Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [254]
Well, all will ultimately be clear and right just know that i love you all today and i will love you always.
Please try also not to greive for me-or resent Gary.
PART TWO
Exclusive Rights
Chapter 6
WAKE
Four months after the morning that Kathy Maynard found Nicole in bed with an overdose of Seconal, journalists were still coming around with tape recorders. Their interest in Nicole was great, and curiosity about Kathy herself was small, but it is a technique of some interviewers to begin by asking each witness, important or unimportant, many questions about their life.
INTERVIEWER How old were you when you got married?
KATHY MAYNARD Sixteen.
INTERVIEWER Why did you get married at sixteen?
KATHY MAYNARD 'Cause my other friends did..
INTERVIEWER And who did you marry?
KATHY MAYNARD Tim Mair from Heber City.
INTERVIEWER How old was he?
KATHY MAYNARD (snickers) Seventeen.
INTERVIEWER Seventeen, well what was he doing?
KATHY MAYNARD He was working at a lumber mill.
INTERVIEWER And where did you meet him?
KATHY MAYNARD Out in front of the school. On a lawn.
INTERVIEWER How long did you go with him before you married him?
KATHY MAYNARD 'Bout a month.
INTERVIEWER Where did you get married?
KATHY MAYNARD At his house in Heber..
INTERVIEWER Why did you get married at his house and not yours?
KATHY MAYNARD Because my mom was living in a motel.
INTERVIEWER Was your mother happy about you getting married or what?
KATHY MAYNARD No, she was pretty shook up-she didn't want me to.
INTERVIEWER He's got the peanut butter jar, is that okay?
KATHY MAYNARD Kevin, put the peanut butter up! Come on!
INTERVIEWER How long were you married?
KATHY MAYNARD Ohhhhh, let's see-three months.
INTERVIEWER Had you slept with him before you got married?
KATHY MAYNARD Oh yeah. (snickers)
INTERVIEWER Right. And uh, what happened to that marriage?
KATHY MAYNARD He killed hisself.
INTERVIEWER He killed himself?
KATHY MAYNARD Uh huh.
INTERVIEWER While you were married?
KATHY MAYNARD Uh huh.
INTERVIEWER Why-I mean what happened-what's the story surrounding it?
KATHY MAYNARD Well, he was drinking and we was going to Provo, we was Christmas shopping . . . and he stopped on the way out of PEDRO and bought a hunting knife, and I didn't think nothing of it . . .
INTERVIEWER Right.
KATHY MAYNARD And coming back we was arguing 'cause he kept rolling the window down and it was cold so when we got back to mom's . . . he started arguing with me again and my mom was asleep, she was working graveyard, and I just asked him if he would be quiet you know . . . if he'd keep his voice down so it wouldn't wake Mom up and he got mad and walked out the door. I was in bed.
And then he turned around and come back and he flipped the light on, had his knife out and said, "Watch," and he stabbed hisself.
INTERVIEWER Right in front of you?
KATHY MAYNARD Uh huh. Kevin put the peanut butter up!
INTERVIEWER Do you have any idea why he did it?
KATHY MAYNARD I don't know-He shot hisself in the foot once.
INTERVIEWER When you were married?
KATHY MAYNARD Before we was married because I was with another guy.
INTERVIEWER Right.
KATHY MAYNARD Kevin, go play for a minute.
INTERVIEWER Did you blame yourself?
KATHY MAYNARD Ohh, I did for quite a while 'cause it kinda shook me up 'cause I thought well, if I hadn't been fighting with him . . .
INTERVIEWER Uh huh.
KATHY MAYNARD I don't know, after talking to quite a few people I realized he was sick and needed help.
INTERVIEWER Where did he stab himself?
KATHY MAYNARD Well, it was in the stomach. They couldn't get the bleeding stopped to tie his arteries so he got into shock and loss of blood . . .
INTERVIEWER Did he die in the-in the apartment?
KATHY MAYNARD Oh no, he died in the University of Utah . . . in Salt Lake . . . two days later.
INTERVIEWER Two days later?
KATHY MAYNARD Uh huh.
INTERVIEWER And uh, you weren't pregnant at that time or anything?
KATHY MAYNARD Well, I was pregnant-my twins were Tim's.
INTERVIEWER And did you know you were pregnant