Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [443]
All the while Father Meersman and Cline Campbell were unbuckling Gilmore's arms and legs. Campbell kept thinking of the importance of the eyes. He said to himself, "Why doesn't somebody move? We've got to save the eyes."
Over at the Warden's office, just a few minutes earlier, Gordon Richards had received a phone call from an Assistant Clerk in the U.S. Supreme Court, who was saying that the full Court-with Justice Brennan not participating-had just acted on the application for a Stay from the ACLU and had denied it. Richards got a little upset.
This Clerk who was named Peter Beck had been told nothing about "Mickey from Wheeling, West Virginia." Well, did Mr. Beck know, Richards asked, where Mr. Rodak was born and what his nickname was? "Is it Mike?" said Beck. Richards then asked if Mr. Rodak could call him. Before he knew it, he got put on hold. "Hurry, please," Richards called out to Beck, "it's crucial." There he was sitting with unconfirmed information from the Supreme Court. So he called out to the prison officials there with him in the Warden's office, "Tell them to hold at the cannery." The officials shook their heads, however.
The execution had just been carried out.
Three minutes later, Rodak came on the line. Richards asked for his nickname and his birthplace. The nickname was Mickey, he said, but he had been born in Smock, Pennsylvania.
"What about West Virginia?" asked Richards. "I was born in Smock," said Rodak, "but I went to West Virginia. I'm a member of the West Virginia Bar."
Had he offered this information to Earl Dorius? asked Richards.
Didn't think so, said Rodak. Finally, he remembered. "Oh, yes, the fellow wanted to make sure that he didn't get any false calls." Right. "Is," asked Rodak, "the execution over yet?"
"Wouldn't it have been horrible," said Richards to one of the officials, as he hung up, "if that had been simultaneous calls?"
Vern, Bob Moody, Ron Stanger, and Larry Schiller got into a car and drove over to the Administration Building. During that minute, they discussed whether or not to issue a press statement ahead of the Warden.
Stanger said, "I think we ought to. What do you say, Larry?" Schiller replied, "We have no obligation. The first person who gets there is the first person the press will talk to," and Stanger said, "Let's beat the Warden to the punch."
Vern said, "Can you answer questions about the execution, Larry? I don't want to talk about that."
The press conference was being held on the second floor of the Administration Building in a large conference chamber that looked like a courtroom. It was already as crowded as the Board of Pardons Hearing, same bedlam of media, cameras and crazy white light, people pushing to get in, close to 100 degrees inside. No room to breathe.
Trying to get upstairs, they were buffeted every way. Some TV guy was working with a couple of electric cables in front of Bob Moody, and got so rude about letting Moody pass that Bob just grabbed a male-female connection crossing his path and yanked it apart. The TV man cried out, "My God, I've lost power, lost power," as Moody went by.
When they reached the stage, Schiller said to Vern, "Why don't you talk first?" and Vern sat on a chair to rest his aching leg.
He did not speak long. "It was very upsetting to me," Vern said, "but he got his wish, he did die . . . and he died in dignity. That's all I have to say."
Bob Moody told them, "I think it's a very brutal, cruel kind of a thing, that I would only hope that we could take a good and better look at ourselves, our society and our systems. Thank you."
Ron said, "He was always trying to keep the spirit light because he made the statement he had received a gift, and that gift was he knew he was going to die, and he could make the arrangements and, therefore, he was indeed fortunate. He always said that he looked forward to the time when he could have quiet, when he could meditate, and today, Gary Gilmore