Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [454]
One of these men was short and stocky and in his mid-thirties, bald on top, and another was also in his mid-thirties with light brown hair, around six feet tall, average weight, only he had a real potbelly and wore glasses. Those were the two talking the most. The third one who didn't talk had dark hair and an average build, but he had a real full beard and a mustache that was graying and he had tears in his eyes. Finally, he said if he had known what he was getting in for, he would never have done it. Then, a young married woman named Rene Wales, whom Willa knew slightly, sat down with them, and they all played a lot more liar's poker.
After a while, the executioners began to talk about their CBs. All three were equipped, but one began to brag about the distance he could get on his. Before you knew it, Rene Wales left with him to go check out the CB in his pickup. Before she got back, forty-five minutes had passed. Rene came in with the fellow, and both had a look on their faces like they'd been sopping up some of the gravy.
Chapter 41
Burial
Next morning, Tuesday, January 18, Schiller had a meeting with Debbie, Lucinda and Barry Farrell about cleaning up the office and returning the rented equipment. Right in the middle of such housekeeping, a phone call came from Stanger. There was going to be a memorial service in Spanish Fork that afternoon for Gary. Everybody wanted Larry and Barry to be there.
When Schiller told the girls, they wanted to go, too. Debbie even began to cry. So, of course, that took care of it. They were also invited. Then the service had to be moved a couple of times to elude the press and was finally held not in a church, but at a mortuary in Spanish Fork.
Tamera walked in the office about that time, and Schiller made a decision not to tell her. Felt he couldn't trust her not to write about it. From what the girls were saying, however, she picked up quickly what was happening and confronted Larry. She was livid. Just out of her mind. "I've been with you," she was saying, "I'm part of the team. Why can't I go?" Schiller had to say, "Well, it isn't that I don't trust you, Tamera, I can't take the chance. It isn't my story to give out." Tamera got mad, and then madder. She was terribly jealous of the fact that Lucinda and Debbie were going. It was the nearest she ever came to looking ugly. In fact, Tamera looked so mad, it was like she was on fire. A pure reporter.
The mortuary was on the main street, a one-story, pale stucco with a horizontal band of colored-glass window that ran around the front. It was supposed to look like stained glass, Schiller assumed, but it came out looking more like a mosaic on a coffee table. No great building, that was certain.
There were, to Schiller's surprise, forty people there. He was introduced to many of Bessie's sisters and didn't even try to remember their names, but one by one, they came up and started thanking him.
Schiller didn't understand what for. Then, the organ music began.
CAMPBELL Our Eternal Heavenly Father, with deep humility we pause at the beginning of this special memorial service, on behalf of one of our departed, Gary Mark Gilmore, with deep sense of respect and awe for the great character which he was and is and shall forever be. Father, a great tragedy has taken place many years ago in the juvenile justice system to throw a young man, a great person, a child of Thee, into the Courts, and into confinement in this country. We knew him as a great, lovable person, we shall always retain and keep that memory. Be with us now, we pray, in the name of Thy Son, Jesus Christ, Amen. (pause) We have, this afternoon, a message to be delivered by Toni Gurney from Gary's mother.
TONI Aunt Bessie has asked me to give her message to everyone.
She says, "I have many wonderful memories of my son, Gary. Beautiful things he has given me, the oil paintings that he painted, and the hand-tooled leather purse he had ordered for me, but the most priceless things