Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [90]
One day she came over and laid it on him. She wasn't living in Spanish Fork anymore. Had fled this fellow Gary, and was living in a little apartment her ex-husband had found in Springville. All while she was talking, it got to him how much she needed clothes. So he told her to come by after six and he would take her shopping for an outfit. After he bought it, she stayed with him and they really had a night. She was living with this ex-husband now, she told him, but was not afraid of him. They could do this again real soon. The weekend was hopeless, and even Monday was out, Roger because his wife's family was coming over, but they agreed she should call him Tuesday morning, July 20. All through Sunday Roger was thinking of getting through Monday.
7
"Nobody," offered Brenda, "said it was going to be easy out here." Gary said, "I can't handle it."
"I know," she said. "At the time, it always feels like you can't"
"No," he said, "you don't know. You and Johnny have always been happy."
"John and I," said Brenda, "have come very close to divorce. Gary, I've been through separation and divorce. It can be awful frightening."
Gary looked like he was mulling over his pains. "Hey," he said, "I'm beginning to find that out."
She said, "Nobody is ever really free, Gary. As long as you live with another human being, you're not free."
Gary sat there like he was grinding bones in his mind. When he spoke, it was to say, "I think I'm going to kill Nicole."
"My God, Gary, are you that selfish of a lover?" Brenda's pep talk was bombing out in her face.
"I can't take it," Gary said. "I told you I can't take it."
"Some things in life we can't handle. Okay. Maybe this is yours. But, God, it'll pass! If you kill her, that won't pass. She'll be dead forever. You're damned stupid, do you know that, Gary?" He didn't like to be called stupid.
"When she pulled the gun on me today," he said, "I thought about taking it. But I didn't want Nicole to start screaming." He shook his head. "She was frantic to get away from me."
Brenda was not unhappy when he left. What with Johnny at the hospital, this was too much emotion to be nursing on a hot summer night.
Craig told him that if he couldn't find a place, to come on back. After visiting Brenda, Gary did, in fact, go over on Sunday night and sleep on Craig's couch. He told Craig that he was close to an ulcer now from misery and beer. As of tomorrow, he was going to give up drinking.
PART FOUR
The Gas Station and the Motel
THE GAS STATION
She had once been told she looked like a Botticelli. She was tall and slender, and had light brown hair, ivory skin, and a long well-shaped nose with a small bump on the bridge. Yet she hardly knew Botticelli's work. They did not teach a great deal about the Renaissance at Utah State in Logan where she was majoring in art education.
It was at Utah State that Colleen was introduced to her future husband, Max Jensen. Afterward they would laugh at how long it took. The few times Max saw Colleen Halling on the campus she happened to be talking to her cousin. Max decided the fellow was her boyfriend, and therefore it never occurred to him to ask her out.
The following year, however, Max happened to be rooming with the guy, and got around to inquiring if he was still interested in the girl he had seen him with. Max's new roommate started laughing and explained that was no romance-just cousins. By now, Colleen was already out of college, but since she was working at the College of Education, she was, in the practical sense, still on campus.
Colleen only became aware of Max when he spoke in church at the beginning of the new school year. He was wearing a suit that day and looked very distinguished, and seemed a little older than the other students, but then he had already finished his two-year