Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [182]
Jesus. Ugly. Ugly. oooooH GODDAM. Fuck. l think I got it under control and it gets away again. Nicole I ain't trying to do anything.
Probably shouldn't let you read this.
Goddam. Your letters both of them that I got today smell so good they smell like you. Baby this is an ugly letter. It goes from reason to rage.
Honey when you read this letter know that I love you. That I don't understand this thing as well as I thought I did, that I hurt immensely, go back and cross out the parts that hurt you. don't want to hurt you Angel Angel Angel Fair Angel. I can't decide to give you this letter or not am I just sitting here writing words that won't be read? OOOOOH Baby. You'll read this. You knew before you got it that you would be reading this right now. You can read it over and over.
But you'll never get another letter like this from me again. I know the emotion here and if you want to feel this you'll just have to read this letter over. Cause I'll never tell you again of my hurt.
NOTHING IN THE WORLD, NOT BLINDNESS, LOSS OF MY VERY EYES, LOSS OF MY ARMS OR LEGS, BEING TOTALLY PARALYZED, PUT ON PROLIXIN, NOTHING COULD HURT ME WORSE THAN TO KNOW YOU GIVE YOUR BODY YOUR LOVE TO SOMEONE ELSE.
His letter had more pain in it than she had known anyone could feel. She felt modest in the middle of her own sorrow, as if some quiet person in heaven was crying with her too. So she wrote to him that she would never again do any of the things that tore his heart.
She told him that she'd rather be dead than cause such pain again.
That she would want her life taken away if her eyes ever lied to him again. She left the letter at the jail.
Sometime toward dawn this morning I felt love returning-it flowed warm and tenderly . . . it had never left, of course, was just waiting for me to become acceptable to it again. I hurt you again but in a different way and I think it will hurt you for a long time.
Oh, Nicole.
I wrote you an unnecessarily ugly letter. You're a good girl.
You get by on very little money and love and raise your kids to the very best of your ability. I'm not blind to any of those things.
You're a beautiful girl. I love you utterly.
Right now I hurt again. It is something that I didn't ever want to feel again. But it's here once more, my darling, and it's coupled with a rage that is blinding my reason. Please try to know what I feel. A voice in me tells me to be gentle-to go slow, to understand, to love and know my angel, my elf. Know her many hurts-the things that have happened to her through her young life. But more than that-know of her love for you. Her trust in You, shown by the fact that she 'doesn't lie to you, that she is able to bare her soul and trust you-Know GARY that you too have habits that are not so easy to break. That you GARY are not perfect-that you GARY will be a fool if you do not now understand this woman who loves you.
But instead I wrote that ugly letter I gave you yesterday-Oh, Angel. Please have more faith and strength than I had in my moments of weak blind rage.
I have lain on the bed all day in a fog, a miasma, a senseless stupor. I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm so fucking sorry. All my body feels leaden and heavy. I barely answer Gibbs when he talks. I guess he can sense something is wrong. He keeps the radio turned off because he knows I can't stand to hear it.
On the last day of September, just before dawn, four cops brought a stocky-built dude with a neatly trimmed beard into the Maximum tank. He smelled of booze. When he saw Gilmore and Gibbs watching, he said loudly, "You guys know Cameron Cooper?" Neither answered.
So the fellow said, "Well, my name is Gerald Starkey, and I just killed the motherfucker."