Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [398]
Breslin was walking around the office, cursing up a streak, "How dare they shoot the fucking guy, these fucking people?" Breslin was even furious at Gilmore for wanting to be offed.
Larry decided to relax at the Xerox machine. It was agreeable to work at some mechanical activity. Then, Tamera came up to say her newspaper wouldn't go for the liquor. "I don't care who does it," said Schiller, "get somebody." Tamera called Cardell, who had to be one of the most active Mormons in Salt Lake, and would you believe it, he agreed to go over and get it as a Christian act? Thought a dying man ought to be able to have his last request. That was something. Tamera's brother was straight arrow like you wouldn't believe.
Schiller called Stanger, and asked, "Will the Warden let me see Gary before the execution?" When Stanger said he didn't know Larry called the prison. The Warden still wouldn't talk to him.
Schiller told himself, "If they do change their mind, I want to be right at the front door."
Now, he studied the prison plan for the media, and decided it was very professional. "I don't believe the Warden made this out," he said aloud. It was just too sensible. Through the night, public announcements would be made every thirty minutes on the speaker, and a prison representative would come out frequently to talk to the reporters. A few minutes after the execution, the Warden would make a statement. Ten minutes after that, the press would be allowed to visit the site. It showed a knowledge of how to handle the media that had not been evident before. The very layout of the language intrigued Schiller. He said to himself, "I now have a match for my intelligence," and had one of his Dream-the-Impossible-Dream ideas. Maybe he would yet meet the author of this plan tonight and be able to explain why they should let him in to talk to Gary. "Yes," he said to himself, "I'm going to enter now as a member of the press."
Of course, he had made plans for such a contingency. John Durniak, the picture editor at Time, had told him he could use Time credentials if he wished. Lawrence Schiller, Witness to the Execution, who would not be allowed into the prison until 6:30 A.M., was now ready to enter at 6 P.M., better than twelve hours earlier, with his new press pass as Lawrence Schiller, accredited to Time magazine.
At least an hour before six, Schiller didn't feel like waiting around Orem any longer, and he put the liquor-filled cough-syrup bottles in his pocket, and told Tamera to have Cardell meet them at the gate of the prison. Then they took off from the TraveLodge.
When he got to the gate, a lot of press was already going in. If they had been calling it a circus before, it looked now like a gypsy caravan.
A great many television vans were lined up on the access road outside, plus all the vans for the movie-reel people and second crews and remotes, in addition to several hundred members of the press who were jammed into every conceivable kind of vehicle, all going one by one through the main gate. What hit Schiller was that everybody was drinking.
4
The prison press release had not stated whether the press could bring liquor or beer, but, of course, this omission was no flaw in the master plan. Who had ever heard of the world press staking out a place for twelve hours without liquor? Besides, it was so bitter cold that without booze, they would all freeze. Schiller flashed to six in the morning and three hundred newsmen stiff on the prison grounds.
What a shot! Not a stringer alive to send out word. Yes, this was truly a master plan. Any demonstrations that took place would be off on the access road, well outside the prison. The objectors would be shouting their opposition from 1,500 feet away. If not for this plan, some of the best men in the media might have been looking right now for interviews with the demonstrators, even encouraging them to come up with scorching remarks. By morning, there would been numerous stories of what was said by