than Gibbs. Like cat and mouse. Hell, like cat and rat.
2
There were only three things in the world Gibbs could honestly say he had any feeling for: children, kittens, and money. Been on his own since he was 4. When 17, he wrote and cashed $7,000 worth of checks in a month and bought himself a new car. Always had new cars.
By the time he was 4, Gilmore said, he'd broken into 50 houses. Maybe more.
First time Gibbs went to prison out here, he was behind a 2 1/2-million-dollar forgery. He took, Gibbs said, 21 counts. Next time he went back was when he blew up a cop's car in Salt Lake. Captain Haywood's car.
Gave him 15 years when he was 22, Gilmore said. Did them at Oregon and Marion. Gibbs nodded. Marion had the credentials. Flattened 11 years consecutively, Gilmore told him. Probably 4 years altogether in Solitary. Gilmore showed real pedigree.
He was in for rubber rafts, Gibbs told him. Stole forty of them in two weeks out of J.C. Penney's in Utah Valley, Salt Lake Valley, $39 apiece. Chain saws same way. Made two or three hundred bucks a day. Just couldn't manage his money, that's all.
My problem, too, allowed Gilmore. He had also done a little boosting at J.C. Penney's.
"Yeah," said Gibbs, "the only difference between you and me is when I do it, I have two shoulder men to run interference. If they come after, my big boys say, 'What are you chasing this guy for?' "
Gibbs could recognize that Gilmore didn't know any heavies out of Salt Lake. Didn't know the Barbaro brothers, Len Rafts,