Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [428]
Finally, the doors were opened and the Judge told them to take the elevators to the fourth floor. They literally had a footrace with the media to the courtroom.
About this time, close to 9 A.M. in Washington, AI Bronstein at the office of the Clerk of the Supreme Court, Michael Rodak, produced a handwritten application addressed to Justice White. Bronstein had captioned his paper, "The Honorable Willis W. Ritter vs. The State of Utah," and told Mr. Rodak that they had a peculiar procedural posture here. To his knowledge, the Court of Appeals in Denver had not yet acted, but time was running short, and he wanted to be here with the paper in case there was need for it. Rodak said, "Fine, we'll get together," and set up a little temporary office for Bronstein.
Chapter 35
Dawn
Toni had gotten home from the prison early enough to have a little time with Howard before he had to be up at 4:30 to start for south Utah and Monday morning's work. Under these circumstances, however, they hardly had any sleep before they were out of bed again.
Then back at the prison this third visit, they told her it was too late to see Gary again. His visitors, she was told, would soon be leaving Maximum so they couldn't bring her in. That was ridiculous.
They kept her waiting a long time in Minimum Security before Dick Gray was brought in and said, "Toni, don't try to get back. Remember him like you did last night." She shook her head. "I got to say good bye." "No," Dick Gray told her, "that could just make it harder for Gary to go to his execution. If you break down, maybe he would too."
At that moment, Toni had the feeling Gary was real scared, and didn't want to die,
When Schiller got to the gate at 5:45, the guards couldn't believe it. "I never went in last night," Schiller said. "Oh," they said, "yes, you did."
"Well," Schiller agreed, "yeah, I went in at five-thirty, but I came out five minutes before six." That was his answer. They shrugged.
They knew he was lying, but what could they do? An officer came to guide him to the holding area. Schiller parked his car and they began to walk all the way down to Minimum Security in the ice-cold night with the sun just starting to stir somewhere beyond the ridge. It was dark still, but the sky was turning pale way to the east.
In these mountains, it might be only half an hour to the dawn, but two hours to the rise of the sun, and Schiller kept walking. The guard was really nice. He seemed to sense that Schiller hadn't slept for a long time, and said, "If you want to stop and rest, you can."
Schiller didn't know whether they were all getting near some kind of release, but this guard had a nice personality. "You want some coffee?" he asked. Just a guard walking him down, but Schiller was feeling a calm and a serenity he had never experienced in a prison before. It was five minutes to six, and when he turned around, the sky had come up another shade of blue from dark to light. There was a clear light on the eastern horizon and the buildings of the prison around him began to feel like a monastery.
They led him to the visitors' room in Minimum Security, where he was one of the first to enter. As he sat and thought of the notes he was going to have to take on the execution, he reached inside his pocket to get his pad, the very pad he'd taken out with him two days before when he decided to write without looking at the paper, but all he had with him was his checkbook. He would have to take notes on the backs of checks. At that recognition, his bowels flared up like a calf bawling. Of all the fat-ass things to do. There were tears in his eyes from the effort of holding