Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [436]
Out in the parking lot, the reporters were being awakened. There was a lot of banging on the doors of vans. "The firing squad is coming," someone shouted.
Robert Sam Anson, covering it for New Times, was taking notes:
"Once again, everyone is running. A hundred yards away, in Maximum, a police car, followed by a van, has pulled close to the gate. Now Sam Smith strides toward the building, erect, determined, coatless, oblivious to the cold. At 7:47, a small party of people emerges from the Maximum door, even at this distance, Gilmore can be seen quite distinctly. He is wearing white pants and a black T-shirt" 'It all looks pretty good,' one of the guards comments. 'All that's left now is the paper work,' his partner answers.
"With the appearance of Gilmore, the reporters become a mob, a herd spooked into stampede. Camera lights tilt crazily up into the air as their bearers struggle to shift them into position. Producers are shouting orders. Directly in front of the prison building, Geraldo Rivera, attired in black leather jacket and jeans and looking cool, the way only Geraldo Rivera can look cool, is shouting into his mike.
'Kill the Rona segment. Get rid of it. Give me air. You'll be able to hear the shots. I promise. You'll be able to hear the shots.' "
When Gary came out of Maximum Detention, he was escorted to the van and seated behind the driver. Meersman sat next to him and then Warden Smith came in, and three new guards. The van drove slowly with the seven men, the only car moving in all that quarter mile of prison streets from Maximum Detention to the cannery.
As soon as they started, Gary reached in with both manacled hands to a pocket of his pants and took out a folded piece of paper and put it on his knee so that he could look at it. It was a picture of Nicole clipped from a magazine, and he stared at it.
When the driver of the van turned the key for the motor, the radio, having been on before, now went on again. The tension in the van was sufficient that everyone jumped. Then the words of a song were heard. The driver immediately reached down to turn the radio off, but Gary looked up and said, "Please leave it on." So they began to drive and there was music coming from the radio. The words of the song told of the flight of a white bird. "Una paloma blanca," went the refrain, "I'm just a bird in the sky. Una paloma blanca, over the mountains I fly."
The driver said again, "Would you like me to leave the radio on?" Again Gary said, "Yes."
"It's a new day, it's a new way," said the words, "and I fly up to the sun."
As they drove along slowly, and the song played, Father Meersman noticed that Gary no longer looked at the picture. It was as if the words had become more important.
Once I had my share of losing, Once they locked me on a chain, Yes, they tried to break my power, Oh, I still can feel the pain.
No one spoke any longer and the song played through.
No one can take my freedom away, Yes, no one can take my freedom away.
When it was done, they drove in silence and got out at the cannery, one by one, disembarking in the way they had practiced in the early hours of the morning when these same prison guards had walked through the scene with a model standing in for Gary. Now, they brought him into the cannery, very, very smoothly. Meersman felt that the practice had paid big dividends.
Last nite I flew in my dream like a white bird through the window . . .
Tonite i will tell my soul to fly me to you.
All through the trip from Maximum to the cannery, all the while "La Paloma Blanca" was playing, Father Meersman did not have any particular feelings as such. Like anything else, one had to proceed to each particular stage in order that it all run smoothly. That was the uppermost thing in his mind, to be thinking ahead to the next step, so that even getting into the van, there wouldn't be any stumbling.
It had been beautifully planned, Father Meersman thought.
Even to the care with which they had arranged that as the vehicle with Gary Gilmore in it moved