Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [245]
"I'm into this in part because of numerology," Dennis would say.
"I'm not a numerology nut, of course. I believe in free will too much for that. But numerology can keep you sensitive to patterns. Every spiritual discipline reveals a pattern, after all, Then you choose your route through the patterns. That's where free will comes in."
"You say you have a great many debts?"
"I announce my debts," said Boaz. "I also owe $2,100 to Master Charge, but I won't pay that. A friend embezzled them with my Master Charge card. That's Master Charge's affair, not mine."
They wanted to know what he had published. He had not published yet, he said. Did he write under his own name? He wrote under K. V. Kitty, under Lejohn Marz. Another pen name was S. L. Y. Fox. Fox, he told them, meant 666, the sign of the beast. Of course they had never heard of Aleister Crowley.
They brought him back to the subject. What did he think of Governor Rampton's decision? Monstrous. They could quote him. He was always surprised at how little they quoted him.
Nor would they print what he said next, but he would tell them.
"Gary lives," he said, "in a cell so narrow he can touch both walls. The light is on 24 hours a day. Guards beat on the bars. The noise confounds a man's last thoughts. Gary puts a towel on the bars to keep the light out. 'Take it down,' they tell him, 'or we'll come in and remove your mattress.' "
It did not matter if they got a tenth of what he said. Let them miss the ironies. When you start to open a door, the pressure has to be greatest in the beginning, yet the door moves the least. "Gary is cramped in his cell," he said. "That's why they have to give him Fiorinal. Most prisoners take drugs to survive. It lifts some of the oppression." They asked him if the officials knew. "Of course. The officials want convicts to be on dope. That way they don't riot."
Dennis could sense the reactions. He heard a reporter whisper, "The guy is totally hyper."
He was not here to defend himself. The opportunity was to attack.
"The Warden," he said, "wants to close this execution down. We want it open. In the Middle East, at an Arabian execution, crowds are welcomed. The crowd gives the victim a lift. It makes him feel like they are there together in a ceremony. It reminds everybody that we are all sacrifices to the gods. Whereas here, at a condemned man's last moment, there is nobody but executioners. I think that's wrong, really."
"What do you and Gary talk about?"
"We talk," said Boaz, "of the evolution of the soul. Gary knows a lot about Edgar Cayce and the Akashic Register. We discuss karma and the need to take responsibility for our deeds. Gods and goddesses have total freedom because they have total responsibility." They never printed any of this.
A reporter read aloud a statement by Craig Snyder: "Boaz never contacted us. I was in Utah Supreme Court, and we argued opposing viewpoints, but I was not introduced, and I've never spoken to the man. To my knowledge he has never examined the record or found out what happened at the trial. His publishing agreement with Gilmore flies right in the face of the Canon of Ethics." "Where did he give the statement?" asked Dennis.
"At the Adelphi Building, where his office is, in Provo."
"That's a place with yellow shag carpets and brown and yellow walls, right?" asked Dennis.
"You ever see it?" asked the reporter.
"No," said Boaz, "but I know crypto-corporate vibes."
"Come on, Dennis," said the reporter, "why didn't you get in touch with Esplin and Snyder?"
"Gilmore doesn't want to appeal, do you understand that? I'm representing