Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [377]
Away from here-oh well . . .
Sundberg informed me that all of the doctors involved in this mess i am in are planning already to recommend that i be released on January 22 (1977 hopefully)
These long days are truly drawing nearer to your execution date. i find that reality hard to grasp onto.
Not so much that soon you will die but that i cannot be with you now while it is so near to that time. Why should it be so? There must be logic behind my destiny but i cannot see even a partical of it. . . .
There are no longer words that can express the Love that is in my soul and my heart for you mon Soul Mate You have all my love. i believe that you know And i know i have yours if you die . . . so soon . . . i will know and feel your soul wrap around my thots and this soul who loves you so deeply.
Goodbye now my love Till then and forever No matter where i walk ill walk alone Till again im by your side
I Love you
Ever Yours
NICOLE
Larry talked it over with Farrell and they agreed. When it came to talking about himself, Gilmore, no matter how frank he might seem in the interviews, still lived behind a psychic wall. If they were going to learn more, they would have to make a breach. The questions must turn critical of Gary's poses, cut through the sham. So Farrell worked on a special set to give to Moody and Stanger. Schiller also instructed them that Gilmore was to read each question aloud, then answer it. They did not want either lawyer's voice affecting his reaction.
Over the phone in Maximum, Ron Stanger said, "Our friend is thinking he would like to have some serious answers. Quote, unquote."
"I've been playing serious all along," said Gilmore. "As serious as I've been playing anything."
"Okay," said Moody.
Gilmore began to read: "It seems to me now that in your situation with your sense of fate and destiny and karma, this conversation we're struggling to have is really an important event in your life as well as mine."
"Thanks, Larry," said Gilmore to the introduction.
"I think," Gary continued, "we both owe it to the importance of the situation to try hard to replace superficial speculative interpretations with deeper harder ones."
"Right," he said, answering his own reading voice.
"Sometimes you sound like you're telling a story you've told many times before," went the next question. "My reaction is-oh, Gary, do you tell that to all the girls, or all the shrinks, or all the people who see something of interest in you and want to know you better? A number of stories told in the course of these interviews are stories that you also told Nicole in your letters oft accompanied by, let us say, sweetheart touches, little indications that you wanted to charm the reader, the lover, the observer in a very practiced, calculating way. That's my honest reaction. Tell me where I might be wrong."
"You're wrong, Larry," said Gary.
Then Gilmore laughed. "Shit, ain't nothing calculating about that. I get lonely. I like language, but I tell the truth. In jail you rap a lot, you know, to pass the time. Damn near every convict has his little collection of reminiscences, anecdotes, stories, and a person can get sorta practiced at recollecting. You probably got a few yarns you spin on occasion yourself. You know, you gotta go to dinners and different things and, ah, talk to different people, Larry, so you've probably got your favorite little stories yourself. The fact that you tell something more than once to more than one person doesn't make that thing a lie." Gilmore paused. "Larry, I do emphasize things . . . I've spent a lot of time in the hole, and in the hole you can't see the guy you're talking to, 'cause he's in the cell next door or down the line from you. So, it just becomes necessary to . . . make yourself clear and heard because there might be other conversations going on and a lot of other noise, guards rattling keys and doors. Think about that, you know."
"I am not so sure," said the question, "that you remember truth of your early childhood."