Shot in the Heart - Mikal Gilmore [173]
“Fuck you, Frank. And I don’t mean that to be disrespectful. I just mean it. You and no one else can ever understand what I have gone through. So just get fucked. I mean, I get really pissed when people like you start asking me questions and giving me a bunch of bullshit opinions—opinions I don’t need and wouldn’t use anyway.
“I mean, you don’t know what it is like after seven or eight years, do you, asshole? So why don’t you tell me, huh, asshole? Tell me. C’mon, tell me.”
“Okay, Gary, I’m sorry. Let’s talk about something we both know about. Let’s talk about what you remember about home.”
“That’s bullshit, Frank. I mean, I remember that the food was real good, and that Dad sucked. You might think he was a great man, for whatever reason, but to me he was just as big an asshole as you are—except that he was a better man than you are. But that’s not saying a whole hell of a lot.
“Say, Frank, I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but you are an asshole. Let’s face it, Frank, that’s what you are. I don’t mean to say that you haven’t been better than the rest of the family. At least you’ve remembered that I’m still alive. The rest of the family—if you want to call them a family—has not remembered anything when it comes to me. And as far as being a brother in this family of complete assholes, you are above average. That doesn’t mean I really care about you. But then, do you really care what I think?”
“Yeah, Gary. Yeah, I do.”
Gary turned and pointed at another prisoner, who was sitting a few seats away in the visitors’ room. Then he said: “Don’t you think that asshole looks just like Woody Allen? That guy is a real asshole. He thinks all of us are animals, and he thinks that the guards are his buddies. That asshole is going to learn a whole hell of a lot before he does his time.”
And then Gary pointed right at one of the guards and said, just as loud as he could: “See that asshole? Well, they say he fucked his sister, and I for one believe it.”
The guard walked over to us and said: “One more remark like that, Gilmore, and your visit is over.”
Gary just laughed and said: “That asshole never did like me much.”
I don’t recall one visit when Gary did not tell me at least once about how much he hated Dad and all the times that Dad had beat him. “I cannot remember most of the reasons the old bastard beat me,” he said. “All it really taught me was to hate him.”
I always hated to leave Gary behind. It bothered me much more than he ever knew. Probably much more than anyone ever knew. I really didn’t mind it when he would say all those angry things to me, or when he would call me names. I figured it was better for him to let off steam at my expense, to vent on me, than to get in more trouble at prison.
LATE IN 1973, GARY’S WAR about his teeth flared up again. He renewed his demands for new dentures, and continued to get in fights with guards. He also grew more demanding of his friends on the inside. He would insist that they support each of his protests and each of his demands, and that they should join him in his hell-raising. If they didn’t, he considered it a betrayal of loyalty, and Gary was not a man that one could lightly consider offending. There were more fights with dentists, more hammer attacks on enemy inmates. Among the guards, according to one of them, there was an agreement: If Gary ever gave a guard a legitimate reason, the guard should shoot him. “I wish he had fired on me,” one guard said, “so I could take him out. But Gilmore was gutless and would wait until your back was turned before he’d hit you.”
Gary knew the guards were watching him closely, and he tried to convince some of the other prisoners that they should all kill a guard or two. The other inmates thought this was too extreme. There was no way you could kill a guard and get away with