Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [268]
Before it was over, Greenberg decided it had to be one of the bizarre conversations of all time. An absolutely marvelous dramatic play. Simply couldn't have imagined it better. This thin, vibrant, intelligent woman, very high strung, very liberal, very suspicious of Boaz on the one hand, and on the other side, Dennis pouring out his soul at how he had been harassed by the legal community and was the number-one suspect at the prison for smuggling in Seconal.
There were tears in Boaz's eyes from time to time, and it was hard to know if he was more worried about himself-"I'll take a polygraph test," he said-or more worked up over poor Gilmore, dying, for all they knew, in Salt Lake right now, and Nicole somewhere else-was she also dying? Here, Greenberg thought, is this mad, churning young lawyer, and then this Judy Wolbach glaring at Dennis as if he were a specimen. She was completely distrustful of the auspices. Even the little bar in the corner of the room must have looked to her, under these circumstances, sinister.
Stanley could hardly blame her. Reading about Dennis in the newspapers, she must have seen him as some sort of hippie hustler.
Now, there he was before her, agitated, smiling, arrogant, modest, first dejected, then haranguing her. Stanley couldn't imagine what he would be like at a time of less agitation.
Almost immediately, Dennis came up with this impossibly attractive and hopeless notion. He wanted to get Gary transferred to a Medium Security prison in some state where they allowed connubial visits.
Oh, it would work, he exclaimed. Nicole could get a job in the local town and bring up her children. On weekends they would have their married life, two nights a week. That could give Gary a motive for living. Why, if the court really understood what a fine person Gary was, they would do it. Gary could write and draw. Cottage incarceration was what he was talking about.
Greenberg noticed that Boaz was now happy again. It was apparent: give him an original idea and some remote possibility of achieving it, and he couldn't be happier. It didn't matter if the conditions were unattainable-just give him a novel approach to the pursuit of happiness, and he was happiness itself.
Judy Wolbach didn't seem very impressed, however. Dennis had ended his presentation by saying that the ACLU should provide the services to accommodate this legal action. Judy Wolbach gave him a speech back. The ACLU in Utah, in case he didn't know, was very underfunded.
"Don't you want him to live?" asked Boaz.
Have you looked, she inquired, into the ways that his life might actually be saved? She began to talk about relevant law in Supreme Court cases, and civil rights procedures under Federal and State law.
When Boaz admitted he had not read such cases, she shook her head, and asked if he was familiar with Gilmore's psychiatric file. In reply, Boaz became critical. Why was she not forthcoming? Why did she emphasize the legalistic rather than the humanistic? Greenberg couldn't believe his good fortune: what a play!
Boaz now said he viewed himself as a man of literature, rather than a lawyer lost in procedure. "In the Renaissance, man knew he could be a poet and a lawyer both."
"Well," said Judy Wolbach, "think about which hat you're going to wear, and stay in touch."
Showing Judy down the hall, Stanley Greenberg felt obliged to remark, "I really don't believe Boaz is the person to represent Gilmore."
Over breakfast, next day, he saw Dennis on "Good Morning America."
GERALDO RIVERA Dennis Boaz . . . a man who up until now has supported his client's wish for the right to die. Dennis, welcome.
You've argued in court, sometimes eloquently, that Gary Gilmore deserves the right to die. Do you still believe that?
DENNIS BOAZ (long pause) I believe he has the right to determine his own fate. I can no longer support, uh, the execution by the State.
GERALDO RIVERA Are you saying that you've