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By Root 9608 0

voice got to him. Barry was crying and laughing and felt half triumphant that the man could talk with such clarity. Farrell's own eyes were good, and he always thought of them as precious cargo. While he would sign a card giving any part of his body to anybody, willingly, cock included, it would be after he died his normal death. Here was a fellow who had an execution date-imagine that, Barry said to himself after twenty hours of work, alone in a room at three in the morning-an execution date and everybody wants a piece of him. Everybody is writing to ask for this part of his body or that, yet, he could think clearly about it. Sure there were people who carried cards in their wallets that said, "If you find me dead, you can have my kidney," but that was not the same as knowing you were going to be gone on the 17th of January, and applicants were coming around now, one week before, asking for your liver, your spleen, your left nut. Why a small-minded man could see it all as cannibalism, and cry out, "For Christ's sakes, leave me in peace. I want my eyes."

By God, was Gary like Harry Truman, mediocrity enlarged by history? Christ, he had even become the owner of a cottage industry: the precise remains of Gary Gilmore. That, to Farrell, was more impressive than any ability to steer a firm course toward execution. Farrell had not been much impressed by that bravery. Gilmore, he thought, had a total contempt for life, his life, your life, anyone's life.

Waived his own away because it was a boss thing to do, showdown shit, pure pathology that came out of long years of playing chicken with prison authorities. Yet, now, overnight new celebrity, movie star without portfolio, Gilmore was responding humanely to all the attention, actually functioning like a decent man. Those eyes redeemed the scene. Farrell was feeling very protective about this story.

So when he saw Schiller and Breslin on the couch, he went into a tantrum. Barry liked to keep his cool, but twenty-hour work sessions had certainly heated him up. "You have a cop," he said to Schiller, "sitting up all night across the corridor to make sure nobody breaks into this office, but you ought to have that cop sitting on your upper lip." He was mad enough to smash a table. "Schiller, you're not handing this over to Breslin."

Before the fight could even develop, however, Jimmy took out his pad, pulled the page he had been writing on, tore it in little pieces, and threw them up in the air. Beautiful, thought Farrell. He was very pleased with Breslin.

Chapter 25

GETTING TO KNOW YOU

Farrell had to be glad the eyes had been kept for him. He needed something nourishing in the marrow, for he had been discovering an awful lot about Gilmore that was not so good. Rereading the interviews and letters, Farrell began to mark the transcripts with different-colored inks to underline each separate motif in Gilmore's replies, and before he was done, he got twenty-seven poses. Barry had begun to spot racist Gary and Country-and-Western Gary, poetic Gary, artist manqué Gary, macho Gary, self-destructive Gary, Karma county Gary, Texas Gary, and Gary the killer Irishman. Awfully prevalent lately was Gilmore the movie star, awfully shit-kicking large-minded aw-shucks.

GILMORE Here is that other girl who writes to me: "How's my wild pony with those wild eyes" "I wish I could kiss you just once. I don't know, Gary, how to say goodbye to you. Gary, I'm cryin' right now on your letter, I love you, I hate the fucking system, I hate that they won't even let you call Nicole, the fuckers. Execution. What is this? Wild, wild West? My love is with you, Gary. I love you." (laughing) I think she's got a case for me, eh? I got three letters from her today. A good thing for me I'm not in California. Christ, oh, ah, man, she'd wear me out.

STANGER Is she fifteen? Holy mackerel.

GILMORE Pretty hard to keep up with.

Then there was the old con full of jailhouse wisdom:

GILMORE After you get known as a troublemaker, it's so easy to keep getting in trouble, 'cause all them guards, man, like they put your