Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [328]
She's a good mother of pioneer Mormon stock. A good woman. What do you think of your mother?
DO YOU GENERALLY CARE WHAT PEOPLE THINK ABOUT YOU?
Yes.
Everybody does.
Yes, he did care, thought Schiller. It gave one more reason the letters should be sold and printed. The public would be less completely hostile to Gilmore.
As a sign of friendship, or was it an indication of Gilmore's own interest in presenting some better picture of himself, he had also sent along a poem he had written several years back. Schiller wasn't sure what to make of it, but thought he could pull some lines to give Time or Newsweek when they got desperate for copy.
The Land Lord
an introspection by Gary Gilmore
Feeling a beckoning wind blow thru
The chambers of my soul I knew
It was time I entered in
I climbed within and stared about—
I was home indeed my very seed
A mirror of me reflecting myself
From every curve and line and shelf
Every surface there
Every texture bare
Every color tone and value
Each sound
Pride Hate Vanity
Sloth Waste Insanity Lust Envy Want
Ignorance black and green
I felt myself at every turning
Set my very mind to burning
Face to face no way to dodge
Headlong I tumbled thru this lodge
I felt and met alone myself
A red scream rushed forth
But I caught it back and checked its force
It crescendoed into a hopeless heavy weight
in the blood and fell . . .
A beat of wing I felt and heard
Not at all like any bird
Overhead I saw myself contorted black
and brown and twisted mean-borne aloft
by a gray bat wing-growing from
my shoulders there . . .
One thing was peculiar clear
There was no scorn to menace here
This is just the way it is
Laid bare to the bone
And I built this house I alone
I am the Land Lord here
PART FOUR
The Holiday Season
Chapter 18
PENITENTIAL DAYS
One of the jurors from Gary's trial wrote a letter to the Provo Herald.
The Utah Supreme Court hadn't found any error, he said, so why had Gilmore's case gone to the U.S. Supreme Court?
Judge Bullock started to think about the juror. From the tenor of his letter, Bullock got the impression that some Jury members were wondering if they had done their job properly. There had been so many appeals. The Judge thought: "I'm going to ask that Jury to come back in. Maybe I'm sticking my neck out, but I want to explain the legal procedures."
He had his clerk make each contact. Didn't want the jurors to feel there was pressure from Judge J. Robert Bullock himself, so the clerk merely announced that the Judge, strictly unofficially, would be willing to meet with them and go over any legal questions they might have. Every juror accepted. They all came in.
He met them in Court when nobody was around one evening, and put them in the Jury box. He sat down in front, and explained the right of appeal, and how this case was likely to go on for several more years. In fact, it would be unusual if it was brought to conclusion in less time. He pointed out that people had a right to go to Court to fight for legal principles in which they believed, and said the law on capital punishment had not been settled. People hadn't been executed since 1967, so it was highly appropriate that delays take place. But he wanted the Jury to understand that they had not done their part of the job incorrectly.
There was the sore spot. Judge Bullock told them that their verdict could not be impeached under any circumstances. "I," he said, "could have made errors in telling you what the law is, but you have not made errors. You have done your job." He could feel these words helped them. They now felt better about it all.
He also repeated it might take a few years, and said, "That's the way it is, let's not fight the system." To his surprise, shortly after this meeting the Supreme Court lifted their Stay. In consequence, Gilmore was now scheduled to be brought back to his Court for resentencing on