Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [302]
Earl's father-and he didn't say this to be critical, but simply accurate-had been somewhat of a loner. His dad's idea of entertainment had been to take his easel and canvas and go off on his own, then come back at the end of the day with a beautiful landscape.
All through Earl's childhood, living around Virginia, Los Angeles and Salt Lake, his father had been an attorney with the Pentagon, and they kept him moving, Since Earl had no brothers, and his only sister was married by the time he was thirteen, he was practically an only child, and had an oddball inner life. He became, for instance, the best cartoonist of his school in the fifth grade, and wrote letters to Walt Disney asking if they would hire his talent despite his youth.
In high school in Virginia, however, he did get to be popular. He played in a dance band and was pretty good at high-school sports, got heavily involved in basketball and track until he broke his leg giving a gymnastic demonstration. It wiped out his athletic career, but got him elected junior class president and he was about to run for student body president, was even dating the head cheerleader, when boom! family had to move to Los Angeles. His dad was being relocated, and Earl, once more, was being dislocated.
He was a nobody going to University High School in West Los Angeles. Huge student body. He ate lunch alone, didn't know a soul.
It was the one time in his life when he felt like being disobedient. He wanted to return to Virginia and live with his uncle and see his girl again.
His father was saddened by this unhappiness. Maybe that was enough recognition. Earl said, "I'm sorry, I'll stay," and did, but his senior year in high school was not the happiest.
Then his dad had a transfer to Utah. That was not as bad. His folks, being LDS, had always kept a little place in Salt Lake where they would go for summers. Since the cheerleader back east was no longer a viable alternative, Earl began to date the sister of his best friend in Salt Lake. They never stopped dating until they were married.
He figured life had left him more stable than the average man his age, but only because he knew his faults. Knew he had a temper.
These days, he contented himself by screaming at the TV set. "Look at that imbecile," Earl would shout at the tube. But only in the privacy of the family. When he was younger, his father would take him aside, counsel him, and refine that temper, to the point where now, conducting an oral argument in front of a Court, he never shouted at his opponent. It was all right to be forceful, but Earl tried to keep contention out of the presentation. That was why he took such pride in Gilmore at the Pardons Hearing. It was as if, within his mind, he kept telling Gilmore to hold his anger.
Earl knew what he could do well and what he couldn't, and cross-examining witnesses had never been his strongest point. One reason he liked the Gilmore business was that he was drawn to cases which required analysis of new legal facets but didn't ask you to get bogged down by resistant testimony. Earl knew he was weak at framing questions in such a way that he could use the witness's answers against him ten questions later. He wanted to get right to the heart of the issue. Maybe he had been interrupted a couple too many times in his young life, but he knew that, as lawyers went, he had no large ability to set up pertinent questions and then lead an adversary down the primrose path. He thought it was corollary to how he kept his acquaintances