Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [164]
Baby we've got each other-that's all that matters my fair freckled angel. The bringer of the silver sword. Baby hold me tonite against your naked body wrap it all around me and fuck me in your mind and in your thoughts and in your dreams come to me when you leave your fair body in sleep and enter my heart and soul my mind my body take me into your soft warm wet love into your beautiful mouth into your heart your soul your very essence put my hands on your bootie and go wild with me abandon it to me so that in sleep and in all that is we may be as one something beyond imagination.
Once again she decided she had never been loving him more.
His sexy letters got her so excited, it was playing hell with her decision to be true. "You're so full of bullshit," she said on her next visit, "I bet you can't even get a hard-on, and here you are writing things like this." He just grinned back. She was loving him.
Nicole spoke of the hacksaw blades. She had tried a little hardware store and asked for carbon steel. The old guy behind the counter saw she didn't know the size and didn't seem to care 'cause she bought the two kinds in stock. He gave her a funny look, and said, "Who are you trying to break out of, jail?" She had a hard time keeping a straight face.
Now, she had taken the blades over to Sterling. He wasn't, she told Gary, too enthused. First, he said he would, then decided he'd have to think about it. A couple of days had gone by. He was still thinking.
Gilmore owned the best sense of hearing Gibbs had ever come across.
If there was a case of a man with bionic ears, it was Gary Gilmore.
While it was at least ninety feet from their cell out to the front office, ninety feet of turning down three different halls and walkways, nonetheless Gilmore could listen to them book somebody, and tell you the name and the charge. It sure kept him from sleeping. Gibbs had noticed that Gilmore would only average two to three hours out of the twenty-four. He didn't seem to need more.
Cahoon would have breakfast at 6:30, and Gibbs would still be in a drowse, but Gary would be up and eating. Then he would write a letter to Nicole, or read one of his books. He did this in the morning while it was peaceful through the jail.
From time to time Gilmore would speak of how unusual it was to find a man who had done as much time as Gibbs and didn't like to read. Gibbs figured he had gotten through three books in his life: The Godfather, The Green Felt Jungle, Vendetta. Now, Gary handed him The Reincarnation of Peter Proud. Said it would give Gibbs a clue to the hereafter. Gibbs read it to make Gilmore feel good, but that didn't turn him into no believer in reincarnation.
They got into a discussion about Charlie Manson. Manson had psychic powers, Gilmore explained. "I know he made Squeaky Fromme take a shot at President Ford."
"You actually believe such stuff?" asked Gibbs.
"Yeah," Gilmore said, "you can control people with your mind."
Gibbs felt apologetic. "I don't believe in nothing I just can't see."
"Well," Gary said, "Manson put her up to it."
"How?" asked Gibbs. "They didn't let Manson have a visit from the girl."
"No," Gilmore said, "Manson was using psychic powers."
Gibbs didn't see it.
Later that evening, Gilmore was heating water for coffee. They would roll toilet paper into a doughnut shape and light the middle. It produced a steady flame that lasted long enough to get the water to boil. Their heating pot was made out of a Dixie cup with the aluminum foil from their baked potatoes wrapped around it. For a handle, they tied the ends of a piece of string to two holes on the rim, and held the cup above the flame.
Gibbs was lying on his bunk watching Gary do this when he had the thought, "I'd sure laugh if the string broke." Just then, the string did catch fire, the cup fell, the water spilled. Gibbs let it out. He laughed so hard he rolled up in his bunk like a potato bug, and pop-popped a string of farts. Gilmore