Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [85]
On the Tuesday night that Gary broke up with Nicole, he came back to Craig's house and spent a quiet evening. "She's out of my life," he said. Next morning, soon as he woke up, he talked of getting back with her. Took a Browning .22 Automatic out of his car, and asked Craig to hold it. Craig did. Wanted to mollify him. Keep him off the deep end.
On the way to work, Gary asked if Craig knew anybody who would buy the Automatic. When Craig said he didn't, Gary said, "You can have it." Craig wasn't certain whether Gary was giving it, or letting him hold it handy.
Spencer asked how the windshield got broke, and when Gary said he kicked it, Spencer asked, "What for?" Gary said he was mad at Nicole. "Well, why didn't you kick her?" Spencer said. "You know you got to have a windshield to pass a safety inspection. That kick cost you $50." Gary said he didn't really care.
This got Spence mad. Gary owed him money after all. So Spence asked again if he had the driver's license. When Gary said no, Spence said he must have been lying all along, and they would have to alter their program a little. But Gary's head seemed to be somewhere else. He asked what Spence thought of his buying a pickup truck. He, Spencer decided, had an awfully large ego.
During the day, Gary got the keys to the white truck from Conlin and drove it to the shop for Spence to approve.
It was a '68 or '69 Ford. McGrath thought it was seriously priced. Gary said he really didn't care, he wanted it. Spencer said, I do care. You're asking me to lay out $1,700 for a vehicle that is worth $1,000. It's unfair. You don't have a driver's license. If you wreck that thing, or somebody steals it, if you get into a fight they arrest you and put you in jail, or if you can't in any way make the payments on it, then I have to pay off. You should think serious about what you're asking me to do." That didn't bother Gary. There was no doubt in his mind, he told Spence, that he was going pay for that pickup. He did not think Spence should ever be concerned about losing a cent.
That night Gary went looking in the bars for Nicole and went home. When he could not sleep, he got in his car and drove all the way to Sterling Baker's new place.
Sterling had moved from Provo to a town called Lark near Lake City. It was late when Gary pulled in. It had spooked him, he explained, to stay in Spanish Fork without Nicole. He had talked to her at Kathryne's today, he told them, and she wanted to stay apart. He couldn't shake off the idea he had lost her. Gary looked so sad that no matter the hour, both Sterling and Ruth Ann had to feel sorry.
Gary began to talk about reincarnation. After death, he said, he was going to start all over again. Have the kind of life he always wished he had. He talked about it as if it was so certain, so real, that Sterling got confused and thought Gary was talking about an actual place like moving bag and baggage up to Winnipeg, Canada.
In the morning, Gary phoned in sick to work, and spent the morning driving around with Ruth Ann looking for Nicole.
They searched a lot of streets in Springville. Somehow, Gary felt she was there. They dropped in on Sue Baker, but she didn't know, she said, where Nicole might be. There was a smell of diapers in Sue's house and she looked miserable. Didn't know where Rikki was; didn't know where Nicole was, didn't know anything. Ruth Ann began to get sorry for Gary. She had never seen a man suffer so much over a woman. He must have checked the laundromat five times.
Toward the middle of the afternoon, Ruth Ann went back to Lark, and Gary showed up at work. He had hardly picked up a tool before there was a call from Nicole.
"Are you drunk?" she asked.
"I'm stone sober," he said.
She was telephoning to tell him that she had