Shot in the Heart - Mikal Gilmore [184]
Events moved rapidly. On December 3, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay of execution. But our calls were turned away at the prison, and Gary issued an open letter asking my mother to “butt out.” During this time, neither Gary nor any of his legal representatives attempted to contact any member of the family outside of Utah. The only contact in that manner occurred when writer-publisher Lawrence Schiller, who’d bought the publication and motion picture rights to Gary’s story from him, asked my mother’s sister Ida and her husband, Vernon Damico (who had replaced one of Gary’s earlier lawyers, Dennis Boaz, as Gary’s agent), to pay my mother a visit, ostensibly to make up for the previous times her counsel and feelings had been bypassed.
But whatever business there was to discuss got put aside once Vern and Ida saw the state of my mother’s health and the way she lived in her trailer. Vern went and bought her some groceries while Ida did some cleaning up. There were strains between my mother and these folks now—my mother believed the family in Utah had stolen her son from her and were now using his awful fame to their advantage—but there was also love between them. They remained family. Vern held my mother in his large, strong arms while she cried about Gary’s deeds and his fate, and Vern and Ida cried too.
Before leaving, Vern took a thousand dollars from inside his coat and placed it on the table. He told my mother that Gary wanted her to have the money, if she would sign a release. Gary also wanted her to withdraw her opposition to his execution—or at least to stop any further legal action. My mother looked at the money and said, “Well, I could certainly use that,” then broke down and cried again. In the end, she refused to sign, and Vernon was forced to take the money back with him. Everybody involved felt bad about the whole deal.
ON THE MORNING OF DECEMBER 13, THE SUPREME COURT lifted its stay, declaring that Gary had made a “knowing and intelligent waiver of his rights.” A resignation began to descend on us.
Finally my mother got through to Gary on the phone. “Gary,” she said, “do you remember the day when you were a child and you fell into the water off a houseboat in Seattle? I came in the water and got you because I loved you. I loved you no more that day than I do today, so I thought I’d come in the water again to get you. That’s what this is all about.”
“I wasn’t angry with you,” Gary replied. “I half-expected it; after all, you are my mother. I knew you would try to stop it because I knew you loved me. I also knew you were doing it for Mikal.” Gary asked my mother to withdraw her intervention, and she did.
A day later, Judge Bullock reset the execution for January 17, and Gary was confined to a “strip cell,” denying him all visitation rights, including family members.
By Christmas time I told myself, and anybody who asked, that I didn’t care anymore about what would happen. I spent the holidays drunk and often drugged. My girlfriend went home to visit her family, and I was with a different woman every night she was gone. I took sleeping pills because I couldn’t sleep if I didn’t. When I couldn’t sleep, I walked around my house, throwing things, breaking mementos. Then one night I dreamed of Gary being tied to a stake and bayoneted repeatedly, while I stood on the other side of a fence, unable to reach him. The next morning I heard of another, nearly fatal suicide attempt.
Suddenly I desperately wanted to see Gary, to reach out for one last time, to achieve whatever reconciliation was possible under the circumstances. And at that same moment, I also realized that I was not yet resigned to the idea of Gary’s execution. No matter what had happened, I did not want him to die.
IN THE FIRST WEEK OF JANUARY, Anthony Amsterdam, negotiating through Gary’s attorneys—Robert Moody and Ronald Stanger—and prison officials, arranged for me and my brother Frank to visit Gary. My mother’s physical condition prohibited her traveling. Richard Giauque,