Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [2]
Well, he told her with a grin, if I don't go along, you're going to do it anyway. He was right. She could feel awfully sympathetic to anybody who was boxed in. "He's paid his dues," she told Johnny, "and I want to bring him home."
Those were the words she used when she talked to Gary's future parole officer. When asked, Why do you want this man here? Brenda answered, "He's been in jail thirteen years. I think it's time Gary came home."
Brenda knew her power in conversations like this. She might be that much nearer to thirty-five than thirty, but she hadn't gone into marriage four times without knowing she was pretty attractive on the hoof, and the parole officer, Mont Court, was blond and tall with a husky build. Just an average good-looking American guy, very much on the Mr. Clean side, but all the same, Brenda thought, pretty likable. He was sympathetic to the idea of a second chance, and would flex with you if there was a good reason. If not, he would come down pretty hard. That was how she read him. He seemed just the kind of man for Gary.
He had worked, Mont Court told her, with a lot of people who had just come out of prison, and he warned Brenda that there would be a recycling period. Maybe a little trouble here or there, a drunken brawl. She thought he was broad-minded for a Mormon. A man couldn't, he explained, walk out of prison and go right into straight normal living. It was like coming out of the Service, especially if you'd been held a prisoner of war. You didn't become a civilian immediately. He said if Gary had problems, she should try to encourage him to come in and talk about it.
Then Mont Court and another probation officer paid a visit to Vern at his shoe shop and looked into her father's ability as a shoe repair man. They must have been impressed because nobody in these parts was going to know more about shoes than Vern Damico, and he would, after all, not only give Gary a place to live, but a job in his shop.
A letter arrived from Gary to announce that he was going to be released in a couple of weeks. Then, early in April, he called Brenda from the prison and told her he would get out in a few days. He planned, said Gary, to take the bus that went through Marion to St. Louis, and from there connect with other buses to Denver and Salt Lake. Over the phone, he had a nice voice, soft spoken, twangy, held back. A lot of feeling in the center of it.
With all the excitement, Brenda was hardly taking into account that it was practically the same route their Mormon great-grandfather took when he jumped off from Missouri with a handcart near to a hundred years ago, and pushed west with all he owned over the prairies, and the passes of the Rockies, to come to rest at Provo in the Mormon Kingdom of Deseret just fifty miles below Salt Lake.
Gary couldn't have travelled more than forty or fifty miles from Marion, however, before he phoned in from a rest stop to tell Brenda that the bus ride so far had been the most kidney-jogging experience he ever felt and he'd decided to cash in his ticket at St. Louis and come the rest of the way by plane. Brenda agreed. If Gary wanted to travel deluxe, well, he had a little coming.
He called her again that evening. He was definitely on the last flight and would phone once more when he arrived.
"Gary, it takes us forty-five minutes to get to the airport."
"I don't mind."
Brenda thought this was a novel approach, but then he hadn't been taking a lot of airplanes. Probably he wanted time to unwind.
Even the children were excited, and Brenda certainly couldn't sleep. After midnight, she and Johnny just waited. Brenda had threatened to kill anybody who called her late-she wanted that line to be open.
"I'm here," said his voice. It was 2 A.M.
"Okay, we're coming to get you."
"Right on," said Gary and hung up. This was one guy who wouldn't talk your ear off for a dime.
On the ride, Brenda kept telling John to hurry up. It was the middle of the night, and nobody