Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [456]
People coming to see him and to visit him ah . . . his name became more and more famous and he gained world and international recognition at least of his name and of what he was doing and things like that . . . We kept it going like this, and when it looked like the end was, of course, very near, well, you have to get serious. There's a time and a place for all things, and so, the night before his deathwatch, we gathered together and it was just about midnight, and the church was in the kitchen, and one of the guards happened to be a Catholic, and he's the one, in our terminology, who served the Mass, and assisted the priest, who happened to be myself, and during two parts of the Mass, we used Bible readings, and when the question was asked, "What Gospel should we read?" in his own inimitable way, he said, "My name is Gary Mark. Read something from Saint Mark." Afterwards, well, the guards were moved to a certain extent, and they noticed, of course, that he was extremely reflective, especially afterwards he didn't move, he just sat there on the table. And ah, we said to him very simply, We came into your life when you said I want to die with dignity. And we'll stay into your life, we'll stay within your life till that's accomplished. But we want you to know this, that every day of my life as a Catholic priest, when I stand at an altar, wherever it may be, in the Utah State Prison, in a hospital, at Saint Peter's in Rome, that every day of my life you will be prayed for. And so, I don't know, these are some of my thoughts. There probably are many more, but I didn't have too much time to jot too much down but I hope that they will help you who loved him so much. And will miss him, of course. That will help you to know him, perhaps, that we said these words, at this time. And I can say nothing better to you than his last words . . . Dominus vobiscum. May the Lord be with you all.
Thank you.
CAMPBELL Thank you, Father. I'm deeply moved as all of you are, as we begin to expose the real Gary Mark Gilmore. Another person who has come to respect him, Ron Stanger.
STANGER I think Bob and I were a part of his adopted family. I think with the exception of maybe three or four days, we were with him every day, and if you don't believe us, ask our wives. Ah, they knew that very well. There I was on Christmas Day, and the family was together, and all the merriment that you always have on Christmas, and guess where Moody and Stanger went? But indeed, it seemed to me to be very appropriate that for the first and maybe the only time in my Lifetime that I consider myself to be a good and true Christian, because I did what the Savior said, and that is to go into prisons and to try and help those people in need.
May I challenge all of us, however, to do the thing that I also learned from Gary as he would talk with me about family and we all know that he loved children. He would ask us how we were getting along with our children and he'd always say, Ron, raise your family, be close to them, be strict with them, let them know that if they make little mistakes they'll grow into bigger ones. He said one time, when he had that smile he would get on his face, he said, "They might, if they keep doing things wrong, they might end up being another Gary Gilmore."
CAMPBELL Thank you, Ron. Gary has done for me a great favor. He pushed me over the hump. I'm going to quit the prison in six months. Gary has convinced me that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, that the two words juvenile and justice don't go together. My plans are to move into southern