Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [438]
Later, Schiller found out that a newspaper had been able to get away with it and take pictures of Gilmore being transferred, because the release had specified airplanes, not helicopters.
Just in back of the cannery, Schiller saw a black canvas structure that had been built out on the loading platform like an extra room, and he realized the executioners must be waiting in there.
Then his car went around another corner of the building, and he saw Vern, Moody, and Stanger get out of the automobile ahead and go up the entrance steps. When it was his turn to walk through the door, Schiller could see from the corner of his eye that Gary was to his right and strapped in a chair. What hit him before he even took a true look, was that Gary's end of the room was lit, not brightly like a movie set, but lights were on him, and the rest of the room was dark. He was up on a little platform. It was like a stage. With the chair so prominent, it felt more as if an electrocution was going to take place than a shooting.
As Schiller walked forward, the rear view of Gary's head changed to a profile, and then he was able to see a little of his face. At that point, Gilmore acknowledged his presence, and Schiller nodded back.
The next thing he noticed was that Gilmore was not strapped tightly into the chair. It was the first detail that really hit him. Everything was loose.
There were straps around his arms and legs, but they all had a good inch of slack. He could have pulled his hands right out of their restraints. Then, as Schiller continued to move forward, he saw a painted line before him on the floor, and an official said, "Stand behind that," so he wheeled and faced the chair. Now, with Gilmore again on his right, Schiller could see to his left a black blind with slots in it, and he estimated the distance at twenty-five feet from himself and about the same distance from Gilmore. Then, he took a good look. It was the first time Schiller had seen Gary in person since December.
At this moment, he looked tired, depleted, thin, older than Schiller had ever seen him, and a little glassy-eyed. A tired old bird with very bright eyes.
The next thing to impress Schiller was that Gary was still in control.
He was carrying on conversations, not loud enough to hear, but saying something to the guards strapping him, to the Warden, and to the priest. Maybe there were eight people around him in maroon jackets. Schiller was about to put down in his notes that they were prison officials, but that was exactly what he wished to guard against.
No journalistic assumptions. So he would not suppose they were prison officials. Just people in red coats. Then, as his photographer's eye grew accustomed to the scene, he could not quite believe what he next observed. For the seat of execution was no more than a little old office chair, and behind it was an old filthy mattress backed up by sandbags and the stone wall of the cannery. They had rammed that mattress between the chair and the sandbags, a last-minute expedient, no doubt, as if, sometime during the night, they had decided that the sandbags weren't enough and bullets might go through, hit the wall, and ricochet. But the dirty mattress repelled Schiller. He said to himself, My God, they stitched the black canvas neatly around the rifle slots for the assassins. Then he realized the word he was using.
Still, you could not ignore the contrast between the meticulous preparation of the blind, and Gary's chair with its filthy ramshackle backdrop. Even the bindings around his arms looked to be made out of cheap webbing.
6
Ron Stanger's first impression was how many people were in the room. God, the number of spectators. Executions must be a spectator sport. It really hit him even before his first look at Gary, and then he was thankful the hood was not on yet. That was a relief. Gilmore was still a human being, not a hooded, grotesque thing, and Ron realized how