Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [450]
And Farrell, who had ranted through many a night at how these guys, Moody and Stanger, had such a paucity of humanity that they could not pursue a question profitably, did not indeed have even the curiosity of a lawyer, felt a reason now to temper his outrage. For they were so moved at Gary's death. They really did understand that somebody has gotten killed, thought Farrell.
Besides, he was eager to hear every detail and wanted to communicate to them how appreciative he was feeling toward Gilmore for approaching his death with this much integrity, my God, absolutely as much as his intellect could muster. Barry couldn't imagine what Gilmore might have done better. That helped, to relieve him of his own doubts about his own involvement in these last days, this whole obscene, niggling business of translating the best thoughts of one's soul and conscience into one more rotten question, one more probe into the private parts of a man as protected from self-revelation as a clamshell from the knowledge of a caress.
When Schiller came in, they babbled, and recounted, and asked each other questions, and sputtered it out of them, until they ran down and then Moody and Stanger went home. Ron was thinking that the only event which had ever come close to having this kind of continuing reaction on him was the day President Kennedy was killed, Now, arriving at his house, he felt exhausted and immediately went to bed, but couldn't sleep. When he closed his eyes, he would see all the sights again and his skin hurt to the touch.
When they were alone, Farrell said to Schiller, "Have you had breakfast?"
"No," said Schiller.
"Any interest?" asked Farrell.
"I'm all diarrhea," said Schiller and thought he might go to sleep. At that point, Barry looked up and said, "Oh, yes, listen, your mother called."
Schiller hadn't spoken to her in two weeks. He picked up the phone and learned she had seen the press conference on television after the execution, and wanted to make sure he was all right. She didn't like the way he looked. A little worn out, she thought.
Schiller assured her that he was still among the living. When the call was done, he went upstairs and actually fell asleep, and was awakened a few hours later by a girl from the New York Times to whom he'd promised to give an interview, but now, he said, he wouldn't do it. Time was calling. Newsweek was calling. The phone was ringing, They wanted to know if he had pictures of the execution.
Wanted to come over and interview him. Schiller had to go into his speech about how he would not be a punching bag. "Your editors are asking for pictures," he said to Newsweek and to Time, "so, if you want to talk to me, we will have to discuss what you're going to say. You are not going to call me an entrepreneur. I want to make sure you're going to call me a journalist." Really started to lay down the law. "Two weeks ago, you called me an entrepreneur, called me a promoter. Now, you want pictures. Want me to give you more about the execution. Well, I'm taking offense," he said. "We got to lay out a few ground rules. If you want to say that I hustled interviews from Lenny Bruce's widow, then I also want you to write about Minamata which is a book I'm proud of. If you want a picture of Marilyn Monroe, then also put in a picture from the story I published on mercury poisoning." He said, "If you're going to slant the story one way, balance it the other," and he banged it back, and he banged it forth and could feel his blood flowing through his veins again, instead of all that shit.
DESERET NEWS
Silent Majority No Longer Silent
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DESERET NEWS
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