Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [346]
2
Back in the motel, Gibbs was eating codeine like candy, but he was careful to take Oral Varidase only as prescribed. Day after Christmas, he called his mother and she told him to keep his leg elevated and put a heating pad on it. She'd been a registered nurse for thirty-five years. She also told him to be careful shaving. If he was even to nick himself, he might not, because of the Oral Varidase, be able to get the bleeding to stop.
Gibbs also called Halterman. Ken's first words were, "If it wasn't you, Gibbs, I wouldn't believe it." Then he said, "Know anybody can get in more jams?" That's all Gibbs needed to cheer himself up.
He phoned Owl Taxi for cigarettes, whiskey, Cokes, ice and some canned tomato and mushroom soup, which he figured to use on the little courtesy coffeepot heater in the room. Until he got his upper plate fixed, he would have to live on soup. Then he called the Highway Patrol to see who had brought his car in, and asked the kid who'd done the job to look in the front seat for the other half of his teeth. An hour or so later, the fellow came to the room with the missing piece. Since the car was totaled, he wondered if Gibbs would consider selling the engine. Could pay around $25 a month. The boy had just gotten married and didn't have much money. Gibbs said, "Take it from me as a late wedding present."
After a couple days of tomato and mushroom soup, Gibbs asked the lady who ran the motel if she knew of a restaurant that offered take-home food. Right offhand, she didn't, but asked what he would like. When he said soft-boiled eggs, toast and milk, she brought it to his room and he paid her $5. She told him two would be sufficient, but he insisted on five. She was one of the most agreeable people he ever met in his thirty-one years of life.
The following day he called a florist shop in Butte and asked the saleswoman to have flowers delivered. Then he asked her to write on the card, "To the nicest lady in the world" and please sign it Lance LeBaron. He explained he did not know her name, but sure did know how well she had treated him. The woman at the florist shop not only agreed she was nice but said the name was Irene Snell, and the flowers were delivered an hour or so later.
From then on, every night, Mrs. Snell brought his meals. After he got his teeth fixed, she would tell him what she herself was having for dinner. He ended up eating everything from spaghetti to steaks and always had to argue with her on the price. In the mean time, the doctor came by to check his leg, refill his prescription and remove the stitches from his forehead.
Slowly, his cash was going down, but Gibbs didn't think about it.
He had never been able to manage money anyway. Between $25 and $60 a day was being spent in long-distance phone calls, and he made a point to pay the motel bill each morning. It was hard not to feel sorry for himself. Each night he'd get drunk, and then he'd want to cry on someone's shoulder. That was hell at long distance. One old girl friend he almost asked to fly up to stay with him, but decided he wouldn't. Then he called another old girl friend. Almost did the same thing. But he couldn't think of a girl who might not disclose to the wrong people where he was and, worse, what condition he was in.
He made a point to tell everybody he called that he was lying in bed with a nine millimeter Browning Automatic right next to him, and thirteen good reasons in the clip why nobody, unless invited, better come through his door. When he mentioned this to Halterman, Ken said, "For somebody who's trying to hide, you sure talk your butt off."
Even the operators in Butte started using his name. As soon as he'd ask for Salt Lake, they would answer, "How are you, Mr. LeBaron? It's room three at the Mile High, is it not?" He had left Utah with $1,370 and was now down to $500.
Lying in bed, he would sometimes go out of his head a little and imagine what it would be like when he went to