Shot in the Heart - Mikal Gilmore [194]
He nodded.
“Where would you have gone had you made it to the airport?”
“Um, Portland.”
“But certainly you knew that was the first place they would have looked for you. Why would you want to go there?”
Gary studied the shelf top in front of him for a few seconds. “I don’t really want to talk about that night anymore,” he said. “There’s no point in talking about it.”
“Please, Gary, I’d like to know: What would you have done in Portland?”
“Mikal, don’t.”
“Please. I have to know. What would you have done? Would you have come to see me?”
Again, he nodded.
“And … ?”
He sighed and looked straight at me, and for a moment his eyes flashed an old anger. “And what would you have done if I had come to you?” he asked. “If I had come and said I was in trouble and needed help, needed a place to stay? Would you have taken me in? Would you have hidden me?”
I couldn’t reply. The question had been turned back on me, and suddenly I could not stand the awfulness of my own answers. Gary sat there for long moments, holding me with his eyes, then said steadily: “I think I was coming to kill you. I think that’s what would have happened. There simply may have been no choice for you, and no choice for me.” His eyes softened and he gave me a tender smile. It was filled with the sad brokenness of our common history. “Do you understand why?” he asked.
I nodded back. Of course I understood why. I had escaped the family, or at least thought I had. Gary had not.
At that moment, I felt a certain terror. I knew that what Gary had said was true. I knew that death could have been my past, which would mean I would now have no present. In fact, it felt like it had come close to happening, just for the conception of that possibility. And so I felt not just some terror, but also some relief. Jensen’s and Bushnell’s death, and Gary’s own impending death, had added up to my own safety, and as soon as I realized that, my relief was shot through with guilt. And remorse. I thought of all the other things that might have happened in our home or in our love that maybe could have changed this moment, so we would not be sitting here, in this awful place, at this awful time.
Oddly, though, I also felt closer to Gary in that moment than I’d ever felt before. For just that second, I understood completely why he wanted to die.
At that point, Warden Samuel Smith entered Gary’s room. They discussed whether Gary would have to wear a hood on Monday morning. I put down the phone. Minutes passed. When I picked up the phone again, Smith was telling Gary that Schiller wouldn’t be allowed to visit with Gary in the final hours before the execution.
I rapped on the glass. I would have to leave soon and I asked if the warden would allow us a final handshake. At first Smith refused, but he assented after Gary explained it was our final visit, on the condition I agree to a skin search. I agreed. After the search, conducted by two guards, two other guards brought Gary in. They said I would have to roll up my sleeve past my elbow, and that we could not touch beyond a handshake. Gary grasped my hand, squeezed tight, and said, “Well, I guess this is it.” He leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “See you in the darkness beyond.”
I pulled my eyes away from his. I knew I couldn’t stop crying at this point, and I didn’t want him to see it. “Are you okay?” he asked. I bit my lip and nodded. A guard handed me the book and the picture of Nicole and started to walk with me to the rolling-bar doors. Gary watched me pass through them. “Give my love to Mom,” he called. “And put on some weight. You’re still too skinny.”
The guard walked with me through the two fence gates and patted me on the back as I left. “Take it easy, fella,” he said.
I WENT BACK HOME, AND LEFT GARY TO HIS FATE. I hated myself. I felt like I had inadvertently taken sides with the death penalty—a brutal social ethos that I despised. At the same time, I guess I decided that Gary was better off dead. I had little doubt that if he was kept alive, he would kill himself, and perhaps others as well. I