Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [323]
The first few weeks Nicole was in the ward, they couldn't get her to do a thing. She really told them off. It was absolutely against the rules to have people locked up, but there they were running this surveillance on her all the time. She let them know they were breaking their own rules. She was a bitch, verbally.
Doctor Woods disgusted her. She would ask him innocent things, like, "Do I have to eat all you give me, every meal?" and he would look at her like you could lose your ass giving a solid reply. She thought he was a great pussy. This big, good-looking guy who would never commit himself.
She was so angry at herself for failing in that suicide. Now she had really lost control of her life. They took care of her actions. Told her when she could go to the bathroom, watched her when she ate, just about gave her permission to close her eyes. In the daytime, they didn't allow you to rest your head on a chair. You couldn't go to sleep before eight at night. Here were all these patients, fuck-ups and convicts, kids in for some bump or hassle with the law, yet letting that be done to them. Even acted like they liked this business of living by their own rules.
Every day the patients would sit down at a committee meeting-one came right after another-and discuss their rules. Rewrite them. Then they'd get into new hang-ups carrying out the new rules. It took Nicole a long time to realize that that was the way the place was supposed to work. A lot of them got to like writing and rewriting the rules. You could discuss the shit out of the changes, and play a lot of games with people. Fuck them over and get points for it. Go back to the world knowing the ropes. It was a comedy. A real shift in the power trip, thought Nicole.
She wasn't interested. Every time she would look out their second-story window, she would think of jumping through one day, making it to the road, making it out of town. But she knew she couldn't get free that way. They would really lock her in. Her best chance would be in her next Court appearance. She would have to convince them she wasn't suicidal.
Nicole didn't try to decide where she was on that. If they let her out, maybe she would play it straight. Or, she might decide to start running down the Interstate until some big semi clapped her in the ass. She just wanted to get away. The place was too full of shit.
Everybody squealing on everybody. "You broke the rules!" they were always screaming. Then, they would argue it up and down. Nicole tried not to get involved, but after a while, she couldn't help it. Those rules were so fucking stupid. You had to try to improve them.
Then, she dug that there was one rule they were telling other patients but not her. Nobody was to mention Gary Gilmore's name. And no newspapers in the ward. If Nicole brought up Gary, nobody answered. People looked at her like she was kidding. Ha ha. Finally, they told her she was not allowed to say his name. She didn't care. It offended her to speak into the ears of these sheep.
One time, Stein, her grandfather, came to visit, and to say something about Gary. Right away, the posse asked him to leave. She threw a fit. They put her on silent treatment. Nobody swore or got mad, just dead-ass posse staring at her. She would call them names until she could see them cringe, call them sheep and rats, say they were pussy-whipped. She told them she wouldn't go to committee meeting. They carried her over bodily. After a while, she went by herself. She didn't want to be subjected to physical embarrassment. One night they had a dance, and when she refused to join, they lifted her up again and carried her part of the way down the hall. She had to tell them to put her down. She would walk. Then, they started playing the song "King of the Road." She liked that so much, she even danced.
The stuff going on in the meetings was incredible. She was no great brain, but compared to these asses, all totally involved in their own bullshit, she couldn't help opening her mouth to show them a better way. She had to laugh at how they were