Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [400]
This Sunday, however, was different. It was, of all coincidences, her own birthday, and Howard's family was coming for supper. So all the while that Toni had been planning her visit to the prison on this last evening, she also had been cooking the meal for the evening party, and worrying how she could visit Gary early enough so she could get back by seven for Howard's folks.
It was ten of six before they even let her into the visiting room and then she had to wait twenty minutes with the other guests. When they opened the door for Gary, he saw her first and put his arms around her and gave a hug as if he were cracking all the ice of winter with one squeeze, held her so hard and long, she didn't think he would ever let go. Her mother was right with her, and said, "Now, it's my turn." So Gary released Toni with one arm, and hugged Ida, but he never let go completely. In fact as soon as Ida stepped back, he lifted Toni till her feet came off the floor, and gave her a great big kiss on the lips. He was still holding her fifteen minutes later when she absolutely had to leave.
Gary said then, "You are coming back, aren't you?" That was the first Toni considered it. It was the look in his eyes. "Go home," he said, "and take care of your family, then come back." But it was going to be complicated. Not to mention her in-laws, this was also the solitary day Toni would have with Howard all week. He was working on a construction job in southern Utah and only got home on Sundays.
Before she could say yes or no, Gary gave her another big birthday kiss. Then Moody and Stanger took her mother and herself out along the corridor through the wire fences and the crowd which was now massive. Toni knew why they called them the press. They almost squeezed her to death. But that was no more weird than leaving this prison to go back to her birthday party.
Sunday had started for Bob Moody at six in the morning with a High Council meeting. That lasted until eight. At nine-thirty, he went to Priesthood meeting, came back to take his family to church, went out to the prison, and came back to pick up his family when Sunday School concluded at 1 P.M. Then, all of the Moody family went home to dinner. By 4 P.M. Ron Stanger and he were ready to drive to the prison.
In the parking lot were Vern and Ida, then Toni, and two middle-aged cousins of Gary's named Evelyn and Dick Gray. All of them, together with Father Meersman, were taken over to Maximum Security, and Lieutenant Fagan was cordial on this night and showed the facilities. The prisoners had been fed early, and the gates between the visiting room and the main dining room for Maximum Security were open so that they could pass back and forth between the two rooms during the evening. A considerable space altogether.
Perhaps so much as a hundred feet of movement in the longest direction, half of that the other way, plus a couple of smaller extra rooms adjacent for more private conversations. Lieutenant Fagan's office was open, and the kitchen, and the booth with the glass window where formerly they talked with Gary.
All this was at the front of Maximum Security just back of the two sliding gates that separated them from the exterior. At the rear of the visiting room, also barred by a gate, was the long hallway through Maximum off which were set the various cell rows. Moody had never been back there, and was not familiar with the area, so much as respectful of it. It was like the hallway that led to the cellar stairs in a large oppressive old house. Just as you imagined you could hear groans in those old cellars, so from the cell blocks came cries and shouts and moans and slamming sounds clear up to the visiting room, but muted, as if under the rock.
Since they planned to be there through the night and wanted