Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [214]
Well, fuck that. I just never was one to make a lot of noise and I can't understand how other dudes can make all that noise all day and nite. I don't even like to talk from these cells-it's weird carryin on a conversation with someone you can't see-think of a whole gang of motherfuckers locked in cells all day and nite and about 10 different conversations going on at once-some of them clear from one end of the building to the other.
I was hopin' it would stay quiet in here for a while. But it never does. These doors, Jesus, how they clang and bang. The motherfuckin' TV blasts all day. I hear those guys all day long takin' votes about what to watch-it takes five or ten minutes-some fool reads the whole TV Guide hourly, loud as he can, then they vote on each idiotic show. Insane. The Boob Tube.
I've done a lot of time-and it ain't never been any different than it is now.
Nicole wrote Gary about a girl hitchhiker who was raped and then knifed twenty or thirty times by some guy in a white van. She wrote how she wasn't afraid of that creep or any other. If she was ever in such a situation, nobody was going to make it with her body, unless she was not in it.
Gary didn't say much in answer, and Nicole was glad. She realized it was her way of trying to apologize for the ex-president of the Sundowners.
Sometimes while hitchhiking, she would have a flash on her death. In her mind she would see the car she was in jumping off the freeway. She would wonder then what would happen in the next moment when she was dead. The thought was like an echo. She would keep seeing the car going off the freeway. Then she would feel the worry. What if death was a mistake? What if in that last moment, just as it was happening, she realized her action was truly a mistake?
It was the only concern she had. That she might not have the right to die.
Now in the visits, Gary began to talk about pills. You faded out under them. It was peaceful, he said. Not at all like the nausea she felt, and the cold in the tunnel. Pills were gentle.
She still didn't know if it was okay to die. All through this month, she couldn't come to a decision. She went back and forth in her mind about the kids, and finally decided she would do it rather than be without him. Sooner or later she would have to take a shot at it. That was cool.
Of course, Gary kept writing to her about it. A couple of times she got mad and told him he pushed the subject too much. Then he would get apologetic and say he was only expressing how he felt. But his talking about it would get her wondering if she wanted to go ahead.
Gary woke up in a panic, and sent word to the Mormon Chaplain in the prison, Cline Campbell, that he had to see him. Campbell came by a little later, and Gary told of a dream he had. Pure paranoia, he said. Nicole was hitchhiking and the driver started to molest her. It was crucial that he see her today. Would Campbell bring her to the prison? Campbell would.
The first time Cline Campbell visited Gary, he mentioned that years ago Nicole used to be his student in seminary class. He had spent hours counseling her. The news seemed to go well with Gary.
After that, they got along. Shared a few conversations.
Campbell believed the prison system was a complete socialist way of life. No wonder Gilmore had gotten into trouble. For twelve years, a prison had told him when to go to bed and when to eat, what to wear and when to get up. It was absolutely diametrically opposed to the capitalist environment. Then one day they put the convict out the front door, told him today is magic, at two o'clock you are a capitalist.
Now, do it on your own. Go out, find a job, get up by yourself, report to work on time, manage your money, do all the things you were taught not to do in prison. Guaranteed to fail. Eighty percent went back to jail.
So he was curious about Gilmore. Looked forward to counseling him.