Shot in the Heart - Mikal Gilmore [177]
Meantime, Gary had started a correspondence with my cousin Brenda, in Provo, Utah. Brenda was the daughter of my mother’s favorite living sister, Ida, as well as the daughter of everybody’s favorite uncle, Vernon. From childhood, Brenda and Gary had been each other’s preferred cousins, though like many of the rest of us, Brenda had grown distant from Gary over the years. But now, as they began writing each other, she saw a new side of Gary begin to emerge: He was more reflective about his mistakes, and he was starting to long for the sort of family life that his years of incarceration had deprived him of. He was clearly an intelligent man, and, when he wanted to be, seemingly a compassionate one. Brenda thought Gary was probably ready now to grow within the confines of society, and she believed it was the family’s obligation to take him in and give him a new start. In a complex series of correspondences between Brenda, Gary, the Oregon Corrections Division, and Marion’s administrators, a parole plan was finally worked out. Gary would be paroled into the custody of his family in Utah—my cousin Brenda and her husband Johnny, and Vern and Ida. He was to get a job, stay away from bad habits and crime, and see a parole officer regularly. He was also to stay in the State of Utah. If he lived up to all these agreements for a few months, then he would be allowed a trip to Oregon, to see my mother, and he might even be allowed to move back into the state. In the meantime, my mother was always free to travel to Utah, health permitting, and see her son.
On April 9, 1976, Gary was released from Marion, Illinois, and, after a bus ride to St. Louis, Missouri, he took a plane into Salt Lake City, Utah. Brenda and her husband Johnny met him at the airport and took him to his new home in Provo.
My mother was as surprised by this news as I was. I’d had no idea that there were negotiations underway for Gary’s release. When my mother told me that my brother was being paroled into the custody of a family he hadn’t known for nearly thirty years, and into the heart of one of Utah’s most devout and severe Mormon communities, I remember saying, “This does not sound like a great idea.” As soon as I’d said it, I felt ungracious. After all, did I want Gary to spend the rest of his life in prison? Didn’t he deserve another chance at freedom?
THERE ARE DAYS THAT CHANGE ALL THE POSSIBILITIES OF YOUR LIFE —what you comprehend of your past, what you can expect of your future. Days that tell you, nothing will ever be the same. You will have to live with what has happened for the rest of your life. For my family—and for many others—those days came in late July 1976.
This is how we learned the news:
It was a hot day in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. On such days, my mother found the confines of her trailer uncomfortable. A few months before, because of her health problems, she had been forced to quit her job busing dishes at the restaurant in Milwaukie. She was now living off her Social Security benefits, and whatever money Frank brought home from his custodial and day labor jobs. She rarely ventured out of the house. The combined effect of her surgery and arthritis was turning her into something of a recluse—which is probably what she had wanted to be for years.
Still, she was not in bad spirits. Gary was free from prison and was in love with a beautiful young woman in Provo. Only a couple of weeks before, she had received a letter from him. “I didn’t know anybody could be this happy,” he had written. He also asked, if he sent her the money to cover the costs and arranged for a comfortable mode of travel, would she come visit him in Utah? He badly wanted to see her. On this hot afternoon, my mother had dragged her chair out to the small porch at the front of her trailer and was sitting there fanning herself. She was thinking about Gary’s invitation and how much she wanted to see him. She thought she had just about enough strength to make the journey. It would be