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Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [461]

By Root 9696 0
that lonely moment in the corridor up in Federal Court in Denver when he looked out the window after hearing Gilmore was dead, and people were coming to work. He had been all alone. Even while giving the argument, he had been a solitary figure, and so it had been appropriate, somehow, to be aware of himself looking out, watching others do press interviews on the plaza. He had to admit he felt a certain disappointment and did his best to laugh and tell himself that he was going in for masochistic martyrdom. If he had wanted to work himself silly just to make sure each little job was done right, then he better develop himself emotionally to a point where he didn't care who got the publicity.

He was sure able to test this demand on himself real soon. In a couple of weeks the Utah Historical Society visited the office and interviewed everybody for one of their volumes on the State's history.

They never came, however, to Earl. He was out of the office that day.

It turned out pretty much like all of the Gilmore business-he was always away from the main action when media or historians were there. The key thing, he told himself, was to stay glad it got done.

SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

Order Probe of Gilmore Photo

By George A. Sorensen Tribune Suburban Editor January 28, 1977-The Utah State Board of Corrections Thursday ordered an investigation how Time and Newsweek magazines carried pictures of Gilmore drinking from a mini-bottle of whisky shortly before the execution.

SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

Gilmore's Execution Cost State $60,000

By George A. Sorensen January 30-It cost the taxpayers of Utah more than $60,000 to bring convicted murderer Gary Mark Gilmore to trial and keep him alive through two suicide attempts.

With the exception of the actual trial costs, estimated by Utah County Attorney Noall T. Wootton at $15,000 to $20,000, all other figures are based upon extra help or overtime.

More than 200 of the prison's total staff of 320 were called back at 3 A.M. on the morning of the execution.

Utah Attorney General Robert B. Hansen estimates it cost $19,000 for the extra work of his deputies and secretaries. Some put in as much as 30 hours straight during the last day and night.

One of the hardest things for Toni Gurney was to go up to the University of Utah Hospital for Gary's clothes. They had been sitting in a storage room for a few days and finally turned so rank, they had to freeze them.

Toni was given this icy bundle, and put it in the trunk of her car, but on the way home, it thawed out. By the time she got back, she was close to being late for work, only there was no question. She had to get those clothes in the washing machine, right away. The odor had all the stink of mortal loss.

Over the weeks, hate mail began to slow down and Shirley Pedler came back to some kind of daily routine, but it felt peculiar to come into the ACLU office and not have the halls jammed. So much of her emotional energy was still attached to Gary Gilmore that the normal world seemed bizarre and very small.

Not only was Gilmore dead, but she was in some kind of separate reality herself. Once in a while, like a mist passing across the sky, she would feel a strange communion with him, as if a thought had passed back and forth, and she felt happy that the strain was removed from his life and he had been set free. It was paradoxical, but she felt good about that.

Chapter 43

TO KISS AND TELL

In Chicago for the final assembling of the Playboy interview, Schiller and Farrell worked around the clock and didn't finish until five o'clock Sunday evening, the 23rd. That was one week to the hour that Schiller left the TraveLodge Motel to drive to the prison for the beginning of the last night.

When they turned it in, they thought they were handing over 9,000 words, still a comfortable length, since Playboy had contracted to print 5,000, but a word count came back later that evening. They were up to 25,000. Art Kretchmer, the editor, who Schiller thought looked something Like Abe Lincoln-a young good-looking Jewish Abe Lincoln-said, "I'd be scared to

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