Shot in the Heart - Mikal Gilmore [175]
Gary called Roger’s name. His friend woke up, saw Gary standing with the guards, and started to make some noise, but Gary told him to calm down. “It’s all right. I’ll go quietly. I just wanted to see if you were still my friend.”
Roger offered Gary his hand. “Well, take care of yourself,” Roger said.
Gary took his hand. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll be seeing you down the road. Right now, I’m going to go get me a couple of Mormons.”
Roger thought about Gary’s last words for some time. What had he meant?
A little over a year and a half later, Roger said, he had no doubt what Gary meant. By that time, Gary Gilmore was the most famous murderer in America.
WITHIN DAYS OF HIS ARRIVAL AT THE FEDERAL PENITENTIARY at Marion, Illinois, Gary began petitioning Warden Cupp for a return to Oregon State Penitentiary. “I don’t want any more trouble,” Gary wrote the warden. “I would like to straighten my hand up and repair the mess my life has become. Please reply.”
Cupp wrote back, telling Gary that there were no plans to make any changes in his present arrangement. Whether Gary ever returned to Oregon, he indicated, would depend on the nature of the reports that came from Marion.
Gary realized he was in a tight spot. Marion had a reputation as a place that did not abide much crap from its inmates; the guards could be rough, and the isolation techniques were rigid and unpleasant.
I can’t say for sure that Gary was anything like a model prisoner at Marion, since the federal prison system would not release his records to me. It’s obvious, though, from the reports in his Oregon files that his behavior improved dramatically. There were numerous letters from the federal facility’s psychiatrists and officers, stating that Gary was cooperative and friendly. Wrote one doctor: “He does not have a psychiatric illness in the form of pyschosis, organicity or requiring special procedures, or tests. From a psychiatric (neuropsychiatric) point of view, he has probably reached the maximum benefits so far as the United States Penitentiary, Marion, Illinois, is concerned.” It was Marion’s view that Gary should be returned to Oregon. In addition, there was another matter: The transfer, in all probability, had not been legal, and if Gary could muster the means to press his case, Oregon would probably have to take him back whether the prison wanted him or not.
Cupp, though, remained unmoved. In a June memo to the Oregon corrections deputy administrator, Cupp stated: “I remain adamant in my opinion on the return of Gary Gilmore to Oregon State Penitentiary. We have seen him go this route before, and then revert to his troublemaking patterns. With our present pressure conditions, I would not want to return this man for at least six months more.”
Whether he liked it or not, Gary was stuck where he was, a thousand miles from home.
ONE DAY IN EARLY NOVEMBER 1975, my mother and Frank were sitting in the living room of the trailer, talking about ways of bringing Gary back home, when my mother stopped in midsentence. Her face went white immediately, her mouth opened as if to say something, and then she started to spit up blood. It came with such force, it hit the walls of the trailer. She fell from her chair to the floor. Frank ran over to her and tried to cradle her head. “Mom,” he said. “Mom! What’s wrong?” She couldn’t answer, and the blood was still coming. Frank ran over to the landlady’s office, told her what happened, and asked her to call an ambulance. By the time he got back, my mother was trying to climb back into her chair. “I don’t want an ambulance,” she said. “I’ll be fine. It was just something I ate. I don’t like hospitals. They scare me.” Then she collapsed again, in a faint.
When she awoke hours later, she was in a hospital bed. She looked around her. She knew the room. She knew the bed. This was the same room, the same place, in the Oregon City Hospital, where Gaylen had lain as his life slipped away from him. My mother began to scream for a nurse.
FOR YEARS, MY MOTHER HAD BEEN BOTHERED by the progression of