Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [459]
"No death can be elevating, and there is much sadness when anyone dies," added Mr. Hansen, his face drawn after 30 hours without sleep, "but I am infinitely more sorrowful about the two victims' families than the fact Mr. Gilmore is no longer alive."
Hansen's story was printed right next to a big photograph of him in the Salt Lake Tribune. Next to that story, however, was the adjoining headline on the Schwarzschild story, and it said: "Judicial Homicide."
Bob Hansen was used to seeing pretty savage things written about himself, but "Judicial Homicide" offended him. He debated for a long time whether to sue the ACLU guy. Since he was a public figure, he knew he would have to show a lot of malice. While Schwarzschild's statement, from Hansen's point of view, was reeking with malice, the difficulty was that Schwarzschild could hardly be responsible for the headline. Which was the most blatant part of the story. It was a problem, and Hansen was very much offended.
2
One day, shortly after the execution, Judy Wolbach went over to the State Capitol Building to tell Earl Dorius what she thought of him. It was not a very well advised thing to do, but she sat down in his office and asked him what he thought of himself. Earl said, "Judy, you've got to understand that while you may think everything we did was terrible, we believed in our turn, that everything you did was completely unfair. We'll have to work together on other cases in the future, so I'd be happy if you could stay in some control of your feelings." He may not have used exactly that language, but she heard him making a speech on that order. She could hardly listen. "Earl," she answered, "tell me. You have little children. Doesn't it disturb you when they find out that you were, as it were, a helpmate to this execution?" He nodded. It did disturb him, he told her. One of the children had heard some comment that he and Attorney General Hansen had been involved in a cold-blooded murder. He had to explain it all to them.
From his side of the desk, Earl felt Judy was entitled to come up and confront him. In fact, he was glad she had done it. After an emotional case such as this, attorneys went their separate ways. He didn't like it when they ran into each other later on the street and could only glare back and forth. In fact, he thought it was big of Judith to have the courage to come up, and get it off her chest. Better than going on over the years with a feud.
After she left the office, it occurred to Judy that she had been waiting to feel a lot of pain from the execution, but it hadn't come. Only the wrath that consumes. She must have been reacting deeply or she would not have gone to see Earl Dorius, but there simply had not been any emotional reaction to Gilmore's death itself. She wondered if it had to do with the awful feeling she'd had from time to time that she was colliding with Gilmore's rights.
SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
Utah Execution: We Came Killing
By Bob Greene Field Newspaper Syndicate January 20, 1977-We didn't tell you how we crawled around the sandbags in front of the dead man's chair, the sandbags still fresh with his blood. We didn't tell you how we hurried into the firing squad's canvas booth, and how we squinted out of the vertical slits where the rifles had been, squinted out at the chair and made ourselves a gift of the same view the executioners had viewed.
We didn't tell you how we touched everything, touched every possible surface in the death shed. We didn't tell you of the looks on the faces of the prison guards, who watched in amazement as we went about our doings with such eagerness, such lust. We didn't tell you what we did to the death chair itself-the chair with the bullet holes in its leather back. We didn't tell you that, did we? Didn't tell you how we inserted our fingers into the holes, and rubbed our fingers around, feeling for ourselves, how deep and wide those